David Coursey

Finally fed-up with the progress—actually, the lack of progress—toward a new wireless LAN standard, a group of 26 companies this week announced theyll push forward on their own. The Enhanced Wireless Consortium hopes to release a final draft of its 600M bps 802.11n standard sometime next month. This could put the new high-speed Wi-Fi flavor […]

AOL has embarked in a program to add “presence” features to as many blogging, media, and social networking sites as possible. People using these sites will be able to advertise their presence to other users, even if they arent logged onto the site at the moment, thanks to their AOL Instant Messaging client. These sites […]

The world was ready for Google and Sun to actually do something. Tuesday morning, reporters and editors around the world were ready for a big announcement. Alas, we were let down. With all the speculation that StarOffice was becoming GoogleOffice and that Google and Sun were jointly challenging Microsoft, I was ready to write a […]

I really shouldnt let the Internet get to me like this. But, right now I am ready to shut down my server and go live on an island someplace. Of course, Ill take a satellite phone and my radio gear—Im disenchanted, but Im not stupid. I dont know about you, but Im about ready to […]

When thinking about Google, I am reminded of a story told by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Its about how when Kissinger was negotiating the end of the Vietnam war with the North Vietnamese he would play up Richard Nixons reputation as a rabid anti-communist. Kissinger would tell his Viet Cong counterparts that it […]

When a public agency announces a plan with a very short comment period—like one or two weeks—you should assume the plan is, as we say in Texas, “on rails” and about as likely to be stopped as a locomotive. And so it is that on Friday, the State of Massachusetts made it official: Effective January […]

I am not a big fan of the “citizen journalism” being practiced on the Internet these days. One of the tenets of “real” journalism is that you dont distribute information that hasnt been checked. Citizen publishers are under no such obligation, so the information that winds up in blogs and distributed on mailing lists must […]

It would be so much easier to understand what happens at Microsoft if only its corporate headquarters had a big balcony. To announce a reorganization, Microsoft would hold a parade and wed watch who appeared to review the troops, Soviet-style. Wed note where each Microsoft leader stood, who was next to whom, and how many […]

As part of the debate that has followed Massachusetts state CIO Peter Quinns edict that all state documents be stored in an “open” format as of January 2007, I posed some questions to Microsoft. Ive also continued to receive reader e-mail, mostly from people who support “open” everything and seem to hate all things Microsoft. […]

Have IT departments lost their sense of emergency as it relates to computer crime? Thats what a new study, prepared by my colleagues at CIO Insight says. IT managers arent as willing to invest in security as they were immediately post-9/11. Sadly, battle fatigue seems to have set in, despite some pretty serious wins by […]

I have to admit to being initially perplexed when the news about eBay buying Skype reached my desk. For hours, I tried over and again to make sense of the deal, trying to understand what Id missed. It wasnt until late in the day that it dawned on me: The reason eBay buying Skype doesnt […]

There is an idea making the rounds on some blogs that I am in favor of censoring free speech on the Internet. This is based on a misinterpretation of comments Ive made to the effect that a national firewall might someday be necessary to protect Americans from Internet crime. While I do not believe commercial […]