Opinion

Privacy protection: The government is no help

Is hacking Congress the only way to make the point that data protection laws are woefully weak?

Culture Clash Over Sneakwrap and iTunes

Apple's growing problem in Europe over restrictions on iTunes users is once again exposing the vast cultural difference we've seen before between European and American attitudes toward EULAs and sneakwrap licensing. Basically, those crazy E

Microsoft Sells SQL Server to Oracle

OK, to be honest, MS hasn't sold SQL to Oracle. I just needed a catchy title to make sure you read this post. I follow the rule that if you don't have anything brilliant to say, then point to someone who does. There's a fairly new blog

Homegrown Ultra40 update

After a few weeks of using this box, Corsair sent in 8GB of DDR400 ECC Registered RAM in 2GB DIMMs — ah, the good stuff. When I dropped it in, I played a bit with BIOS settings to eliminate the 4GB memory hole. On the Tyan Thunder K8WE, the BIOS pul

Fixing an interface kludge … or not

Dear Bob …I happen to have something like your first example (in "Seven warning signs of bad architecture," Keep the Joint Running, June 5, 2006): two dissimilar systems that need data transferred from one to the other.  I'v

Open Source As Much About The People As The Code

Are there any Good SOA Design Tools?

You remember CASE don’t you? There were and are very powerful graphically tools that, while providing a good way to create diagrams and track metadata, really could not generate anything of value. The notion kind of died over the years, albeit

When plain NAS beats clustering

Unique characteristics of clustered NAS aren't advantages in every situation

Vista: Evolutionary or revolutionary?

Although not without its shortcomings, the next version of Windows will bring big changes to the desktop and beyond

The new NAS: Fast, cheap, and scalable

New network attached storage technologies keep unstructured data under control

Hitachi goes for the content-addressed storage goal

The competition heats up as HDS shoots TagmaStore into digital archiving with help from Archivas

Cedars-Sinai cures storage ills with clustered NAS

Clustered system reduced downtime, allowed easier expansion

About kludges

Bob …Thanks for the recent KJR on architecture ("Seven warning signs of bad architecture," 6/5/2006).I’d appreciate a more concrete explanation of why Kludges are bad (as a contingency were I to run into an ugly enterpr

SOA Expert Podcast Hits 1000 Subscribers

Hey, I was checking my stats and I found out that my Podcast has hit 1000 subscribers. That's either 1000 people downloading the Podcast directly, or into a "Podcatchers" such as iTunes, or one guy using 1000 different computers. I hop

Building connection engines with metadata

Aggregated search results based on metadata create more compelling views of content

Why Apple snubs its open source geeks

What obscure sort of person wants the freedom to compile the OS X kernel? I know this guy named Steve …

A Lawyer’s View of EULAs

Our continuing debate on whether or not End User License Agreement really do constitute a real contract recently prompted an interesting discussion on the Gripe Line. In particular, I thought the comments of one reader particularly intriguing in expl

Why doctors and nurses won’t use IT

Dear Bob …I've read and enjoyed your columns for years. I'm in healthcare IS and have recently changed jobs to being a consultant for a large, hospital software provider.My question is whether you've had any experience in the healthc

Are LCD makers planning to manipulate supply?

Artificial shortage could raise prices on flat-panel displays

When beta software deletes your client list 

Never show a salesperson unfinished software. He might just put it into production

Congress Moves Toward Weaker Identity Theft Laws

While it appears unlikely our Congress is going to do anything about immigration, gas prices, or the deficit anytime soon, as early as this week it might very well take action on another sore point for many Americans: privacy and identity theft. But,

While SOA Needs BPM, and the Other Way Around

There seems to be a silly chasm developing between the SOA guys and the business process management guys (BPM), as pointed out by ZD blogger Joe McKendrick. "Now, this ongoing process war is aligning behind two technology concepts — BPM an

NetApp embraces HPC for data management

Long-awaited integration of Spinnaker's clustered architecture with Ontap OS finally arrives

