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Now that users have their hands on Windows 7, it's time to secure it. They could always use solutions from Microsoft, like Security Essentials, but in many cases, third-party applications do a much better job of ensuring a system is kept secure.
Third-party security apps for Windows 7 can be free or paid. In either case, users can find effective security applications to keep their data more secure. However, it's important to remember that some apps are more effective than others and that in no way can all of these applications keep the user's data totally secure. But the first step is to find the security app that works best for the user’s needs. This eWEEK slide show looks at ten third-party applications that will make Windows 7 more secure.
The first week of November has been busy for phone manufacturers and carriers as they gear up for Nov. 27, the official first day of the holiday shopping season. The Android-based Motorola Cliq arrived on the T-Mobile network this week, while the Samsung Moment, also with Android, arrived in Sprint Nextel stores. The Chocolate Touch, the first of the Chocolate line with a touch screen, is now available from Verizon Wireless. Rounding out the week, Verizon debuted the Motorola Droid and the HTC Droid Eris. We've compiled a look at many of these models and their features to help you kick-start your comparison shopping.
Mozilla plans on rolling out Thunderbird 3, the newest version of its open-source e-mail application, in mid-November. The organization says it’s made some 2,000 improvements to the program. The larger new features include tabbed e-mail, filtered search and a one-click address book. Thunderbird 3 will be compatible with Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, and is built on the same Gecko 1.9.1 rendering platform as Firefox 3.1. The following slides illustrate some of the application’s most notable improvements.
Toyota, Alcatel-Lucent and other companies banded together to create the LTE Connected Car, a concept vehicle that went on display in New York on Nov. 3. The vehicle combines a Long Term Evolution (LTE) broadband radio link with in-car Wi-Fi to bring the power of cloud computing to driver and passengers, giving them access to online content such as music, YouTube and games through four individual touch screens.
It's not all about multimedia, however. The concept car also supplies the driver with real-time GPS updates and information on nearby points of interest. The vehicle also offers continuous status updates about the car, using sensors to feed data to the driver about tire pressure and other maintenance issues. Although the concept car's creators were reluctant to name specific automotive companies, apparently they are in talks to extend some of the technology seen here to real-life vehicles at some point in the future.
With the recent releases of beta versions of Google Chrome 4.0 and Mozilla Firefox 3.6, the two browsers continue their rapid pace of upgrading to provide more integrated functionality across Web services. Despite the version number, Firefox 3.6 looks to be the more significant upgrade. The Chrome 4.0 beta focuses on underlying capabilities, with only one major new feature (for syncing bookmarks across browsers and users' Google accounts).
As Verizon Wireless launches the Motorola Droid smartphone Nov. 6 for $199 with a two-year contract after a $100 rebate, it does so as the most heavily hyped smartphone since the gadget it will chase, the iPhone 3GS. Reviews have been streaming steadily into the blogosphere as intrepid gadget hawks from Boy Genius Report, Engadget and Gizmodo have covered every nuance of the gadget. But there haven't been too many sanctioned reviews until Nov. 5, when gadget gurus Walt Mossberg (paywall) of the Wall Street Journal and David Pogue of The New York Times put their first impressions of the Droid online. eWEEK takes the pros and cons of the Droid from Mossberg and Pogue point by point.
Research In Motion’s share of the enterprise smartphone market has been challenged lately, as competitors ranging from Apple’s iPhone to the Palm Pre all seek to usurp the BlackBerry as device of choice for many business users.
RIM’s response to this increasingly competitive landscape was to issue the Bold 9700, a phone that includes BlackBerry’s enterprise functionality in a sleeker and more streamlined package. While not a radical updating of its Bold line, the Bold 9700 does include improvements to its display and form-factor, as well as a newly tweaked operating system with BlackBerry OS 5.0.
While many users applauded the launch of the stand-alone browser Firefox, there was a significant community that preferred the Internet suite approach of the original Mozilla. SeaMonkey is a volunteer project within Mozilla dedicated to keeping the suite option available to users. With the release of SeaMonkey 2.0, that browser suite now has many of the newer features and capabilities found in Firefox 3.5. Users can have browser, mail, newsreader, chat and Web composer capabilities in one application, while still enjoying a modern browsing engine and the extensibility of Firefox.
Each year at its October symposium in Orlando, Fla., Gartner publishes a report highlighting the top 10 technologies that could impact the enterprise market in the next three years. The research firm bases its selections on their potential to disrupt IT or business, the demand for investing considerable dollars in a technology, as well as the risk for companies that come late to a particular technology. Some of these selections are duplicated each year, while others knock previous entries out of the batch. Heading into 2010, here are Gartner's top 10 strategic technologies that companies should consider as they prepare their business plans for the new year.
The $25 million insider trading scandal that touched such IT heavyweights as AMD, IBM and Intel has now led to charges against six people from Silicon Valley and Wall Street. The case continues to roil both coasts. Federal prosecutors say executives from IBM, Intel and McKinsey & Co. gave nonpublic information on such companies as AMD, Sun Microsystems, Google, PolyCom and Akamai to two directors at two hedge funds, Galleon Management and New Castle Funds, which used the information to make their trades. Most of the companies are cooperating with investigators, and some - including Intel, McKinsey and Akamai - reportedly are conducting their own internal probes. Intel also put Rajiv Goel, an executive with its treasury department, on administrative leave after the charges were brought against him and five others. Here, eWEEK offers a look at who is involved with the case.
As the Symbian Foundation held its annual developer event in London, it was clear that the foundation is looking at how it can maintain the market share lead it has with smartphones. The Symbian OS is the market leader, and it powers phones from Sony Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung, Motorola and others. However, competition from other platforms, most notably Android, but also Apple and RIM, presents a growing challenge to the Symbian Foundation and its leader Lee Williams. While Williams has taken swipes at Android and Google, he also knows a key factor to maintaining a leadership role in the smartphone space is to have developers create great apps for your platform. Thus Symbian has ratcheted up its developer outreach.
Now that Windows 7 has been available for over a week, some users are diving into the new operating system. They're learning all about the new and improved Taskbar. They're checking out some of the new design tweaks. But it's the silent protection in the background that might be providing the most value to those users. Windows 7 is packed with security features that Microsoft no doubt hopes will help it earn the moniker of safest Windows release in recent memory. This slide show highlights some of the top security features in Windows 7, so you can be aware of how you can keep yourself safe in the Windows ecosystem.
The Motorola Droid, an iPhone-challenging smartphone running Google's Android operating system, will arrive on the Verizon Wireless network on Nov. 6 for $199 after a rebate and with a two-year contract. Verizon has been hyping the Droid with a television ad that highlights everything the iPhone lacks—but the Droid possesses. These include a keyboard, interchangeable batteries, the ability to run simultaneous applications and the option to customize the device with widgets. Analysts are saying the Droid may be the first smartphone to hold its own against the iPhone. Palm had such hopes for the Pre, but was partly undone by its meager application offerings, as apps have become as important a part of a mobile device's appeal as its hardware or operating system. Google, meanwhile, has been industriously expanding its Android Market store, which now sells over 12,000 applications.
Jive Software Oct. 28 unveiled Jive Social Business Suite 4.0 with a number of features, including integration with Microsoft Office, and a version tailored for Apple's iPhone. Jive also fortified its Jive Bridging module. Marketing and sales teams can now go out to public Jive communities and pull conversations about customer issues or channel partner needs back into their private Jive communities for internal discussion behind the firewall. They can then push their organized responses back out to the Web. Here are the key new features of Jive SBS 4.0, in pictures.
Plenty of technologies and products are based on—or full of—bad ideas. But sometimes these ideas go from being bad to being scary. These ideas, usually put forth in the name of ease of use or increased functionality, actually serve to make products dangerous to use, threatening users' security, privacy, finances and even their lives. A list like this could easily become very long, especially if we included biotech and health products. But, for now, we'll focus on classic PC, Internet and mobile technologies in use by businesses and individuals today.
Now that the long wait for Microsoft's latest version of its Windows operating system, Windows 7, is over, cost-conscious businesses can finally assess which notebook or netbook with the OS is right for them, and there are a lot of choices to fit any-size business. From compact, budget-priced netbooks to higher-end touch-screen devices, here's a look at our favorites.
Boo! As Halloween approaches with the economy still on uncertain footing, many of this year's participants are keeping an eye on budgets for everything from costumes to pumpkins. However, a silly, spooky or slimy application for your iPhone or iPod Touch may be an irresistible expense; here are 10 apps that will make you howl-with delight. eWEEK has a blood-curdling look.
The VMware Fusion 3 desktop virtualization tool is a solid performer but offers very few "firsts" in its competitive space.
The new Blackberry Storm2 9550 for Verizon improves upon the former Storm with a significantly better touch screen, 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi capabilities and the new BlackBerry OS 5.0.
Launched Oct. 28 as a free Google Maps feature for smartphones that will run the Google Android 2.0 build, Google Maps Navigation is a GPS navigation system that provides turn-by-turn voice guidance. The program uses the phone's Internet connection to fetch users the latest maps and business data. Features include the ability to search without knowing an address, search by voice and search any business along a route. Google envisions Maps Navigation as a differentiator to set Android 2.0-based smartphones apart from Apple's iPhone. There are also traffic, satellite and street views. The details are in this eWEEK slide show.
On the same week that Dell introduced its 12.1-inch Latitude XT2 XFR, a thin but rugged convertible tablet, Lenovo introduced six new machines—three IdeaPad laptops and three IdeaCentre desktops. Intel processors and Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system are aboard all seven devices, and Dell makes particular use of its integrated multitouch capabilities. Lenovo, for its part, worked with Microsoft to develop the Lenovo Enhanced Experience for Windows 7, which offers faster boot-up and shutdown times, as well as easy-to-use maintenance tools and rich multimedia features.
At an all-day media event in London, Nokia shared its views on its relationship with developers, where it's going with its Ovi Store application marketplace, future directions on native and Web development for Nokia devices, and more. In addition, the often stodgy Nokia let its hair down and partied with the press and developers at its London flagship store on trendy Regent Street—just across the street from an Apple store Nokia held its Media Day one day prior to the Symbian Exchange & Exposition (SEE 2009).
Electricity as a power plant for motor vehicles goes back much further than most people think. Back in 1914—the year World War I began—the president of the Minneapolis Buggy Company wrote a letter to two men, Henry Ford and Thomas Edison, suggesting that they meet and talk about the possibility of using clean electrical power for automobiles, rather than gasoline combustion engines. Being heavily invested in gasoline engines since 1899, Ford thought about it but tabled the idea for mass production. Although electric vehicles are often used in specific sectors, (golf carts, public transit and others), they haven't yet become a staple of the world's personal transportation. Now all the major car companies are developing electric-powered vehicles. As for Ford, it's taken more than 95 years, but today the automaker has four categories of higher mileage and electrified vehicles either on the roads or in development: EcoBoost gasoline engines, Hybrid, Plug-In Hybrid and Battery Electric.
EcoBoost engines are designed to inject a precisely metered amount of fuel directly into the combustion chamber. When this is combined with turbo charging, customers get better performance and fewer trips to the gas pump. The EcoBoost design will deliver the power and torque of a V-8 engine with the fuel efficiency of a V-6. Ford plans to deliver EcoBoost across the full range of its product portfolio, from small cars to large trucks, by 2013.
The earliest Battery Electric models will be ready for sale in 2010, with the others rolling out by 2012. In a San Francisco demonstration on Oct. 22, the company rolled out an Escape Plug-In Hybrid and an all-electric Focus. This slide show will take a closer look at the technology inside those two models.
Most of today’s cyber-crime is all about one thing—money.
Nowhere is that more evident than in the case of online banking Trojans. Malware targeting banking information is not new, but as recent research into the URLZone Trojan has shown, attackers are not slowing down when it comes to innovation. Security pros at Finjan tied URLZone to the theft of 300,000 euros—about $439,000 at the time—from German bank accounts during a 22-day period.
Other Trojans have been equally damaging. SecureWorks uncovered Clampi earlier this year and found that it had been swiping log-in credentials from Windows users who are customers of 4,600 banking and other sites. More well-known Trojans include Zeus (Zbot) and Prg.
With the help of security researchers from Symantec, Finjan and SecureWorks, eWEEK is taking a look at some of the more notorious banking Trojans plaguing users, and how cyber-thieves are getting their hands on the cash.
Now that Windows 7 is finally available, there undoubtedly are many users who are preparing for an upgrade from Windows XP or Windows Vista. There's just one problem: An upgrade from Windows XP is not easily done. Microsoft didn't build in a direct migration path to Windows 7, which will force users to find clever ways to back up their data and move it to the new operating system. Windows Vista is a different story, as there is a direct migration path to Windows 7, making it easy for users to get the new operating system up and running quickly with all their settings.
That said, there can be pitfalls for users of both operating systems when they prepare to migrate to Windows 7. They need to ensure that their data is secure during the entire process. And they can never be too careful. Anything can happen.
So let's take a look at ways to secure an upgrade to Windows 7.
Malicious online ads have plagued the Web for some time, but a series of recent events—from an attack targeting NYTimes.com in September to a number of civil lawsuits filed by Microsoft—have turned the spotlight on the problem once again.
Among the groups fighting all this is Google. Earlier this year, the company redesigned the site Anti-malvertising.com to add more educational content to supplement a custom search engine designed to help ad network customers conduct quick background checks. As part of Cyber Security Awareness Month, Google has issued a number of tips to help users and Web publishers alike.
On Oct. 22, Microsoft launched Windows 7 with much fanfare. One of the highlights of the launch was watching Steve Ballmer show off many of the new devices sporting the upgraded Windows operating system. Microsoft touted the diversity of Windows 7 devices on display, from all-in-one PCs to digital cameras to a myriad of laptops in different shapes and colors as well as a variety of new netbooks. Many of the new Windows 7 notebooks are small and lightweight, and a few are available for under $500. Here is an offering of some of the new Windows 7-compatible devices Microsoft had on hand for the launch.
Red Hat's Fedora 12, which has recently hit its beta milestone, continues in the tradition of previous Fedora releases by adding compelling enhancements in the areas of security, management and virtualization. Read about the features that have caught our eye so far, and see those features in action in the gallery below.
Google's Chrome Web browser has been out since Sept. 2, 2008, and the application has garnered accolades for speed and weathered criticism for taking a long time to appear in Mac and Linux versions. The browser, which has undergone quite the evolution since its launch, already has more than 3 percent market share. To endear it to new users, Google began offering a tour of the browser's features Oct. 14. Rather than making you point and click all over the Website, eWEEK takes you through the ins and outs of Chrome.
There was no shortage of news at the 2009 Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. Microsoft dominated the news crush Oct. 21, with news that its Bing search engine would begin indexing Twitter tweets in a dedicated results page called Bing Twitter and index Facebook status updates at a later date. Google followed suit after a fashion, announcing
On Oct. 22, Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system arrives on store shelves and, possibly, in your IT department. For Microsoft and the legions of IT administrators that rely on Windows technology, this is a big deal with implications for the global economy. The unveiling of Windows 7, especially in light of what happened with Windows Vista and the legacy of Windows XP, not only means a lot for Microsoft but for businesses that rely on Windows for their IT infrastructure.
Here, eWEEK's Eric Lundquist looks at what Windows 7 means, from its impact on the growing cloud computing infrastructure to what the impact is on competitors such as Google and Apple. In addition, Lundquist explores what the Windows 7 upgrade means for your IT department and your own PC.
Windows 7 will make its debut on Oct. 22, with a number of new features included that will change life for IT administrators managing the new operating system on their devices. Deploying and managing Windows 7 will likely be an altogether different experience from what IT pros found with Windows XP and Windows Vista.
Some of these features, such as BitLocker, are designed to make administrators' lives easier by giving them more granular control over system aspects such as security or power management. Others, such as BranchCache or Remote Media Streaming, will make end-users' lives more productive or fun, but could give those IT administrators another layer of complexity with which to deal.
NEW YORK—Microsoft launched Windows 7, its new operating system, in a high-profile event in New York Oct. 22. Headlined by CEO Steve Ballmer and even featuring an appearance by Kylie, the 5-year-old who stars in many television spots in Microsoft's latest ad campaign, the event was designed to show Windows 7 as having a simple, understandable interface that allows the user to carry out networking and multimedia functions with ease.
As part of the presentation, Microsoft ushered media and guests into a special exhibit area where many PCs, including laptops and desktops with touch-screen functionality, were on display. The hope for Microsoft and many of its partners is that the release of Windows 7 will spark an increase in PC sales.
The new Flip MinoHD digital camcorder is significant in that it is the first version of the Flip to be released since Pure Digital (the makers of the camera) were acquired by Cisco. But, more importantly, the new Flip MinoHD is a very well-built, sleek and easy-to-use digital camcorder that provides HD-quality video for $229.99. New features should aid in recording and prevent accidental video loss, and the Flip MinoHD comes with an updated version of the FlipShare video management and sharing software.
Microsoft's Bing search engine stood front and center at the Web 2.0 Summit Oct. 21. In the morning, Bing Director Stefan Weitz discussed how Bing is targeting Google. That was just a warm-up. Later, Qi Lu, president of Microsoft's online services division, invited Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president of Microsoft's online audience business, to unveil the Bing Twitter site. Bing Twitter indexes full Twitter content, including tweets and short links from Bit.ly, all to present a fire hose of real-time data for users. It's exciting, particularly because Google isn't indexing Twitter in real time ... yet. Take a stroll with Bing in this eWEEK slide show.
NEW YORK—Into an increasingly crowded e-reader market steps the newest entry, Barnes & Noble's Nook, which the bookseller hopes will prove a strong competitor to Amazon.com's Kindle line. The Nook features notable differences from the e-readers produced by Amazon.com and Sony, including a dual-screen form factor with e-ink and multitouch color screens.
In an event at Chelsea Piers in New York, CEO Steve Riggio and other Barnes & Noble executives discussed the Nook and their overall strategy for making a mark on the digital-reader landscape, including porting books from their eBookstore onto devices such as the iPhone, and using their physical stores to drive people to their e-reader products.
How well do popular Linux distributions such as Ubuntu, Fedora and OpenSUSE stack up against Microsoft's new desktop flagship, Windows 7? eWEEK Labs identified 10 features new in Windows 7 and put them head-to-head with popular Linux distros to see how the platforms compete. Labs Analysts Jason Brooks and Andrew Garcia found that Version 7 makes big strides on the Windows front with its new features, but that Linux is competitive by most counts.
Apple refreshed three of its popular computers—the all-in-one iMac, the 13.3-inch MacBook and the sans-screen, 2.9-pound Mac mini—as well as introduced a brand new way of thinking about the mouse. The streamlined, white Magic Mouse is the world’s first with multitouch technology. It will ship with the iMac and can be purchased separately for $69. All three Macs are now faster, offer more storage and an improved user experience, are Energy Star 5.0 compliant and come with the “Snow Leopard” operating system.
The introductions came a day after Apple, amidst a PC market only gently getting back on its feet, blew away analyst expectations by announcing quarterly profits of $1.67 billion—a number that reflected the 3.05 million Macs that Apple sold in the quarter.
With the release of the long-awaited Windows 7, there are undoubtedly some people who are left wondering if the operating system will mimic Microsoft's ill-fated Windows Vista or break the mold and do something far better. Microsoft has done a fine job highlighting some of the many features that Windows 7 has and Windows Vista doesn't, but it has swept some of the similar features under the rug. This slide show examines five ways in which Windows 7 is similar to its Vista predecessor and five ways it is better than the earlier edition.
eWEEK Labs' Jeff Cogswell has spent some time testing Ext JS Version 3.0, a JavaScript library for creating sophisticated AJAX-powered Websites. Following are screen captures of some of the sample applications that come with Ext JS.
Fujitsu introduced five new laptops on Oct. 19, all running versions of Microsoft's Windows 7, which is said to have embedded functionality that greatly complements touch-related applications. The Fujitsu offerings, some of which are now available and some of which will arrive in the coming weeks, are the LifeBook T4410 and T4310, which are enterprise- and consumer-focused versions of convertible tablet PCs; the 15.6-inch LifeBook A1220 desktop replacement; a glossy, 10.1-inch M2011 netbook; and an also glossy, 3.5-pound LifeBook P3010 ultrathin notebook.
On the same day, Gateway introduced a new line of notebooks called the EC Series, which focus on reducing energy consumption and extending battery life. The three models in the series are said to offer 6 to 8 hours of battery life.
The Dell R710 PowerEdge data center server racks up compute and memory in a tidy package, offering UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) as an option instead of BIOS to help with embedded system adminstration. Adding UEFI to physical systems could be a stepping stone toward more effective management of physical and virtual system resources.
Leading into the 2009 holiday shopping season, Acer introduced three laptops and even an Android-running smartphone called Liquid, which will feature Qualcomm's Snapdragon processor. While the Liquid announcement was a teaser, without pricing or timeline details, Acer was more generous about the laptops. The Acer One AOD250 is a 10.1-inch dual-boot model running both Android and Windows XP Home. The Aspire 5738PG is the company's first notebook to feature a screen with multitouch capabilities, and the Aspire Timeline AS1810TZ is an 11.6-inch addition to Acer's Timeline series. Acer additionally announced that it will expand its Timeline series with additional models featuring Microsoft's Windows 7 and Intel CULV dual-core processors. While the Aspire One is now available, the 5738PG and the Timeline model will arrive on Oct. 22 with the launch of Windows 7.
IBM's "Smarter Planet" initiative has loftier aspirations than your typical corporate strategy. Big Blue says the world is becoming instrumented (by 2010, there will be a billion transistors per human, each one costing one ten-millionth of a cent); more interconnected (a trillion networked things); and more intelligent (thanks to algorithms and powerful systems that can analyze mountains of data to make decisions and to take actions). IBM aims to provide the technology that can connect the systems running the world, making the planet smarter: with less traffic, healthier food, cleaner water, safer cities. Here are 25 things you might not have known about IBM's "Smarter Planet" initiative. IBM's Smarter Planet strategy nears its first anniversary as eWEEK publishes this slide show.
The tech equivalent of urban sprawl is virtual machine sprawl. As cloud computing begins to get a real, day-to-day foothold in enterprise IT systems, ad hoc cloud services are being deployed more and more frequently for short-term results. Many times these are used by employees without company sanction to get a short-term result, and the services are kept around longer than is necessary. Without a comprehensive strategy or formal program in place and without anyone having a handle on what exactly is going on or where corporate data resides, this can lead to big problems. In this slide show, Accenture's Chief Technology Architect, Paul Daugherty, shows how this sprawl takes root and what a CIO or data center managers can do to ward off these potential problems.
The Crossbeam X80 is an enterprise- and carrier-grade chassis-based security switch with stellar firewall performance and a solid set of high-availability features. Businesses that need a flexible, high-speed security switch will find the $500,000 price well worth it, for the X80's ability to consolidate many security functions and still push traffic at 40G bps is unrivaled in today's market.
Access to mobile 3G broadband connections has become more common in recent years, whether through 3G USB dongles or by tethering to smartphones. But options for mobile offices and traveling work teams have been limited. The Novatel Wireless MiFi 2200, available for both Verizon and Sprint networks, offers a simple-to-manage portable Wi-Fi hot spot that provides acceptable 3G broadband connectivity and a surprisingly powerful Wi-Fi connection for such a small device.
Alongside the batch of open-source software updates you'll find in any new Linux distribution release, the upcoming Ubuntu Linux 9.10, now available in a beta version, packs some eye-catching enhancements around disk encryption, tightened access controls and Web service integration. Check out eWEEK Labs' screen gallery for a look at what's coming in the "Karmic Koala" Ubuntu release, and be sure to read eWEEK Labs' related review here.
Yahoo took its developer story to Broadway by hosting its Open Hack Day at the Hudson Theatre in New York City's historic Times Square theater district. At the event, Yahoo pitched developers on the value of its broad consumer platform as a vehicle for developers to distribute and promote applications and build an audience.
Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell, appearing at a Churchill Club of Silicon Valley dinner event Oct. 13, addressed a number of topics before a near-full house of about 300 in Santa Clara, Calif. He made remarks about the impending public launch of Microsoft's Windows 7 ("You'll love your PC again!"), the 2007 EqualLogic acquisition ("This company had about 3,300 customers when we acquired it; we've added 10,000 new customers"), and the increasing dominance of the server in the data center.
With the amount of power being consumed by data centers rapidly growing, and mounting pressure from federal regulators to cut that consumption, businesses are looking for ways to make their data centers more environmentally friendly. Like many competitors, Hewlett-Packard offers services to help businesses make their new data centers green, or retrofit existing facilities with eco-friendly features. Such features can include everything from new, energy-efficient systems and greater use of virtualization to green materials used on the outside of buildings and innovating power and cooling methods inside. The following are four data centers—some new and some already existing—that HP helped make more green. Two are customer sites, and two others are data centers HP inherited when it bought services firm EDS in 2008.
On Oct. 13, Nokia officially introduced the Booklet 3G, its entry into the PC arena. The Booklet 3G will be available mid-November, exclusively at Best Buy retail stores for the duration of the holiday season (afterward, it’ll likely be available elsewhere). With a two-year service contract from AT&T, the Booklet 3G will be available for $299. Without the AT&T service, Best Buy is selling it for $599. The Booklet boasts always-on connectivity, a 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor, the Microsoft Windows 7 operating system and an impressive 12 hours of battery life.
Hewlett-Packard is getting more "touchy" by the day about how it wants computer users to interact with its new machines. Thanks to hot-selling devices like the iPhone, iTouch and others, people are getting more accustomed to using touch technology in both home and business environments. So HP has responded: The giant hardware and software manufacturer on Oct. 13 introduced its 2010 lineup of touch-screen laptop and desktop computers that run Windows 7. Several of them will become available Oct. 22, the same day the consumer version of Microsoft's latest OS version is launched.
The new devices include some cool—mostly home-oriented —applications such as Pandora (customized Web radio), Hulu (on-demand television), Netflix, Webcam software and the HP Music Store.
Following is a slideshow highlighting the most interesting new products in the 2010 HP Touch lineup. Enjoy!
(All Photos by Chris Preimesberger)
A recent survey of 316 members of the Independent Oracle Users Group paints a troubling picture of database security. As it turns out, respondents this year have taken a number of steps back when it comes to protecting sensitive data, even as a higher percentage reported experiencing data breaches. The key issues—failure to manage privileged access, a lack of encryption and an over-reliance on manual or ad hoc approaches to database security.
Overall, the level of security has slipped when compared with last year’s survey. Whether it’s due to not enough being spent on security or policy enforcement, the survey shows IT professionals have their work cut out for them.
When Windows 7 becomes available to businesses and consumers on Oct. 22, Microsoft is no doubt hoping that many will eagerly trade up from the increasingly aged (although still functional) Windows XP and much-maligned Windows Vista. Indeed, a number of early reviews have called Windows 7 a do-over of Vista, presenting a streamlined operating system with a number of aesthetic and functional improvements over previous iterations.
This slide show details some of the under-the-hood and on-the-desktop features unique to Windows 7 that could appeal to both office workers and home users.
Former Business Week writer Richard L. Brandt recently published "Inside Larry and Sergey's Brain," a bid to look at Google through the eyes of its co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The book takes readers through the mechanics of Google's operations for the last 11 years, revealing some nuggets about the company's co-founders, other executives and other details the average reader might not be aware of. Think you're a Google fan? See how many of these details you knew before reading this eWEEK slideshow.
October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month, and Google paid homage to that fact by offering a brief tutorial on creating stronger passwords. Why, Google, you ask? After all, Google is not a security consultant. True, but Google is the world's Web service leader. Millions of users flock to Google to use its Gmail, Google Reader, iGoogle home pages and other applications. These services require a Google Account, which in turn means a user ID and password. To help users steer clear of activities such as phishing, Google Oct. 7 offered fixes to five password security problems. eWEEK runs through them here.
The second week of October was filled with mobile phone and smartphone news, as manufacturers prepared for the holidays and hoped to make dreams of touchscreens and Google Android dance in our heads. Below is a closer look at these new offerings, namely, the T-Mobile Tap, the Nokia 3711 and the Android-running Samsung Behold II, all from T-Mobile. T-Mobile additionally released a 3G Fender Limited Edition model of its Android-running myTouch, a Frost White version of the BlackBerry Curve 8520 and announced that the already-introduced-but-not-yet-released Motorola Cliq would figure in its holiday lineup. Sprint also contributed to the Android holiday news, announcing it will offer the Samsung Moment on Nov. 1. Its first Android smartphone, the HTC Hero, will go on sale Oct. 11.
