InfoWorld.com articles from September 2008

InfoWorld.com archives from September 2008

How to keep your tech career afloat; As outsourcing and downsizing continue, find out what skills and certifications will make you an IT survivor.
September 2, 2008... Byline: Leon Erlanger Anyone who has worked in IT for more than five minutes knows that the field has been in a dramatic transformation for the past 10 years, invading and conquering other organizational domains such as communications and...

At the front lines of protecting the Internet; VeriSign's CTO on securing the DNS infrastructure and whether new identity certificates add any value.
September 2, 2008... Byline: Roger A. Grimes VeriSign is in many ways synonymous with managing the Web, thanks to its handling of key DNS root servers and of name resolution for .com, .net, and other domains. In recent years, it's had both strong ups and...

Zend mixing PHP, AJAX for RIAs; Integration provided between the open-source framework and Dojo Toolkit.
September 2, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill With an upgrade to its software development framework for PHP scheduled for release today, Zend Technologies is mixing in client-side AJAX capabilities with server-side PHP functionality. Zend Framework 1.6, the...

Your own private YouTube; Review: Google Video adds easy video-sharing to Google's cloud-based business collaboration tools.
September 2, 2008... Byline: Curtis Franklin Jr. YouTube is part of the social fabric of the Internet now, with “watch this video” e-mails of the new millennium replacing the joke-list e-mails of the '90s as high-level corporate time-wasters....

Do's and don'ts for managing IT projects with wikis; Wikis are a simple technology for managing information -- but used simplistically, they can do more harm than good.
September 3, 2008... Byline: Ephraim Schwartz Wikis are deceptively easy to use and install, so are nowadays found in all sorts of IT departments, especially as quick and simple project management organizers. Although wikis are used mainly as project...

Microsoft touts functional programming with F#; Preview of F# boasts enhanced language, libraries, scripting.
September 3, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill Microsoft is boosting integration of functional programming with its Visual Studio 2008 software development platform. Improved integration is featured in a September Community Technology Preview of the F# language...

Java update to boost applets; Standard edition getting enhanced runtime, widget capabilities, download improvements.
September 3, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill An impending update to Java might sound like just an incremental release, based on its cumbersome naming: Java Platform Standard Edition 6 Update 10 (Java SE 6 u10). But the upgrade actually features technology...

Lab test: Google Chrome vs. Internet Explorer 8; Next-generation Web browsers from Google and Microsoft deliver innovation and robustness at the cost of a truly massive memory footprint.
September 3, 2008... Byline: Randall C. Kennedy They're back! Just when you thought the "browser wars" were over, with the two camps – Microsoft and Mozilla.org – settling in for a kind of intransigent detente, along comes Google to stir things up...

Test Center review: HADR offerings bring resiliency to virtualization; We examine five products that marry high availability and disaster recovery to your virtual server environment.
September 3, 2008... Byline: Logan G. Harbaugh Virtualization is becoming increasingly important in the datacenter as a way to respond quickly to the varying server demands. Depending on time of day and day of the week, as well as events in progress and many...

Should IT form a union? Life for IT workers has never been harsher. Maybe IT should organize and fight back against bosses who demand the impossible and turn to outsourcing as if it were the new scab labor. Then again, maybe not.
September 4, 2008... Byline: Dan Tynan Sixty-hour work weeks with no overtime or comp time, a BlackBerry hitched to your belt 24/7, mandates from managers who have no clue what you actually do – all for a job that could be outsourced tomorrow. Is it...

Google touts iPhone, Chrome browser; Executive at Office 2.0 conference cites cloud computing trends.(Conference news)
September 4, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill A Google executive Thursday heaped praise on Apple's iPhone, even with his company set to challenge Apple in this same space with its Android mobile computing platform. During the cloud computing-focused Office 2.0...

You don't know tech: The InfoWorld news quiz; Match your weekly tech news wits against our snarky quiz master.
September 5, 2008... Byline: Dan Tynan Everyone has their limits, as this week's quiz amply demonstrates. The past week saw Comcast place caps on how much bandwidth its subscribers could use. Microsoft tried to halt the slide in Xbox 360 sales, Yahoo...

Adobe sets Genesis mashup pilot; Selected users to get access in October to desktop client that unites multiple tasks in a single workspace.
September 5, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill Adobe Systems in October plans to launch a private pilot program for its "Genesis" mashup technology, which provides a desktop client uniting multiple tasks in a single workspace. The pilot project will provide...

