Anne Chen

Last year, when the Walt Disney Co.s feature animation unit, in Burbank, Calif., announced that it was using Linux for digital animation work, speculation grew that Adobe Systems Inc. would finally port its products to Linux. To this day, however, Adobe has done no such thing. Rather than wait, Disney, along with two other motion […]

Netgears first layer 3 gigabit switch is proof the company—best known for its consumer routers and hubs—is serious about a push into the small- and medium-size business marketplace. Released earlier this month, the $3,400 GSM7324 24-Port Layer 3 Managed Gigabit Switch features 24 copper 10/100/1,000M-bps Ethernet ports. The unit also incorporates four optional Fibre Gigabit […]

For those who dont type fast, Ventris this month released the $39.95 HandyScript for Windows text input system. Rather than hunt for letters on a keypad, Ventris lets users touch-type using 11 graphic symbols representing handwriting strokes. Ventris said it hopes users will eventually use the HandyScript input system to enter text on anything with […]

Theres no arguing that without identity management, Web services will not reach its full, formidable potential, which research group International Data Corp. predicts could be an industry worth $21 billion by 2007. Enterprises that are serious about identity management are already examining the issues theyll need to address to successfully roll out an identity management […]

IBMs ThinkCentre S50 Desktop, which takes advantage of the newly launched Intel 865G “Springdale” chip set, was built with low maintenance in mind. Released in May, the S50, which starts at $729, features a tool-free chassis design and is held together by thumbscrews. Components inside the machine, such as the hard drive, are mounted in […]

After years of helping consumers pack more efficiently for their camping trips, The Coleman Company Inc. decided to do some packing of its own—by consolidating using virtual machines in its data center. The move allowed Shawn Kaiser, network engineer at Coleman, to reduce his data center footprint from approximately 40 servers to two large, eight-way […]

The Catalyst Conference, which focused solely on directory services just four years ago when I attended my first one, has become the place for identity management announcements and demonstrations of specifications and their interoperability. The conference, held in San Francisco this year, did not disappoint. While identity management was the headliner at this weeks conference, […]

ZyXelS B-4000 wireless service gateway is targeted at organizations looking to deploy public WLANs. The B-4000, which was released last month, combines an 802.11b wireless access point, router, four-port switch and wireless service gateway. The gateway, which ZyXel says can support 100 users simultaneously, is appropriate for use in public retail locations such as coffee […]

With so much—and such disparate—geo-spatial and location information available, standards are key to the interoperability and wider use of geographic information systems technology. The Open GIS Consortium, an international standards body comprising 258 companies, government agencies and universities, aims to address these connectivity issues. Founded in 1994, the Open GIS Consortium has a membership that […]

For Erich Seamon, location is everything. Last year, as most IT organizations were cutting budgets, Seamon, geographic information systems manager for the city and county of San Francisco, was moving forward with a project to integrate the City by the Bays geographic information in a standard fashion online. The result: City employees and San Franciscans […]

By now, it should be obvious that identity management and Web services are closely related. In order for Web services to flourish, good identity-based mechanisms are necessary. It should come as no surprise, then, that the theme for this years Burton Group Catalyst Conference is “Enterprise Identity Management: Creating a Secure Business Context.” The conference, […]

Convenience, low cost and increased productivity are driving users to wireless hot spots: Armed with little more than a laptop, an inexpensive wireless card and perhaps a credit card to access fee-based hot spots, users can jump onto a wireless hot spot and gain access to e-mail and other corporate resources. Public WLAN Best Practices […]