Opinion

SOA needs Data. Data needs SOA. Now Repeat.

If you've been following me, you know I'm all about the data when considering SOA. Services are indeed important, however the understanding, management, and use of data is something that needs to be the foundation of your SOA, as with any a

Survey Says, SOA Good…But not how it’s done

As I mentioned a few times here, the PR folks have figured out that when presented with a survey, versus a press release, the analysts and press seem more likely to write about it. I have to admit I've been hooked in a few times considering the

Microsoft reinvents itself again

Live Search update plus recent acquisitions could turn Wall Street into MSFT believers once again The digerati would have you believe Microsoft is a muscle-bound, Web -1.0 stumble bum. But if you needed more proof of how wrong they are, check out las

Storage grows greener

Servers tend to take center stage in green datacenter discussions, and for good reason. Those data-crunchin', app-runnin' machines are currently the most notorious power hogs in the datacenter joint. But storage hardware is rapidly catching

Don’t manage IT like the Titanic

Put engineers in the driver's seat, and don't let nontechnical product managers get in the way

Security Vulnerability Found in Xen Virtualization Software

Last week, a security vulnerability was reported in the open source Xen hypervisor. Secunia released an advisory that stated that there was a vulnerability found in Xen that could be exploited by malicious users that have root privileges. These root

Track Comments Across the Web?

Wouldn't it be cool if there was a way to track comments across blogs and discussion sites such as slashdot or TSS? Maybe this capability exists, and if so, PLEASE enlighten me. If not, I am happy to take credit for the idea that someone will im

A patent trolling dream–Microsoft lets you look but not touch .NET libraries

Microsoft is releasing its .Net Framework libraries under the Microsoft Reference License, which allows viewing of source code but not modification or redistribution. Despite my chronic proclamations of conspiracy theories, this whole thing seems lik

Report: More utilities to dangle incentives for going green

There are plenty of enticing green technologies out there that can reduce energy bills, such as virtualization, MAID, or solar panels. While the potential long-term savings are evident, the upfront costs can be offputting for businesses and individua

Product Management

When I joined MySQL four years ago, there was quite a lot of debate about product management. We didn't actually have any product managers and the view in Engineering was "we don't need 'em." The rationale was that we were so

Off-topic: The quest for Perfect Pizza

The SF Chronicle is in search of the perfect pizza and interviewed one of buddies, Anthony Mangieri, owner of Una Pizza Napoletana in NYC, whose pizza would be my choice for last meal prior to Electric Chair (though I am hoping that's not my wa

Can Microsoft Manage IT?

Microsoft has been edging its partners and third-party developers toward the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model for some time. But now, what amounts to a simple rebranding of the company's existing on-demand software offerings may end up pulling

OSS Venture Capital and M&A

Many of you may have heard that Matthew Aslett is over at The 451 Group now. Matthew has been tracking VC funding to OSS vendors for quite some time now. Matthew reports that VC funding to OSS vendors in 3Q07 decreased 42% to $78M from $133M in 3Q06.

More thoughts on terror and bombs

It's been about six months since the "Notes From the Field" column morphed into the Cringely Blog, and in that time I've learned at least one thing: If you want to stir up a hornet's nest, blog about topics like evolution and

Test Center Tracker: The future of digital media and math tricks

The future of digital media and math tricks Looking back from year 2107 – In this week "Ahead of the Curve" Tom Yager pauses to imagine what our legacy of digital images will look like 100 years from now, and what he sees is not a pretty si

Preview: Websense Content Protection Suite brings Web smarts to DLP

Websense acquired PortAuthority Technologies in late 2006 shortly after I reviewed PortAuthority 5.0. Renamed Websense Content Protection Suite, version 6 blends in some Websense technologies along with enhancements that PortAuthority already had in

Digital living means digital junk

The archives of Web-friendly JPEGs and stream-of-consciousness blogs won't make history Nikon stopped making film cameras. This hit me right where I live because, in a life prior to my stint at InfoWorld, I was a photographer. I had my own darkr

Vizioncore’s vRanger Pro 3.2 – From Backup to P2V

Vizioncore has released an updated version of its industry recognized backup and restore solution – vRanger Pro 3.2, an agent-less backup tool that can provide a consistent backup of running VMs. The product is now enabled with a VSS driver which all

Off-Topic: Pick a number from 0-99

There are 50 people in a room. Each is asked to pick a number from 0 to 99. The winning number will be calculated by taking two-thirds of the average of the numbers picked by the 50 people. What number would you pick in order to win? Scroll down. Scr

A Quick Look at SWsoft/Parallels and Attune Systems

SWsoft is expected to unleash new products to market within the next month or two. SWsoft and Parallels are moving at an extremely fast rate right now, and are definitely a virtualization company to keep an eye on. And after discussing Operating Syst

Java development to be easier

Interface21, builders of the Spring Framework, are partnering with Tasktop Technologies, builders of Eclipse Mylyn, to develop Spring Tool Suite, with the goal of reducing complexity in Java development and maintenance. Mylyn is an open source, task-

From Internet ‘Traffic’ to Open-Source ‘Community’

Gary Little from Morgenthaler has an insightful post titled From Internet 'Traffic' to Open-Source 'Community' on the subtleties between traditional, OSS, and consumer marketing. Both consumer Internet and open-source companies de

“XPort on a Chip”

One of the many vendor briefings that I had to reschedule when I became ill during ESC was one with Lantronix. I finally had the briefing by telephone and WebEx the week after the show. Back when I was building embedded systems twenty-odd years ago,

SOA testing tools advance

Mindreef and iTKO are making separate moves Tuesday in the SOA testing space. Mindreef has integrated its SOAPscope Server SOA and Web services testing software with HP Quality Center, a centralized platform for managing processes and automating soft

Test Center Tracker: Silverlight Shines

It's a great day in the Test Center, with a review on a top web app development system, and looks at sustainable reading and hacker tools. Coding by Silverlight: The race is on for web-application development framework, with Ajax, Flash, Curl, R

Preview: Reconnex 7 takes a smarter view of insider data leaks

Picking a data leak prevention (DLP) solution used to be fairly easy — it all depended on what you needed to protect. One solution might best handle data in motion (such as e-mail), while another used agents to sniff out sensitive data in use on des

Who’s Killing SOA?