The value of data deduplication storage technology that is good for everything inside-and even outside-an IT system cannot be overstated. As it eliminates redundant data from disk storage devices, it lowers storage space requirements, which in turn lowers data center power and cooling costs and lessens the amount of carbon dioxide produced to generate power to run the hardware. There is nothing bad about dedupe; no wonder it is the most asked-for feature in new storage system purchases.
Several companies have been providing this for several years, and FalconStor-mostly known as an OEM "dedupe" partner for EMC, Sun, IBM, Acer, Pillar Data Systems, 3PAR, Isilion, and several others—has been been a busy producer. FalconStor's brand of dedupe works cross-platform, and users say it is fast and efficient. Still, there is much to be learned by potential buyers about how it works and what benefits it brings. To this end, FalconStor Director of Marketing Fadi Albatal offers a list of key facts about dedupe that an IT manager should know before the buy is made.
Cisco puts physical brawn behind the stateless computing brains of its Unified Computing System platform. eWEEK Labs lays out the physical components used in our exclusive review of Cisco's UCS. A variety of configurations are possible in UCS; this gallery shows only components used during the tests.
The Cisco UCS (Unified Computing System) Manager is the administrative overseer of the hardware and virtual components that make up the platform. The data center tool is the management heart of Cisco's UCS. Physical equipment, virtualized server resource, LAN, SAN and all management actions are controlled through the UCS Manager, which can be run as a GUI-based tool or from a traditional CLI. Here are some of the components used during eWEEK Labs' exclusive review of the newly minted Cisco UCS.
Microsoft showed off many of the products it intends to push during the upcoming holiday season, including the Xbox 360 game "The Beatles: Rock Band" and smartphones equipped with the Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system, during a massive "Open House" in New York City on Oct. 6. Microsoft also intends to heavily promote the Zune HD, its handheld media player, and a variety of hardware ranging from a high-powered mouse to high-definition cameras for video chat. Additionally, Microsoft used the event to show off its collaboration with Ford on in-vehicle technology for the 2010 Fusion.
Although Microsoft is gearing everyone up for the release of Windows 7 on Oct. 22, there are other solutions out there that might satisfy a user's desire for a new operating system without the additional cost. Unlike Windows, open-source operating system Linux has been tinkered with by several developers who have attempted to do more than re-create the basic computing experience. And in many cases, they have done a fine job at it. So fine, in fact, that some Linux distributions can be considered viable alternatives to Windows 7. Since Windows 7 isn't for everyone, we've found eight alternatives that you'll want to try out. In addition to Mac OS X, they range from basic consumer versions to enterprise-friendly Linux distributions that could solve a real need in the corporate world. In either case, they are worth considering before jumping into Windows 7.
Everyone thinks of Google’s Android as an operating system for phones, but how does it work on a device that isn’t a phone? The Archos 5 Internet Tablet is an entertainment and media-playing device (think iPod Touch instead of iPhone) that uses Android as its base operating system. The Archos 5 Internet Tablet (despite the name) has no 3G Internet connection, instead relying on Wi-Fi hotspots to get on the Internet. The well-built device provides quality HD video, a good MP3-playing experience, games and, of course, Internet browsing.
Google Wave, the search engine giant's real-time collaboration platform, began rolling out to 100,000 new users Sept. 30 as an extended preview. The platform combines e-mail, instant messaging and wiki-like document and file sharing with social networking features. Many of those new users included luminary bloggers such as Robert Scoble, and the early reports are rolling in. It's too early to judge Wave yet, but it's clear that the HTML 5-based platform has a number of issues that need to be addressed, from missing features to concerns about Wave's infrastructure. But perhaps the biggest challenges are the learning curves associated with using Wave—it's quite chaotic—as well as the potential for crashing users' productivity parties. eWEEK runs down the issues here.
Hosted IP PBX systems have become a popular option for small and midsize businesses because they provide all of the functionality of a corporate PBX but with much lower upfront costs. They also allow geographically dispersed workers to share the same phone systems and take advantage of traditional office features such as extension dialing and easy conferencing. 8x8’s Virtual Office provides a solid hosted IP PBX system that can be set up with little hassle and that is competitively priced. 8x8 also provides its own line of full-featured IP phones to give businesses corporate-oriented phones to work with their hosted IP PBX system.
NEW YORK—Microsoft used an Open House event here on Oct. 6 to roll out a variety of new products for the fall and holiday season. Many of these carry quite a bit of business functionality, including its new Windows 7 operating system, Windows Mobile 6.5, Office Mobile, and new hardware including a variety of mouse models and video-conferencing cameras. Microsoft hopes that these new products will ignite a massive tech refresh among the enterprise and SMBs (small- to medium-sized businesses), many of which will likely be looking to upgrade their aging hardware and operating systems. Redmond also hopes that Windows Mobile 6.5 and Office Mobile will give it an advantage in the mobile-device ecosystem, currently dominated by other players such as Apple and RIM’s BlackBerry line.
Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 6.5, the latest version of its smartphone operating system, was released on Oct. 6 with the hope on Redmond’s part that it will gain more market share in the mobile operating-system market. In order to convince users that their device may meet their business needs better than offerings from Apple, Palm or Research In Motion’s BlackBerry line, Microsoft has incorporated a number of business functionalities into Mobile 6.5.
Among these features is Microsoft Office Mobile, which lets users view PowerPoint presentations, as well as edit Word and Excel documents. Microsoft also continues to provide e-mail and calendar management, with the ability to sync with a PC, through Outlook Mobile.
Adobe Systems has announced Adobe LiveCycle Enterprise Suite 2, a major software release enabling businesses and governments to build applications that interact with customers and constituents across devices and channels. Delivering significant productivity improvements to business and IT alike, LiveCycle ES2 provides a rich Internet application (RIA) framework for building customizable RIA workspaces, mobile and desktop access to critical applications, and deployment in the cloud. Enterprises can now deliver personalized experiences that connect to automated processes and embed real-time collaboration in the applications to improve customer experience and boost employee productivity.
eWEEK Labs put the just-released Windows Mobile 6.5 through its paces on an AT&T Pure device made by HTC. Check out this slideshow for pictures of the phone and screenshots of the new OS. Can Windows Mobile 6.5 take on the iPhone? Take a look and judge for yourself.
Microsoft's Windows 7 launch is just three weeks away. It might seem like a long time to some, but for the rest of us, the time has come to prepare for the new operating system. Part of that preparation involves determining what software we should install to augment the experience. Everything from security software to fun, photo-editing tools should make that list. But picking them can be difficult. How do we know which music application to choose? Which video-editing application is ideal for the new Windows 7? Answering those questions might be more difficult than we think. That's precisely why we here at eWEEK have compiled our own list. We want to help you make those tough choices.
So without further ado, join eWEEK as we point out 10 applications that you'll definitely want to install when Windows 7 hits store shelves on Oct. 22.
Windows 7’s DirectAccess is a next-generation access technology designed to connect remote clients in the age of the vanishing network perimeter. The following slideshow details installation and setup of DirectAccess during eWEEK Labs' tests. DirectAccess is one of the features Microsoft is pitching as a "better together" benefit of using Windows 7 in tandem with Windows Server 2008 R2.
Google last fall announced Project 10100 to invite users to submit ideas that help humanity. Google also pledged to commit $10 million to help implement these projects. During the last several months, Google narrowed down 154,000 submissions to 16 top ideas. Users can vote on them here through Oct. 8. eWEEK believes these issues are important enough to merit celebrating them in this slide show. Please read through them and vote!
Apple recently announced that more than 2 billion applications for the iPhone and the iPod Touch had been downloaded from its App Store, which now catalogs over 85,000 free and paid apps. Many of those apps have demonstrable use for both business users and consumers; however, for every one that ports some vital functionality onto your iPhone, the App Store boasts another dozen that have absolutely no use whatsoever, except maybe to amuse those very easily amused. The following 15 apps fall into the category of especially useless.
Oracle database administrators, analysts, developers and managers appear to be weathering the economic storm better than some other IT professionals. According to a new survey of 481 members of the Independent Oracle Users Group by Unisphere Research and Ntirety, the number of Oracle technology professionals near or surpassing the $100,000 mark in their base salaries has increased.
Still, that doesn't mean Oracle technology professionals didn't feel any strain—more than a quarter have seen some impact on their day-to-day jobs. About 16 percent saw their jobs restructured to incorporate more responsibilities, and four percent say they were moved to another part of the business. So while many people saw a jump in salaries, their job responsibilities got bigger—and factors such as DBA certifications may not make as much of a difference as you think.
See that red blinking light on your BlackBerry? Good luck ignoring it, manager. Getting the most out of your BlackBerry smartphone can boost productivity, ease stress loads on the job, allow for smooth social networking and help you manage billable hours. These applications for the BlackBerry should help simplify your daily work grind and keep you up-to-date with your team, your bosses, your spouse and career opportunities.
Google Wave rolled out to 100,000 more users Sept. 30 as part of an extended preview. With this new rollout come Google prototypes including technology from SAP, Salesforce.com and MediaWiki that use the real-time collaboration platform in enterprise application scenarios. Google also unveiled extensions from British Telecom's Ribbit and AccuWeather, among others, that augment Google Wave, which Google has open-sourced. Join eWEEK on this tour of the experiments and applications that integrate with Google Wave.
Zimbra, the enterprise collaboration software unit of Yahoo, released Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) 6.0 Sept. 30. The portfolio includes several improvements to its e-mail client, as well as improved security, rights management and mobile features. Zimbra competes versus Microsoft, IBM, Google Apps, Zoho and a raft of collaboration startups, including Jive Software, MindTouch and Socialtext. Come with eWEEK on this guided tour of new features in ZCS 6.0
No lie! South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson is cutting a wide Twitter path among members of Congress, as are several other Twittering Republicans. TechPresident and Twitter analytics site Klout took the measure of more than 80 Twittering lawmakers in engagement, reach, how often one’s messages are retweeted, reciprocity, the influence of one’s followers and the effectiveness of one's tweeting. In other words: the lawmaker’s official Twitter clout. Here, eWEEK assembles the TechPresident and Klout’s Top 10 along with their cumulative scores (out of a possible 100).
Talend Open Studio 3.1 is an open-source application that smooths the design and execution of data integration projects. The Talend Open Studio ETL (extraction, trasformation and loading) tool inherits a familiar graphical interface from the Eclipse platform on which it's built, and enables users to get off to a quick start through the provision of a broad range of data source components.
On Sept. 29, Dell rolled out a trio of new PCs designed for enterprise customers, especially those working in finance, banking, real estate and the insurance industry. The first PC is the Dell Latitude Z600 laptop, which offers a new technology that gives users access to Microsoft Exchange and other applications without fully booting the notebook. In addition, Dell unveiled two desktop models. One is the OptiPlex 780 desktop, which is designed for larger enterprises, and the second is the Precision T1500 workstation, which is geared toward CAD (computer-aided design) workers.
At the 2009 Intel Developer Forum, Intel executives unveiled the "Clarksfield" family of quad-core chips, which will bring the "Nehalem" architecture to the mobile space for the first time. The three new chips—the Core i7-920XM Extreme, Core i7-820QM and Core i7-720QM—are aimed at the high-end space, for use in systems that will be used primarily by gamers and PC enthusiasts. The chips will come with such features as Turbo Boost, which enables the dynamic scaling of a chip's speed depending on demand; Hyper-Threading; and an integrated memory controller. Dell, Asustek Computer and Toshiba have already rolled out systems that are powered by the new mobile Core i7 chips. In early 2010, Intel will release "Arrandale," its first 32-nanometer mobile chip for mainstream systems.
Snow Leopard Server, the Mac OS X version of the Apple operating system for Xserve and other Mac hardware, adds effective workflow enhancements for Podcast Producer 2 and other new features. Here's a look at some Snow Leopard Server and Mac client operations to help you get a feel for what's new.
By Cameron Sturdevant
IDEMA, the International Disk Drive and Materials Association, hosted its annual DISKCON conference in Santa Clara, Calif., Sept. 23 and 24. Included as a bonus on the show floor was a literal walk down memory lane for older engineers. This was a display of history-making hard drives, staged by longtime industry analyst and consultant Jim Porter. Many veteran engineers gazed at the artifacts with almost loving eyes: "I spent about a year of my life working on that one," said one industry veteran. Another commented that another model "was a bear--but we got the job done." No matter what, it took many millions of man-hours to develop these machines that we take so much for granted today. What follows is a chronological walk through history, remembering a number of the most important advances in HHD history. Perhaps you'll see one you worked on yourself. Enjoy!
Manufacturers are already gearing up for a holiday season, planning to issue an array of new phones, netbooks and toys for consumers. Many of these devices, of course, can also serve a dual use within the corporate world, especially as their form factors become more portable and processing power increases. Hewlett-Packard, Palm, 3M, Asus, Samsung and others recently rolled out a selection of their holiday-targeted gear at a Pepcom event in New York City. Among the trends: more powerful (and more expensive) netbooks, ruggedized and smaller smartphones, and an emphasis on multitouch screens.
At this year's DEMOfall conference, a number of new products and new companies launched, covering a wide area of technology, from enterprise applications to consumer products, from tools designed to serve large corporate needs to mobile apps designed to help commuters get to work. eWEEK Chief Technology Analyst Jim Rapoza got to take a first-hand look while at DEMOfall and has made his list of the most promising products to debut at this year's show.
By Jim Rapoza
Behind the reports of rogue antivirus scams is a multimillion dollar business lining the pockets of cyber-thieves. The threats aren’t new, but they have been growing in prevalence, according to malware researchers. Seven of the top 25 malware or unwanted software families from the second half of 2008 had a connection to rogue software, according to Microsoft experts. Two in particular—Win32/FakeXPA and Win32/FakeSecSen—were detected by Microsoft on more than 1.5 million computers.
The prevalence of the scams is driven by the profits. In a report in March, Finjan uncovered a rogueware affiliate network that hauled in an average of $10,800 a day. Such schemes are successful in part because attackers do a good job of mimicking the look of the Windows Security Center and other legitimate screens in Windows to give their phony scams an air of authenticity. Successfully fighting rogue antivirus schemes must involve teaching users about social engineering. With all this in mind, eWEEK is going behind the scenes of some of the successful rogue antivirus scams that have plagued the Internet.
Driven by the rapid adoption of server virtualization and the trend toward cloud computing, OEMs are rolling out systems designed to bring high performance, energy efficiency and relatively low cost to the data center. At the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, Intel executives continued their drumbeat of rolling out processor technologies designed to meet those goals, and took it a step further by not only saying they were looking to create a "microserver" category, but also by unveiling an Intel-developed microserver that will serve as a reference design. On the showroom floor at IDF, a host of OEMs displayed systems aimed at addressing the demands for high performance and low energy consumption.By Jeffrey Burt
The Palm WebOS SDK, called Mojo, allows developers to easily create applications (right now, just for the Palm Pre). In this slide show, eWEEK Labs takes a look at the Eclipse plug-in and emulator included with the SDK.
By Jeff Cogswell
Palm is hoping that its upcoming smartphone, the Pixi, will help it expand the market-share it already earned with the release of the Palm Pre earlier this year. Touted in some quarters as a potential iPhone killer, the Pre included a fully QWERTY keyboard, multi-touch screen, and a sleek form-factor - all elements continued with the Pixi, due for release sometime in the fourth quarter of 2009.
At a recent Pepcom event in New York City, eWEEK had the chance to examine the Pixi and see how it compared to Palm's earlier high-profile smartphone. With a slim form-factor and an interface linking to many consumer applications such as Facebook, the Pixi has the potential to sell in generous numbers during the holiday season; businesses already utilizing Sprint's network may also consider adopting the device for everyday use.
Like applications that help you lead a greener, more environmentally friendly lifestyle, applications dedicated to improving your health and fitness are a growing presence on Apple's App Store. Many are free or priced below $5, and the more expensive apps will give you a detailed tour through human anatomy. Keep in mind Apple divides the health apps into two categories: "Healthcare and Fitness" and "Medical" Here's a list of nine applications that teach you how to lead a healthier existence-of course, you still have to do the work yourself, so close down that MonkeyBall application and start counting calories.By Nathan Eddy
Intel released the low-power Atom processor in March 2008 as a device to bring the Intel architecture into sectors of the industry—such as the growing market for Internet-connected devices—that the chip maker had little presence in. During that time, Intel also has given rise to a new category of small, low-cost, energy-efficient laptops, called netbooks. The systems are low-cost notebooks used for Web surfing and basic tasks. Since that time, netbooks' sales have grown, and IDC in June upped its forecast for global shipments for the year by 20 percent, to 26.4 million, driven in large part by demand in certain areas of the world such as Latin America and the United States and by the telecoms subsidizing the systems. At the Intel Developer Forum, netbook vendors were showing off their offerings.
By Jeffrey Burt
At the Intel Developer Forum, Intel officials drove home the message that the company is moving beyond its traditional PC and server businesses into such areas as handheld products and Internet-connected devices. A key part of that strategy is the continued shrinking of the die, enabling Intel to increase performance, add more capabilities to the chip and bring the Intel architecture into smaller devices. Intel has sold more than 200 million of the current 45-nanometer processors and is continuing to drive the "Nehalem" architecture into new sectors. Intel also is readying its 32-nm chips for release in the fourth quarter. In his keynote, Intel CEO Paul Otellini also said that Intel engineers had produced working test chips made with the company's 22-nm manufacturing process. Those chips are due out in 2011.
By Jeffrey Burt
Storing data in the cloud has brought with it its own set of compliance and security concerns -- something underscored recently by a survey by Unisys. The survey revealed that 51 percent of the 312 respondents cited security and data privacy as their top concern regarding cloud data storage. While experts say the public cloud may be ready for certain applications, organizations need to be sure those apps are secure -- and that they can prove it when questioned by auditors.
With that in mind, eWEEK spoke to analysts and others in the field and asked them what companies should think about from a security and privacy perspective before pushing their data into the cloud. Here are few of the questions and considerations you should take to your service provider.
The Panda MOP (Managed Office Protection) SAAS server and workstation anti-malware solution allows systems to be managed and protected from a central location, regardless of whether they are inside or outside the company network.
By Matthew D. Sarrel
Collaboration is the cornerstone of getting work done in the enterprise. It may start with e-mail clients, but there are a number of platforms that enable file sharing, offer wiki-like work space and provide real-time collaboration through Web conferencing. They also come in different packages, with some designed as on-premises installations and others deployed via the Web as cloud computing services. In this slideshow, eWEEK runs through some of the most popular collaboration platforms, from Microsoft SharePoint to Zimbra and other solutions in between. This isn't an attempt to rank the products, or favor one over the other, but to show businesses what's out there to help employees better work together.
Backblaze is Bay Area-based a startup that provides unlimited online backup for laptops or desktops to its customers for $5 per month, which is similar in many ways to cloud storage services such as Carbonite, Mozy and Amazon S3. To make his business commercially viable, founder Gleb Budman had to figure out how to store hundreds of petabytes of customer data in a reliable, scalable way—and still keep his costs low. After looking at several commercial solutions that he considered overpriced, Budman told eWEEK that he and his team decided to build their own custom Backblaze Storage Pods with commodity hardware. They constructed 67TB worth of capacity in a 4U-sized server array. Total cost: $7,867. Budman isn't afraid to document everything about this project. The new cloud storage system is now working well for Backblaze, Budman said.
However, he and his crew didn't stop at that. They have since decided to share their development recipe and parts list for this low-cost storage system in an open-source manner. They figure that if companies can build their own cloud storage for a lot less up-front money, then perhaps those same companies will consider utilizing Backblaze's cloud storage management software.
"Our hope is that by sharing, others can benefit and, ultimately, refine this concept and send improvements back to us," Budman said. "Evolving and lowering costs is critical to our continuing success at Backblaze."
In this slideshow, we'll show a general overview about how to make one of these storage pods yourself and save thousands of dollars. Backblaze has made the actual blueprints available in a free download.
You can view a more detailed blog post and a short 3D video illustrating the storage box.
A special edition of the Parallels virtualization tool—Parallels Desktop 4.0 Switch to Mac—makes it a snap to move all the applications and data installed on a physical PC to a Windows virtual machine running on an Apple Mac OS X system.
By Cameron Sturdevant
The name COBOL was selected during a meeting of the Short Range Committee, the organization responsible for submitting the first version of the language, on Sept. 18, 1959. This committee, formed by a joint effort of industry, major universities and the U.S. government, was known as CODASYL (Conference on Data Systems Languages). CODASYL completed the specifications for COBOL as 1959 ended. These were approved by the Executive Committee in January 1960 and sent to the government printing office, which edited and printed these specifications as Cobol 60. COBOL was developed within a six-month period, and yet is still in use more than 50 years later.
MySpace Sept. 21 unveiled MySpace Sync, an opt-in tool that lets users post their status updates to Twitter and vice versa. In beta and rolling out to users over the coming weeks, MySpace Sync will allow any U.S. user to make any update created on MySpace appear on their Twitter pages. Conversely, a tweet posted to Twitter will appear within their MySpace status and mood feed. MySpace Sync is a shot at Facebook, whose 300 million worldwide users dwarfs MySpace's 130 million users.
Lenovo's ThinkPad T400s workhorse laptop can now be equipped with a $400 touch-screen that enables finger taps and multitouch gestures to put the user in direct contact with applications.
By Cameron Sturdevant
One of the biggest security risks that companies face is employees who fall victim to phishing e-mails, which can lead to stolen log-in credentials and virus infections. SocialPET is a simple Web-based testing tool that lets businesses run their own phishing tests to find out which employees understand security procedures and which are at risk to falling prey to real phishing scams.
The U.S. News & World Report’s "The 10 Best Places for Tech Jobs" factors in the following criteria for making the list: number of opportunities relative to education, geography of job openings in a broad range of tech-specific job categories, supply and demand ratios, salary, and cost of living. It's not surprising to see Boston, San Francisco and Seattle on this list, but Houston, Phoenix and Huntsville, Ala.? Now there are some nontraditional places for technology work. Why is that? Let's find out.
Hewlett-Packard recently unveiled a number of its new 2010 notebooks, laptops and desktop computers for both business and consumers. However, there was one more product for HP to announce a couple of days later: the DreamScreen. This new product looks pretty basic, like one of those digital photo displays that make good gifts for grandparents. DreamScreen can do that, too, but it's really a simple home computer that provides wireless connectivity that lets you play a music library, view videos and surf the Web. The details are in this slide show.
Perhaps the most compelling new feature of Microsoft's upcoming Office 2010 upgrade is the addition of Web-based versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. Microsoft has offered the first public glimpse of these Office Web Apps, with Technical Preview versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint (a preview version of OneNote is not yet available). Join me for a tour of Office Web Apps by viewing the slide gallery below, and stay tuned for eWEEK Labs' review of the tech preview.
By Jason Brooks
Rapid Repair is generally in the business of fixing iPods. But when Microsoft released the slick little Zune HD music player on Sept. 16, Rapid Repair promptly tore one apart to take a look at its insides. The Zune HD’s most highly touted features are its touch-screen—which Rapid Repair advises against marring up with fingerprints, once you pull it off its frame—HD Radio, a Web browser with an on-screen QWERTY keyboard, wireless connectivity, a Quickplay feature that offers shortcuts to favorite apps, and support for 720-pixel HD movies, TV and videos. The 32GB model is capable of storing 8,000 songs or 10 hours of HD video from the Zune Marketplace. In all, Rapid Repair found the Zune HD to share a few features with the Apple iPod Touch and Nano, and applauded its very replaceable parts—perfect for butter-fingered users.
Yeah, we know, "green IT" is a popular marketing concept these days. Every company has some aspect of their product or service that helps the environment. On Apple's App Store, however, developers are thinking of new ways applications can help you be a more mindful denizen of planet earth. Here's a selection of green apps that might make you to a better steward of this little blue marble spinning through space.
By Nathan Eddy
Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, said Sept. 14 the Senate plans to investigate the possible links between cell phone use and cancer. The World Health Organization and National Cancer Institute have said there is little clear evidence to prove the linkage, but the EWG (Environmental Working Group) and other organizations believe the evidence is compelling. According to the EWG here are the five safest phones for radiation emissions and the five worst.
Augmented reality (AR) is an emerging field of technology that blends real-world views with virtual reality. You can also think of it as mixed reality. Research firms such as Gartner predict big things for the application development market from AR. The respected blog ReadWriteWeb is leading the coverage of AR applications here. What does AR look like? Picture being on a city street and you want to know what stores exist around you. You look through the viewfinder of the live camera in your iPhone and see a layer on top of the camera view that shows you what restaurants and other shops are in the area, as well as information on those businesses. That's AR at work. Here are 10 great AR apps showing what they can do for you.
Microsoft launched the beta version of its Visual Search for Bing, its search engine, on Sept. 14. Visual Search presents its users with a series of image galleries, which can then be clicked and scrolled through to find a particular one - all without ever having to type in a search term.
Google Labs produced a similar visual-search feature, called Similar Images, earlier this year. Despite sharing some outward characteristics, Microsoft's and Google's still-in-development products have sharp differences. For example, Similar Images dictates that the user type in a search term before being able to search through galleries; it also lacks some of the granular-search options of Bing's Visual Search.
As the battle for U.S. search engine market share intensifies between Google and Microsoft, both companies are looking for ways to gain and retain users through offering an ever-wider array of search functionality. In the following slide show, eWEEK uses the search for a smartphone to illustrate how both companies' thinking differs when it comes to visual search.
Gist is a new Web service that trolls the Web for individual and company profiles and the latest information from social networks such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, over 20 million blogs, and over 50,000 news sources. The service, which aims to go beyond the e-mail management and search provided by Xobni and others, is free and integrates with Microsoft Outlook, Google Gmail and Salesforce.com. Take a brief stroll with eWEEK to see what the company calls a personal relationship manager.
Graphic processing units are finding a greater mainstream computing role, thanks in large part to the efforts of Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices in promoting the technology for general-purpose computing. GPUs from these vendors and others are cropping up in coprocessing roles in workstations from the likes of Dell and Hewlett-Packard, as well as HPC (high-performance computing) offerings from vendors such as Appro and Verari Systems. The benefits of GPUs, from their ability to run such tasks as video applications to the fact that they can hold significantly more processing cores than CPUs, dovetail with the increased demand from consumers and businesses for better performance around such diverse workloads as video, gaming and math-intensive applications. Officials with AMD, which bought ATI for $5.4 billion in 2006, announced in May that they were merging their processor and graphics businesses. Intel also is increasing the graphics capabilities of its processor technologies. AMD gained ground on market leader Nvidia in the second quarter, thanks to its Radeon graphics cards, which were released in 2008.By Jeffrey Burt
On Sept. 15, Lenovo began detailing the new multitouch capabilities of its ThinkPad X200 tablet PC and its ThinkPad T400s laptop. The multitouch screens of both machines are the work of Lenovo engineers and the manufacturers that make the displays. In addition, Lenovo is looking to take advantage of some of the features of Microsoft's Windows 7 OS with a new application called Simple Tap. This technology lets users create shortcuts on the screen that can help turn the laptops off or quickly launch an application. The new multitouch ThinkPad X200 and T400s go on sale in September, and Simple Tap is available for download Oct. 22.
Hewlett-Packard unveiled a number of new notebooks, laptops and desktop computers at a recent San Francisco media preview. As has been the pattern for a number of years, storage capacities, processor power-especially with new multicore Intel chips-and optional features have been increasing, while pricing has been falling. Take a look at what HP will make available be on store shelves and online in the next few weeks.
Ford Motor Co., like Avis in another wheels-oriented market, really is trying harder. In this case, we're talking about IT and how the company is using more of it to help drivers get from one place to another in safety and comfort. Many of these new features are exclusive to its own product line.
The Dearborn, Mich.-based automaker made a stop in San Francisco Sept. 10 to show media members and analysts what they have planned for the 2010 vehicle year. As one might imagine, most of the IT-related features involve safety and Internet connectivity, ranging from on-board radar (to notify the driver of potential road hazards) to voice-activated information systems to programmable keys that limit the vehicle's top speed and music-player volume levels for younger drivers.
Here is a click-through look at new IT features that will be available in Ford sedans, crossovers, SUVs and trucks this coming year.