Appirio opts for the cloud over servers; The company's 100-person operation relies on cloud-based, on-demand software from Google and Salesforce.com.
September 5, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill Can a business be run solely in the cloud without a server anywhere in sight? Appirio says it can and is already doing it. Starting out with four people two years ago and growing to nearly 100 employees, the company...

You don't know tech: The InfoWorld news quiz; Match your weekly tech news wits against our snarky quiz master.
September 8, 2008... Byline: Dan Tynan Everyone has their limits, as this week's quiz amply demonstrates. The past week saw Comcast place caps on how much bandwidth its subscribers could use. Microsoft tried to halt the slide in Xbox 360 sales, Yahoo...

How to start up your own tech startup; Follow the dream using advice from entrepreneurs who've made it work.
September 8, 2008... Byline: Bill Snyder Samir Mehta doesn't look much like a 15-year-old Chinese gymnast, but in many ways, the 41-year-old serial entrepreneur is just as nimble. You may have heard of him a few years ago when he sold 4th Pass, developers of a...

The top iPhone apps for techies; Useful native iPhone apps for IT pros have arrived, but the best require jailbreaking.
September 8, 2008... Byline: Doug Dineley Apple's iPhone 2.0 launch sparked an explosion of native apps and games, along with a burst of business application support from Google, Oracle, NetSuite, Salesforce.com, and a host of others who have tuned their Web...

Google brings old newspapers online; Initiative lets users scan news articles in their original form.
September 8, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill Google is expanding efforts to put offline materials online by adding old newspaper content to its Google News Archive application, the company announced on Monday. The effort uses scanning technology leveraged in...

Grid software moving to Windows; 3Tera expands platform backing for its AppLogic grid software, allowing for mixing among Linux, Sun Solaris, and Windows and providing scalability.
September 8, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill 3Tera is expanding platform support for its AppLogic grid software for Web applications, enabling it to run on Windows, a company official said at the TechCrunch50 2008 conference in San Francisco on Monday. Now...

Tech's looming battle against rising energy costs; Green is not enough: How IT can (and must) lead the energy-savings charge across the entire enterprise.
September 9, 2008... Byline: Betsy Harter IT has gotten a bad rap when it comes to energy consumption. Walk into any datacenter, and you can almost feel the carbon emissions leaking into the atmosphere. However, research shows that the datacenter actually...

Startups seek new ways to bolster enterprise, Web security; Demo Fall 2008: Established ideas get new twists to protect corporate date, user passwords, and even mobile phones.
September 9, 2008... Byline: Bill Snyder Welcome to Demo Fall 2008, where 72 young companies are vying for the attention of deal-hungry venture capitalists from North America, Europe, and Asia. With only six minutes to strut their stuff on stage, it’s no...

Is Web 2.0 already on its way out? Analysis: Demo Fall 2008 gives indications that its social networking and ubiquitous connectivity business assumptions are wrong.
September 9, 2008... Byline: Galen Gruman At a conference that devoted much of its attention to celebrating the rise of collaborative platforms, media, and technologies, you had to wonder if the "Web 2.0" collaborative future would die before it really began....

Pushing project management to the collaborative Web; Demo Fall 2008: New apps promise better control, communication across groups.
September 9, 2008... Byline: Galen Gruman The increased use of the Web for collaborative activities, from music sharing to restaurant recommendations, is beginning to creep into business for useful things. At the Demo Fall 2008 conference in San Diego, several...

Why IT should get in the facilities business; Energy savings throughout the company can be cut if IT applies its technology know-how to managing facilities.
September 9, 2008... Byline: Ephraim Schwartz Picture in your mind the facilities management guy or gal in your building: Are you envisioning someone in a pair of overalls and a screwdriver tucked in the back pocket? If so, who are you going to call when...

The best, and worst, of Demo Fall 2008; 72 companies showed their stuff, with many intriguing options for businesses and consumers. But a few stood out far above the rest.
September 10, 2008... Byline: Bill Snyder It isn't something you'll see on a server rack, but a product from a fabless silicon design outfit could help you cut down on air conditioning costs at work or home and help save energy. What's more, Microstaq's Silicon...

InfoWorld's graded guide to Demo Fall 2008 business apps; Forget all the consumer apps. We rate the 20 innovations that enterprise IT should know more about.
September 10, 2008... Byline: Galen Gruman The Demo Fall 2008 conference in San Diego this week gave 72 companies six minutes each in front of reporters, venture capitalists, and other industry players to make their case as to why their new technology was...

Analytics vendors show there's still innovation in BI; Demo Fall 2008: Cloud-based BI, semantic database search, and database acceleration stand out.(Conference news)
September 10, 2008... Byline: Bill Snyder Managing data isn’t as glamorous as many of the glitzy Web 2.0 apps on display at the Demo Fall 2008 conference in San Diego, but it's what keeps businesses running. Enterprise applications to speed databases,...

