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Data is the new black
As Microsoft moves into a new era of developer enablement with its .Net platform, data becomes a first-class citizen in how developers create and work with applications.
Indeed, Jonathan Perera, general manager of Microsoft's Application Platform Division, said part of what Microsoft is trying to do is "take a developer that knows .Net and empower them to use that tool set in new and interesting ways." One of those ways is to better integrate data into the applications they build on the platform.
Most expensive IT by service, city
OnForce, the online exchange of professional IT services between solution providers, compiled the following market intelligence from more than 750,000 work orders it processed in the first three months of 2008 on behalf of nearly 13,000 solution providers.
Most rankings are based on OnForce's Hourly Rate Index (HRI), which is a comparison of specific hourly rates to the national average which is assumed to be 1.00. For instance, if a data point has a HRI rating of 1.25, it means it's 25 percent above the national average.
Microsoft OOXML opponents won't back down
Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) format may be an ISO standard, but opponents won't back down and will keep fighting it.
This is the first ever appeal of such a standards ruling, notes Rick Jelliffe. He has a long post at O'Reilly on the issues and the process, but it comes to this. ODF supporters have as much chance of overturning this as Clinton does of overturning her rejection.
Which doesn't mean there isn't any recourse, in either case. And the answer is also the same in both cases. It lies with the winner.
IBM gets Jazzy
At its Rational Software Development Conference, IBM plans to officially launch more than 20 products based on and connected to its Jazz-collaborative development environment.
Dave Locke, director of worldwide marketing for IBM Rational, said that what the Eclipse integrated-development environment did for bringing desktop development together, Jazz is doing for collaboration.
Mainsoft integrates SharePoint, Quickr into JAZZ
Mainsoft, an IBM business partner and provider of Microsoft-Java interoperability software, is working with IBM Rational software to integrate IBM Lotus Quickr and Microsoft SharePoint, two popular Web 2.0-based collaboration workspaces, into future releases of IBM Rational Team Concert and other Jazz-based products.
IBM adds Quad-Core Opterons
IBM is the latest major OEM to add Advanced Micro Device's quad-core Opteron processors to its server portfolio. The company will now officially begin selling three different System x servers that use AMD's quad-core chip, formally code-named Barcelona. The three systems are the System x3455, x3655 and x3755.
The announcement marks a long-awaited milestone for AMD. Now, all four of the major server vendors--Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Sun Microsystems and IBM--along with a host of smaller system vendors now offer quad-core Opterons within their product portfolios.
Ozzie says open source more competition than Google
Google has nothing on open source when it comes to potential competitive threats to Microsoft, according to Redmond's Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie.
Ozzie fielded a number of questions on his role at Microsoft and the company's evolving technology strategies during an appearance at the Sanford Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference on May 28. Ozzie reiterated that it often takes a strong competitor to truly galvanize Microsoft.
Pushing Ruby into the enterprise
Engine Yard and New Relic are teaming up to push the Ruby on Rails development technology in the enterprise. Engine Yard, which provides a Ruby on Rails deployment platform, and New Relic, which offers a Rails application performance management solution, announced a partnership to boost the technology's adoption in the enterprise.
As part of the partnership, Engine Yard will give its customers exclusive access to New Relic's introductory level of service, New Relic RPM Basic. New Relic hosts its Rails performance management solution on an Engine Yard private cluster.
HP edges out IBM
Hewlett-Packard edged out IBM in both worldwide server revenue and shipments in the first quarter of 2008 as businesses bought x86-based systems to help build out Web data centers and emerging market countries continued to invest in their infrastructure, according to a May 22 report from Gartner.
In the first quarter, HP's server revenue topped $4 billion, narrowly placing the company ahead of IBM, which had revenue of about $3.9 billion, an increase of only 2 percent, according to the Gartner survey. For years, IBM had been beating out all other competition in terms of system revenue, but HP has made up significant ground in the last several quarters.
Techies porking up on the job
Of all of the health threats workers deal with in sedentary, computer-facing jobs--carpal tunnel, eye strain and backaches--there is one that gets far less attention: waist expansion.
In fact, according to a new study by CareerBuilder.com, 34 percent of IT workers said they have gained more than 10 pounds in their current jobs, while 17 percent say they've gained at least twice that.
It could be worse--these employees could work in financial services or government, where 53 percent and 52 percent of workers respectively told CareerBuilder they'd gained weight in their current positions.
Jump an IT pay grade
Everyone gets in career ruts from time to time, and it can happen for a range of reasons. Maybe you've been doing the same exact thing for too long. Maybe you've ended up at a company or in a role with little growth potential. Maybe the need for your skill isn't what it was when they hired you. However, regardless of what the underlying cause is, the result is that your paycheck may have stagnated as well. Here are 10 ways to climb your way out of that rut.
Free SSL certs for Debian bug victims
Seeking to outdo VeriSign's response to the Debian OpenSSL bug, certificate authority Comodo is offering free replacement SSL certificates to anyone affected, including customers of other CAs.