After a May overhaul by the space shuttle Atlantis' crew, the Hubble Space Telescope is back in business and judging by the first images sent by the iconic space telescope, the state-of-the-art upgrade was a success. Topping the list of new views are colorful multiwavelength pictures of far-flung galaxies, a densely packed star cluster, an eerie "pillar of creation" and a "butterfly" nebula. An eWEEK look at some first images. (All photos courtesy of NASA)By Roy Mark
Motorola introduced the Cliq, its first smartphone running the Google mobile operating system, Android, on Sept. 10. Motorola, which has a comfort zone in the middle of a market that's currently seeing growth at its extremes, could use a big win, and analysts believe Android could help provide it.
"Carriers are looking for an answer to Apple and the iPhone. What Google can bring to [Motorola] is not only a good OS and good mobile environment but also a tremendous number of developers who are going to want to develop for them," said Broadpoint AmTech Mark McKechnie.
The Cliq, which will be exclusive to the T-Mobile network in the United States, features a 3.1-inch touch-screen, a slide-out four-row QWERTY keyboard, a full HTML browser, and 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity. It's also Motorola's first device to feature MotoBlur, a syncing feature that makes the Cliq, according to Motorola, the "first phone with social skills."By Michelle Maisto
Apple staged a music-themed event Sept. 9 in San Francisco featuring Grammy winner Norah Jones to introduce several new features for its iPod devices and its iTunes App Store. But the most important news was that CEO/co-founder Steve Jobs was healthy enough following his March liver transplant to emcee the event at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. It was Jobs' first public appearance in 11 months. Here are some of the highlights.By Chris Preimesberger
Apple's iPhone OS 3.1 (along with the new iTunes 9) adds functionality to the iPhone that could be of interest to enterprise users. Of particular note, users can rearrange on-screen application placement from within iTunes; calendar synchronization with Microsoft Exchange Server is improved; and Voice Control now works with Bluetooth headsets.
By Andrew Garcia
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has completed the installation of its latest supercomputers, which will be used to help in forecasting weather and climate changes.
The massive "Stratus" supercomputer and its backup, "Cirrus," will enable researchers to run more complex models in hopes of improving weather forecasting. NOAA also hopes to be able to increase the lead times for warnings about severe weather, such as hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, floods and winter storms, as well as air quality alerts. The supercomputers are based on IBM's Power 575 systems and are four times faster than the previous supercomputers NOAA was using.
Stratus will be able to reach 69.7 teraflops, or trillions of calculations per second, enough to make it the 56th fastest system in the world, according to the Top500 list of the fastest supercomputers issued in June. Stratus will have billion of bytes of weather observations—such as temperatures, wind speed, precipitation and atmospheric pressure—fed into it each day.By Jeffrey Burt
VMworld 2009, held in San Francisco Aug. 31 through Sept. 3, was noteworthy only for its major product announcements and large attendance-nearly 13,000-but it also sported the biggest deployment thus far of Cisco Systems' new Unified Computing System.
Cisco's UCS, launched last March 16, consists of a new data center architecture, a new server and a new set of management software and services based on Intel's powerful quad-core Nehalem Xeon processors. Cisco partners that include EMC and NetApp [storage], BMC [management software], VMware Microsoft [virtualization software layers], and Accenture [product configurations] are pitching in on the deployments, which Cisco says are gaining traction.
Cisco's VMworld Data Center was used to run 23 different labs, including 11 self-paced labs. More than over 4,000 users were trained in these labs over the four days of the conference. The architecture was designed, architected and implemented in a record two months and was comprised of 16 Unified Computing Systems, supporting 1,024 processors. It was provisioned and up and running less than 30 days from the first customer shipment to support the big event. The architecture featured Cisco's Data Center 3.0 hardware, including the Nexus and MDS switches.
Here is a quick-click tour through the huge but temporary data center, which is larger and more powerful than most of the world's permanent data centers.
Tzolkin's DNS-based site failover and geographic load balancing are easy to implement, relatively inexpensive and non-disruptive.
When the economy went south in 2008, Google CEO Eric Schmidt talked openly about the need to curb the dark matter within Google. Over the next several months, Google lopped off Lively, Google Video, Google Notebook, and ad services such as Google Radio and Google Print. Why? The simple answer is these services did not pad the company's bottom line. Google services need to strike a balance between helping the company make money and being useful for Web surfers. Here are eWEEK's views about why Google slashed these applications and services.By Clint Boulton
With more than 50 million users visiting Twitter in July, the microblogging service has become quite the destination for short updates about what we're doing in the moment. In addition to being a hot destination, Twitter has fostered a whole new ecosystem of real-time communication. Countless applications are popping up to take advantage of the Twitter API to help make their Web services viral. Many of these services enhance the Twitter experience. Join eWEEK on a tour of these Twitter apps. We're not going to cover them all (we don't even claim to have heard of them all!), so if there is one that you think deserves mention, drop me a line.
T-Mobile, once devoid of many compelling 3G smartphones, is now awash with new alternatives: Mobile hardware maker HTC launched both the Android-based MyTouch 3G with Google and the Windows Mobile 6.1-based Touch Pro2 for the T-Mobile network in August. eWEEK Labs checks out both devices in this slide show.
By Andrew Garcia
Maybe because it is around Labor Day or because the time after Labor Day marks the return to work after vacation, but it is time to reflect on the all the hard work, deadline projects and never-ending requests that the unsung IT professional has to squeeze in before he or she can take a break. To mark the 2009 Labor Day holiday, eWEEK's Eric Lundquist looks at the most laborious chores that face IT executives and their staffs every day.
Nokia World 09 played out in Stuttgart, Germany, starting Sept. 2. Like Nokia, its President and CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said, Nokia World is about "people - people like us, getting together, sharing and exploring ideas, creating and connecting. And, of course, having fun along the way."
During the show, Nokia released details about its anticipated netbook, the Booklet 3G, and it introduced the Mini, a slimmed-down sibling to its flagship N97 device. Also introduced were the 5230 phone, the 5800 Navigation Edition, the X3 and X6 phones, Nokia's new partnership with Facebook, and the premise of Nokia Money. Nokia also created a Solutions group for more seamlessly integrating its services and devices.
Many of the features found in current-generation Web browsers, such as tabbed browsing, were originally introduced in Opera. And it won't be a surprise if some of the features found in the recently released Opera 10 likewise make their way to other browsers in the near future. Among the new features in Opera 10 are tools to boost browser performance on slow connections, improvements to an already very good tabbed browsing interface and increased customization options for the innovative Speed Dial tab launch screen.
By Jim Rapoza
eWEEK Labs Analyst Jeff Cogswell fondly thinks back to his teen years during the early 1980s when he was the proud owner of a Commodore 64, a computer that reached near-mythical status. Jeff explores what led up to this computer, what made it great and how it lives on.By Jeff Cogswell
Forty years ago, a new operating system called Unix was created, and a new revolution in computing began. Today, Unix-based operating systems still run many of the biggest and most important computing systems in the world. In fact, the core of Unix can be found in every major operating system in use today, from Apple's Mac OS X to Linux to, yes, even Windows. If Unix itself hadn't forked into many different versions, it might very well be the dominant OS in use today. In honor of the 40th anniversary of Unix, we're taking a look at some of the many different iterations of Unix operating systems.
Ah, that time of year when hot days begin to cool, the sun sets earlier and a new batch of freshmen arrives at universities across the country, eager to learn, make friends and do their first keg stand. Considering the undeniable (and rapid) influence technology has had on higher education, here are 10 iPhone or iPod touch applications no student should be heading off to school without.
The Apache Revolution
The Apache Software Foundation turns 10 this year and will be celebrating this landmark milestone with the largest ApacheCon event in November. Although a completely volunteer organization, the ASF has helped create some of the most important technologies underpinning the modern Internet.
Here, we look at some of the Apache technologies that have changed computing over the last decade, as well as those Apache technologies poised to change computing in the next 10 years.
The products on eWEEK editors' enterprise radar.
The Facebook for iPhone app got a significant lift on Aug. 27 with the addition of landscape mode, an easier-to-use home screen and greater access to Facebook features including events, newsfeed and photos. While there are no explicitly enterprise-oriented changes in Facebook for iPhone 3.01, the improvements will likely increase the chances that IT managers will see Facebook on iPhones in corporate environments. One missing feature: The Facebook "poke" function can still be used only on the Web client.
By Cameron Sturdevant
The "Snow Leopard" evolution of the Apple Mac OS X operating system speeds up common tasks such as startup, offers a redesigned Finder and removes unnecessary software by changing the way in which printer drivers are installed. For IT managers who oversee Apple in the enterprise, here is a look at what's new and enhanced for Mac business users.
With the Microsoft server platform getting an update in the newly released Windows Server 2008 R2, it only makes sense that Microsoft’s core Web server, Internet Information Services, would also gain some new capabilities. Many of the new features in IIS 7.5 are focused on easing management tasks for administrators, through both the IIS Manager console and command-line based options.
By Jim Rapoza
Sept. 1 marks the one-year anniversary of Google's Chrome Web browser. What a year it's been! Chrome, based on the open-source Webkit browser engine, has only garnered a 2.6 percent market share through July, according to Net Applications. However, the Chrome team has been revving the product through a number of releases. The browser is officially out of beta (Gmail took five years to exit beta), and Google is working hard on producing Linux and Mac versions for users. To celebrate Chrome's pending birthday, and for those of you who haven't gotten comfortable with Chrome, eWEEK walks you through some tips to making Chrome more efficient, and even enjoyable, to use. Enjoy!
More than 37 million people visited Google's Gmail application in July, but how many of these users know that they can control Gmail without pointing and clicking with the mouse. Similarly, millions of users, including 1.75 million businesses, use Google Apps services. This includes Google Docs, Calendar, Sites and Talk. Many of these users may not realize how easy it is to share content with fellow collaborators. In this slide show, eWEEK runs through Gmail keyboard shortcuts and shares features for Google Apps, as well as some other tips you may not be privy to.
Fantasy football season is nigh, meaning it’s time to follow your players and teams as early and often as possible—a task made that much easier with a collection of fantasy football apps available for the iPhone and iPod Touch. In general, these apps allow you to not only edit your fantasy teams, but also keep abreast of the newest stats, injury reports, NFL news and everything else you need to dominate your friends and opponents.
For those who already have a team registered on a site such as Yahoo or CBSSports.com, a few of these apps will let you monitor and control those; other apps are more informational, allowing you to sort through players by name, rank, team/bye week and other stats. If you ever wanted that informational advantage that’ll let you squeak by your fantasy-league buddies, well, now there’s an app for that.
OpenGoo is a Web-based office productivity suite that attempts to deliver the online benefits of better-known rivals, such as Google Apps and Zoho Office, without the "our way or the highway" hosting limitations of those services. OpenGoo is released under an open-source license, and it will run on any LAMP server. For organizations that prefer a hosted option, OpenGoo is available as a subscription service under the name Feng Office. eWEEK Labs found that while OpenGoo falls short of its cloud-based competition in overall functionality, the suite's deployment flexibility and knack for knitting together promising open-source Web office components make OpenGoo worth keeping an eye on.
The Sun Microsystems Sun Fire x4170 1U rack-mount server can now be equipped with the latest-generation Intel Nehalem processors, providing near-maximum amounts of compute power, local storage, network bandwidth and PCIe expansion capability into a neatly engineered space.
It’s been a busy month for Microsoft.
In the past few weeks, the company has released community technology previews for SQL Server 2008 Release 2, SQL Server StreamInsight and the SQL Azure Database. Though the software is still in the CTP phase, Microsoft has sought to highlight a number of new capabilities users will be able to deploy.
Users of SQL Server 2008 Release 2 have been given new features around business intelligence and application and multiserver management. SQL Azure, meanwhile, includes support for T-SQL stored procedures and the ability to access SQL Azure with common data access APIs such as ODBC, OLE DB, ADO.NET and PHP.
In this image gallery, eWEEK is offering database administrators a glimpse of what the future holds for SQL Server, as well as what it will look like when their data lives in the cloud.
WeRecoverData.com specializes in high-end IT system data recovery. The company's clients include the NASA Space Shuttle program, financial services providers and other such enterprises. Dyan Parker, the company's chief performance officer, told eWEEK that she's used to seeing horribly burned-up or water-soaked hard disk drives. Even so, "if it's technically possible, we will recover [lost data]. What sets us apart is that we will do special research and development on particular kinds of problems and create our own proprietary utilities to get the job done; most other companies don't have the capability to do that."
Parker cited a recent case in which a major bank lost all of its backup data. "It would have been unrecoverable, except that we went in and retrieved the data by reverse-engineering," Parker said. WeRecoverData.com now has specialized expertise in virtualized storage systems. This was developed through the company's recent successful retrieval of Microsoft Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) format data from a Hyper-V virtualized server.
Parker offered a list of WeRecoverData.com's 13 most common ways hard drives become trashed and how likely it is that the data can be recovered. Do you see yourself in any of the following scenarios?
Amazon recently released a plug-in for Eclipse called AWS Toolkit for Eclipse. This plug-in lets you develop software for the Amazon Web Services cloud without leaving Eclipse. Within Eclipse, you can manage and configure your AWS servers, as well as deploy and debug to the AWS servers.
By Jeff Cogswell
Google programmers have begun propelling PubSubHubbub, a new feed protocol that allows programmers to turn existing Atom and RSS feeds into near real-time data streams. This enables new content or updates to existing content to show up in RSS and Atom feeds really fast. Google programmers Brett Slatkin and Brad Fitzpatrick launched PubSubHubbub last month and have been busy rolling it out to existing Google Web services, including Google Feedburner, Google Blogger, Google Reader shared items and Google Alerts. Google has open-sourced PubSubHubbub and provided instructions for programmers to add the technology to their own applications. In this slideshow eWEEK shows how the technology works, with the instructions courtesy of Google.
When Google bid to buy video compression software maker On2 Technologies Aug. 5, the search engine giant emphasized that improving the quality of its video technologies was a priority for the company. But Google has many other areas where it can improve through acquisition. It has the world-leading search engine; Android, the mobile operating system; the Chrome Web browser; and a host of Web services, including Google Apps, Google Maps and the socially oriented Latitude. Google is also readying the Chrome Operating System for netbooks. With Google's broad swath of Web services in mind, eWEEK took a walk down Conjecture Lane to guess some companies or services Google should buy to fortify its arsenal.
Hot on the heels of Microsoft's release to manufacture of Windows Server 2008 R2 is System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2, the essential management companion for Microsoft's Hyper-V virtualization platform. Any organization that goes beyond dabbling with Hyper-V should use SC VMM R2 to manage virtual resources in Microsoft's revamped Hyper-V. Here's a visual tour of my recent installation and testing of SC VMM R2.
Windows 7 RTM showcases lots of new features, but most startling may be the many bizarre and psychedelic backgrounds and themes that are included. Either the developers of Windows 7 decided to honor the 40th anniversary of Woodstock or they’ve been taking something a bit stronger than Seattle coffee. Here are some of the more trippy backgrounds found in the Windows 7 RTM, and, to stay in theme, I’ve captioned them with quotes from bands, poets, artists and even a famous movie from the '60s.
Challenges particular to small and cost-conscious businesses often include limited office space and a small or even nonexistent IT staff—necessitating products that get to work right out of the box. Several new PCs from Dell, Acer and Lenovo address one or both of these needs, and so eWEEK has compiled a few of them here.
Dell added several new PCs to its Vostro line, which was created to address the needs of small business customers. New additions include the Vostro 1014 and 1015 laptops, as well as U.S. availability of its All-In-One desktop, beginning Aug. 23. Acer introduced the Vertiton N260G nettop, which can stand alone or attach to the back of a monitor, and Lenovo introduced two nettops of its own, the Q100 and Q110, which make their distinctions known in their multimedia capabilities.
Windows Server 2008 R2 is a modest upgrade to Microsoft’s server operating system line that stands out most for its improvements to Hyper-V virtualization and for new features targeted at Windows 7 clients.
Microsoft's Windows 7 recently reached the release-to-manufacture milestone, the last step before the new operating system's official Oct. 22 launch. Delivering a good amount of eye candy, a number of user enhancements, a few interesting security additions (but only for the customers at the high end) and a decent performance boost, Windows 7 is certainly capable. But is it a compelling upgrade? Check out eWEEK Labs' walk through Windows 7.
With chip makers such as IBM and Intel aiming to shrink the manufacturing process to 22 nanometers and smaller, the push is on to develop ways to improve performance and energy efficiency. Scientists with IBM Research and the California Institute of Technology are working on ways to use DNA molecules as the basis for building tiny circuit boards. As shown in these images from IBM Research, the DNA can be put into various shapes and used as a sort of scaffolding, where millions of nanotubes can be deposited onto the sticky DNA and then self-assemble into the precise patterns. IBM scientists say the DNA process can be used to increase performance, speed and energy efficiency in microchips, where feature sizes are 22 nm or smaller, and that these next-generation microprocessors can be less expensive to manufacture.
Apple is now in a public relations nightmare after banning Google Voice applications from its App Store for duplicating features on the company's iPhone. Apple did not adequately explain the reason for the ban and the Federal Communications Commission came calling, sending letters to Google, Apple and iPhone carrier AT&T to get to the heart of the matter. Was Apple behind the Google Voice ban? Was it AT&T? Even if AT&T was the trigger, it was Apple that took the public initiative to ban Google Voice, which aggravated some programmers and bloggers enough to quit the iPhone. Customers are angry and the government wants to find out how this happened. Apple and the others have until August 21 to answer the FCC's inquiries. We can't help Apple with the current issues, but here's how Apple can improve its reputation to avoid future flare-ups.
While we all like to get away from the office, responsibilities and sometimes our families (don’t lie to yourself, it’s true), the digital age has made us more attached than ever to portable devices that allow us to check in with the world around us. Thankfully, Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch, combined with the ever-growing Apple App Store, also provide travelers with a wide assortment of applications that can help reduce the stress of travel. Here’s a look at 10 apps for the Apple iPhone, from language guides to cheap gas station finders, that will help you make the most of your vacation this year.
The search engine war has never been more exciting. Microsoft puttered along in the search market for years before unleashing Bing in June to take on market leader Google. Bing is a major improvement over Microsoft Live Search, but how can you determine how well Bing stacks up against Google? You have to do searches using each service in separate Web browsers. This is a pain, so programmers are creating sites that put query results from different search engines side by side. Bing vs. Google.com is one, while BlindSearch compares Google, Bing and Yahoo search in a blind test. Clearly, developers are pouncing on this opportunity to mash up and compare search engines.
The Google Chrome 3.0 beta shows that the search giant is committed to quickly getting its new Web browser on an even keel with more established and innovative players such as Firefox, Safari and Opera. The Chrome 3.0 beta includes improvements to the new-tab page, additional information in the address bar, more customization options and basic support for HTML 5.
IBM in recent years has seen an upswing in interest in its Series z mainframes, and Big Blue, along with other vendors such as Unisys, CA and BMC Software, is ramping up its investment in mainframe technologies. At the same time, other OEMs, such as Cisco Systems, Hewlett-Packard and Dell, are promoting a vision in which data centers are populated by a host of smaller, highly virtualized servers that are more tightly integrated with storage, networking and management resources. Industry observers, who once saw the mainframe as a dinosaur, now concede that big iron is going to stick around and IBM has worked hard to keep it relevant. However, with advancements in chip technologies from Intel and AMD; greater virtualization capabilities; and new performance and efficiency features from HP, Dell and others, highly networked x86 servers are able to take on increasingly large and complex workloads. Here are five arguments each for distributed and mainframe environments, thanks to IBM and HP. While not a definitive list, each covers a lot of ground.
Given the economy, maybe it is not surprising that there are security acquisitions going on, as it perhaps gives larger vendors an opportunity to buy smaller ones at somewhat cheaper price than in the best of times.
The past few months have seen several acquisitions in the security space: IBM's purchase of Ounce Labs, Trend Micro's soon-to-be-closed acquisition of Third Brigade and McAfee's plans for MX Logic, just to name a few.
With this in mind, eWEEK has compiled a list of security acquisitions we would like to see. This list was written without regard to any acquisition rumors that may be floating around about any of these companies, but with an eye toward the product portfolios of various vendors and their competitors.
Information technology is changing, and the requirements needed to manage a company's information infrastructure are changing also. With these broad challenges in mind, eWEEK has put together its own list of what job skills today's IT managers need to become the next-generation IT manager. In this list, eWEEK looks at how developing markets such as green technology, social networking and enterprise mobility are shaping the skills that IT managers need to have in a marketplace that is both competitive and changing as the global economy shifts to new business models.
In the short time since it has been announced, Google Wave has been called by some pundits a whole new take on collaboration and the next major platform for Web development. In its present, developer preview form, Google Wave is more modest in scope, and there is little here that hasn’t been seen before in other Web 2.0 collaboration systems. Still, while the developer preview of Google Wave is raw, it definitely shows the platform's potential, both as a system for group collaboration and as a way to extend Websites with collaboration and new applications.
Microsoft has had a number of successes in its history, but also a number of products that either flopped spectacularly or fell behind the times. As Microsoft seeks to retool its corporate strategy, it has decided over the past few months to ax many of these applications, some of them longtime staples such as Encarta and Money Plus. Other products, including Soapbox, were rolled out as competitors to offerings from other companies but never found traction in the marketplace. Still others underwent a rebranding, a la Bing, in an attempt to get a fresh start.
The following slide show bids farewell to a cross-section of these products and suggests a few others—such as the Zune—that may not be long for this world.
Sony introduced two new e-book readers on Aug. 5 that will be available in late August. The Reader Pocket Edition features a 5-inch screen, a physique trim enough to slip into purses and shirt pockets, and a price of $199. The larger Touch Edition, priced at $299, has a 6-inch touch-screen that’s handy for navigating the device, underlining passages and writing notes in the margins of e-books. Sony additionally announced it had lowered the price of best-sellers and new releases to $9.99. The two Readers come to market just as Amazon has dropped the price of the Kindle 2, Plastic Logics announced it has a model with a nearly 10-inch screen in the works, and even Apple is expected to join the competition soon.
Research In Motion’s new BlackBerry Curve 8520, released Aug. 5, includes a variety of features designed to help the device compete against the Apple iPhone, the Palm Pre and other smartphones that have recently seized the spotlight. In addition to a light and slim form factor, the Curve 8520 includes a variety of multimedia and music options seemingly tailor-made to appeal to the consumer segment. In a nod to small businesses and the enterprise, the new smartphone integrates features such as Wi-Fi access to the BlackBerry Enterprise Server.
RIM has also been building an accessory ecosystem for its smartphones, including the Bluetooth-enabled BlackBerry Visor Mount Speakerphone VM-605, which allows for voice-activated calling while driving at ludicrously high speeds. Finally, RIM is pushing BlackBerry App World, from which users can download a variety of apps for their device.
The space shuttle Endeavour recently completed a roundtrip 16-day, 6.5-million mile journey to the International Space Station. The primary purpose of the mission was to ferry and then install the Japanese Exposed Facility installation to the Kibo (which means "peace" in Japanese) laboratory module of the station. The Endeavour crew needed five spacewalks to install the outdoor platform and to perform other duties upgrading the station. The mission was the second longest in shuttle history, and along the way the crews of both Endeavour and the International Space Station captured some spectacular images from space. Following is eWEEK's review of the NASA's July mission. By Roy Mark
If a large or midsize enterprise isn't already investing in some sort of cloud component or service in its IT system, then one can bet that, at the very least, this topic is being discussed at the highest levels of decision-making. Why? Cloud computing, also known as computing services provided on demand and on a subscription basis, makes sense in ways that help businesses carry out their missions more efficiently and reliably while saving capital expense costs. That's why clouds are so attractive. However, because of this explosion in cloud interest, the real future profits may belong to those companies that provide cloud services and those that have good tools and hardware to build them. In a conversation with eWEEK, Bruce Kornfeld, vice president of marketing at next-generation SAN maker Compellent, offers a list of key points for those C-level executives and IT managers who may be thinking about purchasing a cloud system.
When Google unveiled its Google Wave communication and collaboration prototype application at the Google I/O event in May, many people applauded. These instant fans realized they were seeing something that they so desperately needed to help manage their own lives. It's no secret that we as a society of knowledge workers suffer from information overload. eWEEK discusses how Wave can change the way we as a society collaborate in the digital world.
Microsoft and Yahoo's 10-year search ad deal would appear to help both companies, even if investors are lukewarm to it. Microsoft's Bing search engine will power Yahoo's search. Yahoo could eventually generate $500 million per year in operating income to prop up its display and mobile ad businesses. And Microsoft will close the gap in search market share, moving to No. 2 at almost 30 percent to Google's 65 percent search share. However, not only is Google well-positioned to weather this collaborative attack, but the deal could help Google innovate even faster, add to its market share and perhaps even fly lower under the antitrust radar.
While iPhone Apps attract a good deal of publicity, other mobile-device makers have been busy populating their own application stores with programs devoted to nearly every aspect of life. Research In Motion's growing ecosystem of apps seems tailored to show users that the BlackBerry can be more than a simple business device.
Health care and medical services represent one of the growing segments of BlackBerry apps. Whether the user is a typical consumer looking for calorie information or a health care professional needing to check patient data while on the move, the following 10 apps could prove useful in the realm of health.
The recent 3.5 release of Eclipse, code-named Galileo, brings loads of new features that will help developers become even more productive.
Apple's iPhone OS 3.0.1 update doesn’t provide any compelling new features or functionality for users, but it does purport to fix the SMS vulnerabilities discussed in depth at Black Hat in late-July. Administrators and users are advised to install the update ASAP, before attacks surface in the wild.
America's seminal moment in space—landing men on the moon and returning to Earth in July 1969—overshadowed but perhaps underscored this month's current affairs in space. As usual, though, it was a busy place as the space shuttle Endeavour crew ferried and bolted Japan's outdoor platform to the International Space Station while private enterprise launched the world's largest commercial satellite, aiming to deliver broadband connections from space. The European Space Agency chilled down elements of the Planck telescope to the coldest known objects in space, all the better to study the Big Bang. eWEEK's This Month in Space.
Research In Motion’s BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0 provides much-needed enhancements to the venerable enterprise device management platform, offering greater centralized control and visibility over device status and settings in the field. The new platform also significantly improves in the area of administrator purview, finally making it possible to assign junior-level administrators and help-desk staffers access to the appropriate level of privilege over a defined subset of BlackBerry servers, users and devices.
By Andrew Garcia
Microsoft's MIX Online is a community for Web designers and developers who build and believe in the innovative Web. The stated goal of the MIX Online Website is to offer insightful articles that are relevant to the scenarios you want to design and develop for the Web; provide freely downloadable, open-source and immediately usable prototypes with no strings attached; encourage user contribution and ongoing dialogue; share ideas; and think about scenarios and users first, technology second. The MIX Online community came out of Microsoft's Mix Web developer/designer conference, where Microsoft has showcased technologies such as its Silverlight and Expression platforms. Microsoft held its fourth Mix conference in Las Vegas in March.
Novell's SUSE Studio 1.0 is a Web-based service for building Linux-based software appliances that outshines similar services, such as rPath's rBuilder, with its ease of use and tight integration with the existing framework of SUSE software tools and services. Also impressive is the service's Test Drive feature, which enabled eWEEK Labs to cycle quickly through the tweak-build-test process of honing a software appliance.
By Jason Brooks
It's a busy time for botnets.
According to Marshal8e6, spam levels are up 60 percent between January and June. The vast majority of that spam comes from massive botnets such as Cutwail and Mega-D.
Today, eWEEK is focusing on just one of those botnets—Rustock—which has been spamming users for the past few years. In its latest biannual report, TRACELabs’ Marshal8e6 noted Rustock uses rootkit functionality to hide itself, and changes spam templates often. It typically uses HTML templates from legitimate newsletters and inserts its own images and links to give Rustock spam a mask of respectability. This also allows it to dodge spam filters.
In this slideshow, eWEEK has gathered images of Rustock in action to help illustrate a day in the life a prolific botnet. (Images courtesy of SecureWorks, Symantec, Marshal8e6 and FireEye)
There has been no shortage of speculation on the security of Google Chrome OS, even as Google remains quiet on exactly what its plans are. What is certain is that Google's focus on the cloud means the security requirements of Chrome OS will be significantly different from those of traditional operating systems.
Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Service Pack 2 is a facelift focused on the PowerPoint component of the productivity suite. In this version, Microsoft Word for Mac gets a bug fix for a formatting problem that occurred when numbered lists were copied into another document, and Entourage for Mac—the suite's much-maligned e-mail client—gains automated features for connecting to Mobile Me and Windows Live Hotmail accounts. None of the Entourage changes pull the product out of the ditch it's in, however—it's still an inferior version of Outlook. Here is a look at some of the tweaks made to the Microsoft tools designed to work on the Apple platform.
