Friday, October 13, 2006

Intel to launch quad-core chips Nov. 13 ... After Google win, Belgian publishers pursue MSN

HIGHLIGHTS

News: Intel to launch quad-core chips on Nov. 13
News: After Google win, Belgian publishers pursue MSN
News: Microsoft says regulations won't delay Vista in Europe
News: Adobe plans to give more details of Apollo this month
Security Tip: Three things you must know about risk assessment
Opinion: Does work actually flow?
Podcast: Today's IT news audio update
ITwhirled: Geek comic of the week: Pixel


NEWS UPDATES

Intel to launch quad-core chips on Nov. 13
In a race with rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Intel Corp. will bring its quad-core chips to market in a new line of Hewlett-Packard Co. workstations due to be introduced on Nov. 13.

After Google win, Belgian publishers pursue MSN
Looking to avoid the kind of legal tangle that Google Inc. has found itself in, Microsoft Corp.'s MSN division in Belgium is in talks with a group newspaper publishers over the rights to publish their content on its Web site.

Microsoft says regulations won't delay Vista in Europe
Microsoft Corp. has agreed to make changes to its upcoming Windows Vista operating system to satisfy regulators in the European Union. Despite the changes, it will still deliver Vista on schedule, it said Friday.

Adobe plans to give more details of Apollo this month
Adobe Systems Inc. is planning to offer more details later this month on its Apollo project, designed to run rich Internet applications offline on PCs, its president said in an interview on Thursday.

Office Live to complement Office 2007 in SMBs
Office Live, a set of web-hosted services from Microsoft Corp., will play a key role in the delivery of collaboration functions to users of its Office 2007 suite in small businesses.

HP hires Ethics and Compliance Officer
Hewlett-Packard Co. is hiring a chief ethics and compliance officer to make sure its businesses practices, sullied by a boardroom spying scandal, remain on the straight and narrow.

Wall Street Beat: McAfee, YouTube point to trends
Google Inc.'s acquisition of YouTube Inc. and a shakeup at security vendor McAfee Inc. are giving IT investors something to mull over as they brace for the wave of technology-vendor financial reports due next week.

Oracle turns attention to applications management
Oracle Corp. is to broaden its Enterprise Manager 10g software to include comprehensive applications management. The vendor will make the new capabilities available with the upcoming release of three new management packs for three of its different enterprise applications families.


SECURITY TIP

Three things you must know about risk assessment
By Brent Huston, MicroSolved, Inc.

Risk assessments are in at the moment, but they're not for the meek or the ambitious. Politics and control sensitivities are abundant. That said, a good risk assessment should provide an organization with a road map for security issues that need immediate attention, interim goals and long-term security planning. Here are three key things to consider before undertaking a full assessment project.

Read the full article here:


OPINION

Does work actually flow?
By Sean McGrath

In businesses, things happen that cause employees to do stuff. This 'stuff' is called 'work'. Work generally does not start and end in an instant. Like everything else in life, it happens with respect to time. This stuff called work flows and therefore we naturally call the phenomenon workflow.

Read the full article here:


PODCAST

Daily IT News Audio Update
HP hires ethics officer ... DOJ begins antitrust investigation of SRAM market ... Google's Blogger service suffers outage

More podcasts


ITWHIRLED

Geek comic of the week: Pixel
Can humor be derived from the interaction between a two lonely pixels -- the basic unit from which all computer graphics are derived? Well, not really. But if you place those pixels in an odd but fully imagined world where pixels have spouses, babies, jobs, and trips to the beach or the movies, as 'Pixel' does, then you're in for a good time.

Thursday, October 12, 2006

European Parliament bucks patent agreement ... U.S. military to test IBM's translation in Iraq

HIGHLIGHTS

News: European Parliament wants changes to patent agreement
News: Siemens to keep but overhaul IT service unit
News: U.S. military to test IBM's translation in Iraq
News: Sony's new Walkman players pack noise cancelling
Opinion: Open Source Enterprise IM
Podcast: Today's IT news audio update
ITwhirled: When cell phone video messaging goes horribly awry


NEWS UPDATES

European Parliament wants changes to patent agreement
The European Parliament demanded several improvements to a proposal by the European Commission to sign up to an agreement on patent litigation in Europe, a spokesman said Thursday.