Securing the enterprise beyond the perimeter; Cloud computing, mobile workers, and new gadgets all force security pros to rethink how they protect their data and systems outside their walls.
September 10, 2008... Byline: Tom Kaneshige Trying to secure laptops, cell phones, PDAs, and other mobile devices today is "terrifying," says Christopher Paidhrin, IT security and HIPAA compliance officer at Southwest Washington Medical Center. "End-point...

Social networking hype 2.0; TechCrunch 50: Startups parody themselves unintentionally with dubious pitches.
September 10, 2008... Byline: Tom Kaneshige Clever social networking-related startups with obscure taglines -- including Causecast ("Change your world, and the world will change"), Qik ("See what happens"), and Joongel ("Internet the easy way -- we have...

Microsoft joins OMG; Company pushes software modeling initiatives and plans to assist with the evolution of standards.
September 10, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill As part of its strategy for model-driven software development, Microsoft on Wednesday announced it has joined the Object Management Group (OMG). OMG standards have included UML (Unified Modeling Language) and BPMN...

Serena offers mashups on demand; Users can deploy mashups faster without having to install software or manage infrastructure; the company also is boosting agile programming.
September 10, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill Serena is offering on Wednesday its Serena Business Mashups via an on-demand format, enabling users to blend consumer widgets with enterprise data and business processes. With the SaaS deployments used with Serena...

TechCrunch50 highlights mobile, text input tools; Startups detail their newfangled products and concepts at conference.
September 10, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill Ventures in mobile computing and platform tools highlighted the TechCrunch50 2008 conference in San Francisco on Tuesday, with companies airing products ranging from a cross-platform environment for mobile systems to a...

Virtualization showdown: VMware Workstation vs. Sun xVM VirtualBox; VMware's desktop champion takes the flag, but Sun's free and open source alternative is coming on strong.
September 11, 2008... Byline: Randall C. Kennedy A two-horse race: That's how the market for general purpose desktop virtualization packages is shaping up, at least for the foreseeable future. With Microsoft all but abandoning Virtual PC (no updates in more...

You don't know tech: The InfoWorld news quiz; Match your weekly tech news wits against our snarky quiz master.
September 12, 2008... Byline: Dan Tynan It was a big week for really small things. Apple unveiled new music players, BlackBerry rolled out new phones, even Microsoft had a few Zune announcements hidden in there -- but nothing quite as small in size or as big in...

Yahoo hosts developers at Open Hack 2008; Event encourages users to build apps, aka "hacks," around company's technology.
September 12, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill Yahoo is hosting about 300 developers at its Open Hack 2008 event this weekend, encouraging them to build applications on top of the company's products. The event is being held at Yahoo's Sunnyvale, Calif., offices....

Adobe aims to stave off Silverlight with video encoder; Adobe Flash Media Encoding Server, due later this year, converts videos to Flash format.
September 12, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill Ratcheting up the battle for the rich media space, Adobe Systems later this year plans to offer Adobe Flash Media Encoding Server, which is software to move video content to Adobe's Flash format. Unveiled this week,...

You don't know tech: The InfoWorld news quiz; Match your weekly tech news wits against our snarky quiz master.
September 15, 2008... Byline: Dan Tynan It was a big week for really small things. Apple unveiled new music players, BlackBerry rolled out new phones, even Microsoft had a few Zune announcements hidden in there -- but nothing quite as small in size or as big in...

20 more IT mistakes to avoid; Fall prey to any one of these common IT blunders and watch your company's prospects suffer -- not to mention your own.
September 15, 2008... Byline: Neil McAllister Back in 2004, InfoWorld's then-CTO Chad Dickerson polled the best and brightest to reveal 20 IT mistakes that were surefire recipes for cost overruns, missed deadlines, and in some cases, lost jobs. A lot has...

SOA deployments: What actually works; After several years of hype, the results of SOA efforts have been a mixed bag. InfoWorld's SOA expert explains how to get SOA right.
September 16, 2008... Byline: Dave Linthicum SOA may have seemed the savior of bad software architecture and poor development project planning, but the reality is that it's a complex and difficult venture. Thus, the number of failed SOA projects is about equal...

Microsoft seeks secure software development; Company will introduce SDL Threat Modeling Tool 3.0, an evolution of the Trustworthy Computing initiative.
September 16, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill Microsoft wants to take what it has learned about secure software development in-house and share its insights with others. The company on Tuesday will offer up guidance and a tool based on Security Development...

