InfoWorld articles from August 2006

InfoWorld archives from August 2006

FROM THE ANALYSTS: Venture capitalist names his terms - Plus, growing pains in the technology licensing marketplace.
August 7, 2006... I had lunch last week with Drew Clark, the lead strategy guy at IBM's Venture Capital Group based in Silicon Valley. Amid a lively discussion of VC trends around the globe (most startups seem commoditized from birth, Web 2.0 is becoming...

NOTES FROM THE FIELD: Dell's rep in flames, Vista's online fame - Cranky columnist finds a thousand points of blight.
August 7, 2006... I've figured out the true cause of global warming. It's not oil, coal, or that cloud of superheated air rising over Washington. It's the lithium-ion batteries inside Dell notebooks. More photos of Dell's Dell's burning hunks of love have...

ENTERPRISE WINDOWS: Microsoft reveals Photosynth glitz and IE 7 bits - Redmond unveils a photo-transformation app plus a simpler way to upgrade Internet Explorer.
August 7, 2006... First, I'd like to thank those of you who wrote the e-mails supporting my decision not to write the two millionth nuke-Microsoft's12-step- Windows-dev-program. I basked in that glow all weekend. Well, that and the glow of the unbelievably hot...

STORAGE INSIDER: Strengthening iSCSI storage - New products add variety, manageability, resilience to iSCSI networks.
August 7, 2006... The weather and sudden power blackouts are taking their toll all over the States in these torrid summer weeks. Case in point: the July 26 post of fellow blogger and Hitachi Data Systems CTO Hu Yoshida, which has the revealing title, "Sitting in...

STRATEGIC DEVELOPER: Tech believers, meet evolution - Technology marketers should study modern evolutionary thinkers.
August 7, 2006... "Macs suck," my son informed me the other day. Since we use both PCs and Macs at home, and since we flit promiscuously from one platform to the other, I wondered where this belief came from. One source turns out to be Apple's recent "Mac...

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: AMD talks about ATI - AMD's recent acquisition raises a lot of questions, and AMD's Hal Speed has answers.(Advanced Micro Devices Inc.)(ATI Communications)(Interview)
August 7, 2006... From the moment I got the call, I knew there was much more to AMD's acquisition of ATI than was being reported. My mind immediately leaped to the ramifications the acquisition would have on ATI's relationship with Intel OEMs. Intel couldn't be...

REALITY CHECK: The upside to the death of locality - A VoIP-enabled, telecommuting world might actually benefit local communities.
August 7, 2006... Today, some 26 million U.S. workers telecommute, according to Hossein Eslambolchi, author of 2020 Vision: Business Transformation Through Technology Innovation. By 2010 that number will grow to 40 million. And if gas prices keep rising, the...

OFF THE RECORD: My scariest IT job ever - This story has been removed from InfoWorld.com.(Brief article)
August 7, 2006... By Anonymous InfoWorld.com has removed this article ("My Scariest IT Job Ever") because, after investigation, we discovered that many of the writer's assertions could not be verified. In addition, the writer's submission included names and...

Exchange as a gateway? With the 2007 version, you can now set up Exchange as an edge server with all the security of Sendmail.
August 7, 2006... Nobody with an ounce of security sense would plug a Web connection directly to an e-mail server behind the firewall. That's one reason why, around the time the firewall was invented, the DMZ was born. A DMZ is a network segment that sits...

Microsoft Exchange 2007 pushes the envelope - Multiple precooked configs, a vastly improved Web client, a power command line, and bundled anti-malware add up to a whale of an upgrade.
August 7, 2006... Managing e-mail servers is among IT's most painful tasks. It's no wonder, then, that Microsoft chose Exchange as the server product that would capitalize on the benefits of Longhorn first. We managed to get an early look at Microsoft...

Top 10 new features of Exchange 2007 - Microsoft didn't hold back this time, loading Exchange 2007 with dozens of new bells, whistles, and commonsense improvements. Here are the authors' 10 favorites.
August 7, 2006... 1. Server roles: A new modular system that configures Exchange as one (or more) of five basic server roles. Choosing a role means enabling only those features necessary to that role, thereby decreasing the surface area for attacks through other...

Microsoft navigates the application development jungle - Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite adds smarts to lifecycle management.
August 7, 2006... The application lifecycle model, as Microsoft expresses it in Visual Studio 2005 Team System, forges a path familiar to participants in global-scale projects but which has never been scaled down for small to moderate efforts. The plan...

