The Blue Screen

A bit of geek history

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 13:33:39 GMT

What do you buy the geek who has everything?Well, this set of IBM programming manuals would probably hit the spot for plenty of people out there. They're part of a series of lots offered up by Bonhams, the auctioneers. Or;if...

How many Twits?

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 15:17:02 GMT

Has the Twitter backlash started?Since 2007, Twitter has been on a steadily rising growth curve but now research company RJ Metrics draws attention to the fact that things are on the decline.The company says that the rate of growth has...

The man from the ministry really is here to help

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 17:31:01 GMT

There was some excitement late on Friday as the Twittersphere with buzzing about the Danish government's statement about open standards - with several tweeters claiming that the Danes had give the old heave-ho to Microsoft.Danish speakers being in a minority...

Videos over networks, picture is still very fuzzy

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 15:02:48 GMT

I'm still thinking of the ramifications of what Cisco were saying a few days ago. Marthin de Beer, Cisco's head of emerging technologies said that he expected 90 percent of network traffic to be video (and that about 50 percent...

The government and open source - all talk and no action

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 10:41:30 GMT

The Cabinet Office seems to have got its PR strategy all wrong. The period leading up to the launch of the iPad would have been a perfect day to have buried bad news #169;Jo Moore but the new ICT strategy...

Exploring cloud computing land

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 06:06:58 GMT

Talk to most vendors, service providers or analyst and it won't be too long before the talk is of how cloud computing is going to reshape the landscape of computing.Just a couple of weeks ago, Gartner proclaimed that 20 percent...

Addressing the IP issue

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 07:57:39 GMT

The news that the world's supply of IPv4 addresses has dwindled to such a state that fewer than 10 percent of the stock remain should not come as a shock to network administrators. There have been various apocalyptic warnings sent...

Social media? ... it's complicated

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 17:27:05 GMT

Sometimes it feels like we're going back in time. I remember when the Internet first broke out of its academic shackles and started penetrating the mainstream. I can still recall that large numbers of businesses were exceedingly wary of the...

Not so open

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 17:49:24 GMT

I had an interesting chat with John Powell of Alfresco. We were talking about the company's new version of its Enterprise Edition software but we got diverted to the UK government's attitude to open source. It's fair to say that...

The techies' guide to health

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 16:30:14 GMT

Is the BCS trying to tell us something? The BCS: Chartered Institute for IT has a long and distinguished record in promoting excellence in IT but it's not the first organisation that comes to mind when it comes to health...

A law unto themselves

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 14:37:49 GMT

The law of unintended consequences is a strange beast. Who'd have thought that a legal battle being fought between two software giants would be giving a severe ear-bashing to a network administrator in Texas. Yet that's exactly what has happened...

Carrying your PC with you

Fri, 08 Jan 2010 13:52:33 GMT

The vClone launch from Iomega has almost disappeared in the welter of announcements from CES but it's an interesting launch - almost too interesting to be launched so early in the year when people are still feeling their way back...

Unavailable websites are snow joke

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 14:48:58 GMT

One of the most striking things about the way that snow cripples the country is the reluctance of organisations to use technology.Any snowy day, I guarantee one thing (well, apart from the papers being full of whingers moaning about the...

Privacy? No such thing says Google

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 13:59:40 GMT

Oh, how things change.The news that a Mozilla executive is exhorting computer users to adopt Microsoft's Bing search engine instead of Google would have caused hurricanes a few years ago. At the height of the DoJ anttrust action against Microsoft...

Behind the reliability ratings

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 08:06:46 GMT

Strange things statistics.At first sight, Rescuecom's latest ratings on reliability of computer models seems to give a snap judgment as to which computers are performing well and which are duds. Certainly, the rapid decline in the ratings for Asus should...

GoogleDNS - a step too far?

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 14:49:32 GMT

Who would have thought that DNS was so fashionable?The news that Google has launched its own take on DNS has brought the technology to much wider attention, most people not really thinking about DNS options and relying on their service provider for...

Intel shows glimpse of tomorrow's world

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 14:38:39 GMT

Once in a while a technology is announced that does make the breath catch a bit.The Intel 48-core processor is just such an announcement - or to give it its real name, the Intel single-chip Cloud Computer, a processor that offers a...

Wi-Fi in wonderland

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 14:47:23 GMT

I spotted a rather curious story in ZDNet at the weekend about a pub that was 'fined' because illegal downloads were made over its Wi-Fi.It was curious for a number of reasons. First of all, this was an unnamed pub, part of...

No thanks, I can manage without it

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 14:45:12 GMT

Here's an idea for a Christmas present for the hard-pressed IT manager: Intel's new game IT Manager III.Yes, after a hard day firefighting: restoring 17 passwords that people had forgotten, crawling under three desks to locate a rogue cable, restoring a...

Users content over standard

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 08:42:38 GMT

The news that the CMIS is nearing ratification is great news for enterprises faced with the problem of implementing content from a multitude of diverse sources.What is particularly impressive about the proposed CMIS standard, is the speed with which it has been...

Chrome OS - is the world prepared?

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:06:12 GMT

So, was it worth the wait?Google has given us the merest peak at what Chrome OS is going to offer the user and straight away that it's apparent that the talk of how Google would have the clout to take on...

30 years of hurt - 3Com gives up the chase

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:25:14 GMT

HP's projected acquisition of 3Com has reawakened a lot of old memories - and raised a lot of questions.3Com is almost a bit-part player in the industry now but there was a time when 3Com was networking - or at...

Counting the (real) cost

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 08:56:08 GMT

Energy efficiency - that's the name of the game.Every company I meet these days drops energy efficiency (or power efficiency - the terms seem to be interchangeable, suggesting that rather a large number of people in the IT business skipped...

Microsoft with all to play for

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 06:57:29 GMT

It's been a day that the industry has waited for for some time: Windows 7 launch day. It seems that it wasn't long ago that commentators were asking whether Vista would be Microsoft's last operating system - we all know how...

Farewell Darl McBride ... gone but not missed

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:36:56 GMT

No-one derives pleasure from seeing someone lose a job but there must have been a few smiles around the software community when it was reported that SCO president and CEO Darl McBride had got the boot from SCO.The news came...