Siemens to keep but overhaul IT service unit
Although on a spree to unload unprofitable units, including its traditional telecommunications manufacturing business, Siemens AG has decided to keep -- but completely overhaul -- its money-losing IT services and software operations.

U.S. military to test IBM's translation in Iraq
The U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) will deploy IBM Corp.'s speech-to-speech translation software to help U.S. forces serving in Iraq better communicate with local security forces and Iraqi citizens.

Sony's new Walkman players pack noise cancelling
Sony Corp. is packing its new Walkman digital music players with noise cancelling and other audio enhancing technology in its latest attempt to challenge the dominance of Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod.

Microsoft: Vista-ready products to ship by holidays
At the Digital Life 2006 Conference in New York today, Microsoft announced that more than 250 hardware and software products have received either the "Certified for Windows Vista" or "Works with Windows Vista" logos, and will be available in time for the holiday shopping season in November and December.

IBM pitches System i for small business SAP
IBM Corp. raised the stakes in its competition with Dell Inc. for small-business users on Thursday by launching a System i server configured for customers with 100 seats or fewer of SAP AG's business management software.

Some integration issues linger at Sun StorageTek
Sun Microsystems Inc.'s acquisition of StorageTek will be finalized Oct. 17 when the price lists of the two technology companies become one. But some observers say integration issues remain for Sun StorageTek.

Nokia completes navigation software company buy
Nokia Corp. completed its acquisition of navigation software company Gate5 AG on Thursday, just a week after licensing hundreds of navigation patents from Trimble Navigation Ltd.

Exploit code hiding in cache servers
Malicious code is living on weeks after it has been removed from websites thanks to an unexpected culprit: cache servers.


OPINION

Open Source Enterprise IM
By James Gaskin

Corporate policies notwithstanding, some users in over 90 percent of all large companies still use public Instant Message clients when they shouldn't. AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and the new GoogleTalk tempt users to ignore corporate security rules, as if they needed more encouragement. Jive Software (.com) approached this problem from an interesting angle: free Open Source software for corporate IM use.


PODCAST

Daily IT News Audio Update
McAfee fires president, CEO resigns over backdating scandal ... Ericsson to test biofuel-powered mobile network in Nigeria ... ICANN refuses to shut down Spamhaus.org

More podcasts


ITWHIRLED

Cell phone video messaging goes horribly awry
Kim Admire sent pictures of her daughter's new braces from her camera cell phone to a number of her friends and family members, and they all got them without incident -- except her brother, who got hardcore pornography instead. Cingular, her mobile phone service provider, called the incident "bizarre and isolated."

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Stock options scandal rocks McAfee ... IBM adds enterprise blogging to Lotus Notes

HIGHLIGHTS

News: Stock options scandal leads to big changes at McAfee
News: IBM adds enterprise blogging to Lotus Notes
News: Ericsson trials biodiesel to power mobile networks
News: Oracle pays $98.5 million for PeopleSoft overcharging
Storage Tip: SAS makes its way into your storage future
Podcast: Today's IT news audio update
ITwhirled: IT worker "too busy" to serve as city council member


NEWS UPDATES

Stock options scandal leads to big changes at McAfee
A major, executive shake-up is under way at security software vendor McAfee Inc., including the firing of the company's president in the wake of a stock-options investigation.

IBM adds enterprise blogging to Lotus Notes
IBM Corp. has added enterprise blogging capability to its venerable Lotus Notes/Domino e-mail and collaboration software in an incremental update available now.

Ericsson trials biodiesel to power mobile networks
Ericsson, the GSM Association (GSMA) and telecommunications operator The MTN Group are experimenting with using biodiesel to power mobile network equipment in Nigeria. The organizations are setting up a supply chain that includes buying locally-produced crops and processing them into biofuel to be used in the project. The fuel will be made from groundnuts, pumpkin seeds and palm oil and will replace diesel which is commonly used to power mobile base stations in remote areas where electricity isn't available.

Oracle pays $98.5 million for PeopleSoft overcharging
Oracle Corp. will pay the U.S. government $98.5 million to compensate for allegations that PeopleSoft, the software company Oracle acquired last year, overcharged government customers for years.

