Opinion

Update: Web-host company fully embraces solar

Following the lead of other companies seeking to boast green credentials, San Diego, Calif.-based Greenest Host has set up its Web-host service in AISO's 100-percent solar-powered datacenter.

Spectrum: A lesson in private vs. public good

As high tech begins to permeate every part of our lives, all indications point to the fact that it will come up against many of the basic principles and beliefs upon which we base our society. The most recent example happened only this week, when the

Bull denies HP acquisition rumors, Sun makes money, and more

<p>In today's enterprise HPC news summary Bull's CEO denies the company is in acquisition talks with HP and posts net profit for the quarter just ended, Sun announced that it made money in 2007, and Evergrid enters beta with its new a

What the business needs

Dear Bob …One comment about your article ("The new prudes," Keep the Joint Running, 7/9/2007) that I shared with some folks on my forward list:I lobbied for this position 3 years ago, and wanted to fill it (someone to build a rich end-use

SMB Tech News Today; 8/1

Happy August! * Laser printers a health risk? Ouch. An Australian professor just completed a study which he says proves that the emissions on certain models of laser printers are as unhealthy as cigarette smoke. Guess breathing toner isn't good

VoIP of the people

Why would a Big Box consumer electronics dealer be interested in acquiring&nbsp;a tiny Seattle&nbsp;ISP? That's the question people asked when Best Buy peeled off $97 million to swallow up Speakeasy in March. Apparently the idea was to c

OS X Leopard is now certified Unix, but is it safe?

Open Group Unix 03 certification puts the upcoming OS X Leopard on a par with AIX and HP-UX. Is there any truth to the fearmongering about security? I learned last week that OS X Leopard has passed the Open Group's certification suite for Unix 0

Microsoft System Center can ease network security fright

With the right tools and some planning, admins needn't jump at every mysterious network noise

AMD’s Roadmap is Virtualization Friendly

Intel and AMD have gone back and forth fighting the good fight for market share in the CPU market – a fight that the consumer greatly benefits from. AMD has come up with some great designs in the past, and this year expects to be more of the same. Wi

Nokia N95: The other iPhone

Yep, I'm digging my new Nokia N95 so far. To make a long story short, I'm one of the many people in the US who aren't covered by Cingular/AT&T Wireless. This means that although this area is saturated in GSM, AT&T Wireless does

Test Center Tracker: Digging a little deeper

Yesterday, Ted mention that we would be getting back on track here at the Test Center Daily, and so we shall. This time, we'll call your attention to a few more reviews that you might have missed while you were out following baseball or getting

Social networking without the staples

Sometimes you get a press release you just can't ignore, no matter how much your instincts tell you to hit the delete key and move on. So it happened this morning, when I got an email hawking a new social network called Playboy U. (Yes, that Pla

About the Keynote at Open Group

Download file…

Finding the balance between IT prudishness and permissiveness

Dear Bob …I liked your article ("The new prudes," Keep the Joint Running, 7/9/2007) and in theory agree.What do you do with larger companies? I'm sure your tools are nice and work for you, but I want another set which makes me produc

SMB Tech News Today; 7/31

Mortgage is due tomorrow. * SAP buffs up BusinessOne. That's SAP's SMB package. Supposed to cover everything from accounting through inventory and HR. The new version is supposed to be easier and has new Web components. (Source: InfoWorld)

Panic mode

Lack of knowledge + heat of the moment = bad decisions I started in the industry in the early eighties and worked as a technical salesperson for a local micro-computer company. We had a client that purchased a 286-based server running SCO Xenix to ru

Rise up against ink waste

Printer manufacturers must be held accountable for ink replacement policies that are far from green, writes Ephraim Schwartz When it comes to high tech, rarely is anything repaired. The same goes for consumer electronics, as both industries have been

Bill Hilf on Microsoft’s Open Source Initiatives

At Oscon last week, Bill Hilf, Microsoft's General Manager of Platform Strategy, gave a keynote presentation on the Microsoft's Open Source initiatives. While the talk was only about 20 minutes, Hilf did a good job describing the context in

Cisco and VMware – $150 Million Later

Were you shocked to hear Intel's announcement about purchasing a $218.5 million stake in VMware? If not, I guess you weren't shocked to hear that Cisco had something similar in mind. The networking giant decided that it would acquire an equ

EMA’s Andi Mann Shares his Virtualization Wisdom with the Virtualization Report

I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Andi Mann, Senior Analyst at Enterprise Management Associates. For those of you who may not know them, EMA is a leading IT Analyst firm specializing in IT management issues. Andi heads up EMA's System

Managing in the Open: The Next Wave of Systems Management

Linux Non-compete Agreements?

There seems to be a lot of discussion about whether Project Indiana at openSolairs is a Linux clone or not. The Project Indiana website states: "Project Indiana is a new project to create an OpenSolaris binary distribution. This distribution wil

HPC weekly news podcast

<p>I've recently started an HPC podcast, and the latest edition of the insideHPC.com Weekly Takeout was posted over the weekend. You can <a href="http://media.libsyn.com/media/insidehpc/insideHPC_Weekly_Takeout_07282007.mp3"&g

Visual Studio… Get With It!!