Microsoft hails open source outreach; The company detailed accommodations made for open source, including the Microsoft Open Source Technology Center, at ZendCon 2008.
September 16, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill Microsoft continued to make its case on Tuesday that it is a friend to open source, listing a number of efforts it has undertaken in spaces ranging from Linux to virtualization and rich Internet application technology....

Zend: PHP set for enterprise growth; CEO hails Web apps platform, predicts increased opportunities for developers.
September 16, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) is moving beyond hobbyist and academic realms and into the enterprise, the CEO of Zend Technologies stressed Tuesday during a keynote presentation at the 2008 Zend/PHP Conference (ZendCon) in...

Zend adds Flex to PHP for developing rich Web apps; Adobe partnership follows recent move in which similar accommodations were made for AJAX.
September 16, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) will be linked with Flex development for rich Web applications under an arrangement being announced Tuesday by Zend Technologies. The announcement, which pairs PHP on servers to Adobe's...

Test Center review: Citrix hits the VDI high notes; Citrix XenDesktop 2.0 leverages streaming applications, server virtualization, and swift tools for a scalable and manageable virtual desktop infrastructure solution.
September 16, 2008... Byline: Paul Venezia It seems that the whole world has been talking about VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure), with very different views of what VDI actually means. If virtualization itself is an adolescent, VDI is still an infant, and...

The three business tech risks you don't know about; Recent federal policies related to privacy and terrorism may force changes in your tech strategy.
September 17, 2008... Byline: David Strom Business travelers will soon need to carry the name of their corporate lawyer in addition to their passport when returning home to the United States, and they may need to bring with them a different business laptop as...

PHP upgrade improves Windows backing; Zend official details 5.3 release of the scripting language, including garbage collection, namespaces, and PHP archive files.
September 17, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) 5.3, a significant upgrade to the server-side scripting language for Web applications, is expected to be available in a beta release in October, a representative of the PHP community said on...

Canvas set to boost AJAX; Graphical rendering improvements for JavaScript called a game-changing technology at ZendCon 2008.
September 18, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill Canvas, a planned HTML standard for arbitrary graphical rendering in browsers, presents a game-changing technology for high-quality graphics in AJAX applications, an advocate said at the ZendCon 2008 conference in Santa...

Microsoft Visual Studio upgrade eyed; Extensibility, scalability, and modernization are key architectural themes for the Visual Studio 10 upgrade.
September 18, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill Extensibility is a key focus for Microsoft in the planned "Visual Studio 10" upgrade to the company's software development environment, a blog post revealed this week. The software development platform focuses on...

Improved Riverbed Steelhead RiOS eases WAN-traffic taming; Version 5 delivers superior manageability, support for Exchange, and a host of other new features.
September 18, 2008... Byline: Keith Schultz With the economy slowing down and IT budgets getting tighter, trying to sell your boss on some new network equipment might defy conventional wisdom. But if the equipment helps reduce time wasted when working over a...

You don't know tech: The InfoWorld news quiz; Match your weekly tech news wits against our snarky quiz master.
September 19, 2008... Byline: Dan Tynan Hello and welcome to the special Crime and Punishment edition of our weekly news quiz. This week, criminals broke into the e-mail account of America's favorite gun-toting hockey mom, a notorious spammer walked out of...

Android to debut in T-Mobile's G1 smartphone; The G1 will be the first Android-based device on the market, but even with Google's open platform, there are limits in place for both users and developers.
September 23, 2008... Byline: Tom Yager When Google announced the Open Handset Alliance (a group of wireless industry players looking to get their names associated with Google's Android open mobile platform project), true open-source smartphones were a great...

Oracle eyes portal improvements; Former BEA product to add host of capabilities.
September 23, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill Oracle is mapping out two upgrades to the enterprise portal software package acquired when the company bought BEA Systems. Highlighted at the Oracle OpenWorld 2008 conference in San Francisco on Monday evening, plans...

Oracle OpenWorld: Economy fears not yet stopping IT spending; Attendees show little concern the financial crisis will hurt tech projects.(Conference notes)
September 23, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill Fears about the fragile state of the economy aren't translating to IT investment shifts among Oracle OpenWorld 2008 conference attendees this week -- at least not yet. Interviews with a sampling of attendees at the San...

10 future shocks for the next 10 years; As InfoWorld turns 30, a look back at the changes wrought by technology since 1978 boggles the mind. The extended InfoWorld family predicts the shocking developments we can expect between now and 2018.
September 23, 2008... Byline: InfoWorld staff The past 30 years of InfoWorld's existence have seen a series of future shocks, from the ascent of the personal computer to horrifying strains of malware to the sizzling sex appeal of the iPhone. In honor of...

