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Domain: itfacts.biz
Stories and comments across the archive that link to itfacts.biz.
Stories · 86
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The Future of SysAdmins' Positions
prostoalex writes "With automated upgrade tools and self-updating software, will sysadmins be in such high demand that they enjoy today? Lisa Valentine from NewsFactor provides the answer - and it's a definitive yes. Wireless systems and GPS devices are the new area where sysadmins are expected to have some expertise, although lately companies have been upping their demands for more hands-on experience. This opinion seems to corroborate US Department of Labor forecast on system administrator and computer support specialist employment." -
Microsoft Revamps Licensing Plans
prostoalex writes "Microsoft is introducing significant changes into its licensing program, faced with competition from Linux, as Reuters article suggests. First, Microsoft starts giving away free server licenses to its Software Assurance Program customers, if the PC is not actually used in production and is not present on the network. Such licensing would be convenient for disaster recoveries, where it's important to replace a failed server as soon as possible without calling Microsoft support or licensing partner. Support lifecycle is also extended to 10 years for a variety of products, including Windows 2000, Windows XP and SQL Server 2000." -
The 3Com Saga
prostoalex writes "A flashback to 5 years ago reveals 3Com as a global multi-billion dollar company, respected and revered around the world. Today Bob Metcalfe's creation is a money-losing $2 billion dollar operation trying to find its niche. The 3Com Saga from Network World magazine takes a look at the history of 3Com Corp." -
Salesforce.com: Another Valley IPO
prostoalex writes "It's a young company led by charismatic executive, it shows impressive growth, is located in Silicon Valley and recently filed for Initial Public Offering. Nope, it's not another Google story - New York Times profiles Marc Benioff and Salesforce.com, the company that said No to software applications (mostly Siebel and Oracle apps) and said Yes to hosted CRM solutions (which it hosts on its own servers). Benioff's personal philosophy is interesting as well, as he calls himself compassionate capitalist, believing that corporate philantropy and check-writing should end, but instead the company should allow their employees to dedicate 1% of paid time to volunteer projects in the community." I've used SalesForce for a while now - it's pretty slick. The era of the web-based software package has come. -
Many Internet Users Happy With Dial-Up
prostoalex writes "With cable and DSL operators constantly pushing the values of broadband, and with the President of the United States himself announcing broadband access a priority, the New York Times reports (free reg. req.) that some people actually are perfectly satisfied with their 56K connection. In February 2003 Pew Internet conducted a survey, where they found out 60% of dial-up users weren't interested in switching, a year later in 2004 the percentage was roughly the same." -
Hitachi Shows Off A Fuel-Cell PDA
prostoalex writes "Hitachi made a PDA, powered by a fuel cell. The device runs for 5 hours, and they plan to expand the battery power to 40 hours. It weighs 700 grams, which makes it heavier than most of the models out there. The commercial production will start next year, a picture is available from MobileMag." (This earlier mention of Hitachi's work talks about how such fuel cells could be used to charge or power other things, from cellphones to laptops.) -
Celebrating Spam's Ten-Year Anniversary
khalua writes "Netcraft has a story that 10 years ago today, the first widely recognized spam was sent by... oh the irony...a law firm. Hate to see what a beast it grows into when it's 20." Reader prostoalex writes "Ever wonder why spam is so prevalent and who buys all those revolutionary products sold at unbelievable prices? Direct Marketing Association estimates $11.7 billion was spent on goods and services pitched via unsolicited e-mail. The average buy was $155, which exceeds the average of $114 that opt-in e-mail generated. It's worth noting that US e-commerce sales in general generated $50 billion total last year, however, the data was presented by a different researcher." -
Google to Launch Free Mail Service?
