Opinion

InfoWorld Test Center Guide: Content management systems

Before you invest in a CMS, be it a high-end corporate solution or an open source alternative, learn which features are important

Microsoft will prevail in the face of “freetards”

An aspect of the open source software nirvana has been the end of Microsoft's dominance. Well, anyone who sees Linux, OpenOffice or another OSS project/product as the death nail in Microsoft's coffin is not living in reality. It pains me to

Exchangepedia Blog Author calls “Save XP Campaign” Childish!

The anger has been boiling over between the two camps. Is it Apple vs. Microsoft again? Nope. Microsoft vs. Microsoft (with some Mac/Linux lovers tossed in for good measure). The subject is XP vs. Vista and it has been a long and ugly debate between

Theoretically Repairable TVs Are Just Junk

<P>We've heard <a href="http://www.gripe2ed.com/scoop/story/2008/1/15/1147/75482">quite a few arguments here</A> on both sides of the question on whether getting an extended warranty for your flat panel TV is a good i

L-1 visas are being misused says immigration attorney

With the death of the Immigration Reform bill last year, the possibility of an increase in the cap for H-1B visas also died. However, necessity being the mother of invention, companies are turning to another part of the alphabet, the L-1 visa, as a w

SOA Spending Up, So Where is the Value?

Saw this post by Galen Gruman. "The number of companies investing in service-oriented architecture (SOA) has doubled over the past year in every part of the world, with a typical annual spend of nearly $1.4 million, according to a new research r

Putting SOA Governance in its Place

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SapphireSteel backs IronRuby in alpha release

SapphireSteel Software has released a public alpha version of the IronRuby edition of its Ruby in Steel developer tool for Visual Studio. IronRuby is a .Net version of the Ruby programming language. The alpha release is accessible here. Included in t

Can Ballmer pilot Microsoft through a changed tech course?

Under pressure from Wall Street, European regulators, users, and a host of nimble competitors, Microsoft's brain trust is trying hard to steer a new course. It won't be easy. Microsoft faces pressure, threats from all sides A decade after t

MacBook Air vs. ThinkPad X300: Which is greener?

Imagine, if you will, that you're a sustainability-minded individual charged with procuring eco-friendly PCs for your company's workforce. You hop on over to the EPEAT (Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool) Web site, where you c

Change Detection

EU fines Microsoft $1.3 billion

Following on last week's announcement from Microsoft to be more interoperable and open, the EU has now fined Microsoft a cool $1.3 billion for failing to comply with a 2004 ruling. This brings the total fines the EU has levied on Microsoft to ar

An old Visual Studio problem rears its ugly head

I encountered a Visual Studio 2008 bug this morning that had me baffled. The short summary is that, in a C++ source file with multiple #ifdef blocks, only the first block was properly displaying in gray for the deliberately undefined symbol. Subseque

Test Center Tracker: Exploring the unknown in Google and Microsoft

My selection for this Test Center Tracker brings together two unlikely bedfellows, two vendors that coming from completely different starts entered a collision course that neither of them, nor many of us, would have predicted only a few years ago. Is

Watch your privates; readers talk back

Here in Cringeville I've spent a lot of time lately nattering on about privacy, warrantless spying, unprovoked searches of personal electronics, and whether that IP address you're using to read this blog belongs to you, your ISP, Uncle Sam

You must move to Windows Server 2008

The place: Continental Airlines secondary hub site in Newark, N.J. Location: Something of a basement with wires coming down from the above check-in terminals. The problem: Change. On my left were a bunch of yellow, 386 systems with 5.5-inch floppy dr

Microsoft opens up, just a little

What's Microsoft's open source interoperability initiative? It's about lawyers I'd like to see the specifics of Microsoft's new open source interoperability initiative, but the link to the FAQ (frequently asked questions) tak

One more shot on CMMI

A comment in response to a comment in response to my recent KJR and Advice Line discussing Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI):Stephen wrote:"The problem is that "one size fits all" can easily turn into "one size fits non

A Green Network

If you're not convinced that the choices made by businesses can make a difference in financial and environmental results, you should be checking out Ted Samson's Sustainable IT blog on a regular basis. This week, he's taken a look at D

Is OpenLogic the future of the OSS support business?

