Computerworld articles from August 2008

Computerworld archives from August 2008

Too many enemies.(EDITOR'S NOTE)(Editorial)
August 4, 2008... MY SUGGESTION in last week's column that U.S. companies should be allowed to compete in Cuba hit a raw nerve with some readers who read the suggestion as some sort of endorsement of the Castro regime. One who summed up my position as...

Responses to: corporate IT can learn a lot from web 2.0 coders.(ONLINE CHATTER)(Brief article)
August 4, 2008... July 11,2008 Heather Havenstein's article was intriguing. Unfortunately, I felt it missed the mark in a few places. 1. Break the barrier between developers and end users. Good IT shops have been doing this for years. One of my...

The week ahead.(Brief article)(Calendar)
August 4, 2008... MONDAY: LinuxWorld opens in San Francisco, and Sybase kicks off its annual user conference in Las Vegas. TUESDAY: Cisco plans to report its Q4 financial results. WEDNESDAY: The "briefings" portion of the Black Hat USA 2008 conference...

DNS patches slow servers, but fast action is advised.(INTERNET)(Domain Name System)
August 4, 2008... SOFTWARE PATCHES released in early July to protect against a critical flaw in the Domain Name System protocol have slowed servers running the Internet's most popular DNS implementation and crippled some Windows Server systems. ...

Encryption not a snap for feds.(SECURITY)(Brief article)
August 4, 2008... Despite a string of data breaches, only about 30% of the laptops and mobile devices used at 24 federal agencies had encryption tools as of last September, according to a report issued last week by the Government Accountability Office. And,...

Stock exchanges start thinking in microseconds.(SERVERS & DATA CENTERS)
August 4, 2008... IN THE machine-vs.-machine world of financial trading, where IT is constantly trying to increase performance, transaction times are now being measured in increments of microseconds. Over the past year, for example, the New York Stock...

Sun Microsystems Inc.(Short Takes)(Brief article)
August 4, 2008... * Sun Microsystems Inc., after reporting that its profit dropped sharply to $88 million in its fourth quarter, warned that U.S. economic woes will mean lower IT budgets and smaller deals.

IBM.(Short Takes)(Brief article)
August 4, 2008... * IBM has agreed to buy llog SA for about $335 million in cash. IBM said that it plans to combine Ilog's business rules management software with its BPM and business optimization tools.

McAfee Inc.(Short Takes)(Brief article)
August 4, 2008... * McAfee Inc., has agreed to acquire Reconnex Inc., for $46 million in cash. McAfee plans to roll the Reconnex products into its data-protection products. The deal is expected to close next month.

Correction.(Correction notice)
August 4, 2008... The consulting firm that issued a report titled "The State of Enterprise IT Budgets: 2008" was incorrectly identified in a story in the July 21 issue ("Six Stupid IT Budget Tricks"). The report came from Forrester Research Inc.

Microsoft offers glimpse of its new Sphere computer.(HARDWARE)(Brief article)
August 4, 2008... MICROSOFT CORP. showed off its new Sphere computer last week. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The machine, which was featured at the vendor's Research Faculty Summit in Redmond, Wash., is still a research prototype. It uses a touch-screen orb...

NASA archive project puts historic images online.(INTERNET)(Brief article)
August 4, 2008... NASA late last month launched an interactive Web site that initially combines 21 of the space agency's separately stored and managed imagery collections into a single online resource. The first implementation of the online archive, jointly...

Between the lines.(Cartoon)
August 4, 2008... HEY-WE CAME RIGHT AWAY DIDN'T WE?! [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Electronic Data Systems Corp.(BENCHMARKS LAST WEEK)(Brief article)
August 4, 2008... Electronic Data Systems Corp.'s stockholders approved the proposed $13.9 billion sale of EDS to Hewelett-Packard Co.

Oracle Corp.(BENCHMARKS LAST WEEK)(Brief article)
August 4, 2008... In its first out-of-cycle security alert since adopting a quarterly patching schedule three years ago, Oracle Corp. warned of an unpatched vulnerability in its WebLogic software and detailed a work-around.