prostoalex writes "The New York Times article on Yahoo and Terry Semel's management (soul stealing form required) mentions Google preparing "to offer a free e-mail service, people close to the company said, in a bid for Yahoo's most important source of loyal customers"." -
Desktop Linux Share Overtaking Macintosh
prostoalex writes "Business Week magazine is optimistic about desktop Linux's future, telling a story of Capital Cardiology Associates, whose 160 employees migrated to Linux desktops. Furthermore, Business Week expects IDC to announce desktop Linux installations to reach 3.2%, for the first time overtaking Macintosh market share. By 2007, IDC forecasts, Linux will be installed on 6% of the desktops. It's also worth mentioning that desktop Linux market share for 2002 was 2.8% and that year it was behind Apple's operating system." -
Desktop Linux Share Overtaking Macintosh
prostoalex writes "Business Week magazine is optimistic about desktop Linux's future, telling a story of Capital Cardiology Associates, whose 160 employees migrated to Linux desktops. Furthermore, Business Week expects IDC to announce desktop Linux installations to reach 3.2%, for the first time overtaking Macintosh market share. By 2007, IDC forecasts, Linux will be installed on 6% of the desktops. It's also worth mentioning that desktop Linux market share for 2002 was 2.8% and that year it was behind Apple's operating system." -
Samsung Puts Satellite TV in Cell Phones
prostoalex writes "Japanese subscribers will be able to get 70 television channels with a new cell phone, currently developed and tested by Samsung. Using an ARM microprocessor, Samsung makes it possible to receive satellite TV transmissions in 2.6 GHz range. No dish is required, however, for clarity of the signal the company is currently installing a network of repeaters. This could substantially increase the number of satellite TV subscribers, which in the United States is still a distant second to cable television." -
Eric Sink on Starting Your Own Software Company
prostoalex writes "The topic of starting your own software company was recently brought up on Ask Slashdot as a way to fight current employment trends. Eric Sink from SourceGear, who shared his software company-building experience before has written a new article published on MSDN. Getting started with your own software company suggests several simple steps to evaluate your abilities, count your estimated expenses and then start the software company, if the idea still seems feasible." -
Worst Cars Of All Time Rated
prostoalex writes "Forbes magazine complains that people nowadays do not have a real understanding of how awful a car can truly be. Hence they compiled a list of the worst cars available in the US, or 'lemons' created after World War 2. In the former Eastern Bloc, there are plenty of other choices, including this Ukrainian jewel, as well as many Soviet cars did not make it to the Forbes article." -
SUSE Linux Receives EAL3 Certification
prostoalex writes "Reporters from CNet News.com learned that SUSE Linux Enterprise Server received EAL3 certification, which allows it to compete with such certified operating systems as Windows (from Microsoft), Solaris (from Sun), HP-UX (from HP) and AIX (from IBM). Albeit all of the aforementioned OSs have EAL4 certification, Evaluation Assurance Level 3 allows SUSE Linux to be considered for a range of government and military tenders. Red Hat Linux is expected to receive EAL2 certification any time now." -
Microsoft FAT Licensing Plan - No Big Deal?
prostoalex writes "InternetNews.com describes the reaction to Microsoft's decision on FAT licensing. It doesn't look like the company is expecting to make any significant money out of licenses (there's also a cap of $250K, so none of the big guys will have to pay millions to Microsoft). It also doesn't look like Linux companies are stressed over this decision. "We are only accessing FAT32 file systems, not using them. This licensing program is of little interest to SuSE", a Novell/SuSE spokesperson said." -
Internet History In Pictures
prostoalex writes "Tired of reading black-on-white text on Internet history and its celebrities? The Faces in front of the Monitors features the Internet history in pictures. See the legendary BBN IMP team, Linus naked and drinking beer, Bill Gates and Paul Allen and other luminaries." -
Robots Of The Victorian Era
prostoalex writes "Somehow the robotic inventions of the 19th century are terribly under-appreciated. But when you read about a new Aibo or running humanoid robot, don't forget the mechanical marvels of the 19th century. The Steam Man, unveiled in literature in 1865, would provide the willing consumer with a truly horseless carriage. The Electric Man(1885) was a working prototype before 19th century was over, too. The Boilerplate was a prototype soldier built in 1893 to resolve potential conflicts between the nations, and, according to promotional photographs, was usually surrounded by young females. And, finally, the Automatic Man, unveiled in 1900, a 7'5'' robot capable of many things, but mainly pulling carriages." (Don't forget the less-fictional, more-fraudulent Ajeeb and The Turk.) -
World's Largest Databases Ranked
prostoalex writes "Winter Corp. has summarized its findings of the annual TopTen competition, where the world's largest and most hard-working (in terms of load) databases are ranked. The results are in, and this year the contestants were ranked on size, data volume, number of rows and peak workload. I wrote up a brief summary of the top three winners in each category for those too lazy to browse the interactive WinterCorp chart." -