Download file…

Night-shift horror a screamer

Virtually unsupervised, the "new guy" got a thorough initiation when faced with a night-shift full of spun-down drives Back in the glory days of mainframe computing, the University I worked at had an IBM timeshare machine. Connected to it w

GPLv3 adoption rates: Do they matter?

Since its release this June, GPLv3 certainly seems to have taken on the role of baby Damien within the open source licensing world. Sure, it's cute and cuddly at first glance, but behind its deep blue eyes lurk pure and unhinged evil … at leas

DEMOfall: The good, bad, ugly

A look back at the good, the bad and the ugly from the premier launchpad event I'm just back from DEMOfall, the semi-annual conference that gives startup companies a chance to unveil new technology before an audience of venture capitalists and e

Amazon Makes You Lie to Log Off

<P>Are e-commerce websites making it harder and harder for users to log off? That's certainly a trend one reader has seen evidence of, including confirmation from Amazon that the best way to sign out from your account is to lie to them abo

Do you know what you have?

It’s Not me this time!

OK, again with the backup wars… for those of you who have followed me for a long time you'll remember a few yrs ago I did a piece on Idera vs. Imceda. And this was for backup products, right… so SQLSafe vs. LiteSpeed. And IF you remember bac

Involuntarily irreplaceable

Dear Bob …When I hear the broad statement: "If an employee is irreplaceable you should immediately fire that employee," (as cited in your recent article, "The causes of greatness," Keep the Joint Running, 9/10/2007) it hits a so

Off topic: My robot only speaks French

I decided today that I would buy the Roomba so as to not have to look at the dog hair all over our floor. I picked one up at the local Bed, Bath and Beyond was totally thrilled and then got home opened the sucker up and all of the documentation is in

Microsoft SoftGrid PM Hints at Future

Recently, I stumbled across a gem of a post by Chad Jones, Product Manager for SoftGrid at Microsoft. In it he touches on a number of topics related to the future of SoftGrid, what to expect from the next version and also how the technology will even

Apple smacks hackers, hackers attack back

So last week Apple Inc. released its expected iPhone re-locker, a bit of firmware that turned previously hacked open iPhones into expensive pocket-sized bricks. Take that, you anti-corporate scamps. It took the unauthorized Apple development communit

XP = Xtended Play

Microsoft has confirmed that Windows XP's shelf-life has been extended, and the operating system will be available for sale another six months past the operating system's original expiration date. Now, you'll be able to get a system wi

What Were They Thinking?

As the magazine business is getting disrupted by the web, I've seen countless good magazines fall by the wayside. Intelligent Enterprise, Infoworld, Guitar One (!) and now Business 2.0. One of my favorite columns in Biz 2.0 was by Jeffrey Pfeffe

How to think like an online con artist

An enterprise is only as secure as the weakest human link. Here's how to use social engineering to test security defenses

Hackers want to hypnotize you

Social engineering tricks of the pros, plus unintentional religion in the workplace

Exclusive preview: Xyratex goes modular

Xyratex goes modular If many new storage arrays look surprisingly similar to you, don’t jump to the hasty conclusion that vendors are copying from each other. Quite possibly the reason is that many new units are based on SBB (Storage Bridge Bay

Reading assignment: Kiplinger’s “Green Issue”

Amid the fitness, fashion, and celebrity mags on display on a magazine rack in the Newark airport, a flash of green caught my eye. No, Britney Spears hasn't dyed her hair emerald; rather, it was the October issue of Kiplinger's personal fin

Wall Street to iPhone critics: So What?

There’s been a lot of negative stuff about Apple and the iPhone, lately, including here at InfoWorld. Some of the rotten tomatoes tossed at the company and its newest gadget were well aimed. After all, it’s not very cool to keep your user

Burgled

My second daughter's off-campus apartment in Rochester was burgled during the day last week, at a time when she and her roommates were all at school. The burglar or burglars broke a window and stole their laptops and other visible electronics. T

Getting employees to take responsibility

Dear Bob …I started in a new position 6 months ago. From my experience so far, I have concluded that the people in the whole organization either don't want or don't know how to be managed. (I hope it's not me, but then again, if I wa

Virtual Iron and Intel FlexPriority Show Huge Virtualization Performance Gains

With the introduction of Intel's new Quad-Core Xeon Processor 7300 series chips came a new technology from the company called Intel VT FlexPriority. It was designed to accelerate virtualization interrupt handling and thereby improve virtualizati

The fight against spam

Recent VC Commentary on Open Source

It seems like a bit of the fluttering around VCs funding OSS companies had died down. But just because there is less funding going on doesn't mean that OSS isn't still growing or that VCs aren't interested. Two of the MuleSource invest

Selling your soul is clearly worth the money (Novell)

I am hesitant to even mention Novell at this point but I saw this article "Novell credits Microsoft for soaring Linux sales" wherein Novell gushes about how well they are doing thanks to their satanic pact with Microsoft. Novell says its Li