Many of you know that OpenLogic offers consolidated technical support, updates and indemnification for hundreds of open source projects. Earlier this year, OSS luminaries such as Shaun (of JBoss fame) and Rod (of SpringSource fame) questioned whether

Test Center Tracker: How to Vista

Snow is falling, wind is howling, and the Sunshine State is dark. Sounds like a great day to contemplate your Vista migration path. In this Test Center Tracker, we look at how to plan your Vista move, one way to avoid network chaos, and little green

Why grapefruit still suck

You know you've arrived as a journalist when your contemporaries start using your material as inspiration. This week, it's Ed Bott — ZDNet's &quot;Microsoft Report&quot; blogger — who's taken a cue from the master. In hi

Integrating MySQL with Sun

We've now officially closed MySQL's acquisition by Sun this morning and I thought I'd make a few observations about the process. I've been through several acquisitions over the years, both on the acquiring and the acquired side, a

Clinton, McCain and Obama on H-1B visas

With the deadline for H-1B visa applications fast approaching — April 1, 2008 for 2009 work permits — you would think one of the three major presidential candidates would be talking about this issue. And, frankly with 19 debates for the Democrats a

More on SOA Governance and Architecture

Bob Rhubart's had some interesting follow-up to my last post. "I agree with David's assessment that the strategy of building services and then layering in SOA governance technology is unwise. The first problem with that strategy is tha

Readers: Keep your pants on!

Last week's Off the Record showcased a junior IT guy caught in a tough situation. Readers sounded off with their own advice. On the one hand, there's your pride; on the other, your job — and your trousers. Last week's Off the Record t

The looming battle over wireless broadband

The war over which standard will become the dominant architecture for broadband wireless infrastructure seems to have ended — but now there's a new fight. Whether it becomes a mere skirmish and is squelched quickly or it becomes an all-out conf

Leaving Windows 9x behind to move forward

Last August I wrote about maintaining backward compatibility to versions of Windows from 15 years ago while supporting new features of Windows Vista. Several of you had trouble believing I would continue to go to all that trouble. I have finally give

D-Link expands family of green switches for SMBs

The world of networking gear isn't immune to the sustainability benefits of energy-efficient, eco-friendly features. Vendor D-Link is spotlighting that point with the expansion of its family of Green Ethernet switches aimed at SMBs. Now availabl

Migrating between processor types? And then, oh by the way, what is lguest?

For those of us who have tried to migrate virtual machines between physical hosts with AMD processors and Intel processors, we are well aware of the problems and limitations found in this scenario. But some people are just starting out in this virtua

Thoughts on a 4×10 schedule

Dear Bob …How do you feel about compressed work weeks? As an employee I love working 4x10s. But as an IT manager it's a real headache. I work as an IT supervisor for a large, 24×7 service organization. Its staff work compressed work weeks, 4×1

Mobile operators finding green alternatives to power remote stations

Stymied by the high costs and complexities of transporting diesel to remote cellular base stations, mobile carriers are turning to alternative energy, according to a recent BusinessWeek article. Demand is high for mobile service in parts Africa and I

Katmai’s Cool DBA Feature

OK, I said I would be looking for a DBA-specific feature, and it looks like I found one. I knew about this before, it just didn't come to mind the other day when I was writing the other blog. Katmai has this cool feature where you can run code a

Test Center Tracker: Windows Server 2008 a “must-upgrade” OS

Server 2008: the host with the most: InfoWorld Chief Technologist Tom Yager isn't all about Mac, as evidenced by his fresh new review of Windows Server 2008. Microsoft has made great strides with the latest version of the OS, including the addit