Business continuity software is just the starting point - Effectiveness is based on company's investment in staff resources and attention to detail.
August 7, 2006... Mapping business processes and technological dependencies for business continuity planning is not a new concept; however, the few tools out there require a healthy measure of manpower and input to yield meaningful results . Many business...

In case of emergency, activate business continuity plan - Modeling your business and mapping interdependencies will get you up and running faster in a sustained crisis.
August 7, 2006... Gemstar-TV Guide International hired Ed Sullivan to direct Business Continuity Services in 2003, soon after an audit found that TV Guide's infrastructure was essentially unrecoverable in the event of a sustained crisis. There was a time when...

Blue Coat SG800 WAN accelerator boosts SSL traffic - Balance of flexibility, performance stacks up well against market rivals.
August 7, 2006... Blue Coat Systems' SG line of WAN accelerators builds on traditional WAN optimization methods by adding a couple of their own, including support for SSL encrypted traffic and streaming media. Based on a series of protocol- and...

Parallels pushes virtualization into overdrive - Parallels Desktop and Workstation play hardware virtualization to brilliant advantage.
August 7, 2006... Client virtualization meets many needs -- security sandboxing, development, client lockdown, access to platform-locked applications or content, and safe remote access, to name but a few. But it is accepted that client software virtualization is...

InfoWorld NewsMakers: Hewlett-Packard's Tom Hogan - Mercury and OpenView make HP's "secret sauce".(Interview)
August 7, 2006... In the Jane Austen novel that has become Mercury Interactive's financial story in the past 12 months, it was HP playing the role of Mr. Knightley last month, riding to the rescue with an offer to buy Mercury for $4.5 billion and, thus, save the...

IBM's mega buying spree - IBM picks up MRO Software and Webify Solutions in SOA push.
August 7, 2006... IBM opened its wallet Tuesday and acquired Webify Solutions, a privately held startup that specializes in industry-specific software and services for SOA development and deployment. Two days later, the shopaholic whipped out the gold card,...

EMC unveils new records management strategies - IRM integration allows for better access control and immediate lock-down.(information rights management)(Documentum 5.0)
August 7, 2006... EMC has announced a new SOA-based approach to records management, in addition to integrating IRM (information rights management) into its Documentum 5 product suite. The IRM scheme is built on technology it acquired from its purchase of...

Wireless, NAC holes on display at Black Hat - Hacker confab still in the swing of things following '05 drama.(Black Hat Briefings Conference)(network access control)
August 7, 2006... One year after an ISS researcher's presentation set off a press firestorm, the Black Hat Briefings Conference in Las Vegas was back to its old form last week: poking holes in enterprise sacred cows such as NAC (network access control) and...

Oracle enters the BPM zone - Middleware strategy gains clarity and momentum with licensing of Aris suite.(business process management)
August 7, 2006... Oracle's Fusion middleware platform, like the early solar system, has resembled a gaseous cloud, with chunks slowly solidifying into recognizable shapes. A large object from another orbit just joined the party last week, which sheds new light...

OPEN ENTERPRISE: VMware and Xen clash over Linux virtualization patch - Kernel quarrel proves that you don't have to be proprietary to be petty.
August 7, 2006... Things don't always go smoothly when you try to mix the world of open source with the world of proprietary commercial software. Sometimes those worlds collide. All too often, proprietary vendors are all too willing to ride roughshod over open...

EDITOR'S LETTER: Moving up the IT stack - HP and IBM push top-down approach to asset management.(Editorial)
August 7, 2006... IBM's purchase of asset and service management powerhouse MRO Software -- hot on the heels of HP's Mercury acquisition -- could signal a new chapter in the IT industry. After years of helping IT support a Rube Goldberg style infrastructure, the...

SECURITY ADVISER: The evolution of corporate security - As companies balance ease-of-use with security, they move up the steps of Grimes' Hierarchy of Security Needs.
August 7, 2006... Most security solutions are a trade-off of ease-of-use versus security. As computer security measures grow in importance, previously uninterrupted legitimate processes get reined in or stopped altogether -- like my recommendation of not...