IT stats, IT salaries

Pay is up across the board, but the numbers tell only part of the story

Oracle: The biggest Linux vendor you’ve never heard of

With its new certification program, Oracle aims to dispel the myth that it doesn't do Linux

How to promote good project management

Dear Bob …Our company has a long history of lack of knowledge about project management. Many of the stories that are legend here harken back to a time when we were 1) much smaller, 2) most of our clients didn't care about project management, a

Windows Genuine Advantage a poor bet, bank snags domain from pet

Luckily for me I have no secrets — or, at least, not for long

Tackle malicious Web code without infecting yourself

Malware defense efforts need to balance speed with risk, from using less-common browsers to full virtual machines

How do you tell humans and computers apart?

In the online world, it’s harder than you think, but CAPTCHA aims to change that

Hyperbowl DRM Still Making Kids Sad

While the Microsofts, Symantecs, HPs and Dells make many appearances in the Gripe Line, one repeat performer I wouldn't have expected is software game vendor Hyperbowl. A couple of years ago I wrote about Hyperbowl's product activation depr

Vista may just mark an OS revolution

A slick interface, cool features, stronger security, and more make for a promising new version of Windows

Benchmark Chicanery

Idera has issued a press release outlining their new world record backup benchmark. As it stands, the benchmark results are reported in a misleading fashion, so let me go through some of this for you. "Using 'off the shelf' technologie

What “waterfall” means

Dear Bob …In a recent Advice Line, ("Dealing with an autocratic change agent," May 31, 2006) the writer said, "…methodologies are waterfall.."What does this phrase mean?- UninitiatedDear Uninitiated …With luck, you're a

Performance Modeling…The Missing Piece of SOA?

I'm always surprised by those who find their first generation SOAs slow. When I dig into the architecture, and the process of getting their, I almost always find that there was little of no consideration of performance, no modeling nor testing.

Open source education

Community-driven software presents a unique opportunity for hands-on developer training

PPW: Watts all the fuss?

The performance-per-watt campaign for CPUs is ridiculous and misleading

An Invite to a Symantec Bash

Symantec has lately been going through something of a rough patch, if you'll pardon the expression. With Microsoft taking aim at its core market at the same time that security holes in Symantec's corporate products have been coming to light

Getting a company to worry about kludges

Dear Bob …This week's Keep the Joint Running ("Seven warning signs of bad architecture," June 5, 2006) was soooo timely! I did a presentation yesterday to a group of IT execs in our company where I recommended fixing a fundamental fl

Slow progress for 802.11n standards

Next-generation Wi-Fi is bogged down by a tedious standardization process

Confessions of an offshore developer

Sometimes deciding who's the good guy and who's the bad guy is harder than it looks

Open Source Network Management Tool You Should Care About: NeDi

SOA Expert Podcast Show 40…Connecting the Enterprise to the Web 2.0

SOA Expert Podcast Show 40…Connecting the Enterprise to the Web 2.0 Listen to the latest SOA Expert Podcast…

InfoWorld’s CTO 25 winners have the right stuff

Today’s most successful CTOs know how to deliver real business value

Ubuntu makes a bid for the enterprise

New version of ‘Linux for humans’ touts enterprise readiness, five-year support

Mission: Educated workforce?

Dear Bob …Many years ago at an IT company I worked for, it had a mission statement that read…blah, blah…by maintaining a well educated work force…blah, bah. Our 5500 employee company fell on some slow times. I had planned on taking a class in

Where is that code anyway?

More than a few readers sent me notes asking about the availability of the code that I mentioned in last week's Enterprise Hacks feature. I wrote two pieces in that article, the first one regarding timezone settings for thin clients, and the sec

Are you significant?

By some accounts no, so check the fine print for that pesky margin of error

Hacking ignorance isn’t bliss

Just because you haven't been hacked doesn't mean you can't be

Get a head start on NAC

A standard architecture for policy-based access control means you can plan ahead

SOA Expert Podcast Show 39…SOA 2.0 WS-Too Much and SOA Testing

SOA Expert Podcast Show 39…SOA 2.0 WS-Too Much and SOA Testing Listen to the latest SOA Expert Podcast…