10 years ago.(BENCHMARKS LAST WEEK)(Brief article)
August 4, 2008... 10 YEARS AGO: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission set strict guidelines on what public companies had to disclose about the Year 2000 computer issues they faced.

Alcatel-Lucent execs jump ship.(Global Dispatches)(Patricia Russo and Serge Tchuruk)(Brief article)
August 4, 2008... PARIS-Alcatel-Lucent CEO Patricia Russo and Chairman Serge Tchuruk announced plans to resign their posts by year's end. The announcement came at the same time the Paris-based telecommunications firm reported a second-quarter loss of...

British hacker faces extradition.(Global Dispatches)(Gary McKinnon)(Brief article)
August 4, 2008... LONDON-The highest U.K. court last week dismissed a British hacker's appeal of an extradition order to face charges of breaking into U.S. military computers to uncover evidence of UFOs. Gary McKinnon, 42, of London, would be the first...

Briefly noted.(Global Dispatches)(Frank Huang charged for insider stock trading)(Brief article)
August 4, 2008... Frank Huang, chairman of Hsinchu, Taiwan-based memory chip maker Powerchip Semiconductor Corp., was charged last week with conducting insider stock trading prior to his company's unsuccessful 2006 bid to buy Macronix International Co., which is...

Data explosion forcing IT to seek new backup tools: managers must carefully consider the consequences of quickly switching vendors to get the right technology.(NEWS ANALYSIS)
August 4, 2008... THE NEED to control and secure a continuing explosion of data across the corporate world is forcing IT managers to constantly be on the lookout for new equipment that can handle perpetually evolving requirements. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ...

Not there yet: the iPhone has some growing to do: Apple's new 3G model still lags behind BlackBerry and Windows Mobile devices for corporate IT apps.(NEWS ANALYSIS)(Product/service evaluation)
August 4, 2008... THE iPHONE 3G may have a lock on this year's Sexiest Gadget title. But in the pragmatic world of corporate IT, the flashy new handheld is no pinup. That was the case when Apple Inc. introduced the iPhone 3G two months ago. And it's even...

ClOs morph into CIMs.(On the Mark)(chief information officers and carbon information managers)(Intrepidus Group Inc. )
August 4, 2008... CIOs ARE perfectly positioned to become the carbon information managers as well as the IT leaders for their organizations. * Just what your department needs: more work. * Carbon information managers will play "an emerging role" in the modern...

Peter Sandborn: an obsolescence expert talks about anticipating obsolescence, dealing with it and understanding that it is part of Microsoft's business plan.(THE GRILL)(Interview)
August 4, 2008... Peter Sandborn is an expert on parts obsolescence planning. He has created tools to help sustain the electronics embedded in safety-critical systems, such as aircraft avionics, to help ensure that they can operate for decades. ...

Why the iPhone is Apple's Trojan horse.(OPINION)
August 4, 2008... APPLE'S NEW iPhone 3G arrived a few weeks ago. Did you miss the news? Not likely. It was everywhere. There were rave reviews about the new hardware and features, all delivered at a much lower price than the original iphone (see related story,...

Is Google your next data center? cloud computing is changing the way we think of the IT department.(Cover story)
August 4, 2008... JONATHAN SNYDER'S five-person team at Dreambuilder Investments LLC isn't your typical IT organization. Or is it? The New York-based company, which buys and sells defaulted residential mortgages, uses Salesforee.com Inc.'s Force.com as its...

Cloud computing: users can hook into the power of 'out there'.(QUICKSTUDY)
August 4, 2008... ASK ANY five IT specialists what cloud computing is, and you're likely to get five different answers. That's partly because cloud computing is merely the latest, broadest development in a trend that's been growing for years. Cloud...

A security roundup in 20 minutes flat: our manager has a chance to make the case for better security every quarter. But he has to be fast.(SECURITY MANAGER'S JOURNAL)(Personal account)
August 4, 2008... YOU'RE A security manager with 20 minutes to communicate to the CIO the precise state of your company's security posture. You need to demonstrate that things have improved, but you have to make it clear that things could be even better if you...

Fostering accountability.(OPINION)
August 4, 2008... "HOW DO I make my people more accountable?" As a management consultant. I get this question all the time. In fact, I'd have to say that in general, making people more accountable is one of the top aspirations of technical managers. So it's...