EDITOR'S LETTER: Snakes on a database - IBM hopes its latest version of DB2 will be a summer blockbuster.(Editorial)
August 14, 2006... I'm not above cheap tricks or tawdry pop-culture references to draw attention to an important story, like our review of DB2 9.1, aka "Viper." This just-released update to IBM's database takes a radical, groundbreaking approach to native XML...

SECURITY ADVISER: Testing client-side risks - How many of your employees can be tricked into opening malware? The answer may surprise you.(Core Security's CORE IMPACT 6.0)
August 14, 2006... Normally, I don't get excited about updates, but the main improvement to Version 6.0 of Core Security's CORE IMPACT penetration-testing tool got my attention: It focuses on client-side attack improvements. Essentially, you can drag and drop...

NOTES FROM THE FIELD: Cisco foots the bill, Microsoft swallows pill - Never shoot yourself in the foot when it's already in your mouth.(America Online Inc. released database of web searches )(Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Vista)(Cisco Systems Inc. PIX firewall)
August 14, 2006... So what are a few search terms between friends? A lot, as AOL found out after it blithely released a database of some 20 million Web searches last week. Although subscribers' names were replaced with numbers, the searches revealed addresses,...

FROM THE ANALYSTS: Does "built to last" apply to IT? Today's innovation influences tomorrow's products, but does Google have 100 years left in it?
August 14, 2006... Over the weekend, I bought an amazing antique chair: a fancy wooden office swivel chair in practically mint condition, including all its original cast-iron hardware. Although probably made between 1900 and 1915 (the patent date is 1897), it's...

STORAGE INSIDER: Feeling vulnerable at the security-storage crossroads - Where do you feel most vulnerable? According to a recent survey, the answer could very well be "in my wallet".
August 14, 2006... Sometimes you find some very surprising things in the results of a survey. Last week I was looking at a survey that Symantec conducted during a recent Black Hat convention. As expected, the survey was focused on security. I was hoping to...

ENTERPRISE WINDOWS: Cacti makes network monitoring less painful - Quick to set up and easy to use, it's a good first step toward keeping an eye on your network's health.
August 14, 2006... The world doesn't revolve around IT. Consultants like yours truly sometimes have a hard time grasping that concept, because our lives really do revolve around IT. So when I walk into a site where we helped build the network three years ago to...

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: Roam the Net naked - Let a virtual machine play host to guests and give your wild side its own computer.
August 14, 2006... For readers' convenience, I'd like to summarize the long list of present best practices in client-system security implemented by all InfoWorld readers. When you sit down at a client computer that's not hooked into a locked-down corporate...

STRATEGIC DEVELOPER: Why Microsoft should open XAML - Open standards are the key to leading the rich Internet applications market.(extensible application markup language)
August 14, 2006... Our marketing-driven and future-oriented IT industry doesn't like to remember its own history. It's surprisingly hard to recover the historical context of current events. Happily, though, there's one developer-oriented Microsoft online property...

REALITY CHECK: Telcos want toll booths on the Internet superhighway - Unable to compete on price, network providers look for new ways to gain a piece of the action.(IP Multimedia Subsystem)
August 14, 2006... Ladies and gentleman, buyers and sellers, content providers and users! Take a front row seat, because the final battle for the Internet is about to begin. On one side will be the telcos, both wireline and wireless, which will attempt to...

OFF THE RECORD: The case of the disappearing datacenter - You hired experts to ship your equipment to a new location. Any other brilliant ideas?(Personal account)
August 14, 2006... By Anonymous I manage a complex voice and data network: 15 servers hosting e- commerce Web sites, mail servers, FTP servers, database servers, remote access connections, internal VPNs. All the usual stuff. Last year, management decided...

OFF THE RECORD: IT contractors: Read your contracts! Take care before you sign up for that high-paying nonstaff gig. The devil is in the details.(Personal account)
August 14, 2006... By Anonymous My first IT job out of college was working for a cable TV outfit, where I was surprised to discover that virtually all development of new apps was routinely assigned to an outside consultancy. Full-time IT employees like me...

Can Viper put the bite on Oracle, SQL Server? Analysts are cautiously optimistic about the prospects for IBM's latest database.(International Business Machines Corp.'s DB2 9.1 )(Brief article)
August 14, 2006... According to Jeff Jones, IBM's director of data server strategy, the new DB2 is no ordinary upgrade. Five years in development, DB2 9.1 is one of the most significant releases in the product's history. "DB2 has evolved into what we're...