By Cameron Sturdevant
Emerson Network Power, one of the world's largest data center power/cooling and connectivity providers, should know what it's doing when it comes to designing and building its own corporate data center. Emerson's new $50 million, 35,000-square-foot corporate data center, located at the company's St. Louis headquarters, opens officially on July 27 and takes its first applications live in August. The new facility is a big part of the company's initiative to consolidate its global network—currently comprising more than 100 data centers worldwide—into a mere four locations. How will this happen? Emerson uses virtualization; new, more efficient software, servers and storage; and vastly improved power-control software and cooling systems. The new data center will be 31 percent more energy-efficient than traditional data centers, Emerson said. CIO and Project Director Steve Hassell told eWEEK that Emerson expects the facility to earn a LEED Gold Certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.
Take a quick tour through the new data center here on the next few pages.
rPath's rBuilder enables companies to build, maintain and deploy their own Linux-based software appliances. The 5.0 version of rBuilder adds support for multiple Linux distribution platforms, as well as a management console for launching software appliances on a handful of virtualization and cloud computing platforms. Check out these slides for a look at eWEEK Labs' tests of the 5.2.1 rBuilder update.
It seems like everyone's looking for an escape these days, be it from a decidedly lackluster summer season, a stumbling economy or just a way to take your mind off a crowded commute. Although the video game industry at large may be feeling the effects of pinched purses, here's a selection of games for your Apple iPhone or iPod touch that can provide a much-needed break in the day.
Research in Motion’s latest smartphone—the BlackBerry Tour 9630—fits sizewise between the BlackBerry Bold and the Curve. While not breaking any new ground in smartphone technology, the Tour features many features consumers want and slides easily into enterprise BlackBerry deployments. Available on the Verizon and Sprint networks, the Tour talks CMDA/EVDO Rev A. at home and GSM/EDGE/HSPA in international locations. Unfortunately, Wi-Fi connectivity was sacrificed for world coverage.
By Andrew Garcia
Intel Parallel Studio, which works with Microsoft Visual Studio, is designed to inspect code for errors and help developers optimize programs for use with multicore processors. eWEEK Labs puts Parallel Studio through its paces, and finds that the platform simplifies the difficult task of writing parallel code that takes advantage of processors with multiple cores. By Jeff Cogswell
The products on eWEEK editors' enterprise radar.
The host profiles feature is one of the most significant additions to the VMware vSphere 4 platform. A host profile can automatically configure network, storage, security and other features on a physical host system running ESX 4.0 or ESXi 4.0. The host profiles feature also enables IT staff to check host systems for configuration compliance, and to easily remedy systems that have drifted out of compliance. This feature should significantly reduce operations costs associated with large vSphere 4 installations, although it does not lessen the need for VMware expertise; crafting a host profile requires expert virtualization knowledge to ensure that hosts created using a host profile will operate as expected.
Oracle's $7.4 acquisition of Sun Microsystems may be raising as many questions as it answered, not the least of which is, what will the software giant do with Sun's extensive server portfolio? And what Oracle does with Sun's UltraSPARC line of servers could have an impact on Solaris' future. Sun's Unix OS may be expanding its reach into the x86 server space, through deals with Dell, Hewlett-Packard and IBM, but it has a major presence in Sun's UltraSPARC server customer base. The Oracle-Sun deal raises the same questions many in the industry have had about the future of Unix, particularly given the continued rapid growth of x86 server sales and the increasingly Unix-like workloads that those less-expensive systems can carry. However, while there may be some questions about Unix's long-term viability, there are plenty of reasons to expect that the operating system will be around for years to come. (Many thanks should go to IDC analyst Jean Bozman, Pund-IT Research analyst Charles King and Sageza Group analyst Clay Ryder for their contributions to the list.)
With the recent release of Silverlight 3, Microsoft has continued to move quickly to try and catch up with Adobe Flash (and its AIR and Flex brethren) in the race to be the rich Internet application platform of choice. Silverlight 3 includes many welcome new features, including the ability to run offline and outside of a browser (a feature already found in Adobe AIR and other platforms). In this review, eWEEK Labs looks at the release candidate of Expression Blend 3, the main tool for designing and delivering Silverlight 3 applications-- and, for some, even developing them (though serious developers will probably stick to Visual Studio).
The NetBeans 6.7 IDE is fully integrated with Project Kenai, Sun's open-source collaboration site. In this slide show, eWEEK Labs explores a few of the integration features.
By Jeff Cogswell
Version 5.5 of the no-cost Citrix XenServer provides improved backup and snapshot capabilities, as well as the ability to integrate with Microsoft Active Directory. However, while the no-cost version will be suitable for modest-size organizations, data centers that must ensure high performance will need to move up to the Essentials, which costs from $2,700 to more than $5,000 per server.
For nine days in July 1969, world attention was riveted on three American NASA astronauts - Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Jr., and Michael Collins - and their Apollo 11 mission to become the first humans to walk on the moon. On July 20, 1969, the mission was accomplished with first Armstrong and then Aldrin descending from the Lunar Module Eagle to the dusty surface of the moon while Collins orbited above them in the Command Module Columbia. Forty years later, their mission still stands as a singular achievement in world history. eWEEK looks back at the historic Apollo 11 mission 40 years later.
The hype over this operating system has been so heavy that failure would be a heavy blow. Google introduced Chrome OS July 7, promising a lightweight, Linux-based operating system for netbooks that will enable speedy Web applications. The move was a major shot at Microsoft, whose Windows desktop operating system Google intimated was antiquated. We at eWEEK have already provided 10 reasons why we are excited about Google's Chrome OS. But in the tradition of weighing the cons with the pros, there are some concerns about the new Chrome OS as well.
Despite the popular notion that today's world is largely a digital one, businesses of all sizes still require hard copies of documents on a daily basis. Technologies like touch-screens, automatic double-sided printing and other features can help your business print cost-effectively and reduce waste. Here's a list of nine AIO (all-in-one) printers from Hewlett-Packard, Samsung, Dell Lexmark and other vendors that are worth the ink and won't break the bank.
Microsoft's Windows Mobile 6.5, its upcoming operating system for mobile devices, includes a number of improvements designed to compete against the capabilities of Apple's iPhone, the Palm Pre and other smartphones. Because the name of the game has increasingly become the number of mobile applications a company can offer, Microsoft also plans on rolling out Windows Marketplace for Mobile, its own applications portal, later in 2009.
Embracing the shift toward touch-screens, Windows Mobile 6.5 has been specifically tailored to allow the user to tap, pan and flick to navigate through the interface; the Start screen has been designed in a honeycomb configuration for easier finger-navigation. The newest version of Windows Mobile also brings the ability to enter a PIN and interact with message notifications even from the Lock screen, as well as to display customized widgets on the new Start screen.
Xobni July 15 rolled out a paid version of its Xobni mailbox search and management tool. Current users of the free Xobni plug-in would do well to ask, Why buy what I can get for free? For a one-time fee of $29.95, users get several advanced search features that improve the process of sifting for e-mail needles in their in-box haystacks.
IBM, also known as Big Blue, is as big and distributed as any company in the IT industry. In fact, you could say IBM is the New York City of technology companies. Huge. Diverse. Proud to call itself No. 1, though not everyone may agree. And just as the Big Apple often sets trends for the rest of the country, Big Blue has a history of calling plays for the tech market. These days, IBM is heavily promoting its Smarter Planet initiative to add a layer of intelligence to the basic processes that run today’s world, including roads, water and power. It’s just the latest milestone for the 98-year-old company. Here is a list of things you just might not know about IBM.
Microsoft has announced Silverlight 3 and Expression 3 to help developers and designers build compelling rich Internet applications (RIAs). Microsoft's Silverlight 3 and Expression 3 combine new capabilities with simplified packaging to deliver an RIA solution to challenge market leader Adobe Systems' Flash Platform and related tools. In conjunction with Microsoft Visual Studio, Silverlight and Expression offer a highly collaborative development and design environment that simplifies the process of delivering engaging user experiences, Microsoft says. And adoption of Microsoft's platform continues to rapidly accelerate as evidenced by strong demand for Microsoft Silverlight 2, Microsoft officials said. In less than nine months since its release, more than one in three Internet devices now have Silverlight 2 installed.
Systems has delivered a beta release of ColdFusion Builder, an integrated development environment for its popular ColdFusion server-side development platform.
Adobe ColdFusion Product Manager Adam Lehman said that the number one requested enhancement was an IDE (integrated development environment) for ColdFusion. So, Adobe answered that call with an Eclipse-based IDE that also feature integration with Adobe's Eclipse-based Flash Builder.
Adobe also shipped a beta of ColdFusion 9, the upcoming release of company's development environment for for building dynamic Web sites and Internet applications. ColdFusion 9 applications easily access data from existing enterprise infrastructure including Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft Office files and portlet standards. Also, new ColdFusion 9 features include an Adobe AIR application for managing multiple ColdFusion servers from one location.
Google announced July 8 that the company is entering the operating system market with its Chrome OS. This will be a lightweight operating system with a GUI consisting of the Chrome browser. With the release of Chrome OS, Google is clearly challenging Microsoft Windows. Why do we welcome a new Web-ready OS? eWEEK Labs Analyst Jeff Cogswell ponders the possibilities.
Cloud computing serves up computing power, data storage or applications from one data center location over a grid to thousands or millions of users on a subscription basis. This general kind of cloud—for example, services provided online by Amazon EC2, Google Apps and Salesforce.com—is known as a "public" cloud because any business or individual can subscribe. Private cloud computing is a different take on the mainstream version, in that smaller cloudlike IT systems within a firewall offer similar services, but to a closed internal network. This network may include corporate or division offices, other companies that are also business partners, raw-material suppliers, resellers, production-chain entities, and other organizations intimately connected with a corporate mother ship. Public or private, cloud computing is getting the IT industry excited. Gartner analysts in March 2009 said global cloud services revenue could move beyond $56.3 billion this year—from $46.4 billion in 2008—and grow to $150.1 billion in 2013. IBM Vice President of Cloud Services Ric Telford offers eWEEK readers his take in the following slide show.
Just when Windows users started to become accustomed to seeing .docx extensions and to finding their way around on the infamous Office 2007 Ribbon, Microsoft is shaking things up again with a brand new version of its omnipresent productivity suite, Office 2010. eWEEK Labs has been trying out the Technical Preview version of the new suite, and we've encountered a raft of really useful new features, particularly around data visualization in Excel. What's more, Office 2010 is mercifully devoid of major file format or interface metaphor shifts.
This Technical Preview will be accessible to a limited group of testers, but you can try to get added to the list by signing up at www.office2010themovie.com. Expect to see a broad public beta later this year. Until then, check out the screen gallery below for our take on Office 2010 so far.
Recession? What recession?
In the best of times (and especially in the worst of times) nothing feels more liberating than an insanely indulgent purchase. Why spend, say, $150 to obtain a smartphone when you could pay 10 times that amount for a diamond-studded handset with a personal concierge? Or put down $700 for Nokia's new N97 smartphone? Sure, times are tough, but if your company is actually making money, what better way is there to reward yourself than with another overpriced, gilded gadget?
Here's a list of wildly overpriced cell phones you'll want to take out a second mortgage for.
Intel is the dominant microprocessor vendor in the world, holding an almost 80 percent share of the world's chip market, according to research firm iSuppli. The company's chips run in most PCs and servers today, and in recent years—thanks in large part to Intel's intense rivalry with Advanced Micro Devices—processors have become smaller, more powerful and more feature-rich. Gone are the days when upgrading chips meant simply cranking up the clock speed. For example, now Intel, AMD and other chips makers—including Sun Microsystems and IBM—are rapidly growing the number of processing cores on each chip. Intel and AMD each have chips with six cores, and both are planning to aggressively grow those numbers in the near future. The processors also now offer such features as power management, on-board virtualization capabilities and increased memory bandwidth, all of which were highlighted in Intel's launch of its "Nehalem" architecture and AMD's rollout of its "Istanbul" Opteron chip. On its Website, Intel recently offered a high-level glimpse of what goes into the making of a CPU. Here are some of the slides from the graphics presentation, which show only the most important steps among the hundreds that are needed to build a processor. Photo credits: Intel
The DXi7500, Quantum's flagship disk-based backup and data deduplication solution, offers a robust feature set and high-quality construction and architecture for the enterprise disk backup market. With solid throughput and deduplication performance, the DXi7500 can serve as the centerpiece of an enterprise's VTL or NAS-based disk backup infrastructure.
Click through the slideshow for a closer look at the DXi7500, and a peek inside Quantum's Colorado Springs, Colo., assembly facility.
Also, be sure to check out eWEEK Labs' full review of the product, here.
NEW YORK—T-Mobile's new phone, the MyTouch 3G, is a direct follow-up to its T-Mobile G1 smartphone, and like the T-Mobile G1 also features the Google Android mobile operating system. Users can download multiple applications from Android Market and customize menus and other elements to fit their personal style. In addition, several Google features such as Google Maps and YouTube have been preinstalled on the MyTouch 3G smartphone.
Gmail Labs was launched in June 2008 to let Google's Gmail team throw some new experimental tools against the Google wall and see what sticks. In a year's time, the team has thrown out roughly two dozen features to improve user experience, with the idea that some of the features wouldn't make the final cut. In July 2009, Google closed the book on right-side labels, triggering a minor furor from users who loved the feature. In the blog post explaining the reason for removing right-side labels, the Gmail Labs team hinted that it will retire other features. Gmail is now no longer a beta, so Google will likely look more seriously at what tools it intends to keep, with consumers and business users in mind. eWEEK looks at five Gmail Labs tools that users won't be able to live without, followed by five tools we believe the team can jettison.
VirtualBox, Sun's open-source, cross-platform desktop virtualization product, now boasts support for multiple guest processors. Starting with Version 3.0, which began shipping on June 30, Sun's virtualization tool can expose up to 32 virtual processors to its guest instances. The rest of the changes in VirtualBox 3.0 are primarily bug fixes and tweaks. Even so, the "non-free" workstation products from VMware and Parallels will seem a little less shiny now that VirtualBox is sporting its SMP chops.
Anyone can dress up the office with Ikea lamps and funky furniture, but if you want to truly stand out you have to find the objects and accessories no one else is going to have. Sure, an office desk crafted from an airplane wing may not be your style, but for the tech geek who wants it all, eWEEK presents 10 cool ways to customize your cube, including unusual iPhone docking stations, flying alarm clocks and even an ejection seat.
The moon? Been there, done that.
Count former astronaut Buzz Aldrin among those who think NASA is off target with its current plans to reach the moon by 2020. Aldrin calls the new race to the moon a "glorified rehash of what we did 40 years ago." Instead of the moon, Aldrin envisions an ambitious manned space flight plan that targets a 2025 manned landing on the Martian moon Phobos.
Here's an eWEEK look at Buzz Aldrin's Martian mission.
Since Apple launched the App Store in July 2008, users have downloaded more than 1 billion iPhone apps with a variety of uses (or non-uses, if you consider all the games and procrastination tools currently on the market for the device). Companies such as Google, Salesforce.com and Oracle have even introduced enterprise apps for the consumer-centric devices, aiming to solidify their hold on the ever-expanding mobile market.
One of the most vital areas of peoples' lives, of course, is health care, and to that end, several iPhone apps have rolled out that allow both patients and physicians to monitor care, keep track of treatments or even see the amount of sleep they're getting. The following apps—all available from the iTunes App Store—aspire to put health care IT in the palm of one's hand.
Nokia's Symbian-powered, touch-screen-enabled N97 smartphone is packed with features-perhaps to a fault. In my tests of the device, I found that the N97's apparent kitchen-sink design philosophy yielded an ungainly user experience, albeit one that improved as I became accustomed to the N97's quirks.
Click on for a peek at the N97, and read our full review of the device.
NEW YORK—At Pepcom's recent Digital Experience event, a wide variety of IT companies arrived to show off their latest digital cameras, netbooks, smartphones and other devices designed to make both regular and business life a bit more flashy and efficient.
Whether new smartphones from Nokia, a vehicle visor mount from BlackBerry, new mini-notebooks or netbooks from Lenovo, or backup hard-drives from Hewlett-Packard, a variety of gizmos made an appearance. Devices also ranged from pure entertainment to pure functionality, such as ultra-armored phones designed to be nearly as invulnerable as rugged laptops.
eWEEK offers a look at some of the latest and greatest of these gadgets.
In mid-May, Facebook moved its main offices from downtown Palo Alto, Calif., to a more "rural" setting on California Avenue just off the Stanford University campus, in a 45-year-old two-story building once used by research engineers at Hewlett-Packard and Agilent. It isn't the prettiest, best-equipped building in Silicon Valley, but it is quite functional for what the 800-employee social networking company is looking for. "And we got it for cheap," CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg told eWEEK. "Look, we don't need a fancy-looking place to impress everybody. We just need a good, comfortable space for our engineers and creative people to collaborate and make new things that our subscribers can find useful." The new headquarters is about a mile from the restaurants and social life of downtown, but Facebook managers have provided some good stay-at-home features: a cafeteria that's open all day long, a basketball court, a ping-pong room, a video games room and plenty of lounge-type furniture to make everyone feel right at home. Here are some highlights from the recent Facebook open house.
On the surface it may look like not much has changed in the new version of the Mozilla Web browser, but Firefox 3.5 is actually a very significant improvement, fixing many of the key flaws of previous versions of Firefox and adding some nice new capabilities under the hood. Among the welcome new features are greatly improved speed and stability, a private browsing feature and location-aware capabilities. Also, Firefox 3.5 includes a very good implementation of the forthcoming HTML 5 standard, which allows for cutting-edge interaction in Web pages and makes video as much a part of the browser and the Web as images and text are.
Real-time search is one of the hottest mini Web trends out there, promising new ways to help users tease out current information they want from the digital information glut. The ability to seek out what everyone is discussing or looking for in the moment captures the imagination. Twitter's search capability does this for its tweets, but some find it insufficient. While Facebook is just beginning to help users surface the latest information and Google is thinking about this area, several startups have come to the fore to help Web searchers tease out bits on specific topics. Here is a beginner's list of newcomers intent on helping you ferret information out of the noise.
The iPhone 3G S adds a welcome speed boost when using the device, killing off the periods of lag commonly experienced with older iPhone hardware. On the software side, not much is added over the iPhone 3.0 features available for older units. Specifically, voice commands, video recording, compass-based orientation and ostensibly enhanced Bluetooth capabilities are among the other additions.
Billed by Nokia as "the world's most advanced mobile computer," the N97 bundles a number of smartphone advances into one compact package, including a touch-screen, a slide-out keyboard, massive amounts of memory capable of performing tasks from e-mail to games, and a video camera.
The device is Nokia's first to include a personalized home screen, where users can customize which widgets are displayed whenever they turn on their phone. These widgets, accessible through Nokia's Ovi Store, include not only social-networking apps such as Facebook and newswire services such as Associated Press and Bloomberg, but also productivity tools and games.
At a recent show in New York City, eWEEK took a detailed look at the Nokia N97 smartphone and offers this look at the new, $699 mobile device.
The ThinkPad T400s is an evolution in a line of workhorse laptops. The new ThinkPad comes in well under 4 pounds and just under an inch thick. The ThinkPad T400s runs cool and comes equipped with useful controls that road warriors will appreciate, ranging from easy-to-access mute keys for VOIP applications to an improved touch-pad.
The Verizon MiFi 2200 is mobile broadband in and Wi-Fi out, for as many as five devices/users.
It would be hard to top NASA's May expedition to the Hubble Space Telescope. In June, NASA didn't. Stymied by a mysterious hydrogen gas leak, the space shuttle Endeavour's large-scale construction mission to the International Space Station was scratched. Computer glitches plagued systems from the Hubble to the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. NASA took solace, though, in successfully launching a satellite mapping mission to the moon. eWEEK takes a look back at the hits and misses for NASA this June.By Roy Mark
Just as department stores whisk us through the holidays, PC makers—before summer has barely insinuated itself—are talking about going "back to school" and offering new laptops for students of all ages.
On June 23, Dell introduced the work-play Inspiron 14 laptop, Toshiba rolled out five new additions to its Satellite laptop series and Gateway introduced its first netbook, the LT3100. The following day Hewlett-Packard introduced the Mini 5101 netbook and ProBook 4310s notebook, and Gateway offered two new tower desktops, followed, on June 25 by two notebooks.
When September eventually does come around, there'll be no excuses for being unprepared. eWEEK takes a look at new offerings from Dell, Gateway, HP and Toshiba.By Michelle Maisto
The third release of Sun's OpenSolaris, Version 2009.06, demonstrates continued progress toward turning a friendlier Solaris face to the world, with noticeable gains made in the areas of package management and creation. What's more, Solaris 2009.06 builds on Sun's work with virtualization
and resource management with a new network virtualization framework called Crossbow.
It's no secret Google makes more than 95 percent of its money from the ads paired with its world-leading search engine. While Google is doing a lot of things to stay ahead of Microsoft Bing, Yahoo and others in search, the company would like to find and exploit new revenue streams. Web services focused on collaboration, real-time communications and mobile computing are other green fields Google is hoping to tap to become more than the “one-trick pony” Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has accused the company of being. As EWEEK takes a visual stroll through existing and forthcoming Google products and features, we ask you which one you think will be a game changer for the company. Will search continue to drive the Google engine, or will a dark horse ride out of nowhere to help Google broaden its money stream? By Clint Boulton
Enterprise apps used to change at a glacial pace. Companies were scared to mess with their financial systems, inventory management and customer database for fear of messing up something that was developed 10 years (or more) earlier. But the economic meltdown taught business executives that what worked in 1999 did not work in 2009. Here are 10 new applications that will become part of the enterprise application portfolio.
Recently, i/o Data Centers adopted an ICE Cube containerized data center at its newest co-location facility. This is a classic example of where such mobile facilities can be used. SGI is one of several big-name OEMs that have rolled out mobile data centers as an option for businesses looking to quickly add to their compute capacity or as a way to temporarily boost their computing power. The idea of mobile data centers took off several years ago when Sun introduced its Project Blackbox. Since then, SGI, Verari Sytems, IBM, HP and Dell all have rolled out similar offerings. Industry analysts say that the market is still in its infancy and has been hampered by the global recession, which has rolled back IT data center projects. However, they expect that once the economy begins to grow again, mobile data centers will have a solid niche.By Jeffrey Burt
Announced as a major new way for people to use the Web, the Opera Unite alpha that is now part of the Opera 10 beta is essentially an embedded Web server within the browser. As such, it offers some intriguing possibilities for sharing content, services and applications directly between systems, as opposed to having to use cloud-based services. But the Unite alpha comes with many questions and potential problems, not the least of which is the security risk of installing a Web server on user PCs. Here's a look at some of the features and capabilities in Opera Unite.
Lenovo has released a new thin-and-light business laptop called the ThinkPad T400s. The new ThinkPad T400s combines some of the design features found in the high-end ThinkPad X300 series along with the everyday enterprise options of the more conventional ThinkPad T400 series. The result is a laptop that weighs less than four pounds and is less than 1 inch thick. While the ThinkPad X300 series carries a hefty price tag, Lenovo decided to offer the T400s at a more reasonable starting price of $1,599. Other features found in the ThinkPad T400s include an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, DDR3 memory, a solid state drive option, and options for Wi-Fi, WiMax and WWAN. The Lenovo ThinkPad 400s goes on sale June 23.
The Top500 list of the world's fastest supercomputers was released June 23 at the International Supercomputing Conference in Hamburg, Germany. Sitting atop the list--again--was IBM's Roadrunner system, which runs at the Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory. The IBM BladeCenter system took the top spot a year ago and has held on since. Also for the second year in a row, Cray's XT5 Jaguar supercomputer, which runs at the DOE's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, came in a close second. According to the Top500 organization, which compiles the list every June and November, two new entries into the top 10 come from Germany. Those two are the only systems in the top 10 not from the United States, which is still the top consumer of HPC (high-performance computing) systems in the world, with 291 of the top 500 systems running in this country. Along with IBM and Cray, Sun Microsystems and SGI also have systems listed in the top 10.
Microsoft made the beta version of Microsoft Security Essentials—code-named Morro—available for download June 23 for the first 75,000 visitors who want it at http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials
Focused solely on security, this free successor to Microsoft Windows Live OneCare does not include some of the non-security features users remember from OneCare.
What Security Essentials does have is anti-malware capabilities including rootkit removal and detection. Though not aimed at competing with more comprehensive offerings from companies such as McAfee and Symantec, Microsoft officials have stated that the product will help extend basic protections to users without security suites.
So without further ado, eWEEK offers a quick look at Morro, Microsoft’s latest play in the security space. By Brian Prince
At the 2009 JavaOne conference, Sun Microsystems gave the first public demonstration of its Java Store—a new distribution channel for developers to directly connect with the more than 800 million desktop Java technology users, Sun says. The Java Store is a consumer-facing storefront for the discovery and purchase of Java and JavaFX applications. Sun is aiming high with the Java Store, which it released as a beta for developers at JavaOne. The company is first targeting the desktop, but will later enable Java-based applications for smartphones and other devices to be sold through the store. More information on the Java Store can be found at http://store.java.com.
From discriminatory taxes against the Internet to singling out Web operations for unfair treatment to efforts to "fix" social networking sites, the states are seemingly working night and day to conjure up laws that would impact the Internet in more bad ways than good. To highlight some of the really bad boys of Internet regulation, the advocacy group NetChoice has created the iAWFUL (Internet Advocates Watchlist for Ugly Laws) list. eWEEK takes a look at the iAWFUL top 10 list.
Were you the type of kid who liked to take a thing apart just to see how it worked? The team at RapidRepair surely was. As soon as the iPhone 3G S went on sale at the Orange Boutique in Paris at midnight, RapidRepair CEO Aaron Vronko got his hands on the new smartphone and he ran it over to the Brico Mac store where he promptly began to pull apart the perfectly assembled device piece by piece. This slideshow details the disassembly, in all its gory detail, and offers a look at the iPhone 3G S from the inside out. As of June 19, the iPhone 3G S is available at Apple and AT&T retail and online stores, as well as Best Buy and Wal-Mart. [Photos courtesy of RapidRepair]
Mobile carriers and manufacturers have together created one heck of a summer blockbuster season. The industry's biggest heavyweights-Apple, Palm, Research In Motion and Nokia among them-have all delivered new, feature-packed smartphones that would make a gift-that-keeps-on-giving for any tech-savvy dad this Father's Day. While mugs and T-shirts are great, nothing says #1 Dad like 3G and a touch-screen.
Father's Day is here and nothing beats the latest and greatest digital camera for a last-minute gift. The current trend in digital cameras suggests slimmer is better; even digital SLRs are becoming lightweight and compact. While no one wants to be carrying something huge in the age of Mastercard-size cell phones, you don't have to sacrifice aptitude for area. So for this Father's Day, here are 11 digital cameras, from versatile pocket-size powerhouses to sophisticated SLRs, that might make an ideal gift.By Nathan Eddy
DreamWorks SKG, one of the world's busiest and most successful digital animation studios, is continually pouring out terabytes of creative video from its several hundred animators for use in two to three animated movies that it releases each year. Keeping all that content safe, organized and easily accessible for artists and production staff has always been a huge challenge, yet DreamWorks staffs only three full-time IT storage professionals. How do they do this? The answer: Everything that can be automated is automated. The studio uses a mix of Hewlett-Packard, NetApp, and Ibrix storage arrays and powerful dual-core Intel "Woodcrest"-powered workstations that have been supplied by HP for the last eight years. This slide show offers some insight into the studio's daily production, and we have a complete story on this topic here at eWEEK.
On Day 2 of tests with the Apple iPhone 3.0 update, eWEEK Labs is finding more and more to like. In this update, Spotlight search is finally in the base operating system, and the effect has been transformational. In addition, refinements made to everyday apps—including the ability to use e-mail in landscape mode—keep the iPhone at the top of the list of mobile devices that deserve attention from enterprise users. There are trade-offs for some of the new features, however, including significant battery drain to enable MobileMe to locate and—if directed—remotely wipe a lost iPhone.