Career Watch.(Brief article)
August 4, 2008... 19% Percentage of IT workers responding to a recent survey who said that their bosses expect them to work or at least check voice mail and/or e-mail while on vacation. In comparison, just 9% of all respondents said that their bosses have...

Socially acceptable.(Career Watch)(Brief article)
August 4, 2008... IT professionals have become extremely active on social networking sites such as Linkedln, Facebook and Xing. How often do you visit social networking sites? More than three times a week 42% At least once a week: 35% Less...

The 'it's all about me' sundrome.(Career Watch)
August 4, 2008... FIVE YEARS AGO, Jean Ritala had never heard the term narcissism. Then someone described her as having been "stung by a narcissist" and shared books and Web sites with her on the topic. Now, besides being the IT support services manager at...

SharkTank: true tales of it life as told to sharky.(Brief article)
August 4, 2008... It's Academic! Computer engineering department at this big university gets funding for a new building, and one faculty member decides that his grad students can lay out the server room better than the department's IT people. When the...

Cryptic reading.(FRANKLY SPEAKING)
August 4, 2008... ENCRYPTION IS HARD. Case in point: the U.S. government, which requires its agencies to encrypt all sensitive data on laptops and mobile devices. But according to the Government Accountability Office, as of last year, 70% of such devices didn't...

Standing on Principle.(EDITOR'S NOTE)(Editorial)
August 11, 2008... I'M NOT above engaging in a little shameless name-dropping, especially when I know the dropped name will spark a reaction. So while chatting with attendees at the LinuxWorld conference in San Francisco last week, I made no secret of the fact...

Reconsidering Vista: July 28, 2008.(RESPONSES TO:)(Letter to the editor)
August 11, 2008... I very much doubt ordinary users have much say about which OS they use at work. Business IT is about applications, not operating systems. Even if users have Vist at home, they know the OS at work is not about bling and glitz, but about...

The week ahead.(News Digest)(Brief article)(Calendar)
August 11, 2008... MONDAY: The Siggraph 2008 computer graphics conference starts in Los Angeles; Intel plans to detail the architecture of Larrabee, its upcoming "many-core" processor. TUESDAY: Microsoft is scheduled to release its monthly batch of security...

DOJ fingers global ring in alleged data thefts.(CYBERCRIME)
August 11, 2008... A MULTINATIONAL ring of hackers that allegedly stole tens of millions of credit and debit card numbers from U.S. retailers used war driving and sophisticated programming skills to exploit network and system vulnerabilities, according to the...

Microsoft to rate exploit potential.(SECURITY)(Brief article)
August 11, 2008... MICROSOFT CORP. will soon edge into the crystal-ball business in its security bulletins by predicting how likely it is that software flaws will be exploited. Starting in October, Microsoft will add an "Exploitable Ity Index" that gives...

Exxon Mobil appears on Twitter, unwittingly.(INTERNET)
August 11, 2008... CLAIMING TO be an Exxon Mobil Corp. employee, a user of the Twitter microblogging site created a page on July 28 with the company's name, part of its logo and photos of an Exxon gas station. As of last week, more than 400 other users had signed...

Oracle Corp.(Short Takes)(Brief article)
August 11, 2008... * Oracle corp. released an emergency patch to plug a security hole in its WebLogic software, one week after warning users of the flaw. Oracle, which typically issues patches on a quarterly basis, gave the flaw a 10.0 rating - the highest...

Facebook Inc.(Short Takes)(Brief article)
August 11, 2008... * Facebook Inc. said Friday that it had blocked links between its social networking Web site and malware-infested sites that malicious hackers were trying to lure Face-book members to visit. The attackers posted fake messages urging users to...

Cisco Systems Inc.(Short Takes)(Brief article)
August 11, 2008... * Cisco Systems Inc. and other firewall vendors are scrambling to fix a problem that can limit the effectiveness of server software patches being issued for a critical flaw in the Domain Name System protocol. Dan Kaminsky, the researcher who...

IT security oversight may have enabled data breach.(SECURITY)(Brief article)
August 11, 2008... A FORMER EMPLOYEE accused of stealing customer data from Countrywide Financial Corp. may have been able to download the information to a thumb drive because of an oversight by the home mortgage lender's IT department. [ILLUSTRATION...

