The value of informed opinion

When I talk to people about what makes InfoWorld different, I always come back to two things: our unique set of bloggers and our in-depth reviews. The two overlap, since many of our most experienced reviewers also blog regularly.

This week I’d like to welcome a new blogger to the InfoWorld fold: Amber Bouman, whose new blog, Mobile Pulse, has already attracted notice. Amber wrote PC World’s On Your Side consumer advocacy column for four years; she also hosts PC World’s online How To Buy video series. Her first post, 101 uses for an iPhone, reflects the fact that she’s an iPhone owner (something she would like you not to hold against her).

As it turns out, mobile is the favorite topic of the week. Tom Yager, InfoWorld Chief Technologist, asks: When in trouble, can your phone find you? His post separates hype from regarding mobile devices’ usefulness in getting emergency personnel to people who need help.

In his blog this week, Editor at Large Ephraim Schwartz also tackles mobile with a salient question: No such thing as mobile security? Ephraim cites a report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies that suggests many mobile security measures are all for naught.

Speaking of seucity, check out this week’s post from Roger Grimes, in which he addresses the ongoing problems associated with patches. Even more interesting for tech aficionados is his call to save Bletchy Park, one of the world’s great historical centers of cryptography and code breaking.

You may have noticed we’ve run our share of gift guides, including Executive Editor Galen Gruman’s Geek gadget gift guide and contributor Dave Margulius’ Vintage geek gift guide. This week blogger and Senior Analyst Ted Samson adds his two cents with his Green gift guide for geeks, a treat for the ecologically inclined.

Another item highly rated by our readers: Accountability? Check. Authority? Not so much, a post to our Off the Record blog by an anonymous reader about one of the worst job situations possible. We encourage you to send in your own tales of woe or triumph to offtherecord@infoworld.com.

Finally, the Test Center has been busy this week: Enterprise Desktop blogger Randall Kennedy installed Vista SP2 and found — surprise! — that it delivered a measurable performance boost and a nice set of tweaks. And Deep End blogger Paul Venezia did a deep dive into Red Hat’s Fedora 10, concluding that it “puts all the right tools in all the right places” even if it’s not a major leap beyonf Fedora 9. Whether blogging or reviewing, you can trust InfoWorld’s bona fide techies to lay it on the line.