Fast letter-size printers feed the need for speed - Dell, Toshiba monochrome printers match up well; management, add-on extras make the difference.
August 14, 2006... Anyone working in today's imaginary "paperless" office surely recognizes that we still need to print -- and the faster the better. I recently reviewed three high-speed monochrome laser printers -- from HP, Lexmark, and Xerox -- all designed to...

Inside IBM DB2 Viper - A technological marvel, IBM's new XML-powered server aims to change the face of database storage.
August 14, 2006... The viper has struck. IBM's newly released DB2 9.1 (previously code-named "Viper") sheds many of the limitations of DB2 8, boosting performance, scalability, and security. But one feature in particular, the hybrid XML/relational engine,...

Sun whips its Sun Ray thin client into better shape - Sun Ray platform makes strides in Unix-based computing.
August 14, 2006... In its infancy, Sun's Sun Ray was a network-clobbering, sometimes stuttering example of what thin-client computing on Unix-like systems could be. Now it's much more stable and much, much thinner. The Sun Ray thin-client computing platform...

Adobe Flex 2.0 enriches the RIA development experience - Adobe adds a simpler UI, Web services connections, and plenty more.
August 14, 2006... Flash forward from my 2004 review of Macromedia Flex 1.5 -- a product plagued by limited, proprietary features, clumsy development opportunity, and a hefty price tag -- and you'll find a refreshed suite sporting more than just a new proprietor....

Racing to market with SOA - Zag, an Internet startup, adopted SOA mainly to meet a brutal launch date -- without the need to re-architect later.(Service oriented architecture )
August 14, 2006... Oded Noy had faced challenges before -- when he co-founded an application management startup, for instance, or when he participated in war game simulations for the Israeli Air Force. But this was unique: Create a scalable platform that would...

Oracle zeros in on SOA - A truckload of middleware products, including acquired technologies, are packaged together.(Oracle SOA Suite 10g Release 3)
August 14, 2006... Oracle will take its biggest plunge yet into SOA this month, with plans to unveil a developer's preview of Oracle SOA Suite 10g Release 3, which will wrap a conglomeration of Oracle Fusion middleware products into a single install for the...

Hackers beware: You are what you type - In an InfoWorld interview, computer forensics expert Dr. Neal Krawetz reveals how key taps and other clues can identify online bad guys.(Interview)
August 14, 2006... By InfoWorld staff As anyone who's ever held forth in a barroom debate can attest, strange topics attract strange people. And no one knows that better than Dr. Neal Krawetz, computer science Ph.D. and renowned expert in "nonclassical"...

Brocade/McData: Only fools rush in? Will the union of two SAN switch vendors yield a stronger alternative to Cisco or create customer confusion?(Brocade Communication Systems Inc.)(Brief article)
August 14, 2006... The expectation that rivals Brocade and McData would eventually beat their swords into plowshares to present a united front against Cisco's predations was already in the cards. Nonetheless, Brocade's pre-emptive bid last week to gobble up...

IBM continues spree with purchase of FileNet - Big Blue follows up recent acquisitions with enterprise content management play.
August 14, 2006... IBM last Thursday extended its run of major acquisitions, agreeing to buy business process and enterprise content management specialist FileNet for approximately $1.6 billion in cash. FileNet's technology will be integrated into IBM's...

AJAX e-mail and more - Zimbra launches Version 4.0 of its Collaboration Suite, reaching beyond whizzy AJAX-based e-mail to document creation and sharing.(Brief article)
August 14, 2006... A unique amalgam of Linux mail server and open source development platform, the Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) combines truly integrated e-mail, calendaring, and contacts with a mashup-friendly AJAX client and easy extensibility using...

Apple eyes the enterprise at WWDC - Jobs unveils an Intel-based rack server and offers a glimpse of the new Leopard version of OS X.
August 14, 2006... Apple's WorldWide Developers Conference (WWDC) is no Mac pep rally. It's a gathering of geeks ready for a deep dive into a pool of technologies. But WWDC also has a tradition of new product intros, and last week was no exception, with two major...

OPEN ENTERPRISE: Beware the blob - Intel's open source drivers keep proprietary code from creeping into the Linux kernel.
August 14, 2006... Last week's column on virtualization and the Linux kernel drew some flak from readers who didn't agree that VMware's VMI (Virtual Machine Interface) proposal offered a better approach than that of the open source Xen project. "Contrary to...

