Opinion

Getting noticed by management, part 2

Dear Bob …I'm Mr. Invisible, and I need to clarify a point: I'm an employee, not a contractor.I have been fortunate lately in that my current manager understands what it means when her phone doesn't ring.  When we discussed

Roxio Products and Support Rile Readers

With many gripes it's hard to be sure if the problem lies with the quality of the vendor's products or the quality of its support. Judging by what I've been hearing from readers recently, in Roxio's case it appears to be both of t

Enterprise mashups

Mashups aren't just sexy, they’re useful for business. Their easy integration of data and services should enable a whole new class of enterprise apps, if IT can look past the hype

Sprint wrangles mashups

How do you keep mashups under control? Grandfather them in as part of a larger governance framework

Gleaning truth from earnings reports

Plus, sales of ‘naked’ SIP handsets outstrip their proprietary counterparts

Continued debate on desktop lockdowns

To make the case for unauthorized software bans more clear, Roger heads once more into the breach

HP Buys into SOA?

As many of you know by now, HP announced Wednesday that it had reached an agreement with Mercury in a deal worth about $4.5 billion. News to some, but this buyout was a rumor that I've heard several times….

Microsoft gives AV vendors cause to sweat

Redmond's Forefront security strategy could position the company to take on third-party anti-virus companies

Small businesses get big storage attention

SMB needs are attracting large vendors, especially on the business continuity and services fronts

SOA Adoption and Step 1 of my 12 Steps to SOA

SOA Adoption and Step 1 of my 12 Steps to SOA Download file…

Getting noticed by management

Dear Bob …I'm hoping you can tell me, from management's perspective, what I'm doing wrong.When I leave a job (which is happening too frequently for my tastes, lately,) I notice two things happening:The people downstream (meaning folk

The rise of open infrastructure

In the Internet operating environment, the ecosystem of infrastructure services is wide open

Mac is back in the big league

Upcoming trip to Apple’s WWDC sparks speculation and wishful thinking

Are Your DBAs Working for You?

OK, for a while now I've been on this kick about how companies ought to look out for their people, and recognize the talent they have and keep and nurture it. So, this one is for the IT managers out there, but DBAs should read it too just to kno

Advice for those on the wrong end of age discrimination

Dear Bob and "Frustrated" …I probably should NOT comment on another InfoWorld column, but this one was just too good to pass up.  I, too, am over 50.  Way beyond 50.  But somewhere around 42 or 43 I went indepen

Programming in Paris … without a work permit

Landing a developer job in France sounded great, but getting there was easier than staying there

In Defense of DRM

Since we've been giving all forms of copyright protection a pretty hard time here lately, it seems like the only fair thing to do is give the other side a chance. And, fortunately, one reader's response to a recent story provides a well-rea

A Glimpse into My Mailbox

You know, one of the things that has really surprised me is how many people are tired of the same things I am. Since I started the series on how companies treat their IT staff, my mailbox has been full of people urging me on and telling me their horr

WGA and Activation Failures Don’t Faze Redmond

While Microsoft insists that problems with the Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) program are much overblown — claiming last week that "only a fraction of a percent" of the systems that fail the WGA verification are actually legal — Microsof

Building smarter authentication

If you're still relying on simple passwords, your network could be wide open

McAfee cries wolf on open source

Blaming community development methods for malware woes is a self-serving smoke screen

Musicrypt tunes in to so-called soft biometrics

Behavior analysis presents a lower-cost alternative to scanning equipment

Authentication gets an upgrade

A host of new technologies give enterprises authentication options way beyond user names and passwords

Measuring business analysts

Dear Bob …  Do you know of any metrics for measuring the performance of a business analyst?   My wife is applying for a business analyst position at a company that's metric crazy, and they're looking fo

The NSA, Bloggers, and Barry Bonds

Three stories in this morning's paper caught my eye: the National Security Agency and AT&T failed to get EFF's lawsuit quashed, a recent study indicates that most bloggers don't think of themselves as journalists, and Barry Bonds i

Password size does matter

Length is more important than complexity when it comes to secure passwords – and here's a $100 wager to prove it

Marketing IT in a noisy world

Plus, where will VCs invest their billions next?