It may be Google’s data, but it’s you they’re gonna arrest

Sergey Brin has weighed in on the whole MicroHoo fandango, and not surprisingly he's agin' it. At Google's Lunar X prize announcement last week, Brin told the Associated Press: The Internet has evolved from open standards, having a div

Microsoft’s SMB Strategy

Microsoft has firmed up some of the details of its upcoming SMB operating system release. The IDG's Elizabeth Montalbano reported on the details in a story at InfoWorld last weeek. To some extent, there are no surprises in here — it's all

Secrets of Windows Server 2008

Longhorn's features may seem to be old news, but our expert reveals what you need to know now that it's shipping

Oh, No — It’s Comcastic

<P>Can a vendor with a monopoly on providing one type of service to you cripple it if you refuse to buy other services from them as well? That's what many readers suspect Comcast of doing, and not just because of the recent revelations abo

A long, long look at Windows Server 2008

The beast known as Longhorn began its slow migration from concept to reality in 2003. Back then, the whispered details of a new Windows file system, protocol stack, and presentation layer bred endless speculation and excitement. As the years wore…

Microsoft faces class-action lawsuit for touting “junk” PCs as “Vista-capable”

Microsoft's attempt to give Vista's popularity a shot in the arm back in 2006 appears to have resulted in a shot in the foot. As of last Friday, a class-action lawsuit against the company is moving forward, according to The Associated Press

Vizioncore offers 10 tips for P2V migrations

When people finally climb aboard the virtualization train and go down the road of server consolidation, one of the first questions they have is, "How do I move my existing servers into a virtual machine format?" And that really can be an an

VMware’s performance team releases two new papers

One of the claims to fame of VMware's virtualization products have been their ability to perform very well over the last few years – creating a benchmark, in my mind, for others to reach and achieve with their own platforms. Performance has been

Too Much Focus on SOA Governance…Not Enough on Architecture

Joe McKendrick highlights a survey completed by Bob Rhubart, in his most recent blog. Bob Rhubart published the results of an informal poll that shows that most IT managers and technologists know that governance is critical for SOA, however don'

Is VMsafe VMware’s answer to security concerns?

According to a recent report put out by the Reuters news agency, VMware has formed partnerships with some of the world's biggest security software makers, namely Symantec Corp, McAfee Inc, the Internet Security Systems division of International

Comparing Windows versions: apples to oranges to grapefruit

One of the arguments I hear in defense of Windows Vista's bloated footprint is that it's simply a repeat of the situation faced by users when Windows XP first shipped. Back then, the logic goes, users were complaining about Windows XP'

Models, methodologies, menus and recipies

Dear Bob …In this week's Keep the Joint Running, "Capability Maturity Model revisited," (2/18/2008), I think the most thought-provoking point of the whole interview was the statement that "CMMI is a model, not a standard."

Sun xVM Ops Center 1.0 released but lacks virtualization support

Sun Microsystems announced the general availability of Sun xVM Ops Center 1.0, the company's heterogeneous systems management tool. The management tool will become a key component of Sun xVM software, the company's open virtualization and m

VMware issues security updates and fixes for VI3

On February 20th, VMware issued a number of security updates and product fixes for their VMware ESX Server product. ESX Server 3.0.2, Patch ESX-1003359: Security Update to the Samba Package: This patch provides updates to the Samba package distribute

5 cool — and helpful — companies

As a journalist, I run across a variety of opinions and ideas. People say "Try This!!!" or "Use Our Product!" and it is hard to know everything and work with everything. There are times when companies bend over backward to get the

EPA grapples with Energy Star server spec

Are the servers in your datacenter energy-efficient? Well, that rather depends on what your definition of "server" is. Bill Clintonesque as that may sound, it reflects one of the many conundrums the EPA faces as it attempts to hammer out En