Retail: The ultimate distributed architecture - Low-tech IT, far-flung locations, and a patchwork of inventory requirements demand ingenious solutions, especially on a shoestring budget.
August 21, 2006... Technology in retail ranges from the wonders of the bleeding edge to a morass of home-brewed confusion. The first might be typified by Wal- Mart, which has shown the large-scale retail industry the future through a complex yet efficient use of...

Telecommunications: Grappling with M&A mania - How many plates can you spin? Try merging huge IT infrastructures with mishmashes of legacy systems while trying to beat the competition with new services.
August 21, 2006... The challenges telecommunications carriers face are not so different from those of their enterprise customers. They're just a lot bigger. And IT managers are meeting them by pursuing consolidation -- that is, reducing the number of systems and...

Enerjy CQ2 quantifies development project progress - CQ2 tracks development team trouble spots, productivity via metrics analysis.
August 21, 2006... With all the attention paid to the various ways of managing software development, one would think a product that quantifies and displays the progress of projects, teams, and individual developers would be a common tool. Alas, this is not...

Exclusive: Trend Micro packs a one-two security punch - IWSA 2500 keeps viruses and malware away from your systems.(InterScan Web Security Appliance 2500)
August 21, 2006... Protecting your network against viruses and malware requires a two- pronged approach: scan the incoming traffic for hidden viral surprises and keep users from accessing the sites that push problem files. Many of the Web sites that spawn trouble...

SonicWall combines automatic data archiving with off-site backup option - CDP 1440i offers choice between disk and data vault storage for application backups.
August 21, 2006... We all know that we should back up our priceless data, but we always seem to forget just how valuable that data is until the next crash or stolen laptop. Another sticking point is that although off-site storage has become the de facto standard...

Spammers jump on latest MS Hole - MS06-040 hole used to seed bot nets for spam.
August 21, 2006... Security companies were gearing up for war last week, after Microsoft released its August "Patch Tuesday" security fixes. And for all the hyperbole around one of those patches, MS06-040, it's a wonder we aren't all hunkered down, Terminator...

Virtualization in spotlight at LinuxWorld - IBM, HP, and Dell hop on virtualization wagon.(Brief article)
August 21, 2006... "Endless Love" may never sound the same after Stanford University law professor Lawrence Lessig entertained the crowd at this year's LinuxWorld 2006 in San Francisco with a mashup of the song in which President George W. Bush and British Prime...

Webify CEO talks SOA - InfoWorld takes a hard look at five industries and highlights innovative solutions to IT's toughest problems.
August 21, 2006... By InfoWorld staff SOA is a means to an end, namely recombinant enterprise applications strung together from component services. Anyway, that's the idea animating the rash of M&A activity in recent months, by companies such as IBM, which...

Dell recall causes enterprise headaches - Massive battery recall may take months to carry out.
August 21, 2006... Dell's flaming laptops have entered the realm of urban legend. Incendiary tales gained wider circulation last June, when an alert photographer snapped a photo of a Dell laptop bursting into flame at a conference in Osaka, Japan. Finally, when...

EDITOR'S LETTER: A big picture view of IT - Lessons learned in financial services, retail, telecommunications, health care, and government.(Editorial)
August 21, 2006... In the past year or so I've gotten an earful from IT managers. Not just the usual e-mail or voice mail, but up-close-and-personal rants at no fewer than six InfoWorld SOA Executive Forums. Listening to those concerns, not just about SOA but...

OPEN ENTERPRISE: Novell and Red Hat compete for the king penguin crown - Novell is reinventing itself to challenge complacent Red Hat's reign.
August 21, 2006... Enterprise Linux customers typically pick from two options. Although HP's decision to support Debian could widen the playing field, the choice really comes down to either Novell or Red Hat. It's worth comparing the two companies in terms of...

SECURITY ADVISER: Proactive incident response: Do it by the book - When you need to set best practices for security-event response, learn from Mandiant's example and its forensics expertise.
August 21, 2006... I was an EMS paramedic in a prior career. At age 19, I was starting IVs, delivering babies, shocking cardiac arrest victims, and using the "jaws of life." I saw and learned a lot. Strangely, I find upgrading Microsoft Exchange on a huge network...