'Politics 2.0' heating up summer doldrums in D.C.(WEB 2.0)(Brief article)
August 11, 2008... JULY AND AUGUST are often quiet months in Washington. This year, though, they've been anything but dull from an IT standpoint, with members of Congress, backers of both presidential candidates and organizers of the upcoming presidential debates...

Between the lines.(Cartoon)
August 11, 2008... Microsoft's Bug of the Month Club WE MIGHT WANT to CONSIDER a DIFFERENT NAME. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Microsoft corp.(BENCHMARKS LAST WEEK)(Brief article)
August 11, 2008... Microsoft Corp. released SQL Server 2008, about three months behind schedule but well within its three-year window for developing the database. The previous release, SQL Server 2005, took five years to complete.

Delta Air Lines Inc.(BENCHMARKS LAST WEEK)(Brief article)
August 11, 2008... Delta Air Lines Inc. said it will start offering in-flight Wi-Fi access this fall and equip all of its 330-plus U.S. planes with the wireless technology by next summer.

Three years ago.(BENCHMARKS LAST WEEK)(Brief article)
August 11, 2008... THREE YEARS AGO: Microsoft hired Kevin Turner, a former CIO and business executive at Wal-Mart Stores Inc., to be its chief operating officer.

Bank starts work on IT overhaul.(Global Dispatches)(National Australia Bank Ltd.)(Brief article)
August 11, 2008... MELBOURNE, Australia-National Australia Bank Ltd. last week said it has begun a five-year initiative to overhaul its core banking systems. NAB, one of the country's largest banks, is partnering with Oracle Corp. for the project's first...

Virtual mobile coming to India.(Global Dispatches)(Brief article)
August 11, 2008... BANGALORE, India -Mobilevirtual network operators that provide cell phone service to customers but don't own spectrum or a network infrastructure may soon be allowed to set up shop in India. The move to allow MVNOs to begin direct...

Briefly noted.(Global Dispatches)(Brief article)
August 11, 2008... Nokia Corp. is setting up a six-person research unit that will work to develop prototypes of cell phones suited to the African market. Jussi Impio. team leader of Nokia Research Africa, said the continent is becoming a more important market for...

No laptops left behind: handheld devices may be getting more computerlike, but mobile workers still have to juggle a mix of laptops, PDAs and smart phones.(NEWS ANALYSIS)
August 11, 2008... As handheld devices become more like full-fledged computers, IT managers and end users are again considering the question of whether business travel ers can leave their laptops at home. But that still appears to be more of a future goal than a...

Turning the page on PCs not an easy call for IT execs: how often should you replace your PCs? That all depends.(NEWS ANALYSIS)
August 11, 2008... ASK WHAT seems like a simple question--How often should PCs be replaced?--and you'll find that for IT managers, the answer isn't so simple. And it's certaily not universal. The correct answer at Grant Thornton LLP is 24 months. And next...

The rise of videoconferencing.(On the Mark)
August 11, 2008... WITH AIRLINES adding new fees just about every day (Delta now charges $50 for a second checked bag), videoconferencing has never looked more promising. Products already crowd the market, and vendors have more on the way, many of them offering...

Jorge Mata: the L.A. Community Colleges CIO talks about finessing the politics of education, keeping IT vendors honest and making a difference to students.(THE GRILL)(Interview)
August 11, 2008... Last year, Jorge Mata became CIO for the Los Angles Community College District, a federation of nine colleges and several satellite campuses serving 140,000 students an d10,000 staffers with an IT shop of 70 workers. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]...

Windows' days may be numbered.(OPINION)
August 11, 2008... COULD MICROSOFT be switching away from Windows? Some very interesting documents have been leaking out of Microsoft. They clearly indicate, believe it or not, that Microsoft is considering shifting its users from Windows to a new operating...

Socialnetworking goescorporate: as Facebook-like apps infiltrate the enterprise, they're integrating the workforce in unforeseen ways.(COVER STORY)(Cover story)
August 11, 2008... MICROSOFT calls it Town-Square. Deloitte hosts D Street. IBM has its Beehive, and Best Buy its BlueShirt Nation. No, it's not a real estate explosion. In industries from retail to high tech, banking and manufacturing, companies are...