By Cameron Sturdevant
eWEEK Labs recently put the HP Mini 1000 Model 1151NR netbook bundled with Verizon's mobile broadband service through its paces. The Verizon service works reasonably well, but it is clearly a newer technology in need of refinement and more consistent performance. The 1151NR, one of the nicer netbooks we've tested, is among a handful to come bundled with built-in broadband.
By John Dodge
Mellmo's RoamBi app uses the iPhone to turn dull data into eye candy, but it won't really be sweet until the BlackBerry and other mobile platforms are supported. RoamBi imports boring table-based data and presents the most important bits in easy-to-digest visual charts. With a nod to visual presentation expert and Yale Professor Emeritus Edward Tufte, RoamBi designers have crafted some neat tricks to get the most important data onto the iPhone screen. RoamBi is available through the Apple App Store.
By Cameron Sturdevant
The no-cost Apple iPhone 3.0 software makes both first- and second-generation iPhones even more tempting for enterprise road warriors. As the Apple iPhone gains enterprise-class features including remote data wipe, the need for more centralized management-beyond a reliance on individual iTunes accounts and MobileMe subscription services-grows. In this slideshow, eWEEK Labs tests out the iPhone 3.0 software's new find and remote wipe features.
By Cameron Sturdevant
Long known as a maker of tools for professional designers and Web developers building more consumer-oriented applications, Adobe can now attest that it is making inroads into the enterprise and showing no signs of letting up. Adobe technology such as LiveCycle is helping the company find its way into many enterprise environments, such as health care IT and government IT. Meanwhile, Adobe has found ways to push its core technology, such as PDF and Flash, and including Adobe AIR and Flex, into the enterprise to deliver RIAs (rich Internet applications) and more. Adobe's presence in the enterprise puts it into even greater competition with Microsoft, which has a foothold in enterprise departmental systems. The two companies are locking horns on several fronts, from design tools to development tools, to RIA platforms, to productivity and collaboration software.
Online data backup is gaining popularity as enterprise customers gradually get comfortable with the idea of keeping valuable backup files offsite at a trusted server. Providers such as Seagate EVault, Iron Mountain Digital, EMC Decho/Mozy, Carbonite and IBM Blue Cloud have improved their services and are among those gaining credibility. However, user confidence in the cloud storage industry took a hit when The Linkup, a cloud computing data storage service, closed its virtual doors on Aug. 8, 2008, leaving about 20,000 paying subscribers with no access to the files they had paid the company to store and protect for them. Here are some key points to make if you are considering moving your backup to a cloud service.
Source: IBM Business Continuity and Resiliency Services
Dot Hill Systems' 4G-bit Fibre Channel SAN uses 2.5-inch drives to deliver robust features and stellar performance in eWEEK Labs tests.
June 5 marked the seventh anniversary of the release of the first Mozilla Web browser. (The Mozilla open-source project itself turned 10 early in 2008.) In its early days, Mozilla was a hopeless competitor to Microsoft's then-dominant Internet Explorer, which had more than 96 percent of the market at the time. Few people held much hope that Mozilla's open-source browser would do much to stem IE's dominance, let alone that it would last. But, seven years later, the Mozilla browser's descendants have more than 20 percent of the browser market and continue to push the envelope when it comes to Web technology. Here's a look back at some of the key Mozilla releases over the past seven years.
Dell is concentrating on serving both the high-performance computing markets and SMBs that are cramped for data center space with its newest line of servers, which include smaller chassis in addition to power features such as Intel Xeon 5500 series processors and expanded memory.
Dell's new PowerEdge T410 and R410 servers are available starting June 17, starting at a price point of $999, while the PowerEdge T710 server "will be available in the coming weeks," according to the company. Dell is pairing its new hardware with consulting services and preconfigured architectures designed to make the process of setting up a data center simpler for both SMBs and the enterprise. The following slides highlight some of the features available with the new PowerEdge T410, T710 and R410.
Web browser maker Opera is attracting attention from high-tech watchers and Web programmers for Unite, a Web services platform that looks to cut out third-party servers from the computing equation. The software comes as Web browser rivals Mozilla, Google, Microsoft and several other prominent players are trying to improve users' Web surfing experiences by extending their Web browsers using a mashup of open standards and proprietary technologies.By Clint Boulton
Rationalizing hardware, consolidating facilities and better managing energy costs are among the ways IT administrators can reduce their data center costs, according to a report from industry research firm Gartner. While all seven suggestions put forth by Gartner are common-sense steps that have been discussed to some extent for years, the global recession is putting even more pressure on IT managers to find ways to do more while trimming expenses, according to Gartner analyst Rakesh Kumar. By taking the necessary steps, enterprises can find significant savings in their data centers. For example, Kumar said, removing a single x86 server can save more than $400 a year in energy costs alone. The recommendations are part of a study by Gartner titled "How to Cut Your Data Center Costs" that the research firm announced June 11.
By Jeffrey Burt
Each month, eWEEK editors name new or newly updated enterprise-class products that we think should be on IT professionals' radars—products and services that promise to create efficiencies as well as competitive advantage. Here are the products we're watching this month.
By Debra Donston
The mobile workplace of today requires many business professionals to carry their office around with them. Notebooks, smartphones and netbooks offer ways to stay connected to your colleagues and your data. In terms of sheer portability and accessibility, however, nothing beats USB-based storage systems. Whether it's a flash-based stick you can slip in your pocket or a 500GB external hard drive, these devices hold the data you need-at a price any business can afford.By Nathan Eddy
Fedora 11, the latest release of Red Hat's community-oriented Linux OS, can serve in a full gamut of Linux roles on the server and desktop. And, as usual, Fedora 11 gives users of Red Hat Enterprise Linux an early look at what's to come in their operating system of choice. In my review of Fedora 11, I took note of the distribution's improvements around virtualization, where Fedora boasts improved facilities for creating, accessing and managing virtual machines across multiple hosts.
By Jason Brooks
The Palm Pre smartphone is the latest device to undergo the teardown service of research and advisory firm iSuppli, which disassembles devices in order to offer a closer look at the choices the manufacturer has made and what this could mean for customers. In the Palm Pre, iSuppli found components from Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, Sony and Samsung Electronics primarily.
"With the Pre, Palm has made some surprising choices not only in the phone's features, but also in its design and component selection," wrote iSuppli's Andrew Rassweiler, a director and principal analyst, in a statement on the teardown. (Photos courtesy of iSuppli.)
With the popularity of Apple’s iPhone on the market, IT managers need to think about how to secure the iPhone when it comes into their networks. Smart policy is the name of the game. With that in mind, The Center for Internet Security recently released a security benchmark for the iPhone to help both administrators and end-users better secure data stored on the device.
In a document entitled the "CIS Security Configuration Benchmark for Apple iPhone," CIS included 20 recommendations on subjects such as system settings and instructions on creating strong passwords. The advice, which applies to those who have not yet upgraded to iPhone 3GS, was created based on input from a diverse set of experts from the worlds of IT security, software developers and other fields.
eWEEK has selected some of the recommendations and included how to set your iPhone to be more secure.
In previous versions of Apple Safari, the Web browser was a capable if somewhat basic and utilitarian tool for surfing the Web. But with the release of Safari 4, Apple has gone in a very new direction, creating one of the most attractive and interactive browsers on the market today. Borrowing liberally from Apple’s iTunes, Safari 4 provides visually attractive site tracking and searching tools that help users scan through their favorite sites. Along with its excellent standards support and other strong browser features, Apple’s Safari 4 has gained considerable ground on its browser competitors.
Even before the Palm Pre made its debut on June 6, tech critics from major publications offered generally positive reviews of the device. Specifically, many cited the appealing design, easy-to-use multitouch interface, and the Palm OS.
At the same time, some reviews pointed out the relatively weak battery life and sparse App Catalogue as weak points for the device and its ecosystem. Palm, along with Nokia and BlackBerry maker Research In Motion, are in the position of playing catch-up against the Apple iPhone and its App Store, which features tens of thousands of applications and counting.
However, while the initial applications offered for the Palm Pre may not be extensive in number, they certainly are useful for both the enterprise and general users. eWEEK lists some of the first ones being offered for the Palm Pre.
Red Hat officials claim the community's eleventh release of its open-source Linux distribution includes the broadest feature set to date; spotlights developments in software management and sound; improves key virtualization components; and introduces Fedora Community, a portal project now in beta. The beta test of the portal focuses on software package maintainers; community members will have an opportunity to comment and improve Fedora Community as it develops throughout this year, according to Red Hat officials.
Opera has long been one of the most innovative browsers on the Web, introducing many of the features—such as tabbed browsing—now found in other browsers. While the beta of Opera 10 may not appear to be as innovative as some past versions, it does include several new features that will probably be found in competing browsers in years to come: a very good tabbed browsing interface, improvements to the innovative Speed Dial tab launch and features to boost browser performance on slow connections.
Simply put, the Palm Pre is a beautiful smartphone, with clean lines, intuitive controls and a lovely screen. But the real star is Palm's long-awaited WebOS operating system, which offers easy-to-grasp controls that help the user move among simultaneously active applications. WebOS also seamlessly blends e-mail, contact and calendar data from multiple sources, and presents an intriguing development environment. While the Pre is mostly a success, significantly subpar battery life presents a major roadblock to adoption.
About 6,000 people—5,200 Apple community developers and about 800 analysts and media types—crowded into Moscone West in downtown San Francisco June 8 at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference to witness the launch of Apple's new iPhone 3G S (S is for speed) and several new notebook computers. Most attendees were hoping that Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs would be making his first public appearance since October 2008, but he was not here on Day 1 of the weeklong event. Following are some snapshots of the new-product presentation by Apple Senior Vice President of Worldwide Product Marketing Phil Schiller, Senior Vice President of Software Engineering Bertrand Serlet, and Senior Vice President of iPhone Software Scott Forstall.
The Mono project has recently released Version 2.0 of its IDE, MonoDevelop. MonoDevelop is a full IDE for developing C# programs under the Mono run-time. If you’ve worked with Visual Studio, you will see many similarities in MonoDevelop. If you’re new to MonoDevelop and haven’t worked in Visual Studio, you’ll find the learning curve is not very steep.
VMware's vSphere 4 takes ESX and VirtualCenter, now called vCenter Server, ahead of the pack by adding new network and performance functions. The network changes now provide a virtual switch that can encompass multiple ESX host systems and will also support third-party wares from vendors including Cisco. You must be able to measure to manage, and VMware has made several simple changes that bring virtual and physical performance metrics to the fore so that IT managers can make informed decisions about how to position virtual machines and application workloads.
Alioscopy's autostereoscopic 3D, now being used in selected display advertising deployments, is best viewed from a distance of 10 to 30 feet. The moving images consist of an unlimited number of layers; they are rendered on a regular high-resolution screen from eight different horizontal points of view and photographed in a half-circle at equidistant intervals, using the Alioscopy technology. The next several pages show how these images look on the screen, or as best we can show you in plain old 2D.
Illuminate's iLuminate 4.0 offers a new take on building data warehouses, eschewing typical relational or column-based storage models for what the company describes as a correlation database model. In my tests of iLuminate, I was impressed by the way the product enabled me to load a healthy-sized data set into the engine and, without any other organization or optimization, begin drilling arbitrarily through the data using Illuminate's analysis tool, iCorrelate. See my full review here.
The Android 1.5 firmware upgrade for the T-Mobile G1 with Google (dubbed Cupcake) is now available to T-Mobile customers for over-the-air upgrade. The new version packs in a few new features--such as stereo Bluetooth and voice search--and provides some nice polish devicewide. However, Android 1.5 leaves a few first-generation problems unaddressed.
By Andrew Garcia
Nearly every major handset vendor, such as Nokia, LG, Motorola, Samsung and Sony Ericsson, has been getting into the game of going green. Sony Ericsson's two newest handsets, the C109 and the Naite, pack green features and recycled plastic parts - but there's more under the eco-friendly packaging as well. The two models are part of Sony Ericsson's GreenHeart environmental program.
eWEEK offers a quick, first look at these two eco-friendly handsets and offers a peak at the devices' features.By Nathan Eddy
On June 6, the Palm Pre will go on sale nationwide. For certain, the Palm Pre will be for use on the Sprint 3G network, will be available at Sprint stores, Best Buy, Radio Shack and select Wal-Mart locations, and it will cost $199 after a mail-in $100 rebate and with a two-year contract. There are a lot more unanswered details, however, as the Pre has been the source of months' worth of rumors, hyperbole, hypotheses and what-ifs. Below are the top 10 questions eWEEK is looking forward to having answered, once the Palm Pre arrives and settles in.
Freescale Semiconductor is embracing the netbook market, or, as it calls them, "smartbooks"—devices that are cloud-computing centric, have long battery life, are perpetually online and feature Freescale's i.MX515 processor technology. Freescale recently approached the Savannah College of Art and Design and challenged its students to rethink the form factor. Below are a few of Freescale's favorite prototype designs, which are on display at the Computex 2009 show in Taipei, Taiwan.
While Amazon.com's Kindle 2 and large-format Kindle DX are dominating e-reader media coverage, casual users of mobile e-reader devices and business-focused users alike have a few other options. iRex Technologies offers two large-screen models, one boasting a 10.1-inch diagonal display, and Plastic Logic plans to debut an ultrathin, 8.5-inch reader aimed at business professionals.
The Apple Xserve running the Mac OS X Server operating system is among the first servers we've seen at eWEEK Labs running the new Intel Xeon 5500 family of "Nehalem" processors. The hardware/operating system combo works well, and IT shops that have concentrations of Mac users should put the device high on their evaluation list for the ease of integration for services such as Time Machine backup, iChat, and other group collaboration and productivity tools. The appliancelike fit and finish of the Xserve/OS X Server combo eliminates the driver and firmware headaches often associated with running other operating systems, including Windows and Linux, on the wide variety of available hardware for those OSes.
With the June 1 launch of its new search engine, Bing, Microsoft is attempting to claim more market share in the competitive search-engine arena, where it sits in third place behind Google and Yahoo. According to a ComScore report, Microsoft held 8.2 percent of the U.S. core search engine market in April 2009, behind Google with 64.2 percent and Yahoo with 20.4 percent. In addition to traditional search, with its pages of hyperlinks, Bing also allows users to drill down into specific search categories, such as Videos, Shopping, News, Maps and Travel. With this step, Microsoft says it wants Bing to provide intuitive tools to help customers make better decisions, with an initial focus on four key vertical areas: making a purchase decision, planning a trip, researching a health condition or finding a local business. Or to put it another way, Microsoft is hoping that Bing presents such utility to users that the company can increase its search market share and related financials. The following eWEEK product gallery shows just what Bing is capable of doing.
At its Google I/O developer conference on May 28, Google demonstrated Google Wave, a new mode of communication out of the team that brought Google Maps to the world. Google Wave is a combination of e-mail, instant messaging, photo sharing and a lot more. In a blog post, Lars Rasmussen, a software engineering manager at Google and half of the core team whose original ideas led to both Google Maps and the new Wave technology, said his brother Jens convinced him that the future of communication should be the next concept for the team to conquer after maps.
After rolling out on May 26 with a few glitches, Nokia’s Ovi Store, from which users can download applications for the company’s ecosystem of mobile devices, seems to be running smoothly. As of the end of 2008, Nokia held the No. 1 position in smartphones worldwide, with 40.8 percent market share, followed by Research In Motion with 19.5 percent and Apple with 10.7 percent. At the Nokia Developer Summit 2009 in Monte Carlo, the company announced that the store would launch more than 1,000 applications ready for download onto some 50 Nokia mobile devices.
President Barack Obama has made cyber-security a priority since he took office in January. A month into his presidency, Obama appointed Melissa Hathaway to lead a review of the United States' cyber-security posture as acting senior director for cyberspace for the National Security and Homeland Security councils. On May 29, the administration released the report.
But the report comes after news of several hacking incidents targeting both the government and the nation's infrastructure made their way into the public eye during the past few months.
What are some of the major stories about hacks targeting U.S. government agencies and infrastructure in the past few years? eWEEK provides a short list of some of the better-known examples of hackers penetrating America's defenses in recent history.
Go back 12 years, and the Web browser found on the majority of business systems was Netscape Navigator. Six or seven years ago, nearly all corporate Web users relied on Microsoft Internet Explorer. But during the last few years—due to security problems, limited updates and improvements in competing browsers—IE has given up much of its stranglehold on the enterprise browser market. Indeed, many business users today run multiple browsers on their systems. But what makes a browser good for the enterprise? Security? Administration features? Performance? In this slide show, eWEEK Labs looks at some of the more enterprise-friendly features found in the latest versions of IE, Firefox, Safari, Chrome and Opera.
Application security has to start during the development process. That means fixing vulnerable code before applications are ever pushed out to the public. Much has been written about the secure software development lifecycle—now it’s time to test security pros and developers alike. Can you find the vulnerabilities in the code?
Sorry—there is no prize involved, just a minor brainteaser for those of you who design applications or are charged with assessing their security. The code on the slides was provided by Veracode and Qualys.
The space shuttle Atlantis' recently completed mission to the Hubble marked man's last trip to the iconic space telescope. Over five spacewalks to refurbish and upgrade the Hubble with state-of-the-art science instruments, Atlantis' payload included the Wide Field Camera 3, fine guidance sensor and the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph. Thanks to the crew efforts, the operational life of the Hubble Space Telescope was extended by at least five years. Here is eWEEK's day-by-day look at the mission. (All photos courtesy of NASA)
Microsoft has a long history of catering to developers, going back to the origins of the company when Bill Gates noted that winning the hearts and minds of developers would be essential for Microsoft's success. As evidenced by the focus on application development at the recent Microsoft TechEd North America 2009 conference and the overwhelming response to the company's May 18 release of Beta 1 of Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0, Microsoft remains close to the pulse of the developer community. By Darryl K. Taft
This summer Hewlett-Packard will make three new additions to its popular Mini netbook family: the Mini 110 XP Edition, the Mini 110 Mobile Internet (Mi) Edition and the Mini 1101. These netbooks, which HP imagines as second computers, include a sync application, weigh a little more than 2 pounds, have 10.1-inch screens (diagonally) and offer a choice of Intel Atom processors. News of the devices comes on the heels of netbook announcements from competitors Lenovo and Asus.
Concrete5 is the latest incarnation of a formerly commercial CMS that is now open source. This fifth version includes many features that the Web developer will find useful. Out of the box, the software is usable, although limited. For fully customized sites, the Web developer will want to be well-versed in PHP programming. Click here to read a review of Concrete5.
HP LeftHand P4300 4.8TB SAS Starter SAN Solution lays a firm iSCSI SAN foundation for midsize to larger organizations.
Read the full review here.
With the release of Chrome 2.0, Google unleashes the latest version of its browser. However, users looking for new features will be hard-pressed to find them in this release. In fact, Chrome 2.0 is more like a point release. Most of the new features focus on improved speed and the addition of capabilities (such as full-screen mode) long found in competing browsers. For eWEEK Labs' full review of Google Chrome 2.0, click here.
By Jim Rapoza
Lenovo has introduced four new PCs that will be available this summer: the IdeaPad U350 laptop, the G550 laptop, the IdeaCentre C300 desktop and the IdeaPad S12--Lenovo's first 12-inch netbook. The devices are very much representative of the times, offering low prices and low-voltage processors, and putting an emphasis on design. A Lenovo spokesperson described the devices as complementing already existing Lenovo products and emphasized that the commonality between them is that "they offer stylish design at prices you don't usually get stylish design for."
By Michelle Maisto
CTOs, CIOs and data center managers evaluating various brands of servers for purchase now have another important factor to consider: whether or not each server has passed the qualifications to wear the Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star label showing it to be energy-efficient and environmentally friendly. To earn the EPA's Energy Star label, servers must have accurate power-supply management capabilities, virtualization functionality, and energy-efficiency benchmarks and standards for measuring and reporting energy use. But there are other important criteria that we outline for you in this slide show.
In the rapidly changing world of technology, it's not uncommon for one product to hang around for a year or two, only to be replaced by another newer, flashier offering—one with more bells and whistles—that relegates its predecessor to the trash heap of history. However, over the past two-plus decades, there are some products—from the likes of IBM, Intel, Apple, Sun Microsystems and AMD—that have pushed the industry forward and left a lasting imprint. For example, there's the first PC, the first significant x86 chip, the first workstation and the first mainframe, not to mention Microsoft's Windows DOS operating system. Most of these technologies are no longer in use, but their DNA can be found in today's products, while others are still pushing on. By no means a comprehensive list, this is just a few of the products that, while some of them may be gone, they shouldn't be forgotten.
In a May 5 research note from Citigroup Global Markets, analysts stated that the likelihood of Apple creating an iPhone for Verizon Wireless ultimately comes down to economics.
"After considering a number of factors, we believe Apple could offer its iPhone platform on additional carriers by 2011 to sustain solid unit volumes in the U.S. market, and we believe Verizon is a leading contender to offer its first iPhone between late-2010 and 2011," the analysts wrote in their report.
eWEEK has assembled a list of the Top 10 reasons why Apple should bring its iPhone to Verizon’s network and why AT&T’s exclusive relationship with Apple could come to an end within the next two years.
The space shuttle Atlantis just released the 19-year-old Hubble, repairing and updating the venerable space telescope. NASA hopes the facelift will keep Hubble chugging along and taking additional pictures for five more years. Let's hope so because most of the first 19 years of Hubble's view into the galaxies have been nothing less than spectacular. eWEEK looks back at almost two decades of high-tech star gazing and picks its 19 most favorite Hubble images, one for each year of man's look into deep space. The images include close-up shots of Mars and Neptune, what Saturn’s rings look like, and the remnants of far-away supernovas.
Each month, eWEEK editors name new or newly updated enterprise-class products that we think should be on IT professionals' radars—products and services that promise to create efficiencies as well as competitive advantage. This month, eWEEK recommends checking out Nexsan Technologies' Nexsan iSeries, AutoPilot M6 from Nastel, Seapine Software's Surround SCM 2009, Lumigent Technologies' AppGRC for PeopleSoft Financial Management, Lenovo's ThinkStation S20 and D20 workstations, v-Go Shared Accounts Manager from Passlogix, Damballa's Failsafe 3.0, St. Bernard's iPrism Web Filter with Anonymizer, and ActiveVOS 6.2.
Before Wolfram Alpha's release, some pundits declared that the online answer engine had the potential to be a Google killer. While the site, developed by Stephen Wolfram, does scour the Web for information, it offers up structured answers to factual queries, as opposed to offering a list of hyperlinked Web pages.
Anyone searching online for images of favorite celebrities or top vacation spots would be completely out of luck. But for those who need to make complex calculations on the fly or pull numerical data based on physics or speed, Wolfram Alpha presents a venue for doing so without necessarily having to sort through the dozens of possibly questionable Web sites that a traditional search engine would offer up.
The site, which was built with Wolfram Research's 20-years-in-the-making Mathematica processing system, contains over 10 trillion pieces of data, 50,000 algorithms and models, and linguistic capabilities for over 1,000 domains. Wolfram Alpha's core code base exceeds 5 million lines of symbolic Mathematica code, according to the site.
Summer vacation may be around the corner, but Dell has its eye on going back to school. Its new Latitude 2100 netbook was designed with elementary and junior-high classrooms in mind, and consequently it features such options as a rubber exterior and an antimicrobial keyboard, as well as a soon-to-arrive rolling media cart, for managing a classroom’s worth of devices. Aiming for such a specialized niche may prove a smart move for Dell, as the Obama administration puts a new emphasis on education and educational funding, and Dell competitors such as Acer, Lenovo and MSI all have new netbooks on the market.
Nokia introduces three new Internet-ready phones for emerging markets May 18. The 2730, Nokia's least-expensive 3G phone to date, will begin shipping in the third quarter with a price equivalent to approximately $108, before taxes and subsidies. The clamshell-style 2720 will also ship in the third quarter, for the equivalent of approximately $75. And a second fold phone, the colorful 7020, will ship in the fourth quarter for approximately $124. All three phones feature Nokia Life Tools, Ovi Mail for personal e-mail and strong battery life.
eWEEK Labs provides (almost) everything you need to know now about Windows 7, Microsoft's update to its client operating system—and what some are seeing as its Vista do-over. For the Labs' review of Windows 7 RC 1, click here.
Apple's stylish and popular iPhone maybe not directly target working professionals the same way RIM's BlackBerry devices or the upcoming Palm Pre smartphone might, but Apple's App Store, where business owners can find hundreds of free and low-cost applications, can turn you into a mobile office.
In these economic times, businesses of all sizes are looking to trim dollars, especially in the IT department, and Apple and its developer community have tried to address these issues with a series of low-cost and free apps that can keep a business with a budget going.
eWEEK has compiled a comprehensive list of 10 must-have Apple App Store applications, including some free apps from Skype, Salesforce.com and Intuit, that can help save your company time and money.By Nathan Eddy
Following hard on the heels of its major Version 3.0 milestone, the OpenOffice.org team is back with Version 3.1 of its popular, cross-platform-friendly productivity suite. Between the work that the OpenOffice.org team has done to make its suite compatible with Office's traditional binary and newer, XML-based formats and the work that Microsoft has done to make Office 2007 compatible with OOo's OpenDocument format, these rival suites can coexist more peacefully than ever. I tested OpenOffice.org 3.1 on both Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux systems, and found Version 3.1 a worthwhile upgrade, particularly for those who work with charts and graphics within their documents, spreadsheets and presentations.
Version 10.3 of the Bomgar B200 remote support appliance speeds access to support representatives and increases the amount of detail shown for Mac systems. A click-to-chat button that can be permanently installed on end-user systems makes it possible to immediately chat with a remote support representative without first downloading the entire software component that enables remote keyboard-video-mouse sharing. Users with a basic procedural question can be quickly dealt with over chat instead of engaging in a longer, more involved full remote control session.
Microsoft Virtual Earth, which offers three-dimensional aerial imagery drawn from satellites and aerial photos, is pairing with General Motors subsidiary OnStar to enhance OnStar's GPS location service. With the 3D-boosted imagery in place, emergency responders will theoretically have an easier time locating vehicles in distress.
The IT industry has increasingly focused on the automobile as a potential arena for its latest hardware and software, with companies such as Intel and Microsoft developing car-specific programs, microprocessors and devices that deliver everything from entertainment to communications. In addition, many IT company executives, such as Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, have invested in experimental vehicles that utilize electric, alternative-fuel or hybrid engines.
Prism has been available as an alpha project within Mozilla Labs for more than a year now, but Mozilla recently launched it as an official beta and encouraged users to try it out. After taking the beta for a spin, eWEEK Labs found that Prism makes it possible to take any Website or Web application and make it behave as a desktop application. For example, users can convert Facebook or Gmail to desktop applications with Prism and have them run in streamlined browser windows, launch them from the desktop or Quick Start tabs, or even have them start up when the operating system launches. Prism runs on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux systems.
NEW YORK—Dell hosted what it called an "urban meet-up" here May 12 to showcase the PC maker's latest and greatest computers. On display on this trip was Dell's high-end Adamo laptop, which got the tech world talking when Dell first discussed the ultrathin and stylish laptop at the 2009 International CES.
Dell also had several of its Inspiron and Studio models on display, including the new Inspiron Mini 10v, a lower-cost version of its netbook line with a starting price of $299. Dell also plans to offer a special antenna and built-in tuner for its Inspiron Mini lineup that will allow users to tune in to local broadcast television.
Dell has worked overtime to shed its image as unimaginative "box maker" and, like Hewlett-Packard, Acer and especially Apple, has tried to add some life to PC design, especially with laptops such as its Adamo and the Studio line, which are aimed specifically at consumers.
Here, eWEEK offers a guided tour of some of Dell's latest desktop and laptop offerings.
The evening of May 8, 2009, turned out to be a time of smiles and handshakes, remembrances of times gone by and glimpses of legendary IT pioneers at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif. Drs. Gordon Moore and Jay Last, two of the founders of Fairchild Semiconductory in 1957 and each a true icon in the IT world, spoke to a capacity audience and offered insight about how the integrated circuit—which 50 years later runs the business world—came to be. The event, which commemorated the publication of Robert Noyce's 1959 paper describing the first working silicon-based processor, attracted several hundred people and closed out a week's worth of events commemorating the anniversary of the single most important component in computing—the data processor.
Following are some photo highlights of the event.
There are pieces of malware that make a big splash such as Conficker and then those such as Coreflood that for a variety of reasons do a better job of flying under the radar. In the end, the long-term success of a piece of malware to a large extent depends on it being able to avoid both detection and sustained scrutiny by the security community. Doing so can allow attackers to build mammoth botnets to the tune of hundreds of thousands of zombie computers - or, in the case of Conficker, millions.