NOTES FROM THE FIELD: Cert site takes a fall, Dell announces recall - You can't keep a good OS down -- or pull a bad one up.
August 21, 2006... That hissing sound coming from Cupertino is Steve Jobs' blood pressure hitting high boil. Not just from the options scandal that suddenly went from "insignificant" to "please stand by while we restate four years worth of earnings." I'm talking...

FROM THE ANALYSTS: Gartner's high-tech hype radar - Plus, IDC report puts open source at the center of innovation and savings.(Column)
August 21, 2006... Gartner, the 900-pound gorilla of IT research firms, has something to say about seemingly everything. With 1,200 analysts and 3,700 associates, Gartner pretty much covers the waterfront. But in sifting through its carefully qualified...

STORAGE INSIDER: Xiotech hones compliance focus - Fast tier storage with SSD drives and the Archive Management Service winks at new compliance customers.(solid state disk )
August 21, 2006... Xiotech probably isn't the first name that comes to mind when you think of storage vendors, but the company is the tenth-largest vendor of networked storage, according to IDC's statistics for 2005. Even so, those revenue numbers tell only part...

ENTERPRISE WINDOWS: Live Writer is no Word-killer - Online office apps are still too young to dethrone their desktop counterparts.
August 21, 2006... Microsoft's ugly Live Spaces rollout not only caused the company problems, it also preceded another round of Office-is-moving-to-the-Web pundit hee-hawing. And that was precipitated by the release of Windows Live Writer. You can download...

STRATEGIC DEVELOPER: XML for business reporting gains momentum - Slowly but surely, XBRL is winning converts among accountants, governments.
August 21, 2006... Two years ago I wrote an unflattering report on XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language), an emerging standard that aims to improve the speed, accuracy, and transparency of business and financial reporting. I applauded its goals, as we all...

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: Apple hears concerns over price - Apple's Mac Pro workstation headlines the company's push into the enterprise market.(Apple Computer Inc.)(Column)
August 21, 2006... Before I get to the news of the week, I need to wrap up some old business. As I had hoped, Apple opened its OS X x86 system-level code on the first day of its Worldwide Developers Conference. That's a courageous decision. It was accompanied by...

OFF THE RECORD: Getting a raw deal on a green card - Promises, promises. Meantime this IT pro's six-year H-1B window is closing fast.(Column)
August 21, 2006... By Anonymous I've been in the U.S. as an H-1B worker for almost six years now, and while I've managed plenty of successful projects, one job I've never managed to complete is landing a green card. I was trained as a business analyst....

Financial services: High pressure, high performance - In financial services, slight slowdowns in transaction volume can equal big losses. No wonder IT invests big in new technology -- while keeping regulatory wolves at bay.
August 21, 2006... When it comes to sheer IT "bling," financial services is never outshone. High margins, deep pockets, and intense competition in investment, banking, and insurance have pushed these companies to the edge of just about any technology there is....

Government: Unlocking data, locking down access - The federal government is on a mission to expose content from legacy systems in portals, but it also must meet stringent new access control regulations.
August 21, 2006... The federal government is often seen as a laggard in IT, a bloated bureaucracy that runs well behind the innovations of private industry. But look closely and you'll find programs that are truly groundbreaking. Take the AKO (Army Knowledge...

Health care: Doctors without desks - As doctors and nurses wander hospital campuses, they need anytime, anywhere access to confidential medical information.
August 21, 2006... No industry has as many mobile knowledge workers as health care. That poses real challenges to hospital IT departments trying to help improve patient treatment and maintain employee efficiency. As a latecomer to technology adoption, the health...

Lessons from the verticals - InfoWorld takes a hard look at five industries and highlights innovative solutions to IT's toughest problems.(Brief article)
August 21, 2006... Every industry presents unique challenges, where IT must marshal more than the usual chunk of resources to solve extreme headaches. That may mean walking out to the edge of grid computing to garner greater compute performance, or it may involve...

NOTES FROM THE FIELD: NSA takes the blame, Google protects its name - Dell gives chest-beating journalist his 15 minutes of flame.(National Security Agency)
August 28, 2006... When a flaming Dell Inspiron turned his Ford pickup into a Pop-Tart, Thomas Forqueran became an unlikely media celebrity. The 62-year-old was interviewed by MSNBC and The New York Times, among others -- but you read about him here first. He...