Coghead to engage more users in Web app development
Startup Coghead Inc. is opening up the beta version of its hosted Web development environment to technically savvy users in small to midsized businesses (SMBs) who are keen to create their own applications.

Sun strengthens storage partnerships
Sun Microsystems Inc. is strengthening ties to its top 10 industry partners in a new program being presented to customers Wednesday at a Las Vegas conference. The Sun StorageTek Ready program includes makers of networking equipment, software, disk drives and other technology that works with Sun storage technology.

Networking problems gum up Microsoft security patches
Networking problems have kept Microsoft Corp. from distributing its latest security patches to users of its automatic update services. The updates, released at about 11 a.m. Pacific time on Tuesday, fix a whopping 26 vulnerabilities in Windows, Office and the .Net framework. Many of these flaws are considered critical, but as of 2 p.m. they were still unavailable via many of Microsoft's most popular update services.

HP snoops plead not guilty in pretexting case
The three private investigators charged in Hewlett-Packard Co.'s spying scandal were arraigned Tuesday in Santa Clara County Superior Court in California. All were released without bail after entering not guilty pleas.


STORAGE TIP

SAS makes its way into your storage future
By David Hill, Mesabi Group

What seems to be the problem? At the high end of disk storage requirements, the use of Fibre Channel (FC) disk drives has been commonplace in a storage area network (SAN). However, the use of FC may not be cost effective for some requirements, especially for smaller configurations. At the low end of the disk storage requirements spectrum, the use of small computer system interface (SCSI) drives has had a long and proud history for direct-attached storage (DAS), but SCSI has not been able to keep up with the flexibility and manageability that is needed even for smaller storage configurations. Thus, a need exists for a storage approach that meets the need for both mid-size SANs and for DAS configurations. Serial SCSI (SAS) offers a storage approach to meet those needs.


PODCAST

Daily IT News Audio Update
McAfee stock options scandal claims president, CEO ... Adobe buys Actimage for mobile video ... HP detectives plead not guilty

More podcasts


ITWHIRLED

IT worker "too busy" to serve as city council member
Paul Herold thought that being a member of the Blaine, Minnesota city council would be a pretty good gig, so he decided to run -- until he got a new job that left him too busy to serve his potential constituents well. Unfortunately, despite his pleas, he won the primary election anyway. Now, to avoid the city having to pay $30,000 to hold a special election after his resignation, he is urging voters to choose his opponent come November.

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Microsoft denies BayStar connection ... Toshiba ties with LG.Philips for LCD panels

HIGHLIGHTS

News: Microsoft denies BayStar connection
News: Toshiba ties with LG.Philips for LCD panels
News: Google to buy YouTube in $1.65 billion stock deal
News: IBM will run Power6 server chip at 5.0GHz
Analysis: HP's e-mail tracer in widespread use
Windows Tip: Smart cards and duct tape
Podcast: Today's IT news audio update
ITwhirled: The 10 coolest things seen on Google Earth


NEWS UPDATES

Microsoft denies BayStar connection
Microsoft Corp. has denied allegations that it offered to guarantee an investment made in The SCO Group Inc., a software company embroiled in a long-standing intellectual property dispute with IBM Corp.

Toshiba ties with LG.Philips for LCD panels
Toshiba Corp. is planning to buy a one fifth stake LG.Philips LCD Co. Ltd.'s Polish subsidiary in order to ensure a steady supply of LCD (liquid crystal display) panels for European televisions, it said Tuesday.

Google to buy YouTube in $1.65 billion stock deal
Google Inc. has laid speculation to rest -- it is buying YouTube Inc. for $1.65 billion in a stock transaction.

IBM will run Power6 server chip at 5.0GHz
IBM Corp. plans to crank up the speed on its Power6 server chip to 5.0GHz, far higher than competing processors from Intel Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc.

U.S. court threatens Spamhaus with shut down
A U.S. court has threatened to shut down the Spamhaus Project Ltd., a volunteer-run antispam service, for ignoring a $11.7 million judgement against it.