The usual endgame for the hackers, of course, is to turn the mountains of stolen data into money. After discussions with some security vendors and researchers, eWEEK has compiled a short list of some of the stealthier and more persistent pieces of malware out there today.By Brian Prince
Lenovo is refreshing its line of IdeaPad netbooks with a new mini-notebook called the IdeaPad S10-2, which offers a bigger keyboard. While Lenovo took some criticism with the keyboard size of its original S10 netbook, the PC vendor has taken time to expand the size of the S10-2’s keyboard. The IdeaPad S10-2 keyboard is 90 percent of the size of a typical, full-sized laptop.
In addition to a 10.1-inch display, Lenovo looked to slim down the S10-2 to less than an inch thick. Lenovo also equipped the new netbook with software that allows for greater energy efficiency and up to 30 percent more battery life compared to the older S10 mini-notebook.
The Lenovo S10-2, which the company plans to release May 12, also offers an array of standard netbook features, including an Intel Atom N270 processor—1.6GHz—and 802.11 b/g wireless technologies. The S10-2 netbook also includes a 160GB hard disk drive. Lenovo, in an effort to make its netbooks more eye pleasing, offers an array of different colors, including white and pink.(Photographs courtesy of Lenovo.)
3Com was a major player in the enterprise networking space until about five years ago, when officials decided to focus their attention on smaller and midsize companies. However, during that time, through a partnership with Huawei Technologies, 3Com had a stake in H3C, an enterprise networking business in China. In 2006, 3Com bought out Huawei for $882 million, gaining sole control over H3C. Now 3Com is ready to grow H3C beyond the Chinese market, and is looking to challenge dominant player Cisco Systems in the United States, Europe, Latin America and elsewhere. 3Com is announcing May 11 that it not only is bringing H3C's entire line of networking products global, but also adding new offerings, including new enterprise-level switches and a new management software product, Intelligent Management Center. 3Com officials say that China is the only market where Cisco faces a real market share challenge in H3C, and that they want to expand that competition worldwide.
The popular online classified site Craigslist is under a ton of pressure from law enforcement, state's Attorneys General and public perception that its Website makes it too easy for prostitution, life-threatening fetishism and the dark side of human behavior to take root. From the recent Philip Markoff case in New England dubbed by tabloids as the "Craigslist Killer" to a Minnesota woman's death after answering an ad for a nanny, as well as many other cases, Craigslist is getting a bad rep. Is Craigslist really at fault? Or is it being abused by troubled individuals? Does having sections on the site like "Erotic Services" catering to fetishists and those looking for anonymous sexual activity open Craigslist up to legal and law enforcement scrutiny? Or is the site protected by laws for Internet Service Providers? Whatever the outcome, Craigslist is certainly headed for a legal battle that will pit free speech advocates and classified publishers against those who want to shut down Craigslist.
Socialtext takes nearly all of the most talked-about features of Web 2.0 and social networking, including Twitter-style microblogging, traditional blogging and collaborative wikis, and combines them into a SAAS offering that is designed to make these tools attractive for business use.
By Jim Rapoza
While it can be difficult to identify appropriate uses of Twitter for serious business, many companies do recognize the value of the capabilities the microblogging service provides. Socialcast is essentially a Twitter for businesses that has some nice touches for specific types of messages and for keeping co-workers up-to-date on status, projects and important company information.
By Jim Rapoza
Amazingly, research indicates that the average U.S. company, at any given time, faces more than 300 lawsuits. A company's annual costs to produce documents in the discovery phase are estimated to be $2.5 million to $4 million per year for every billion dollars in sales, according to a survey by information governance researcher Cohasset Associates. Litigation-hold restrictions put on an IT department during discovery potentially can cripple an enterprise's workflow. In addition, companies are struggling with the fast turnaround required by the 2006 e-discovery amendments to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the sanctions that could take effect should they miss a court deadline.
The situation has become so problematic that legal groups fear that lawsuits are too often being settled out of court-not on the merits of the case, but because companies don't have the time, process, technology or money for e-discovery help.
Like Apple is fond of saying in its iPhone commercials: "There's an app for that!" Our primary source is Galina Datskovsky of CA, senior vice president and general manager of the Information Governance business unit at CA.
Following are Datskovsky's suggestions of 10 best practices that organizations can follow to proactively prepare themselves for e-discovery and litigation.
For the most part, Huddle is a classic online collaboration system in the same vein as Microsoft Office SharePoint and Basecamp. Huddle does do a good job of providing collaborative workspaces and simple project management capabilities, and has worked to integrate with social networks such as LinkedIn.
By Jim Rapoza
The Citrix Receiver for iPhone uses the Citrix XenApp infrastructure to neatly deliver Windows applications to the small screen. Users of Apple's iPhone can tap the freely available Citrix tool to access data in the field and do some document editing. Although I found that the app is most useful when the iPhone is connected to a Wi-Fi network, it is possible to use it through the 3G cellular connection. If the AT&T Edge network is your primary connection, the Citrix Receiver likely won't be a satisfactory option for accessing enterprise applications in the field.
By Cameron Sturdevant
IBM has developed the mainframe computer for nearly 50 years despite repeated predictions that the model was outmoded, first by the long-defunct minicomputer and later by desktop computer and microcomputer servers. But the mainframe has continued to remain relevant for corporate applications that require massive computing capacity and serve up data for cloud computing, the Internet and mobile applications.By Darryl K. Taft
IBM, long known for its mainframe capabilities, has not given up on the platform. In fact, IBM is working to make the mainframe even better for new workloads that include cloud computing, massive transactions, management of enterprise mobile solutions and a host of others. This slide show takes you through decades of IBM mainframe technology. The slides in this deck show early IBM data processing machines to the latest z10, which is a cornerstone of what IBM views as the New Enterprise Data Center.By Darryl K. Taft
The 19-year-old Hubble Space Telescope is in desperate need of repair, with outdated and failing batteries, busted gyroscopes, and spotty electrical and communications systems. The Atlantis shuttle launched May 11 on its last flight with the mission of giving the Hubble a much-needed systems overhaul and installing a new, more powerful wide-field camera and the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph. The seven-man crew is expected to arrive at the Hubble May 13 and, if all goes well, Hubble's life will be extended to at least 2014. Here's an eWEEK day-to-day look at the first mission to Hubble since 2002.
With its miSAN D, Cybernetics goes to great lengths to establish the right balance of price and features for the price-conscious iSCSI SAN shopper. Whereas other SAN manufacturers pack innumerable features into their products, Cybernetics focuses on providing only those features you're likely to use. These include volume snapshots, internal RAID, full device redundancy and device-to-device replication. The company adds a few valuable features above and beyond that, such as integrated agent-less backup and complimentary tech support.
More than 50 Lenovo Think-brand PCs are headed for tornado alley, powering an $11.9 million tornado field research project by the Center for Severe Weather Research (CSWR). The project will begin on May 8 in Norman, Okla., and include more than 100 scientists, span 500,000 square miles across seven states, and use 40 specially designed vehicles, 70 pieces of weather equipment and Lenovo ThinkPad laptops, ThinkCentre desktops, ThinkVision monitors and IdeaPad netbooks. Dr. Joshua Wurman, president of CSWR, said it's the largest tornado research project ever undertaken.By Michelle Maisto
NEW YORK - Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos unveiled the Kindle DX, a larger-screened version of the online retailer's eReader device, at a presentation in New York City on May 6. In addition to displaying volumes from Amazon's 275,000 eBook library, the Kindle DX, which now boasts a 9.7-inch display, is also designed for the best possible read of personal and business documents, such as PDFs, as well as must-reads such as The New York Times.
The Kindle DX offers a number of technological refinements on the Kindle and Kindle 2, Amazon's previous eReaders. In addition to being able to adjust font size, for example, users can now also choose the number of words per line of text. Bezos demonstrated how the larger grayscale screen, which includes an auto-rotation feature, can be used for everything from textbooks to sheet music to graphics-intensive enterprise documents to nautical charts.By Nicholas Kolakowski
Google Labs serves as the testing ground for many of the search engine giant's more experimental features. Whether for search, e-mail or other uses, many of these applications tend to be quirky: for example, Gmail Labs, which contains experimental products for the company's cloud-based e-mail service, has Mail Goggles, which prevents e-mails from being sent until a user had solved a series of math questions designed to stump all but the most sober individuals.
Products of Google Labs occasionally end up, either in whole or in part, integrated into Google's larger ecosystem of products. Even if they never reach that point, however, some Labs experiments can still prove useful, even to enterprise users. The following applications go beyond the peculiar or unconventional to be actually useful in a business context. (Mail Goggles, of course, is not on this list.)
All these applications are accessible through Googlelabs.com. The Gmail Labs applications require a Gmail account to use.By Nicholas Kolakowski
Microsoft made the Windows 7 Release Candidate available to Microsoft Developer Network and TechNet subscribers on April 30, and the Windows 7 RC will be generally available May 5. The near-final build shows many changes, the majority being spit and polish, from the Windows 7 Beta 1 released in early January. The company has been pushing for Windows 7, due for final release later this year, to succeed in all the ways that its last operating system, Vista, did not.
Google Apps Connector for BlackBerry Enterprise Server fills a small niche, letting companies fully utilize their managed BlackBerry environment with Google Apps e-mail services rather than platforms such as Microsoft Exchange Server or IBM Lotus Notes. With the Connector in place, users can utilize BlackBerry's native client applications for e-mail, calendar and contacts for push e-mail and (almost) full synchronization between devices and the cloud.
By Andrew Garcia
Sony, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo and other companies came together for EcoFocus, a demo event for the latest green technologies held at the Metropolitan Pavilion in New York, on the night of April 29.
For many IT companies, green is the next big thing: With laptop makers tinkering with the power consumption of their key offerings in order to leave a smaller carbon footprint, and new organizations such as Tesla Motors trying to use green IT in traditional industries such as the automotive industry, it seems as if everyone sees environmentally friendly technology as the wave of the future.
Many of the companies that unveiled wares at EcoFocus decided to focus on the conservation side of green IT, building devices that sip energy while still providing a necessary level of function.
Windows Server 2008 R2 Release Candidate code was made available on April 30 to MSDN and TechNet subscribers. There are many changes to the operating system. Here, I've highlighted some of the most important improvements in the implementation of Hyper-V. For example, running guest systems can be configured on the fly to add or remove virtual hard drives. I tested using the newly released Windows 7 Build 7100 along with the RC build of Windows Server 2008 R2. Changes in User Account Controls, PowerShell and AppLocker are all significant enough that IT managers should brush off their study skills and buckle down with the newest version of Microsoft's server operating system. Also look for changes in Group Policy, Active Directory, remote desktop services and deployment services. Even features that didn't change much in functionality usually have a new address; I spent a fair amount of time during my testing just poking through the user interface, looking for familiar landmarks that had been buried in new locations.
By Cameron Sturdevant
The popular Flip mini-camcorders provide a small and inexpensive solution for those looking for an easy way to capture video specifically for sharing on the Internet. Pure Digital Technologies has regularly updated its Flip line, and, with the release of the $199.99 Flip UltraHD, it provides a high-quality camcorder that can capture up to 2 hours of high-quality video. In tests, the quality of the HD video from the Flip UltraHD was good, and, with a greater storage capacity, the Flip UltraHD is a better option than the $229.99 Flip MinoHD, whose main benefit is a slimmer form factor.
By Jim Rapoza
The N97 will be available for purchase in June. Meanwhile, Nokia has teamed with Aptana to deliver tools for building applications using the Nokia Web Runtime.
As Nokia prepares to launch its Ovi Store mobile application marketplace, the company also is delivering a new mobile device optimized to run applications available on the Ovi Store.
According to Nokia: "The Nokia N97 is a S60 5th Edition mobile computer with a large 3.5-inch, bright nHD (640 by 360 pixels and 16:9 aspect ratio) TFT color display with resistive touch-screen and tactile feedback. The device provides excellent user experience for Internet and entertainment by combining QWERTY keyboard with touch UI and Home screen functionality. Use the N97 to connect to mobile broadband using WLAN or HSDPA (3.5G). Find directions and locations with the integrated A-GPS and included maps."
With Apple's 17-inch MacBook Pro, enterprise IT has a new choice in the thin and light notebook category. The system offers unparalleled battery life, and its long-lasting charge may lessen the worry mobile users have about built-in batteries. The chassis is well-crafted and should stand up to mobile use, although the all-aluminum body will quickly pick up visible dings. The face of the 17-inch MacBook Pro provides plenty of space for the large trackpad and ample wrist-rest room. The full-sized keyboard is easy to access and provides good typing action.
By Cameron Sturdevant
Microsoft's Office 2007 Service Pack 2 is now available, boasting a set of compelling file format support enhancements alongside the typical service pack fare of bug fixes and performance tweaks. Most dramatically, Office 2007 SP2 adds full support for Office's archrival OpenDocument formats, as well as built-in capabilities for publishing documents to Adobe's PDF and Microsoft's own XPS formats. To download SP2, go to http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=b444bf18-79ea-46c6-8a81-9db49b4ab6e5'target By Jason Brooks
As Nokia puts its best foot forward for developers by promoting its Ovi suite of services as an overall platform, the company also is preparing to formally launch its Ovi Store of applications for Nokia smartphones. At the Nokia Developer Summit 2009, Nokia emphasized why developers should look to the Nokia platform for monetization and brand broadening opportunities. Nokia's Ovi Store will be much like the popular Apple App Store, which is a marketplace for applications for the iPhone. However, Nokia officials claim that unlike Apple, Nokia, with its strength in the smartphone space, can make developers more successful more quickly than other platforms. Nokia will not formally launch its Ovi Store until May. However, developers are lining up to deliver applications on the Ovi Store to tap Nokia's market-leading position in the smartphone and device space.
The release candidate of Windows 7 (Build 7100) features many small enhancements over the beta released last January. The new operating system's security features and the Aero Glass interface have undergone much tweaking and tuning. The biggest late-arriving feature to the OS—the virtualization-based Windows XP Mode—remains missing; that code will be available separately via download at a later time.
By Andrew Garcia
Whether or not it will evolve into a true pandemic, or merely a panic, the swine flu has dominated the news for the past several days. Social-networking tools, including Twitter, have been tracing the spread of the disease in near real time, while Google Flu Trends, a Web service provided by Google.org, and Wikipedia have also been keeping continual tabs.
The swine flu outbreak has so far killed dozens of people in Mexico, and cases have been reported in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Canada and Israel. While social-networking tools have been vital in tracing its spread, some pundits have argued that sites such as Twitter only pour gasoline on the fires of panic, potentially leading to dangerous consequences. But the rapid dissemination of information across Web 2.0 could also potentially help at least some people better educate themselves about the pathogen.By Nicholas Kolakowski
ProBook, Hewlett-Packard's new lineup of professional notebooks, presents cost-conscious buyers with a number of options. These include processor choices from Intel or AMD and operating system choices of Microsoft Windows Vista, FreeDOS or Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11. On the 14- and 15.6-inch models, HP also lets users choose between Glossy Noir and Merlot for laptop colors. HP Mobile Broadband and a 2-megapixel Web cam are also options.
In addition to focusing on features for business users and prices that will appeal to SMBs, HP kept an eye on design. "It's got a very streamlined, clean look and feel. You don't see a lot of buttons," says an HP representative.
This ProBook lineup is called the s-series; a line of Compaq notebooks, once they need refreshing, will join the ProBook family as their own series.
The number of Apps downloaded from Apple's online App Store recently passed the 1 billion mark, some nine months after the App Store was rolled out in July 2008. Currently with 17 million users in 80 countries, the iPhone is a huge part of Apple's overall strategy; Apple shipped about 3.7 million iPhones during the first quarter of 2009, driving strong quarterly results. Over 25,000 applications are currently on offer in the App Store, ranging from enterprise-focused Apps from Salesforce.com, SAP and other companies to fun applications such as Koi Pond, eBay Mobile and Kindle for iPhone.
The following Apps are some of the most notable to have appeared in the App Store since its creation—either because they are among the most downloaded, were one of the first (or the billionth), or simply because they remain supremely useful to IT administrators and the general public alike.
The realities of the smartphone economy are changing: No more must one shell out over $500 to access e-mail, surf the Web or whittle away downtime playing video games (you know who you are). Indeed, as the worldwide financial crisis impacts businesses large and small, companies such as Samsung, BlackBerry maker RIM, LG, Motorola and Palm are offering great deals on smartphones, though some deals must be made online and a two-year contract is often required.
eWEEK looks at 12 low-cost smartphones that are on the market now and can easily fit within a tight budget, and, yes, there is a way for you or your company to get your hands on an inexpensive Apple iPhone 3G.
Cisco is aggressively pushing for a larger part of the data center space with its UCS (Unified Computing System) strategy, an initiative aimed at unifying the server, storage and networking tiers into a single, cohesive fabric, underpinned by virtualization technology. Launched March 16, the campaign pits Cisco against other data center stalwarts, including IBM, Dell, Hewlett-Packard with its Adaptive Infrastructure approach, and Sun, which April 13 launched its Open Network Systems initiative. Cisco is looking to leverage its strengths in networking, new blade servers powered by Intel's Xeon 5500 series processors and partnerships with such companies as EMC, NetApp and VMware to offer enterprises a unified data center fabric to meet the growing demand for performance and scalability while driving down costs around acquisition, management, power and cooling. Cisco has come under criticism from the likes of HP and Sun, who say that the networking giant's approach doesn't scale, isn't open and is expensive. However, Cisco officials answered that criticism and outlined key components of their strategy during an hour-long Internet presentation April 16 here.
Because hard drive capacities continue to spiral upward and prices continue a flat or downward trend, great value is now available in desktop adjunct storage products—whether for small business or for personal offices. Cisco Systems, which is embarking on a new Unified Computing System strategy, recently entered a market that has been dominated by such familiar names as Iomega, Seagate Technology, Maxtor, Buffalo Technology and Hammer Storage in recent years. There are any number of smaller companies, based mainly in the Far East, that are also playing in this sector.
This eWEEK slide show offers a taste of what's new and available now in data storage for the home or the home office. Enjoy.
With the economic recession in full swing, people are trying to save money any way they can—even foregoing purchasing their books and DVDs online in favor of swapping them through Web forums such as Bookins.com and Titletrader.com.
Craigslist has also become a refuge for people looking to acquire reading and viewing material without necessarily having to shell out cash. Unlike Craigslist, though, many of these bartering sites are deepening their features and interface, adding elements that make them more akin to Netflix or Amazon than an online bulletin board.
However, many of the most-popular titles on Amazon and other "traditional" online book and DVD sellers continue to be the most popular items for these bartering sites, as evidenced by the Top 10 books and DVDs on Bookins.com. The first five images are the most popular books and the next five are the most popular movies.
In the wake of the April 20 news that Oracle is swallowing Sun Microsystems for a net of $5.6 billion, talk on the street of subsequent mergers & acquisitions activity has begun to heat up.
For some reasons, these deals sometimes come in waves, but the economy is the most significant factor. "We believe there is going to be more M&A activity in technology because valuations are depressed, and it is going to be difficult for many companies to grow in this economy. What will be interesting is how the transactions evolve," Enterprise Strategy Group analyst Brian Babineau told eWEEK.
We've talked to industry vendors, channel folks and analysts, and we have aggregated their opinions here.
More than 450 exhibitors are showing their stuff at this year's RSA Conference in San Francisco. eWEEK Labs' Cameron Sturdevant has been scouring the expo floor to find the most compelling products for the enterprise. This year, virtualization security tools were an area of focus, but old standbys-still very much needed in our Windows XP/physical server world-are garnering attention. Read on for Cameron's picks for the 10 most interesting products at the show and visit https://cm.rsaconference.com/US09/catalog/exhibitorCatalog.do for a complete catalog.
By Cameron Sturdevant
LABS IMAGE GALLERY: Ubuntu 9.04 is the latest release in the line of popular Linux-based operating systems from Canonical and the Ubuntu community. This release, also known as the Jaunty Jackalope, is fairly modest in terms of new features, but it sets out to tackle new territories on the netbook and cloud fronts. Jaunty is a great fit for desktops and notebooks, and can perform well in server implementations as well. Click here for eWEEK Labs' full review.
By Jason Brooks
CentOS, the popular community-supported clone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, hit Version 5.3 in March, packed with the improvements around virtualization, application development, security and storage that first appeared when RHEL 5.3 began shipping in January. What's more, CentOS 5.3 may be had without any subscription fees, which explains the growing popularity of CentOS as an operating system option for many hosting providers and cloud computing vendors. Join eWEEK Labs for a peek at CentOS 5.3, and check out our full review of the distribution here.
ActiveVOS is an all-in-one, standards-based solution for designing, building, managing, deploying and maintaining services-based applications. New in ActiveVOS 6.1, available now, are productivity enhancements, any-order BPM (business process management) development, automatic generation of BPEL activities, improved data manipulation, support for Eclipse 3.4, exception management capabilities and process monitors. For a trial, go to http://www.activevos.com/download-trial.php. Version 6.2 will be available at the end of April.
"Green computing" has been tossed around by marketers with as little regard for the real meaning as "organic." At its most earnest, however, green computing represents a growing, and very necessary, trend toward more energy-efficient devices, more eco-minded packaging materials and more thoughtful product end-of-life practices. The latter point has been a focus for enterprises, in part, because of legal mandates protecting the data on unwanted devices. The other aspect of the end-of-life practices, however, is ensuring that materials are responsibly recycled, and more enterprises are turning to vendors, such as Redemtech, that offer both security and recycling assurances.
IDC reports that asset recovery and disposition of corporate IT assets has "grown from an obscure niche sector to a fully recognized industry." Further, the research firm is finding that the current economy is bringing enterprises to place new value on green technology.
eWEEK takes a look at what companies such as Apple, HP, Dell, Lenovo and Nokia are doing to ensure that their PCs, handsets and packaging meet new standards for green and recycling.
By Michelle Maisto
Cemaphore Systems' MailShadow allows for Microsoft Exchange Server or another e-mail system to be synchronized in real time with an off-site, cloud-based alternative. This provides a backup of critical e-mail, calendar and contact information, and gives users the ability to access the information from anywhere the Internet reaches. However, MailShadow doesn't really have much of a user interface. About the only way to know it's actually working is to check your router's activity lights, look at both of your e-mail accounts and try to determine if you see any signs of messages synchronizing.
BlackBerry App World, Research In Motion's answer to Apple's App Store, went live in early April. eWEEK Labs tried out App World on a BlackBerry Curve 8900 for T-Mobile and found the store functional, with an expanding database of paid and free mobile applications. However, the use of PayPal as the sole outlet for payment services could limit App World's appeal.
By Andrew Garcia
Oracle is a big company with many products; Sun is a big company with many products. With Oracle's acquisition of Sun, there are many synergies between the two companies' product lines, but lots of overlap as well. Which product categories will benefit from the company combo, and which will get crowded enough that products get killed? eWEEK Labs looked at the overlap and synergies in the areas of database, virtualization, operating systems and identity management.
The no-cost Sun xVM VirtualBox tool is a good system for putting multiple virtual machines on a desktop or notebook system for developers and other IT pros. New in this version is the ability to export and import virtual appliances that are built to the Open Virtualization Format specification, networking features that make it easier to configure guests to communicate with each other while limiting contact with the outside world, and graphics enhancements and access to 3D hardware acceleration. As a challenger to VMware's Workstation (and to the no-cost VMware Server product), the new version of VirtualBox is an even more tempting alternative for cash-strapped IT users. However, the tool does lack the management capabilities and finesse of kingpin VMware's offerings.
Each month, eWEEK editors name new or newly updated enterprise-class products that we think should be on IT professionals' radars—products and services that promise to create efficiencies as well as competitive advantage. This month, eWEEK recommends checking out Courion Compliance Manager for SharePoint; Imperva SecureShare Standard Edition; InfoBright Analytic Database; HP Dynamic Power Capping; NetScout Sniffer Global; SpectorSoft Spector 360 6.2; AVIcode's Client Side Monitoring add-on for Intercept Studio; Proofpoint's Proofpoint Shield; Varonis' DatAdvantage and DataPrivilege 4.0; Optenet’s HostSecure; Expert Choice’s TeamTime; and SteelEye Technology's SteelEye DataKeeper.
With the latest move in the burgeoning data center convergence space, HP is rolling out its BladeSystem Matrix, which pulls together server, storage, network and management software into a single package, tied together by an enhanced Virtual Connect technology. With virtualization becoming more commonplace in the data center, enterprises are looking for ways to take advantage of the technology while reducing the complexity and overall operating costs. HP and other vendors, including Cisco, Dell, IBM and Sun, are jockeying for position in the space with solutions designed to bring together server, storage and networking to give businesses a more agile, flexible and cost-effective data center environment. HP's BladeSystem Matrix, combined with the Matrix Orchestration Environment—or MOE—increases data center performance and flexibility while reducing costs, HP officials said. In addition, HP is unveiling new storage offerings, some of which come from its acquisition last year of LeftHand Networks, as well as the enhancements to the Virtual Connect networking technology. HP also is rolling out a service to help enterprises plan and design their virtual environments.
After eBay purchased PayPal for $1.5 billion in 2002, the electronic pay services co-founder Elon Musk reached deep into his new, fat wallet and pointed to the stars for his next project, founding an aerospace company called SpaceX (Space Exploration Technologies). Musk's goal was to take private enterprise into space and six years later, NASA awarded SpaceX a $1.6 billion contract to design, build and operate a resupply program to the International Space Station. Under the contract, SpaceX will fill the gap in American spaceflight to the International Space Station when the Space Shuttle retires in 2010. An eWEEK look at Musk's private space venture.
HTC has released the Touch Diamond2 and Touch Pro2 smartphones to Singapore and Southeast Asia markets. The smartphones are updates to the Touch Diamond, released in the United States on April 10, and the Touch Pro, which arrived on the Sprint network in October 2008.
Among the updated features are HTC’s TouchFLO 3D technology, which integrates with Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.1 to offer a more consistent experience across applications and menus; a people-centric approach to communication, which gathers together all the correspondence with a contact; and HTC Push Internet technology, which offers quicker rendering of a user’s favorite Web pages.
Both HTC smartphones received increased battery life, higher-resolution cameras and larger VGA touch-screens. The HTC Touch Diamond2 and Touch Pro2 are slated for availability in North America later this year, said a spokesman for the company.
In the early 1970s, the slide rule was standard equipment for students, engineers and scientists. The personal computer was still a twinkle in the eyes of the visionaries. Then, in 1972, Hewlett-Packard introduced the world's first scientific pocket calculator—the HP-35—and delivered portable "computing power" into the hands of users. An instant hit among scientists and engineers, the HP-35 soon displaced slide rules and marked the birthplace of HP's innovative and highly successful heritage in the handheld calculator market.
On the next several pages are some of the major innovations in the portable calculator world that were contributed by HP. It all started on a direct request from William Hewlett himself, with the only qualification being that "it fits in my shirt pocket." Dave Cochran, the original HP-35 product manager, said on April 14 that he sometimes wanted to tell Mr. Hewlett's tailor "to enlarge his pockets and not tell him."
The 2009 New York Auto Show showed that, when it comes to cars, green is indeed the new black. A number of cars on display were either electric or hybrid, or else gasoline-powered vehicles specially modified to be more efficient than ever on the road. Honda, GM, BMW Group and others all rolled out alternative-fuel or hybrid vehicles with the performance specs approaching those of traditional cars.
The IT industry has a large role to play in all of this, of course. Intel, Microsoft and others have been developing platforms and microprocessors designed to bring everything from mobile devices to media-intensive entertainment options into the average driver’s car. Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are investors in Tesla Motors, the company behind the all-electric Tesla Roadster and Tesla Model S, while former eBay President Jeff Skoll has also made investments in electric vehicles.
The following vehicles from the New York Auto Show represent some of the next big technological steps that auto-makers are taking toward producing the ultra-efficient cars of the future.
At an event held at its Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Hawthorne, N.Y., IBM announced a new consulting practice, the IBM Business Analytics and Optimization Services line.
The new organization will draw on the company's deep expertise in vertical industries, research, mathematics and information management to help clients both improve the speed and quality of business decisions while better understanding the consequences and business outcomes of those decisions.