ENTERPRISE WINDOWS: Microsoft delivers stronger security and simpler patching - Redmond adds "advanced security" to its firewall and unfurls WSUS 3.0 Beta 2.
August 28, 2006... Microsoft's been up to several things in the past week or so. Not the least surprising was the company's invite to Mozilla developers to come up to Redmond and make sure that Firefox and Thunderbird run correctly on Vista. Microsoft also took...

STORAGE INSIDER: Seagate relegates Maxtor brand to the bargain bin - Two-product-line plan -- one for the high-end, one for the cost- conscious -- shares R&D and automated manufacturing.
August 28, 2006... Just about nine months after announcing its acquisition of Maxtor, Seagate is finally telling the world how the two combined companies plan to dominate the disk drive market. Before getting into the details, though, it helps to understand...

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: AMD's best is still to come - Plan B Xeon is entry- level server technology, and AMD has the better story.(Advanced Micro Devices Inc.)(Column)
August 28, 2006... A reader recently shot me a note saying that after studying some of my work related to Advanced Micro Devices, he has spotted a pattern: I always side with the underdog. This reader crystallized the prevalent viewpoint, one expressed by most of...

STRATEGIC DEVELOPER: Software sleuthing in the field - Software should make it easier for users to track down the source of bugs and errors.
August 28, 2006... While I was reading Ellen Ullman's novel The Bug last month, life imitated art. The protagonist in that story is a programmer who grapples with a fiendish bug. It strikes intermittently and, to add insult to injury, the testers can never manage...

OFF THE RECORD: In outsourcers we trust - When the company lawyer takes over tech support, something's seriously wrong.(Column)
August 28, 2006... By Anonymous I'm an attorney, but at every firm I've ever worked, I've always ended up as the unofficial IT guy. It's not that I don't have enough to do, but since I seem to know more about IT than many of the people who are paid to...

Waging war on the bottom line - Faced with new economic realities, the Department of Defense must rethink how it budgets for IT.
August 28, 2006... Delivering IT capabilities is one thing. Justifying your expenditures is something else -- particularly in the government sector. In the ongoing effort to modernize and consolidate U.S. Transportation Command's IT infrastructure, demonstrating...

Streamlining the ultimate supply chain - U.S. Transportation Command has launched a campaign to revitalize its IT with an ambitious SOA implementation.(service oriented architecture)
August 28, 2006... U.S. Transportation Command, the division of the Department of Defense responsible for worldwide air, land, and sea transportation for the U.S. armed services, manages the mother of all supply chains. It distributes materiel to every corner of...

Case Study: For General Motors, outsourcing is a way of life - The company has standardized work processes in every region of the world.
August 28, 2006... For some companies, outsourcing IT is not just a cost-cutting strategy, it's a way of life. Take General Motors, for example. GM has been contracting out its tech work since the company spun off its IT subsidiary, Electronic Data Systems, into...

Weaning yourself off service providers: A 12-step approach - Going in with an exit strategy and exploring alternatives can save money and promote self-sufficiency.
August 28, 2006... Hello, my name is Dan, and I'm a services addict. ("Hi, Dan"...) Your department is in a bad way. You must roll out a major enterprise app on a tight deadline and you don't have the bodies to pull it off. So you borrow some money from next...

Apama and StreamBase unearth meaning in disjointed data streams - Competing ESP solutions help you navigate rushing rivers of information.
August 28, 2006... In simpler times, early stream-monitoring apps took months to crank out and didn't easily scale for reuse outside their initial scope. Today two top-tier products, Progress Apama 2.4 from Progress Software and StreamBase 3.5 from StreamBase...

Quantum DLT tape drive challenges LTO - New DLT-S4 sports larger capacity, password protection features -- but performance may be the determining factor.(Linear Tape-Open)
August 28, 2006... A new tape model from Quantum comes out about every two years, and it arrived as expected early this year in the form of the DLT-S4. The first and most apparent novelty is its name: Quantum dropped the "super" from the unit's name and has...

RadRails IDE speeds Web app development - Open-source IDE incorporates Ruby on Rails command-line functions, automates testing.
August 28, 2006... A framework for developing Web applications, Ruby on Rails uses the object-oriented Ruby language and a model-view-controller pattern, which keeps the various chunks of functionality in the application separate while allowing them to work...