One of the things that really frustrates me with VS 2005 is working with some of the server controls that don't work the way you think they should. Take the menu control for example. It would really be nice if it did more with direct data sets.

Aptana RadRails

A few weeks ago I mentioned Aptana RadRails and noted that, although I was able to download and install Aptana, I was unable to install the RadRails plugin&nbsp;on Windows XP SP2. I reported this directly to Aptana support, and they initially did

Test Center Tracker: Bluespring wades into BPM waters

Diving into Bluespring: Businesss process management (BPM) can be downright complex, what with the applications, documents, employees, and customers you've got in the mix. I envision it as a determined juggler trying to keep a dozen balls (rangi

Who’s afraid of the big bad tube?

The Democrat's YouTube-fueled debate last week&nbsp;featured talking snowmen, marriage-minded lesbians, and a guy who cradled&nbsp;an automatic&nbsp;weapon in&nbsp;his arms and called it "my baby." But the Republican ve

Looking for Candidate Services

Those of you using my SOA methodology already know that one of the things I ask for is that you look for candidate services. Candidate services, simple put, are services that have the potential to become core services, but that requires a bit more an

Weird tech: Tapping game tech to save lives

Targeting blood clots or Shinra, video game GPUs bring action to images

Weird tech: Cell phones to cure road rage?

Anonymous signaling data from drivers' cell phones lend AirSage insights into traffic congestion

Weird tech: IT-enabled self-service cow milking

DeLaval's voluntary milking system puts cows in charge of their time and productivity

Weird tech: Clearing the fog of war with text messaging

Ally identification, tracking, and coordinating system taps mobile IT to help prevent friendly fire deaths

Weird tech: Raw fish ID

RFID, event-processing software ensure fresh, demand-driven sushi

Weird tech: Ensuring nut freshness with RFID

Pistachio giant Paramount taps technology to control the flow of its nuts

Weird tech: Vegetation taps VoIP to voice its needs

Botanicalls outfits office plants with open source governance and telephony solution

Weird tech: Fingerprinting to fend off food fights

Biometric point-of-sale system at Sawtry Community College cafeteria provides visibility into banger consumption

Weird tech: RFID spells reflux relief

Esophageal RFID implants seek to ease backup in the supply chain to your stomach

High tech in the weirdest places

Forget the datacenter, enterprise technology is finding a home in the strangest locales — including your esophagus

Weird tech: Tribal confederation 2.0

"Disruptive" Web 2.0 tech aids Native American confederation's quest to preserve its past

Weird tech: Combating plant extinction with PDAs

Handhelds hidden across Hawaii Volcanoes National Park gather data on endangered plant species

Enterprise tech thrives where you least expect it

Appreciating IT wherever it is — whether in a garden, across the ocean, or in paradise

More Legal Defeats for Nasty Sneakwrap Terms

<P>There's lots of depressing stories coming out of our legal system these days, but on one small front at least there's been a surprising run of what I consider really good news. More and more judges are reaffirming the traditional v

Responsibility

I was playing golf the other day with some other folks in the software business and the topic of email came up. I was talking about an article I read that claimed that the younger generation prefers instant messaging over email and quoted someone as

Solutions

I'm sick and tired of products. Actually, I'm sick and tired of product features and the announcements related to them. I remember back in the late 80's and early 90's when database products were introducing new features like row-

Cisco Gears Up for Data Center 3.0 with VFrame

While at its Networkers conference in Anaheim, CA, Cisco announced its roadmap plan, calling it – "Data Center 3.0". The funny thing is, I just got used to living in the "Data Center 2.0" era described to me some six or so months

Virtualization Security Challenges

As the mainstream continues to adopt virtualization into their IT environments, the question of IT security still comes up. In fact, some worry that security might even pose a bigger problem within a virtualized environment. Research specialist, emed

Book: Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 Resource Kit

Robert Larson, an architect and expert on Microsoft Virtualization for Microsoft Consulting Services, and Janique Carbone have completed the Microsoft Virtual Server Resource Kit – described as the definitive, in-depth resource for administering Vir

The Green Grid – Who, What and Why?

One of the latest pushes being made within the IT community is to make the datacenter a more efficient operation. This is being dubbed as the "Green Datacenter". To accomplish this, organizations are leveraging virtualization to help reach

Check Up On Altiris Software Virtualization Solution 2.1

Altiris recently posted a HotFix for its Software Virtualization Solution (SVS) 2.1 product. The HotFix reportedly fixes three blue screen problems reported to Microsoft via the Online Crash Analysis system. Also included in this HotFix is a registry

When standards are “Not Invented Here”

Dear Bob …Continuing the discussion about IT standards and what to do when people ignore them (see "Roving e-mail," Keep the Joint Running, 7/2/2007): What about the employee who admits the corporate e-mail (or phone system, or desktop, o