Software that saves lives: BI software helps doctors make smart choices for patients.(COMPUTERWORLD HONORS)
August 11, 2008... THE STATISTICS were telling: 15% to 20% of neurosurgery patients developed infections in the drains that neurosurgeons implanted to draw away fluids, a complication that not only threatened lives, but also led to hundreds of thousands of...

QlikTech international AB is a business intelligence software vendor.(AT A GLANCE)(Company overview)(Brief article)
August 11, 2008... * QlikTech International AB is a business intelligence software vendor with global headquarters in Lund, Sweden, and U.S. headquarters in Radnor, Pa. Its product, QlikView, has more than 265,000 users in 74 countries. QlikView is deployed at...

Dr. Daniel Stalhammar.(AT A GLANCE)(Brief article)
August 11, 2008... * Dr. Daniel Stalhammar, a neurosurgeon for 40 years at Sahlgrenska University Hospital, worked with Johan Rylander, a QlikTech solutions consultant, to deploy QlikView to analyze patient data, likely outcomes and treatment options.

Required limited IT support.(AT A GLANCE)(Brief article)
August 11, 2008... * Stalhammar's deployment and use of QlikView required limited IT support, but two IT workers will work part time to support the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery's deployment and management of QlikView.

The cost of implementing QlikView to analyze neurosurgery patient data was about 550,000 Swedish Krona ($90,000 U.S.).(AT A GLANCE)(Brief article)
August 11, 2008... * The cost of implementing QlikView to analyze neurosurgery patient data was about 550,000 Swedish Krona ($90,000 U.S.). Its R0I: QlikView allows caregivers to analyze data more completely and more quickly, helping them eliminate infections and...

The new face of R&D: IBM, HP and Microsoft all talk about 'open innovation.' Is it a feel-good catchphrase or the R&D strategy of the future?(FUTURE WATCH)
August 11, 2008... Is R&D going down the tubes in the U.S.? Pundits have taken to bemoaning a retreat by U.S. industry from basic research. And indeed, it's easy to find research labs whose glory days have come and gone--Bell Labs comes to mind. But consider...

If I were in charge of the world: exposure to state government revealed things to admire, but there is much that could be done to make it better.(SECURITY MANAGER'S JOURNAL)
August 11, 2008... LEAVING STATE government has been bitter-sweet. There were frustrations aplenty, but I was always impressed by the dedication of many of the rank-and-file employees. I feel privileged to have met and made friends with so many of them. I...

Make a statement.(OPINION)
August 11, 2008... MISSION STATEMENTS help define an organization's direction and inspire employees to achieve corporate goals. Unfortunately, countless mission statements are meaningless, forgettable and totally ineffective. Many are merely an uninspiring...

Unhappy execs.(Career Watch)(Brief article)
August 11, 2008... With 61% of high-level executives are satisfied with their current jobs, there's less satisfaction among IT professionals. According to recruiter ExecuNet Inc.'s June survey of 1,597 high-level executive (average annual salary: over $206,000),...

Next, please: HR managers offer the wackiest interview blunders they've seen.(Career Witch)(Brief article)
August 11, 2008... Would you hire someone who told you during the interview that he was fired for beating up his boss? Probably not, and the human re-sources professional who told this story agreed: This is not a good candictate. In the 2008 version of its...

Fresh start for disabled veterans.(Career Witch)
August 11, 2008... Thanks to a program at Walter Reed army medical center in Washington, dozens of veterans are being trained to become Microsoft certified desktop support technicians The project was initiated in April 2005, when U.S. Army officials...

SharkTank: true tales of it life as told to Sharky.
August 11, 2008... First Thing First Manufacturing engineers at this plant are incredibly talented, says an IT pilot fish working there. Trouble is, they think they're good at everything. So when a computer-controlled assembly line goes down at 3 a.m. with a...