How IT could have prevented the financial meltdown; The tools are largely there, but not the visibility needed for regulators and banks to catch problems early.
September 24, 2008... Byline: Ephraim Schwartz In the coming weeks, the feds and the surviving financial services institutions will have the daunting task of unraveling all the securitized loans and other instruments that are hiding the toxic investments. But...

Is Sun Solaris on its deathbed? Linux backers claim Solaris is irrelevant; Sun of course disagrees.
September 24, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill Linux is enjoying growth, with a contingent of devotees too large to be called a cult following at this point. Solaris, meanwhile, has thrived as a longstanding, primary Unix platform geared to enterprises. But with...

Oracle, Red Hat spar over Linux; Different perspectives offered on success of support plan.
September 24, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill It was nearly two years ago at the 2006 Oracle OpenWorld conference that Oracle CEO Larry Ellison unveiled a plan to have Oracle provide support to Red Hat's own Linux customers. The controversial plan sparked debate...

AccuRev scales software change management; Version 4.7 of the AccuRev change and configuration management software expands server options to accommodating growing development teams.
September 25, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill AccuRev this week introduced its AccuRev 4.7 software change and configuration management software, featuring enhancements for scalability and personalized process visualization. With these capabilities, enterprises...

You don't know tech: The InfoWorld news quiz; Match your weekly tech news wits against our snarky quiz master.
September 26, 2008... Byline: Dan Tynan This week, the world's second-most eagerly awaited phone made its debut. But that's not the only tech news worth dialing in. We've got new rumors coming out of Yahoo, new services coming out of Google, and yet another...

The devilish details of desktop virtualization; Early adopters of virtual desktop infrastructure report compelling benefits, significant hurdles, and a cloudy view into ROI.
September 29, 2008... Byline: Tom Kaneshige Faced with a massive PC refresh at a price tag of $1.8 million, Jack Wilson instead rolled the dice on virtual desktops three years ago. The enterprise architect at Amerisure Insurance didn't just dabble in the...

Microsoft to back jQuery library; Visual Studio will ship with jQuery JavaScript technology that simplifies AJAX interactions for rapid Web development.
September 29, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill Microsoft plans to incorporate the jQuery JavaScript library into its Visual Studio platform, according to several blogs published on Sunday. JQuery, the jQuery Web site states, is "a fast and concise JavaScript...

Microsoft to push life-cycle collaboration in newest Visual Studio; Due in a year, the revised Team System will add new roles, rethink existing roles, and drop the separate database developer role.
September 29, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill Under the banner of "democratizing" application life-cycle management (ALM), Microsoft is unveiling today the next major release of its Visual Studio Team System platform. Visual Studio Team System 2010, which has been...

Road test: Does WiMax work in the real world? Performance is good when you're sitting in an office or cafe, but don't count on connecting from a moving train or car.
September 29, 2008... Byline: Terry Retter Just a couple short years ago, many people were abuzz over metro Wi-Fi experiments in Philadelphia, Houston, and San Francisco, only to see those efforts largely collapse as slow speeds, expensive deployments, and...

Financial crisis: The tech innovations at risk; Analytics, SOA, storage networking, and cloud computing providers face huge fallouts as financial customers wither.
September 30, 2008... Byline: John Edwards September 2008 will certainly go down as one of the blackest months in Wall Street history. Venerable financial institutions such as Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and AIG abruptly vanished or were radically...

Cloud computing pondered at eBay event; Questions raised at ResearchFest about latest buzzword in technology realm.
September 30, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill Officials from companies such as HP and Joyent debated the merits and even the definition of cloud computing Monday during an event at eBay headquarters, emphasizing efforts underway and noting limitations to cloud...

Two tenacious exploits debunk vendor claims; The Adobe Flash Clipboard Hijack and the XP Antivirus exploit throw "state-of-the-art" Web security clients for a loop.
September 30, 2008... Byline: Roger A. Grimes Many sandbox security vendors claim that their products stop all known and unknown attacks. Even assuming the ability to curtail all known attacks could be proven, it's simply impossible to believe that any piece of...

Test Center: Sandbox security versus the evil Web; Five products strive to trap drive-by downloads and other threats in a virtual Web browsing space, with mixed results.
September 30, 2008... Byline: Roger A. Grimes The Internet is a scary place. Criminal malware lurks on legitimate and illegitimate Web sites alike, looking to steal your money one way or the other. Vendors have been scratching their collective heads attempting...