IBM officials at the event said this marks the first launch of a new service line by IBM Global Business Services since it was formed in 2002 following the acquisition of PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting. The new service also will draw on IBM's vast Information Management portfolio, including technologies from the company's acquisitions of Cognos and iLog, as well as the expertise of IBM's vaunted mathematics department.
Apple's iPhone Apps have seen a nearly exponential rate of proliferation since the launch of the App Store in July 2008, with many of the smartphone applications aimed at helping users with small, routine tasks (or procrastinate with several games of Pong). Big-name companies such as Google, Salesforce.com and Oracle have all created software designed to let users engage with their products even while on the road.
However, as the iPhone and the iPod Touch become increasingly integrated into the enterprise life, a number of application vendors and developers have started designing Apps that add mobile functionality to IT administration. Even if out of the office, IT administrators can use the following Apps—all available from the iTunes App Store—to access and manage their systems remotely. By Nicholas Kolakowski
With the first beta of Exchange Server 2010, Microsoft showcases some very welcome improvements in its messaging and collaboration platform. Exchange Server 2010 offers features that will help businesses share server data, and administrators and end users can now seamlessly go between internal and hosted e-mail servers. This beta of Exchange Server 2010 also provides some very nice new features for those who rely heavily on the Web-based Outlook Web Access client. Most notably, the Exchange Web client now essentially functions the same on Firefox and Safari as it does on Internet Explorer.
Ever try to draw a picture of malware?
eWEEK never has, but artists Alex Dragulescu and Julian Hodgson both have. Using digital imagery, the duo has crafted a showcase of art depicting three-dimensional images of virus code. The pictures will be displayed at an art show hosted April 22 by Symantec as part of this year's RSA conference in San Francisco.
To bring the malware to life, the artists used a special application to analyze virus code that uses the code's values to create a 3D image. From there, the image is transferred to modeling software, where it is positioned and lit to best capture the aesthetics of the model. The final image is then rendered for presentation.
There will be a total of 20 pictures on display, including six new additions to the threat art collection as well as a new visual synopsis collection depicting the services of Symantec's MessageLabs. Here is a sneak peek at some of the sights visitors can expect. (All photos courtesy of MessageLabs, now part of Symantec.)
Sun Microsystems unveiled a number of new servers powered by Intel's new quad-core Nehalem EP processors, also known as the Xeon 5500 series. The new Sun servers are a key part of a wider data center strategy announced by Sun called Open Network Systems, which incorporates not only the new Intel Xeon architecture, but also new and enhanced networking, storage and Solaris technologies designed to take a holistic view of the data center. The new data center strategy is Sun's entry into a burgeoning competition that includes such tech heavyweights as HP and Cisco, all of whom are looking to offer enterprises a way of looking at their data centers as an integrated, agile and efficient pool of computing technologies, rather than devices relegated into server, storage and networking silos. Key to Sun's offering are such moves as the integration of Flash-based SSDs (solid-state disks) and OpenStorage platforms, integrated networking, highly energy-efficient systems, and a Solaris operating system that has been optimized to take advantage of the myriad new offerings in the Intel Nehalem architecture.
Green is the new black, particularly in the auto industry, where every company from Tesla Motors to Honda and GM seems determined to produce alternative-fuel vehicles with the performance specs of a traditional gasoline-powered engine. While the technology behind these next-generation vehicles has improved in recent years, it remains to be seen how quickly consumers will surrender their traditional gas-guzzlers for transportation that runs on electricity and hydrogen.
In its heyday, the Srizbi botnet was arguably the largest botnet in the world. At one point in charge of an army of infected computers numbering some 450,000, the botnet was at the top of the food chain when it came to spam capacity. But following the shutdown of the McColo in November 2008, Srizbi was crippled, paving the way for other botnets to rise in its place.
Courtesy of Cisco Systems, eWEEK is taking a look at the rise and fall of Srizbi, and what the botnet’s controllers may now be doing to evade security vendors.
Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 covers a lot of ground, offering organizations a menu of server roles that range from hosting traditional LAMP-type workloads to taking on Microsoft .NET applications and acting as both a host and a guest for server virtualization tasks. While eWEEK Labs found that SLES 11's feature ambitions result in a product that's stretched thin in some places, we found SLES 11 an apt building block for many organizations' server platform needs. Following is a tour of SLES 11 based on eWEEK Labs' tests. Read my review here.
Thanks to the Internet, the days of humdrum, big-box office supplies are over. Small Web-based design companies and perennial start-up office supplier IKEA are raising the design level on everything from USB sticks to office furniture. Sure, they may be a bit pricier, but doesn't everybody really want their office to have a little character? Here's a look at some clever (and functional) gadgets and design statements that will give your office a personal touch.By Nathan Eddy
Just about everyone has to work with PDF files to some degree. You have to be able to read them on just about any device, and the ability to write them is common in most organizations. Adobe is the first name that comes to mind when you think about working with PDFs, but security problems with Adobe's Acrobat and Reader programs have been fairly common and are actively exploited in the wild. One thing you can do to protect yourself is to switch away from Adobe products. eWEEK Labs put several "viewer" alternatives to the test to see how they stack up to the Adobe platform.
JERSEY CITY, N.J.—At an event at the Liberty Science Center here, Acer showed off more than 20 new PCs, including netbooks and mininotebooks, thin and light Aspire Timeline laptops, and all-in-one PCs running Microsoft Windows 7, which allows users to take advantage of multitouch screen technology.
The April 7 launch will have an impact on all three lines within the Acer Group: Acer, Gateway and eMachines. Through aggressive pricing and focusing on technology such as laptops and netbooks that offer up to 8 hours of battery life, Acer is looking to challenge the world's two leading PC vendors —Hewlett-Packard and Dell.
One of the more innovative PCs on display April 7 was the Acer AspireRevo, a new type of small-footprint nettop that uses Intel's Atom processors and the Nvidia Ion platform to provide graphics. Other PCs on display included the Acer Aspire Timeline series, Acer's All-in-One offering and new Aspire One netbooks.
Everyone is asking to do more with less, but there are certain tasks such as database administration (DBA) that can only be done by highly specialized individuals. Whether it be Oracle, Microsoft's SQL, Sun's MySQL or other open-source up-and-comers, good DBAs are always in need and are consistently costly. Enter remote DBA services. Nervous about security? Have questions on what these services entail?
We put these questions to task to a provider of remote DBA services based in New York City—Bluewolf—which boasts DBA savings to the tune of 40 percent compared to internal DBA. The following gallery, answered by Rick Boccard, director of Remote Database Administation for Bluewolf, breaks down what you need to know when evaluating remote DBA services.
The Apple iWork '09 productivity suite-which includes Keynote (presentations), Pages (word processing) and Numbers (spreadsheet)-was released at Macworld in January. On March 26, Apple released Update 1 for iWork '09, which is described by the company as a recommended update. eWEEK Labs' Cameron Sturdevant has been cutting over to the Macintosh platform since the conference, including using iWork for day-to-day work. The following screens illustrate some of the new features in iWork, many of which enhance the presentation of information on the screen. That said, the feature Sturdevant welcomes most is the ability to send a file via e-mail from any of the suite's apps—a complicated process in the previous version of the product. Otherwise, the enhancements to iWork '09 are evolutionary changes that enhance the visual representation of data and clear up clutter.
MoMA, or the Mono Migration Analyzer tool, helps users port Microsoft .NET programs to Mono with the ultimate goal of porting Windows software to Linux. In this slide show, eWEEK Labs explores MoMA, testing it on some popular .NET software.
MLB.com, the official Website of Major League Baseball, is using Adobe's Flash Platform to stream games to viewers. Adobe and MLB.com announced a two-year agreement in November for MLB.com to use Flash to deliver all of its live and on-demand Web video offerings beginning this season, which officially started April 6 for most teams.
Adobe Flash Media Server software is the video streaming engine behind the games, enabling fans to view live games from their desktops by taking advantage of Flash technology. MLB.com enables fans to view games through its subscription service, MLB.TV.
For the 2008 season, MLB.com used Microsoft's Silverlight to stream games to viewers, but decided to go exclusive with Adobe's Flash beginning with the 2009 season. Microsoft has taken exception to Adobe's claims of ubiquity and also cited many sports events that have been or will be streamed using Silverlight, including the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2009 NCAA men's basketball tournament, the Masters Golf tournament and the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
Palm just can’t seem to stop showing off its hot new smartphone, the Pre, and the company’s stellar application platform, the WebOS. While there is no word yet when the Pre will hit store shelves, journalists, bloggers, gadget heads and Palm fans are chomping at the bit to get their hands on this handheld. eWEEK’s Stephen Wellman logged some time with the Pre at the 2009 CTIA show in Las Vegas, and has an in-depth look at Palm’s device, a gadget many claim will be this year’s iPhone killer. The handset might also look to give BlackBerry maker RIM a run for its money as well.
Many of the most interesting devices displayed at CTIA Wireless 2009 in Las Vegas had been announced previously at Mobile World Congress but were new to eWEEK Labs' eyes and hands. Here’s a collection of some of the most interesting devices and demonstrations I saw on the show floor, including the HTC Snap and HTC TouchPro, the Nokia E55 and Nokia E71x, and the Garmin-Asus nuviphone G60 and Garmin-Asus nuviphone M20.
CTIA Wireless in Las Vegas, which ended April 3, was somewhat mellower than usual thanks to the recession; an estimated 20,000 people attended. Normally 30,000 to 40,000 wireless-gadget lovers show up.
Budget cuts left major-league names such as Dell, Lenovo, MSI, Acer, Asus, Hewlett-Packard and even IBM out of the picture this year. As a result, only Korea's Samsung and Taiwan's MCI were there to show off their latest netbooks, the hottest segment in the portable computer business at the moment.
Samsung unveiled its N310 and N120 netbooks, and MSI offered a first look at its new Wind netbook. Click on to see photos and descriptions of these impressive new notebook PCs.
Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 is a big improvement over previous versions, but it has few features that outshine those in competing Web browsers such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Opera. However, there is one area in which the Microsoft browser has a very big advantage-namely, in its ability to give companies, ISPs, Websites and software developers the option to create customized and easily deployable versions of IE 8. The Internet Explorer Administration Kit 8 (or IEAK 8) provides fine-grain control over how IE 8 is installed, what options and settings it will have, and how security is set. This makes it possible, for example, for a business to deliver an employee browser that has the right security settings and that points to company Web resources right out of the gate.
Mobile handsets are always attention-grabbers, and both manufacturers and carriers used the opportunity of the CTIA Wireless conference in Las Vegas to show off new releases from Nokia, Samsung, LG and Kyocera. For those who didn't get a hands-on look at the show, eWEEK has gathered a few of them here.
Many of the handsets were geared toward consumers rather than enterprise users, and focused on texting and instant messaging. ABI Research recently released a report predicting that handset shipments would drop by 8 percent in 2009. Analyst Kevin Burden, author of the report, told eWEEK, "In these economic times, people are staying focused on the practical functionalities they need most."
In regard to AT&T's introduction of six phones it will soon make available—the Nokia E71x, the Samsung Propel Pro, the Samsung Impression, the Samsung Magnet and the LG Xenon and LG Neon—Burden noted that the carrier was "simplifying the message and [focusing] on the applications that resonate most with users: voice, messaging and e-mail."
Neil Mawston, a director with Strategy Analytics, additionally commented, "High-tier smartphones from the likes of RIM and Apple continue to sell well in the United States, but there is naturally always scope for operators to promote less-expensive models and open up the market to wider adoption."
Intel and General Electric plan on investing $250 million over the next five years in a joint partnership to develop health care IT technologies, including the Intel Health Guide, a box that allows users to check both their recent health history and communicate with their health care provider.
In a presentation in New York, both companies predicted that the market for telehealth and home health monitoring will reach $7.7 billion by 2012, as the United States faces a growing number of citizens over the age of 65. To service that core group, Intel and GE will explore technologies in areas including fall prevention, medication compliance, sleep apnea and cardiovascular disease.
Both Intel CEO Paul Otellini and General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt see increased health care IT investment as a key factor in lowering the United States’ overall health care costs, which present an increasing burden on the U.S. economy.
Samsung announced a slew of new handsets at the 2009 CTIA conference in Las Vegas, including the touch screen Finesse and Instinct s30, which offers visual voicemail. Like many other handset makers, Samsung is focusing on touch screen capability and Internet connectivity. Advanced Bluetooth capability and GPS-enabled features are also highlighted, as is a focus on media accessibility and playability. The Instinct has updated features including built-in instant messaging, an improved Web browsing experience using either the default browser or Opera Mini 4.2 and 16GB of external memory.
Samsung also debuted a Mobile Internet Device (MID), the Wi-Max-enabled Mondi, which features a 4.3-inch full touch screen with Samsung’s TouchWiz user interface and a four-row, full QWERTY keyboard with an optical mouse slides out from behind the length of the rectangular screen. The Mondi runs Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, and comes preloaded with Opera 9.5 and the Route66 GPS application for turn-by-turn directions.
HTC released its latest smartphone—the Snap—April 1 at CTIA's wireless 2009 show in Las Vegas, joining an increasingly crowded field that includes the Apple iPhone, RIM's BlackBerry series, T-Mobile's G1 with Google's Android platform and the soon-to-be released Palm Pre.
HTC is promoting the Snap as a smartphone loaded with "everything consumers need without overwhelming them with things they don't need."
In other words, it’s all about the apps and the design. The 3G Snap offers a full QWERTY tactile keyboard designed with extra-large domed keys and an e-mail feature that allows users to bring up e-mail just from the user's personal favorites. A first look at HTC's Snap smartphone.
Skype continues to extend its smartphone mobile platform reach with the latest iteration for the Apple iPhone. Skype for iPhone users can conduct chats, control presence and edit profile information, as well as place Skype-to-Skype and SkypeOut calls. However, calls can be placed only when connected via Wi-Fi; EDGE or 3G users have to settle just for chat and presence.
Top-tier server OEMs Dell, Hewlett-Packard and IBM announce refreshes of their x86 server offerings based on Intel's Xeon 5500 series processors for two-socket systems. Code-named Nehalem EP and announced March 30, the new chips are the latest rollouts by Intel of its Nehalem processor microarchitecture, with such features as an integrated memory controller, the QuickPath chip-to-chip interconnect and Turbo Boost, which lets businesses dynamically increase the clock speed of individual cores. The features focus on boosting performance while keeping operating costs down. Dell, HP and IBM are using Nehalem as a base for enhancements to their hardware aimed at providing high-performance computing for businesses in economically difficult times. Smaller OEMs are also rolling out new and upgraded systems based on the quad-core Intel Xeon 5500 series. Analysts and customers alike applaud the features offered in Nehalem and in the OEMs' new servers, but analysts are split on how quickly businesses will adopt the new systems, given the state of the global economy.
In what Intel officials called the most significant processor rollout since the Pentium Pro in 1995, the chip maker March 30 unveiled the Xeon 5500 series—code-named Nehalem EP—for two-socket servers. The chip was designed to meet the demands of data center administrators under pressure to keep operating expenses down even as workloads increase. The 45-nanometer, quad-core Xeon 5500 series offers enhancements to improve performance and efficiency, such as an integrated memory controller, triple the memory bandwidth of previous Xeon chips, a chip-to-chip interconnect, greater virtualization capabilities, and the ability to dynamically adjust to workloads and conditions. Intel officials say the Xeon 5500 series set 30 performance records and the performance increase was attained within the same power and thermal envelopes as previous chips.
All the major storage companies are jumping into the enterprise and consumer solid-state disk waters in 2009. The latest news: Western Digital, the world's second-largest HDD maker behind Seagate Technology, announced on March 30 that it had acquired SiliconSystems for $65 million in cash. That will help put WD back in the SSD world market race. SiliconSystems is a major supplier of embedded SSDs to the network-communications, industrial, embedded computing, medical, military and aerospace markets.
On March 25, Dell launched its second generation of EqualLogic storage arrays, including optional SSDs. EMC was the first of the large systems companies to start using optional SSDs in its Symmetrix arrays in early 2008; now SSDs are available in all three of the company's product lines: Symmetrix, Clariion and Celerra. Seagate and Iomega are expected to be marketing SSDs products later in 2009.
Fusion-io, SanDisk and Kingston Technology with Migo Software also have interesting new products coming out. eWEEK has gathered the latest information on solid state drives to give you a better understanding of what's out there right now.
Cameras in cell phones are nothing new but the quality of cell phone cameras is another story.
While there are still plenty of non-flash, fuzzy, low-megapixel cameras mounted in cell phones, a new generation of phones from Motorola, Samsung, Nokia and Sony Ericsson are sporting flash, autofocus, multiple shooting modes and high megapixel counts.
Smartphones, while still the hottest part of the overall mobile handset market, proved to be not quite so bright when it comes to cameras with Apple's iPhone and Research in Motion’s BlackBerry being simply nothing more than middle-of-the-pack picks. Here, eWEEK offers you a brief snap shot of some of the best cell phone and handset cameras that are out there right now. eWEEK also looks to find which cell cameras you should avoid.
One of the main attractions of Linux-based netbooks is their ability to boot up almost instantly and provide quick access to Web browsers and other core applications. But what if you could give the same kind of instant-on functionality to Windows notebooks (especially older ones)? That's the idea behind Xandros Presto, which was launched at Demo in early March. Presto installs on top of Microsoft Windows and lets users choose to quickly boot into the lightweight Linux Presto OS instead of Windows. In Presto, users can access Web browsers, instant messaging, Skype and many other applications, while still being able to access the files and folders located in the underlying Windows system. Currently a beta, Presto has some hiccups, but looks promising as a way of providing instant access to the apps we use the most.
Many Facebook users have been tagged by the "25 Things About Me" meme. A few years ago, a similar "five things" tagging moved through the blogosphere. eWEEK editors would tag Microsoft if we realistically expected a response. So we've done our own research and here present our list of 25 things you didn't know about Microsoft. The list is by no means comprehensive (how could it be?), but it is eclectic.
The Internet Archive, one of the fastest-growing digital libraries in the world, has migrated its massive amount of content into a new Sun Microsystems-built portable data center loaded with 60 Sun X4500 Thumper arrays that each have 48TB of storage capacity. Sun staged a launch event at its Santa Clara, Calif., headquarters on March 25.
"It's amazing to think that the whole Web collection, which is about 2PB compressed and from 4PB to 5PB uncompressed, can live in a 20-foot-by-8-foot-by-8-foot shipping container, which, from our standpoint, is a computer," Brewster Kahle, digital librarian and founder of the Internet Archive, told eWEEK.
The archive, which employs the equivalent of only three system administrators, goes back to 1996 and stores more than 150 billion Web pages, Kahle said. It is accessed 500 times per second. Archive.org also houses the Wayback Machine, 1 million books, 100,000 movies and about 200,000 audio recordings, Kahle said. "It is a full-on library. This technology we see as another step toward a manageable system for dealing with enormous amounts of information safely."
The latest release of Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, SLED 11, is probably the most Microsoft-friendly Linux desktop ever, with support for various Microsoft formats and protocols that extend the functionality of Linux desktop regulars such as OpenOffice.org, Mozilla Firefox and Evolution. These additions, combined with Novell's enterprise-friendly support plans, might just convince companies that the time is right to make a move from Windows.
SLED 11 has a great deal in common with the OpenSUSE 11.1 release that eWEEK Labs reviewed Feb. 17, but the biggest difference between SLED 11 and so-called community-oriented Linux options such as OpenSUSE and Ubuntu is the relatively limited selection of software packages available for SLED. eWEEK Labs Executive Editor Jason Brooks takes a look.
Dell announced on March 25 that its three new workstations would feature Intel Xeon 5500 processors based on 45-nm microarchitecture code-named Nehalem.
The Dell Precision T7500, T5500 and T3500 workstations offer new features such as DDR3 memory instead of DDR2. Dell becomes the second PC maker, after Lenovo, to offer workstations with the Intel Xeon processor. The Nehalem microarchitecture backing the processors scales from two up to eight processing cores and includes features such as virtualization capacities and an integrated memory controller.
Dell intends the systems for use by professionals in processing-power-heavy professions such as engineering, biosciences, risk analysis and media. The three workstations will be available through all Dell sales channels starting on March 26.
Lenovo has released a pair of new workstations, the ThinkStation S20 and D20, which the PC maker is touting as so-called personal supercomputers for oil and gas workers, CAD designers and digital animators, and those working with scientific applications and other areas that deal with large amount of raw data. With these two new workstations, Lenovo is also looking to make some headway in the market against the likes of Dell and Hewlett-Packard, which have dominated this small but important part of the PC market.
The Lenovo ThinkStation S20 and D20 are also some of the first PCs to offer Intel Xeon processors that are based on the newer microarchitecture code-named Nehalem that chip maker Intel released in late 2008. For example, the ThinkStation S20 comes with a choice of dual- and quad-core Xeon processors, including the four-core Xeon W3570, which runs at 3.2GHz, and the two-core Xeon W3505 running at 2.5GHz.
In addition, the two ThinkStations offer a choice of Nvidia and ATI graphics cards.Photos Courtesy of Lenovo
By Scott Ferguson
Apple's iPhone apps, which have been increasing in number at a near-exponential rate, have shown their utility within the enterprise context. Whether allowing users to read reports, analyze business metrics or approve supply requests while on the road, enterprise applications—many of them developed by Citrix Systems, Oracle, Google and other top application vendors—have helped streamline mobile workplace life.
Given that a big part of workplace life involves its financial aspects, it's no surprise that many companies—Bloomberg, PayPal, Salesforce.com—have decided to work the mobile-functionality vein a little more and produce a series of financial applications. Whether recording expenses, executing financial transactions while on the road, or following the dips and rises of the stock market, these programs can help users with processes that ensure that their enterprise's financial house is in order.
These applications, which eWEEK gathered from around the Web, are all available for download from Apple's iTunes App Store. Many of these apps are also free.
The Lantronix ManageLinx solution aims to give businesses a secure and easy way to manage the various remote devices on their networks, and in many ways does just that. For enterprises looking to support remote servers or devices in branch offices, the ManageLinx tool offers a safe and simple solution. ManageLinx was relatively easy to set up and configure, and was able to support a variety of remote devices, from Windows and Linux workstations to various pieces of test equipment, and did so using disparate protocols, including Telnet, HTTP and HTTPS, to access the devices. However, there were some hurdles. The management GUI was at times confusing and also could be flaky occasionally. In addition, ManageLinx stumbled when trying to view streaming video. In the right situations, combining ManageLinx with other Lantronix products offers a comprehensive secure remote device management solution.
By Matthew D. Sarrel
Dell, Panasonic, Motion Computing and General Dynamics Itronix are all competing for attention in the growing rugged computing space - which, in addition to laptops, convertible notebooks, UMPCs, tablets and smartphones, now even includes a rugged digital pen.
The desire for mobility is increasing, laptop shipments are exceeding desktops for the first time and government funds are poised to encourage development in industries—including construction and health care—that are benefiting from rugged mobile devices.
eWEEK is featuring just a handful of the products that have recently debuted or been updated. With competition increasing as more vendors join the space, durability is being improved, battery life is being extended—often through Intel technology—screens are becoming easier to read in all lighting conditions, and prices and weights are being whittled down.Michelle Maisto
Cutting the cable on cable TV did not mean forgoing broadcast television altogether, according to eWEEK Labs analyst Cameron Sturdevant. Using a relatively small, moderately priced Philips Silver Sensor antenna (similar to a Terk HDTV i antenna) and aiming information from antennaweb.org, he is receiving high-definition TV programming that is clear and crisp. He's using a Tivo Series 2 standard definition DVR to capture this over-the-air programming, and will be using this Tivo unit until his three-year contract expires in October. At that point Sturdevant will most likely build a DVR with the help of my chief entertainment technology adviser and fellow eWEEK Labs analyst Andrew Garcia, along with the always helpful advice of ExtremeTech HDTV editor Robert Heron. Sturdevant says that getting over-the-air programming was the least exciting part of the cable-cutting project. Commercial broadcasting is laden with commercials. Even with his Tivo "machete," it's pretty thick going to watch recorded programs. Because the Tivo Series 2 lacks an HDMI port, Sturdevant had to use component cabling to connect the device to the TV. This was the home equivalent of running a trans-Atlantic cable and created the typical cable management struggle of finding enough holes in the back of the entertainment unit to get the ganglion of connectors to the TV above. Bringing broadcast TV online also meant adding another remote to the collection. Faced with a choice of living with a feral pack of remotes and sanity, he's decided to evaluate a Logitech Harmony universal remote control. He borrowed a Harmony H659 from Heron and will make a buying decision sometime later this month.
By Cameron Sturdevant
For the past few years, eWEEK Labs Executive Editor Jason Brooks has been crowning Ubuntu Linux the desktop Linux champ, both in the reviews he's written and in his own choice of desktop OS at work and home. The biggest reason for Brooks' Ubuntu inclination is application availability. If there's a piece of Linux-supporting software that you want to run, there's a good chance that it's been packaged up in a ready-to-install format for Ubuntu Linux. What's more, of all the operating systems he's used or reviewed, Ubuntu offers the best set of tools for acquiring, installing, updating and removing applications. Click on for a tour of the Ubuntu software management tools that Brooks uses to run and maintain everything from Canonical-supported packages to unpackaged, compile-yourself software to those odd but unavoidable Windows-only applications.
Salesforce.com marked its 10th anniversary on March 16, 2009. This year also happens to be eWEEK's 25th anniversary. An anniversary is always a good time to look back and reflect, so eWEEK Editor Debra Donston has been going through the hundreds of back issues of our publication. It was interesting to see—in covers—the evolution of CRM, what we now think of as SAAS and cloud computing, and Salesforce.com itself.
When rumors and speculation began to spread that IBM had offered nearly $7 billion to acquire Sun Microsystems, the reports filtered quickly through a tech world more accustomed to bad news from the ever-shrinking economy. While it's not clear what an IBM and Sun merger would look like, it's reasonable to assume that some well-known IT products might disappear all together if Sun and IBM combine their various storage, server and software lines.
While IBM could dominate this new partnership, many Sun products such as its StorageTek tape systems could not only survive but thrive under this new partnership.
While the jury is still out on what could be one of the biggest tech stories of the year, the writers and editors of eWEEK have compiled a list of the products that will and will not survive an IBM, Sun merger.
By eWEEK Editors
Nearly three years after shipping Internet Explorer 7, Microsoft has updated its flagship Web browser with the release of IE 8. Based on tests of this final release and the previous RC and beta code, it's clear that IE 8 is possibly the best Web browser that Microsoft has released since IE 5. For anyone currently using IE 7, IE 8 is a must-upgrade, as it improves greatly on that version and includes many features that improve the usability and the security of the Web browser. However, while IE 8 is a big improvement over previous versions of IE, it may not be enough to pull over users of other browsers, such as Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and Apple Safari.
By Jim Rapoza
Microsoft will release its Internet Explorer 8 browser for download on March 19. Microsoft said security, ease of use, and improvements in RSS, Cascading Style Sheets and AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) support are key priorities for Internet Explorer 8. Microsoft officially released IE 8 at its MIX09 conference in Las Vegas, and while eWEEK has found the nine most significant features of the new browser, Microsoft has said there are up to 500 additional add-ons for IE 8 in the way of accelerators, Web slices and visual search.
Ten years ago March 16, Salesforce.com started its life in a small apartment in San Francisco. The hosted CRM service—which would become a milestone proof point for software as a service—has grown to include the Apex development language, Visualforce, the AppExchange platform and the Force.com “platform as a service.” The following screen shots illustrate the service’s evolution through the last decade.
By Debra Donston
CUPERTINO, Calif. - Apple on March 17 previewed its much-anticipated iPhone OS 3.0 software and announced the immediate availability of a beta software release to registered developers. The iPhone OS 3.0 beta release includes an updated software development kit featuring more than 1,000 new APIs (application programming interfaces), including in-app purchases; peer-to-peer connections; an app interface for accessories; access to the iPod music library; a new Maps API and push notifications.While the Apple iPhone OS 3 is in beta right now, the company plans to roll out the full version by the summer. The software development kit or SDK is available for developers right now. Apple also officially announced that its App Store now contains 25,000 apps for the iPhone.By Chris Preimesberger
Serena decided to move its email systems from Microsoft Exchange to Google Gmail for two reasons: One to save the company money and another to practice the cloud computing story that the company preaches. The overall migration only took six hours. While the change from a industry standard such as Microsoft Exchange to Google Apps and Gmail can been seen as a leap of faith, Serena's methods of changing over offer a useful guide to how other business might also switch. eWEEK walks you through the internal process that Serena used to make the switch to Google Gmail.