Comodo customers can just go into their accounts and replace their certificates with a new Certificate Signing Request. Customers of other CAs can get their free certificate at this site. Comodo says that the term of the new certificate will be comparable to the old one it is replacing.
Cisco vets unveil network security startup
In 2006, five security, systems and networking experts with a combined 40-plus years of experience at Cisco Systems formed a network security startup and took aim at the access management market.
Now, two years later, that startup--Rohati Systems--has stepped out of the shadows with a high-speed appliance that relies on user entitlements to control access to applications. The Rohati TNS (Transaction Networking System) platform functions at Layer 7, providing transaction-level enforcement and allowing users to create granular entitlement policies and controls. It uses XACML (Extensible Access Control Markup Language) in a bid to eliminate the need for client or server agents or any changes to applications.
Enterprise 2.0 useful but confusing
A recent survey about Enterprise 2.0 applications--social software like blogs, wikis, and social networks that started out in the consumer Web 2.0 space but that were repurposed for enterprise use--found that 44 percent of businesses findthe technologies "imperative" or "of significant importance" to their organizations.
Use of Information Analyzer in SOA design
Learn to use the IBM WebSphere Information Analyzer to support the data quality analysis pattern. This is the eighth paper in "The information perspective of SOA design" series. This article demonstrates to an architect community how tools from IBM--in particular IBM WebSphere Information Analyzer and the unified metadata management of IBM Information Server--can be used to address the data quality analysis pattern in an SOA engagement. It describes the key features of the products that support the data quality analysis pattern presented in Part 6 of this series.
Web 2.0 on the rise in enterprise
Ziff Davis Enterprise research conducted for eWEEK shows that Web 2.0 apps are on the rise in the enterprise. That said, the majority of respondents indicated that Web 2.0 technologies are being implemented for internal use: 82 percent of respondents said Web 2.0 apps at their companies had been implemented for current employees, and 71 percent said one of the two main drivers for Web 2.0 at their companies was improved communications and collaboration among internal staff.
Respondents' top fears? Security and the potential for sensitive company information to be made public.
Using the Collector node in Message Broker
The new WebSphere Message Broker V6.1 Collector node can collect groups of messages according to various configurable parameters, enabling new message processing scenarios in which messages can cross-reference other messages that pass through the broker at different times. Using a simple online ordering example, this article shows you how to use this new Collector node.
IBM honors elite technical employees
IBM has elevated nine employees to the title of IBM Fellow--its most prestigious technical honor. The company also presented more than $3.5 million in cash awards to corporate and patent portfolio awardees in addition to awards given to more than 500 IBM technical leaders from around the world directly responsible for collaborating to deliver true innovation and business value.
IBM conferred the accolades and awards at its 2008 Corporate Technical Recognition Event in Phoenix, Ariz. CTRE is a 45-year tradition at IBM, established to recognize exceptional technical employees and reward them for extraordinary achievements and contributions to the company's technology leadership.
Integrate XML into your enterprise
XML Federation in WebSphere Federation Server Version 9.5 allows you to seamlessly integrate with remote XML data from XML documents and DB2 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows (DB2) sources enabled with pureXML technology. Not only can you use the SQL/XML and XQuery languages to manipulate remote XML data, you can also perform other operations such as decomposition, schema validation, and executing XML utilities. In this article, you'll walk through various use cases to help you build your distributed XML applications quickly.
Ubuntu on a USB flash drive
Can you install Ubuntu on a USB flash drive? Yes, yes you can. Here's what you need.
XP is coming to the XO
Microsoft's participation in the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative has been fraught with mystery and disinformation from the get-go. But on May 15, Microsoft officials finally gave the OLPC project Redmond's official blessing.
Up to this point, OLPC Chief Nicholas Negroponte preannounced Microsoft's every move on the OLPC front. But on May 15, Microsoft and the OLPC announced in tandem that Microsoft is"joining" the OLPC project.
Yet again, exactly what this means is a bit murky. Microsoft has been testing for months now whether it could get XP to run on OLPC XO laptops. Seemingly, according to a new blog entry by James Utzschneider, Manager of Microsoft's General Manager, Marketing and Communications, Unlimited Potential Group, the tests were successful. But now it sounds like there are going to be more tests.
Worst work spaces in tech
What makes a work space terrible? Is it the gray-beige color scheme, the industrial-grade carpet, or the chipped Formica desks and fluorescent lights? Or is it the opposite, when a company is so desperate to keep up with the Googles that they try a little too hard--filling the offices with ping-pong tables, plastic toys and a few too many "chill-out rooms" for most grown-ups' comfort?
Valleywag, a tech gossip blog, on the heels of choosing The Best Workplaces in Tech, set out to find the ten worst, topping the list with Yahoo's New York offices, replete with employees sleeping uncomfortably in some cubes and the curious use of white-picket fences around others.
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