Dell users get burned, Apple lawsuit spurned

Taking the concept of smokin' hot computing just a little too far

Is “Traditional EAI” a good fit for SOA?

Is "Traditional EAI" a good fit for SOA? Download file…

Microsoft’s delays cause more than just frowns

Ignoring rev timeline dates smacks of shirked responsibility to users

Enterprise search vendors bet heavily on BI

The race is on to marry search functionality with business intelligence

The time is now for Blu-ray’s high-capacity storage

New device from Sony winks at professional and home-based HD recording

BI’s new power users rely on advanced search

Increasing cross-over between enterprise search and BI is getting real-time business analytics into the hands of more employees

SOA and Data Integration…Final Word

In contrast to coupling, cohesion is the "act or state of sticking together" or "the logical agreement." Cohesively integrated source and target systems are independent from one another. Changes to any source or target system sho

Information security, off the deep end

Dear Bob …Did you happen to see Roger Grimes recent posting, "Unauthorized applications (still) a bad idea," (InfoWorld's Security Advisor, July 14, 2006)? I'd love to hear what you have to say about it.- Curious GeorgeDear Curi

Amazon’s pragmatic approach to metered infrastructure

Online shopping giant delivers for-fee Web services that make sense

Virtualization free-for-all

Microsoft and VMware are now giving away their banner server virtualzation products

SOA and Data Integration Part 3 Saga Continues…

Okay, sorry about the delay in getting this blog done. I was going to do it on Friday, but decided to go to the gym instead. Moreover, I was going to do it yesterday, but hey it was Monday. However, it also gave many PR people the opportunity to send

Web site disasters made easy

Want to flush $6 million down the drain fixing an e-commerce site that isn't broken?

Toshiba Reneges on On-Site Service

When does a computer manufacturer's on-site warranty actually entitle the customer to receive on-site service? A reader recently discovered that with Toshiba, as with so many other computer manufacturers, the answer to that question is: only whe

Testing for PC competence

Dear Bob …Recently I interviewed a candidate that had potential. We hired him on a conditional basis. I threw a few tasks his way so that he could get an understanding of what we do and how we do it. I soon discovered his PC skills are almost nonex

Can YOU Pick a Good DBA?

I've tried to get off this topic, but I keep getting dragged back in. Our own Tom Yager wrote a few weeks ago about companies not respecting the IT talent they have in-house, and it got me going again. Here's a quick list of my recent posts

SmokePing Adds Great Latency Measurement to the Open Source Monitoring Equation

What keeps IT up at night?

Nightmare scenarios range from data leaks to compliance, but fortunately there are strategies to help ensure some shut-eye

Lotus Notes breaks away from Windows

Enterprise collaboration suite brings Linux another leap forward on corporate desktops

Driver Education From Umax

It's never fun when a product arrives without the drivers you need to make it work. But one reader recently discovered it can be a particular problem when the product is from Umax and the customer is an educational institution. "Our Umax Po

Paint-by-numbers project management

Dear Bob …I'm not a subscriber, but, the CEO of my company regularly sends us one of your articles, it seems you have plenty of common sense, because I usually agree with you (seems I "think" I have plenty of common sense also).Anywa

Gliffy makes it look easy

There are several things that make me cringe with most Web-based applications. Platform really doesn't matter that much, since I've seen more than my share of bad apps written in Java, JavaScript/DHTML, Shockwave or Flash; it's usually

IT gets drafted to babysit the blogs

Plus, database threats and spam rates reportedly are on the rise

Unauthorized applications (still) a bad idea

Locking down business desktops suggestion draws flak — but better security is worth the pain