ANALYSIS

HP's e-mail tracer in widespread use
By Stephen Lawson

The tracer software that Hewlett-Packard Co. investigators used to try to sniff out boardroom leaks sounded like it had been ripped from the pages of a bad science-fiction novel. That is, until the company began talking about it in detail at a congressional probe into the spying scandal.

The technology tool the company used, called a Web bug, is designed to allow e-mail senders to track the path a message takes, including whether a recipient opens the message and forwards it to another party. And it turns out the technology is widely used in e-mail newsletters to track readers and also by law enforcement in investigations, security experts say.

Read the full article here


WINDOWS TIP

Smart cards and duct tape
By Mitch Tulloch, MTIT Enterprises

Although troubleshooting system and network problems are usually work, not fun, I had a good laugh at myself recently over one situation that initially left me stumped.

To gain remote access to a secure corporate network, I had to install a smart card reader on a machine so I could authenticate using the smart card the company issued me. The smart card reader was a USB type, and when I plugged it into the system Windows XP recognized the reader and installed drivers for it. Unfortunately the smart card reader I obtained didn't include a stand accessory, so rather than having it sitting on the desk I decided to use duct tape to fix the reader to the side of the PC beneath the desk. After all, Canadians like myself can use duct tape for almost anything, eh?

Read the full article here


PODCAST

Daily IT News Audio Update
Google buys YouTube for $1.65 billion .. Former Novell CEO Noorda dies ... Google and YouTube sign video deals with music studios

More podcasts


ITWHIRLED

She's a 10
Coolest things seen on Google Earth ... Top 10 Swedish metal bands ... Top 10 scenic drives in the U.S. ... Science's best and brightest: The 'brilliant 10' ... 10 Significant all-new 2007 cars

Monday, October 09, 2006

BayStar exec says Microsoft 'guaranteed' SCO investment ... HP's Dunn, Fiorina blame Perkins for downfall

HIGHLIGHTS

News: BayStar exec says Microsoft 'guaranteed' SCO investment
News: Oracle buys data integration company Sunopsis
News: HP's Dunn, Fiorina blame Perkins for downfall
News: Microsoft revokes MVP status of adware distributor
Opinion: Web Application Security Audits
Podcast: Today's IT news audio update
ITwhirled: Experts: Future to be riddled with sci-fi cliches


NEWS UPDATES

BayStar exec says Microsoft 'guaranteed' SCO investment
The long-running Linux patent dispute between The SCO Group Inc. and IBM Corp. took another twist last week when IBM filed court documents that suggest Microsoft Corp. agreed to back up BayStar Capital's investment in SCO.

Oracle buys data integration company Sunopsis
Oracle Corp. has acquired French data integration software company Sunopsis SA for an undisclosed sum, the companies announced on Monday.

HP's Dunn, Fiorina blame Perkins for downfall
Former Hewlett-Packard Co. chairmen Patricia Dunn and Carly Fiorina each cited board member Thomas Perkins as an instigator behind their ousters from the technology company, according to interviews the two gave on a U.S. TV news program Sunday night.

Microsoft revokes MVP status of adware distributor
One week after it named the creator of a Windows Messenger add-on to its list of Most Valued Professionals (MVPs), Microsoft Corp. has revoked the award after critics pointed out that the program is used to distribute adware.

Salesforce.com opens up development tools to customers
In hopes of creating a third major revenue-generating business, Salesforce.com Inc. plans to make its Apex programming language and development platform available to users of its on-demand applications.


OPINION

Web Application Security Audits
By James Gaskin

There are four Web vulnerability tool companies, and one, Acunetix(.com) now offers a free audit through a download on their Web site.Through this service, they have gathered plenty of information about the state of Web development security even though they've been a commercial product for less than a year.


PODCAST

Daily IT News Audio Update
Google in talks to buy YouTube ... Microsoft releases final Vista beta ... Google inadvertently lends a hand to hackers


ITWHIRLED

Experts: Future to be riddled with sci-fi cliches
Killer robots and evil artificial intelligences? A huge portion of the population so involved in virtual reality that they ignore real life? According to an array of tech visionaries, these scenarios and others that every studio in Hollywood would reject as too hackneyed lie in wait for us ... in the MYSTERIOUS FUTURE!