Slides courtesy of Serena Software
For work or for play, a high-performance custom PC is often an irresistible piece of eye candy, with enough computing power to launch a space shuttle. Well, perhaps not that powerful, but custom system builders like Falcon Northwest Computer Systems, based in Medford, Ore., and Richmond, Va.-based Velocity Micro offer features like liquid cooling, individual system performance tuning and HyperClocking.Even companies such as Dell, which bought custom PC builder Alienware in 2006, and BMW, known best in the computer world for the advanced monitoring systems it builds into its luxury cars, are getting into the custom PC game. So even if you don't have the wherewithal to drop $7,000 on a monster gaming PC, here is a look at what's out in the market.By Nathan Eddy
Dell released March 17 the Adamo, a laptop it says that, at its thickest point, is thinner than any other laptop on the market. Adamo is also modern, light, and made with a craftsmanship and attention to detail that Dell hopes will draw a new generation of users to its devices. Adamo, Dell said, is the flagship product in a new Adamo line "created to disrupt the personal computing space with the combination of new design aesthetics, personalization choices and sought-after technologies."
Adamo is a dramatic foray into an arena Apple has long dominated - with its streamlined, 5.5-pound MacBook Pro - and Lenovo has also settled into - with its thin and light ThinkPad x300 and x301 laptops. During an economic time when hardware purchases are falling, it remains to be seen whether a looker like Adamo is enough to get customers buying again.By Michelle Maisto
The General Dynamics Itronix GD8000 rugged notebook is the newest offering from a partnership with deep roots to utility, first-responder and military customers. Understanding that its notebooks were being dropped from bucket trucks and used in the rain, GDI exceeded the requirements of industry standards for drop testing and water resistance. The GD8000 can withstand more falls than its predecessor, and withstand longer exposure to wind and rain.
Screen size has also been increased, and GDI's DynaVue technology makes it visible in direct sunlight. Inside a magnesium housing, the GD8000 additionally offers all the features of an enterprise business device, including Wi-Fi, WLAN and Bluetooth connectivity, as well as integrated Gobi 2000 for connectivity to EV-DO and UMTS cellular networks. Additional features include fingerprint, smartcard and password security, plus a Trusted Platform Module 1.2 cryptoprcessor and optional embedded Computrace software. The notebook is also EnergyStar and EPEAT certified, and pricing begins at $3,800
By Michelle Maisto
A recent apartment move provided eWEEK Labs analyst Cameron Sturdevant with an opportunity to cut the cable on cable TV. He used Roku, Netflix, Amazon, Tivo and Apple to free himself. He still uses high-speed cable and pays a premium price NOT to have cable TV bundled with the service. It was a battle royale to get the cable provider to even admit it had an Internet-only plan. Even with the premium price, over the year he'll still save money and have the pleasure of purposely watching plotted content. He'll also be using an over-the-air HD TV. He will publish a segment on that next week. Thanks to his Tivo, Sturdevant also will be able to record these broadcast programs. He's documented his journey on how to cut the cable, and welcomes your suggestions for improvements. Sturdevant did have to make some compromises. He ended up with multiple remote controls and also has a not-hideous-but-very-noticeable antenna in his living room. Even so, he's not going back to cable TV.
Plantronics' Savi Office Unified Communications headsets bridge the distinction between the audio from the desktop phone and from the PC. Leveraging DECT 6.0 for wider indoor range and reduced interference, the Savi Office products deliver high-definition audio wirelessly for PC-based media consumption or communications using the phone and the PC. Plantronics offers two different ear pieces (the WO100 and WO200) that work with the same base station (via detachable docking components). With the included Microsoft Windows application, PerSono, users can control device and application behavior when switching the headset between devices. Users can also bridge media between communication channels, as they can easily play PC audio clips to callers on the phone or bridge calls between the desktop phone and VOIP applications such as Skype or Office Communicator.
eWEEK Labs peeks into its crystal ball and sees a pretty cloud-y future for databases. This will allow companies faster and cheaper database storage and access, but will necessitate a new generation of business intelligence and reporting tools. In addition, Facebook may just redefine the way data is stored and administered, while Google and Amazon are changing the way we think about relational data.
It's the second of three Friday 13ths this year. Last month, we looked at "Microsoft's 10 Unlucky Breaks." Now it's Microsoft's "Lucky" Friday the 13th. The company's rise through the 1980s and 1990s is really a series of lucky breaks combined with business savvy and execution on the vision of one PC on every desk. We've picked 10, which are presented in order of descending importance, with No. 1 being most significant and No. 10 the least.
Citrix GoView, which debuted at DEMO 09, is an easy-to-use Web-based service for recording browsing sessions and application training, and then sharing those recordings with colleagues and clients. The GoView beta has many shortcomings, not the least of which is that it is Windows-only when it comes to making recordings and is lacking in capabilities such as decent editing tools. But GoView has a lot of potential for those needing training and demo videos useful for walking employees and clients through processes and new applications, but not needing the complexity and price of traditional applications in these areas, such as Adobe Captivate. Currently GoView, which is in a closed beta, is free to use.
Apple’s family of portable digital music players is always evolving. The Apple iPod has come a long way from the deck-of-cards-thick 5GB model that debuted way back in 2001. Over time, Apple made the iPod slimmer and more colorful, adding new models like the Nano and iPod Shuffle. The newest member of the iPod family, the Touch, debuted in 2007 with new features such as touch-screen technology and a Safari Web browser, complementing its Wi-Fi capability.
Never inclined to sit idly, however, Apple has now moved from touch to talk with the latest version of the iPod Shuffle. Originally introduced in 2005, it was the first iPod to store data using flash memory and the smallest device produced by Apple.
The latest version measures just 1.8 inches tall by 0.3 inches thin and offers 4GB of storage—enough for 1,000 songs. It also employs a feature called VoiceOver to inform you of the title or the artist of the song you're listening to, the names of your playlists, and when your battery needs changing.
When eWEEK Labs analyst Cameron Sturdevant tried using an Apple Mac Mini as his main work computer, one drawback turned out to be Entourage, Microsoft's 9-year-old e-mail client for Apple Mac OS X. Sturdevant needs an e-mail and calendaring system that fits into his fast-flowing work stream, but he finds that Entourage offers fewer capabilities and some operations are easier and quicker in Microsoft Outlook 2007. Here are seven things that drove our analyst back to Outlook 2007 and three features that almost got him to stay with Entourage for Mac OS X.
GFI builds on its vulnerability assessment heritage with LANguard 9.0, a network vulnerability and patch management tool that can tell whether the system being scanned is physical or virtual and, with one click, can launch a remote desktop connection to scanned Microsoft Windows clients. The tool is crucial for network security consultants and a solid choice for SMBs, though larger enterprises will probably want to find something more scalable. Patch management comes through tight integration with Microsoft's Windows Software Update Services, a free tool used to deploy updates to various versions of Windows Server 2000 and Windows XP, and other Microsoft applications.
The Lenovo IdeaPad S10 netbook has a decent keyboard and some features that aren't standard for systems in this category, including a WWAN slot and a 15-pin monitor jack. The IdeaPad S10, with its bright, crisp display, could change the minds of people who think a netbook could never compete with a full-size notebook for everyday computing tasks. eWEEK Labs' testing of the IdeaPad S10 was performed by John Dodge.
The HP Mini netbook's keyboard makes it the "Cadillac" of its category. Not that the HP Mini's keyboard can compete with those of full-sized notebooks, but it's relatively easy to use. The model shown here, the Atom-based HP Mini 1030R Home, weighs 2.38 pounds and will easily slip into a large pocketbook. Testing performed by John Dodge.
Dell introduced its newest "fully rugged" laptop, the Dell Latitude E6400 XFR, on March 10. The device, designed to fulfill military standards for ruggedness and retailing for $4,299 and up, is encased in a blend of the same type of high-end polymers used in military applications. It is designed to survive, among other things, a 4-foot drop while powered down, extreme hot and cold temperatures, and various types of impacts.
In addition, the laptop features a screen designed to be both blunt force-resistant and more visible in daylight.
Dell competes against Panasonic’s Toughbook and other manufacturers in the fully rugged notebook category, which has great potential to expand as President Obama's stimulus plan increases nationwide infrastructure spending. In addition to military use, industries ranging from construction to telecom to oil prospecting all have use for a near-invulnerable laptop for their field workers.
The recession is putting pressure on IT administrators to cut costs at the same time that demands from the business side continue to grow. Using mostly free software and a collection of out-of-date hardware lying around, eWEEK Labs built a flexible (albeit somewhat underpowered) virtual machine testbed. Below, we offer the steps we took to build an OpenFiler iSCSI NAS server and a VMware ESXi bare metal virtualization instance, plus the settings to get the two working together.
The recession is putting pressure on IT administrators to cut costs at the same time that demands from the business side continue to grow. Using mostly free software and a collection of out-of-date hardware lying around, eWEEK Labs built a flexible (albeit somewhat underpowered) virtual machine testbed. Below, we offer the steps we took to build an OpenFiler iSCSI NAS server and a VMware ESXi bare metal virtualization instance, plus the settings to get the two working together.
The recession is putting pressure on IT administrators to cut costs at the same time that demands from the business side continue to grow. Using mostly free software and a collection of out-of-date hardware lying around, eWEEK Labs built a flexible (albeit somewhat underpowered) virtual machine testbed. Below, we offer the steps we took to build an OpenFiler iSCSI NAS server and a VMware ESXi bare metal virtualization instance, plus the settings to get the two working together.
The recession is putting pressure on IT administrators to cut costs at the same time that demands from the business side continue to grow. Using mostly free software and a collection of out-of-date hardware lying around, eWEEK Labs built a flexible (albeit somewhat underpowered) virtual machine testbed. Below, we offer the steps we took to build an OpenFiler iSCSI NAS server and a VMware ESXi bare metal virtualization instance, plus the settings to get the two working together.
The recession is putting pressure on IT administrators to cut costs at the same time that demands from the business side continue to grow. Using mostly free software and a collection of out-of-date hardware lying around, eWEEK Labs built a flexible (albeit somewhat underpowered) virtual machine testbed. Below, we offer the steps we took to build an OpenFiler iSCSI NAS server and a VMware ESXi bare metal virtualization instance, plus the settings to get the two working together.
Oracle on March 9 announced the release of Oracle Sourcing On Demand, a software-as-a-service solution designed to make the enterprise’s supply-chain management more efficient and cost-effective. Based on Oracle Sourcing and Oracle Sourcing Optimization, both a part of Oracle’s E-Business Suite Release 12, the software is priced at $850 per user/month, with an initial startup fee of $5,000.
Kace's systems management tool is now also a virtual appliance that can manage both virtual and physical desktops and servers. The product, which takes some effort to install, is a good management tool in virtualized data centers, particularly for SMEs. It is also certified in a VMware program as product-ready.
With the economic crisis affecting business at the enterprise and midmarket level, saving money has never been more important. Innovative computer maker Asus is trying to help businesses do just that, offering a range of netbooks and innovative PC products designed to make your business mobile—and stylish.
At this year's CeBIT convention in Hannover, Germany, Asus debuted a slew of sleek, sophisticated products, many running on Intel’s Atom line of processors. While details on pricing were sketchy for many models, Asus usually keeps its netbooks around $500 to $600. As the market for netbooks grows, Asus, the inventor of the netbook, is working to keep its Eee PC line as the top performing netbook family in the marketplace.
Features like touch-screen technology, swiveling screens and thin, lightweight designs that don’t sacrifice size for feature sets ensure Asus can still turn heads despite stiff competition from heavyweights like Dell and HP, among others. Here's a look at some of the products Asus unveiled this week at CeBIT.
Microsoft has rolled out the release candidate of Windows Vista SP2. Beginning to end, installation of Microsoft's Windows Vista SP2 RC takes just under half an hour on a fresh Vista Ultimate VM, assuming the computer has the requisite components preinstalled and enough hard drive space to complete the job.
Apple's iPhone apps—also available for the iPod Touch—have exponentially increased in number since the July 2008 opening of the App Store. While many of the available smartphone applications are designed for personal use, such as games, a growing crowd of developers and top application vendors such as Citrix Systems, Oracle and Google are releasing software for the enterprise. These programs allow mobile and wireless device users to read reports on their Web site traffic, view real-time business performance info and even note GPS positions while hopelessly lost on a sales trip. Except for Google Gmail, all these applications are available for download from the iTunes App Store.
Listen as eWEEK Chief Technology Analyst Jim Rapoza walks you through installation of the NoScript Firefox extension. NoScript uses whitelist-based, pre-emptive script blocking to prevent exploitation of security vulnerabilities. The extension works with Firefox, Flock, Seamonkey and other Mozilla-based browsers, and allows JavaScript, Java, Flash and other plug-ins to be executed only by trusted Web sites.
Security experts provide perspective on the insider threat and strategies for mitigating it, including automation, acceptable-use policies, traffic inspection, security training and auditing. The goal: to make it easy for users to do the right thing—and difficult or impossible to do the wrong thing.
There's a netbook with touch-pad capabilities, a Web-based application that automatically pulls in Web links and data relevant to content on a Web site, a security Web service, and a tool that converts enterprise applications for use in the cloud. eWEEK Labs choose these as being among the 10 top products at Demo, which ran March 2 to 4. The list also includes a video monitoring system, a disaster recovery service and an app for flirting via cell phone.
On March 3, Amazon.com quietly released the Kindle for iPhone
application through the Apple App Store. Like Kindle devices, Apple iPhones can now download e-books from Amazon.com over the air. Kindle for iPhone arguably could be called the killer application for the Apple iPhone or iPod Touch. This move by Amazon.com to incorporate the iPhone comes a few weeks after Amazon.com released its Kindle 2 electronic book reader at an event in New York.
What company but Apple would be so audacious as to introduce new desktops—iMac, Mac Mini and Mac Pro—during a recession and when PC sales are declining? Gartner forecasts a 32 percent year-over-year decline in desktop PC shipments during 2009. The desktop is a dying category, but not one Apple is yet ready to abandon. The new Macs were available starting March 3.
HANNOVER, Germany—This isn't your father's—or even your fatherland's—CeBIT. This isn't at all like 2001, when about 850,000 people crowded the 28 pavilions, attendees crammed into buses and journalists ran for consecutive press conferences. There are no parking delays, there's plenty of space to wander around and there's no problem finding buses or shuttles. The weather was brisk but sunny most of the day on March 3. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany toured the grounds early in the day, causing the biggest stir by far with the crowd. Fewer than a half-million people are expected to be here for the four-day event, about half the attendance of eight years ago. However, there are 4,300 companies on the grounds and plenty of innovative products on view at this still-huge expo. We selected several interesting notebooks and other products for this slide show. Enjoy!
Debuting at Demo the week of March 2, the Touch Book, by Always Innovating, is one of the more innovative netbook designs to date, combining the features of a netbook and a touch-pad.
Ferrari, which started in 1947 as the racing division of Fiat, builds and sells about 6,000 automobiles each year and designs and creates several hundred custom-made racing vehicles each Formula One season. Ferrari needs massive amounts of computing power 24/7 to handle the intense pressure of super-high-quality design, engineering and testing, and to maintain the international standard the company has achieved for over two generations.
See the accompanying story for details about American Power Conversion's involvement in the design of the building and power management structure of this world-class facility. Racing requires more than simply gassing up a fast car, jumping in and speeding off to the checkered flag.
Intel provided a first look at some of the developing technologies in its R&D pipeline during a Feb. 25 presentation in New York. The devices on display focused on everything from green IT, to savings energy within data centers and PCs, to health care, to retail-shopping management. Intel says that many of these technologies, although currently in workable proof-of-concept form, are years away from being rolled out in a final form.
In commemoration of Black History Month in February, eWEEK introduces some of the most prominent black executives and technologists in the IT industry. These men and women have made names for themselves in some of the world's largest IT companies, including IBM, Microsoft, Xerox and Google. In addition to some of the African-Americans who have made serious contributions at big-name IT companies, eWEEK has also taken some time to consider black entrepreneurs who have started smaller businesses and who have paved the way to developing new types of technology.
Debian GNU/Linux 5.0, which is also known by the "Toy Story"-inspired name "Lenny," sports the same excellent software management tools and broad processor architecture support that marked previous Debian releases. While more modest than the "Etch" release that preceded it, eWEEK Labs found in Lenny an apt standard bearer for the noncommercial Linux community.
Since February 1984, eWEEK (previously PC Week) has provided news, views and reviews for enterprise IT professionals. Following is our history told in cover headlines.
While previous versions of Apple's Safari Web browser had stripped-down and basic interfaces, the first beta of Safari 4 shows that the browser is taking a major leap in interface capabilities, addressing longstanding shortcomings and adding some unique iTunes-style site management and browsing features.
With Azure, Microsoft is taking on Amazon.com, Google and others in the increasingly competitive space of cloud computing platforms. The Azure offering includes a software development kit that ships with a starter sample to get developers more comfortable with the Microsoft technology. Here, eWEEK Labs tries it out.
The 2U Lenovo ThinkServer RD120 is aimed at businesses that have dispersed branch offices. While the hardware is well-designed and energy-efficient, Lenovo's complete management platform is an important feature of the server, allowing businesses to centrally configure the system, and then easily install and run it in the remote location.
NASA is set to light the match to the Orbiting Carbon Observatory, scanning Earth's surface for elusive carbon dioxide "sinks" in Earth's atmosphere. The OCO is NASA's first spacecraft dedicated to studying atmospheric carbon dioxide, the most significant human-produced greenhouse gas and the principal human-produced driver of climate change. eWEEK offers a NASA mission primer.
Lenovo, in a bid to compete against the Panasonic Toughbook and Dell Latitude laptop lines, subjected eight of its ThinkPad models to tough tests for pressure, humidity, temperature, dust and vibration. The ThinkPad X200, X301, X200s, X200 Tablet, T400, T500, R400 and SL300 laptops have passed the tests and been designated by Lenovo for use in field and vehicle semiruggedized computing environments. In addition, certain ThinkPad notebooks have been equipped with an air-bag-style protection system for the hard drive, while the ThinkPad T400 laptop now comes with an optional 680-nit high brightness panel for increased screen visibility even in bright light and other harsh environmental conditions.
InstallFree takes its name seriously and requires no installed components to practice its brand of application virtualization, a key differentiator from app virtualization offerings from such competitors as Microsoft, Citrix Systems, Novell, VMware and Symantec.
Microsoft has announced that it will be opening its own retail stores, a la the Apple Store. eWEEK imagines what you may find when you walk through the doors.
With Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Asus and other companies all plunging into the low-cost laptop space, Dell steps up its game with the Inspiron Mini 10, the next PC in the Dell Mini line. The Mini 10 utilizes Intel's Atom processor, already seen in a number of notebooks and other PCs, including the Panasonic Toughbook and the Lenovo H200 desktop. With a number of other features such as a built-in Webcam, the Dell Mini 10 positions itself as a low-cost way for both consumers and enterprise employees to stay connected even in transit.
New products that enterprise IT managers should keep on their radars include PBwiki Document Management, Sentilla Energy Manager, Confio Igniter Suite PI, Enterprise Compliance Manager 8.0, SOA Portfolio Manager, Live Blog for Traction TeamPage and Bomgar 10.2.
BARCELONA, Spain—Although the souring economic situation has been reflected in a subdued exposition, there are still plenty of sights to see at Mobile World Congress, with larger-than-life exhibit pavilions and cutting-edge technology filling every square foot of Barcelona's historic convention complex, Fira. eWEEK sets out to find what is new and different at this year's MWC, including what is happening with the Google Android OS, LG electronics' solar power attempts, and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's talk with other high-profile executives from Nokia and AT&T.
BARCELONA, Spain—Mobile World Congress certainly isn't lacking in sophisticated handsets in 2009. From Samsung's green technology Blue Earth handset to Sony Ericsson's 12-megapixel camera phone to LG's 3G combined phone and wristwatch, plus offerings from Nokia, tech junkies and business professionals alike have lots of new technology to look at. eWEEK has compiled the latest and greatest from Spain; here's our list.
Since the first combination cell phone and PDA device emerged from the primordial ooze, manufacturers have been trying to perfect the genetic code of the smartphone. Join eWEEK Labs on a tour of the devices through which the smartphones on display at the GSMA Mobile World Congress Feb. 16 to 19 can trace their lineage.
The HTC Corporation's long-awaited update—and possible Apple iPhone killer—to the Touch Diamond, the Touch Diamond2, certainly didn't disappoint when it was unveiled at Mobile World Congress 2009 in Barcelona on Monday. Neither did the company's updated QWERTY slider, the Touch Pro2. The HTC Touch Diamond2 smartphone included a number of features for business users, including the use of Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.1 operating system. However, the Touch Diamond2 is not available in the United States yet.
BARCELONA, Spain—The 2009 Mobile World Congress opened with a slew of announcements from handset makers looking to make the biggest impact. At the first day of the conference, that title arguably went to the HTC Touch Diamond2 smartphone, as it made a big impression on the crowd. However, new models from stalwart vendors such as Nokia, LG and Samsung kept the competitive level up. Here are 10 smartphones worth checking out.
Supercomputing technology vendor Appro is rolling out its energy-efficient GreenBlade System, an offering that consolidates server, storage, network, power and management capabilities into a single package. Powered by AMD quad-core Opteron processors, the modular design is aimed at letting companies scale up their computing performance while driving down costs.
Windows Mobile 6.5, due in the second half of 2009, brings some welcome changes to Microsoft's mobile interface. According to a quick look at the alpha version, Windows Mobile 6.5 is now designed for finger manipulation, the updated UI appears to obviate the need for a stylus. Plus, it will offer a full Web browser with built-in Flash support.
eWEEK editors keep you up-to-date on important IT topics. Compiled by Debra Donston.
Absolutely not, at least not yet. It takes more than a RIM BlackBerry, knowledge of Facebook, the ability to power on an Apple MacBook and an Internet connection. Knowing a good thing when they saw it, many a president has seized upon the day's innovative opportunities in science and technology. Presidents throughout history have grabbed that moment and some were even right, including today's birthday boys: Washington and Lincoln. An eWEEK random sampling of presidents and innovation.
It's Friday the 13th, the unluckiest day of the year. How has Microsoft's luck been over the past 34 years? The company's rise through the 1980s and 1990s was really a series of lucky breaks combined with business savvy and execution on the vision of one PC on every desk. But Microsoft's luck started running out in the mid-1990s. We've selected 10 unlucky breaks based on the scope of their impact on the company, counting up to No. 1.
Read an expanded version of this list at Microsoft Watch.
With the recession ravaging enterprise spending plans, IT administrators are trying to figure out how to make their PC dollars go farther. Component makers are coming out with cheaper products, and OEMs are working hard to make systems that are cheaper to buy, more energy-efficient and easier to manage, all with an eye to reducing overall PC costs. Many IT managers are reusing or repurposing aging desktops and laptops, but if you have some money to spend on refreshing older systems, here are 10 good options.
The elegantly designed XioTech Emprise 7000 SAN solution focuses on preserving and duty cycling physical drives to boost availability and decrease service costs. It also has the added benefit of the Virtual View management software, which vastly simplifies management of virtual machine storage.
eWEEK editors recommend that IT pros keep CNG-Online, the ShorePhone IP 230g, Engate Hosted Anti-Botnet Security, Emulex LightPulse CNAs, Intelligent IT Search, Data Integration Suite 4.0 and Capacity Analyzer 3.0 on their radars.
Novell's OpenSUSE, one of the Linux world's most prominent distributions, hit Version 11.1 late in 2008, sporting a renewed focus on community involvement. Check out this slide show to see if the latest version of OpenSUSE has what it takes to win mind share from Canonical's Ubuntu and Red Hat's Fedora Linux distributions, and stay tuned for eWEEK Labs' full review of OpenSUSE 11.1.
Dell this week revamped its tablet lineup with the new Latitude XT2 tablet PC that offers a range of new features, including new multitouch capabilities. In addition, the Dell Latitude XT2 tablet offers more battery life, the choice of two different ultra low-volt Intel Core 2 Duo processors, DDR3 memory, a solid state drive option and a starting price of $2,399. The Latitude XT2 tablet builds on Dell's previous tablet offering - the Latitude XT - which help bring Dell into the tablet market for the first time in 2007.
After collapsing in August 2007, the St. Anthony Falls Bridge in Minneapolis was rebuilt three months ahead of schedule using Bentley's 3-D infrastructure technology.
Unison Server and Desktop unified communications offerings provide an adequate UC experience for businesses with basic needs, but it falls short for those enterprises with more advanced UC plans. The products offer integrated VOIP, IM, presence, e-mail and calendaring, and all for free, though there's a catch: Users need to be willing to look at some ads.
Automation upgrades, green IT initiatives and system performance measurement tools won't get cut; big capital projects and network tools that require a lot of manual control will be out as we roll along in 2009.
CA has updated its GRC Manager tool with new features meant to help companies unify their risk management, security and compliance efforts. eWEEK takes a first look at the reporting capabilities and features that CA says will allow enterprises to take a more comprehensive approach in dealing with security risks in the enterprise.
Adobe Creative Suite 4, the latest version of Adobe's massive and dominant graphics and rich media development suite, has undergone some significant changes, including a new interface and improved integration between the individual components.
eWEEK has a behind-the-scenes look at the launch of the new Amazon Kindle 2 electronic reader at an exclusive event in New York City that features author Stephen King reading from his new novella called "Ur," which is available with the new Kindle device. On Feb. 9, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced the release of the Kindle 2 electronic reader at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York, demonstrating the device's improved functionality over its predecessor. The Amazon Kindle 2 features a 6-inch gray-scale screen and can store 1,500 books, or 1.4GB of data. For enterprise users, Kindle 2 has the ability to convert Word and PDF documents, which can then be wirelessly e-mailed to the device.
As IBM's president and chief operating officer and then CEO, Sam Palmisano has carried out the company's growth strategy focusing on faster-growing, higher-profit operations. Despite recent layoffs, the IT infrastructure and enterprise applications company continues to be a bellwether in the technology industry. Here's a look at some of Palmisano's big moves and what they've done for IBM.
Amazon released the beta version of the online database product as part of its Amazon Web Services. SimpleDB offers businesses using cloud-based applications a place to store simple data. While not useful for all Web-based data storage, SimpleDB can work well in environments where users need to quickly look up data.
By Jeff Cogswell
Seeking a way to stand out in a search-engine competition that includes Microsoft and Google, Yahoo began bucket-testing a new search feature, Search Pad, that allows users to manage the information they gather while researching online. Yahoo hopes that the feature, which allows URLs and text to be collected and managed via a "pad" that opens in a separate business window, will attract users who might otherwise use Google or Microsoft for deeper research. eWEEK has broken down some of the most distinctive aspects of Search Pad.
On Feb. 3, Fujitsu along with AT&T began offering 3G broadband technology with a number of Fujitsu's LifeBook laptops as well as some LifeBook tablets. Fujitsu joins Lenovo with offering 3G broadband technology built into the notebooks themselves. In October, Lenovo began offering 3G broadband with several of its ThinkPad notebooks. eWEEK has compiled a list of some of the Fujitsu LifeBook laptops that now offer AT&T's 3G broadband technology.
Small business owners often depend on their road warrior salespeople to meet with clients, assess new business opportunities and troubleshoot at a moment's notice. Whether your customer base takes you to the heart of Manhattan or the big skies of Montana, having a GPS (Global Positioning System) device in the car can save you time and headaches. New technology that assesses traffic in real time can also save you from burning gas on a backed-up highway, and the cost of owning a system is probably less than you think. Here are seven GPSes, including systems from TomTom and Garmin, to guide your small business by.
A top-flight, well-equipped data center utilizes a historic former school building for 21st-century, Internet-level colocation services, yet it melds perfectly into downtown.
OpenSolaris 2008.11, the second major release of Sun Microsystems' freely licensed, Solaris-based operating system, hit the Web late in 2008 packed with feature enhancements intended to illustrate that Sun isn't about to cede the platform stage to Linux. Click on for a walk-through of the most newcomer-friendly Solaris release to date.
eWEEK editors keep you up-to-date on important IT topics.
eWEEK editors name the new hardware, software and services enterprise IT managers should have on their radars.
A rivalry with VMware Fusion pushes increased processor and RAM capacity in Parallels Desktop for Mac 4.0. The virtualization software from Parallels can recognize up to eight CPU cores for use in a virtual machine.
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