Wi-Fi warfare.(FRANKLY SPEAKING)
August 11, 2008... REMEMBER WARCHALKING? Circa 2002, hackers used to ride around looking for unsecured corporate Wi-Fi signals. When they found one, they'd use chalk to mark the location with special graffiti that said, in effect, "Hey, look! Free Wi-Fi here!"...

Weight of intransigence.(EDITOR'S NOTE)(Editorial)
August 18, 2008... IN MAY, in a column titled "Strengths and Weaknesses," I wrote about having learned that those two things can often be one and the same. At the time, I didn't fully appreciate just how often. My subject then was Robert Madge, founder of the...

Response to: Fostering accountability.(ONLINE CHATTER)(Letter to the editor)
August 18, 2008... Aug, 4, 2008 At times, I think accountability is like frosting, something that people think they can put on later. For example, we have asked our application teams to use clustered MQ queues so that their services are not tied to just...

Response to: Encryption not a snap for feds.(ONLINE CHATTER)(Letter to the editor)
August 18, 2008... Aug. 4, 2008 Encrypting all info on a laptop is a good idea if there is info that needs to be encrypted. Most laptops in my agency have no information on them--they are used as Web browsers. Encrypting those is a waste of taxpayer money....

Response to: Stock exchanges start thinking in microseconds.(ONLINE CHATTER)(Letter to the editor)
August 18, 2008... Aug. 4, 2008 Systems with hundreds of thousands of interconnects, running many millions of lines of code, are far more dependent on software architecture and data structures for their speed than a few micro-seconds of response time from a...

Free XP tuneup: Put new life Into an old workhorse.(COMPUTERWORLD.COM)(Brief article)
August 18, 2008... Just because Microsoft is done with Windows XP doesn't mean you have to be. Keep XP in the game with these downloads, tweaks and hacks. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The true origins of the personal computer.(COMPUTERWORLD.COM)(Brief article)
August 18, 2008... The x86's lineage can be traced back to 1968, to a design drawn on a napkin by Austin O. "Gus" Roche, an all-but-forgotten engineer in San Antonio who was obsessed with creating a computer for personal use.

Invasion of the large-screen notebooks.(COMPUTERWORLD.COM)(Brief article)
August 18, 2008... All but the kitchen sink: Three full-featured note-book PCs prove that bigger really can be better. They offer everything you need, including 18-in. (or larger) displays, fast processors, multiple hard drives and TV tuners. [ILLUSTRATION...

Tech visionary Wayne Green: still on a mission.(COMPUTERWORLD.COM)(Brief article)
August 18, 2008... Ham radio enthusiast Wayne Green helped develop the PC, the cell phone and technology publishing. Still going strong at 86, Green has a few choice words for the high-tech industries he was once part of.

Computerworld.
August 18, 2008... P.O. Box 9171, 1 Speen Street Framingham, MA 01701 (508) 879-0700 Computerworld.com EDITORIAL Editorial Director Don Tennant Editor in Chief Scot Finnie Executive Editors Mitch Betts, Julia King (events) Managing...

News digest; VMware users crippled.
August 18, 2008... VMWARE INC. rushed out an emergency patch last week after a software-development snafu crippled the virtual servers of some users, who flooded the vendor's support forums with posts about the problem. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The glitch...

Microsoft puts out 11 fixes, pulls another.(SECURITY)(Brief article)
August 18, 2008... In its largest batch of security fixes in 18 months, Microsoft Corp. last week released 11 software updates to plug 26 holes in Windows, Office, Internet Explorer and other products. Six of the updates were tagged "critical," Microsoft's...

Wells fargo codes used to access personal information.(NEWS DIGEST)
August 18, 2008... WELLS FARGO Bank NA is notifying some 7,000 people that their Social Security numbers and other personal information may have been accessed by thieves using the financial services firm's access codes. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The bank...

Waste management Inc.(Short Takes)(Brief article)
August 18, 2008... SAP AG has filed a counterclaim to a March lawsuit in which Waste Management Inc. charged that the software vendor fraudulently promised that an ERP implementation would meet the trash disposal company's needs. SAP contends that Waste...

European court of human rights.(Short Takes)(Brief article)
August 18, 2008... The European Court of Human Rights has temporarily held up the extradition of U.K. citizen Gary McKinnon, who faces charges of hacking U.S. military computers.