World's Largest Databases Ranked
prostoalex writes "Winter Corp. has summarized its findings of the annual TopTen competition, where the world's largest and most hard-working (in terms of load) databases are ranked. The results are in, and this year the contestants were ranked on size, data volume, number of rows and peak workload. I wrote up a brief summary of the top three winners in each category for those too lazy to browse the interactive WinterCorp chart." -
Portable MP3 Hardware Sales Up
prostoalex writes "In December of 2002 only 12% of US music downloaders owned a digital music player, while for this year the number has increased to 17%. Jupiter Research expects the sales of the digital music players to double this year, while another research agency notes a remarkable shift towards paying for music. Even the music industry tends to agree that online music stores are a boon and expects the Web sales to really take off in 2004." (And the sales of Ogg-capable hardware are up, too, since there finally is some.) -
Microsoft Retires Windows 98
prostoalex writes "Complying with the court requirement related to Sun-Microsoft lawsuit over Java, Microsoft is retiring Windows 98, SQL Server 7, Office XP Developer Edition and some other products." -
US Broadband ISPs Expect Price Cuts
prostoalex writes "US broadband providers are trying to avoid the price wars, but the cost of DSL and cable hookups is still headed down with major promotions from players like Comcast and Yahoo/SBC. Currently there are 22 million US subscribers, 2 million of which subscribed during the past three months. It looks like the prices for broadband Internet are headed towards $20-30/month range, although most operators prefer to lock you into a yearly contract or provide special price for the first several months only." -
Paraphrasing Sentences With Software
prostoalex writes "Cornell University researchers are making progress in paraphrasing and "understanding" complete sentences in a software application. Analyzing sentences on the semantic level allows the software application to treat two sentences, expressing similar thoughts and ideas, but written in a different manner, as a single semantic unit. Significant achievements in this area could revolutionize the information searching field." -
Intel Researchers See Moore's Law Becoming Obsolete
prostoalex writes "A paper, published by Intel researchers, claims we might be the witnesses of Moore's Law becoming obsolete, as the rate of shrinkage for transistors goes lower with each year. In 2018 we might be able to get the chips manufactured with 16-nanometer technology, then one or two more manufacturing processes will shrink it even further, but after that we're facing the physical limits." -
OSDL Answers SCO With Kernel Awareness Campaign
prostoalex writes "Open Source Development Labs announced a new initiative to increase customer confidence in using Linux in business. The initiative is launched in answer to legal claims by SCO Group. So far managers and developers around the world are supposed to boost their confidence in Linux with the help of this little poster, which explains the kernel development process." -
How Crackers View Themselves
prostoalex writes "Dr. Orly Turgeman Goldschmidt from Hebrew University of Jerusalem conducted a research to figure out if there any any differences between the classic computer vandal stereotypes and the real life. After surveying 54 Israeli repondents and using the term hacker gratuitously, Goldshmidt found out many computer vandals to be "young, well-educated men without a criminal record, who belong to the middle or upper class." 3 out of 54 respondents were women, some of the respondents were married and had children. Goldschmidt's survey seemed to include somewhat low-life representatives of computer security community, the type who goes on shopping sprees on stolen credit cards, so take the findings with a grain of salt." -
JBoss Offers Lawsuit Indemnification
prostoalex writes "JBoss Group offered its customers indemnification from potential legal problems related to patent violations and copyright lawsuits. According to Bob Bickel, JBoss VP, the move is intended to give customers more peace of mind when deciding whether to go with open-source software." The article also mentions Jboss' legal challenge to Apache Geronimo, of which Bickel said "...the letter to the Apache Software Foundation was never intended to be made public and said the conflict has been blown out of proportion." -
802.11b Memory Stick for CLIE
prostoalex writes "InfoSync talks about a new MemoryStick card with wireless 802.11b support. The launch date is Dec 1st, the price is $130." Update by J : It's for Palm OS 5 devices like the CLIE, and not made by Sony. -
Microsoft Adding Blogs to Longhorn?
prostoalex writes "A Microsoft Research project called 'Wallop' has weblogging and document-sharing features and will be integrated into the next-generation Microsoft OS. In related news, MSN is being split into two subdivisions, one of which will take care of communications tools (Messenger, Passport, Hotmail, ISP service), while the other will deal with Web properties (MSN.com, etc.)" -
Microsoft Launches Portable Music Player
prostoalex writes "Microsoft announced Portable Media Center, a digital music player, to be available in the second half of 2004. The announcement follows Dell's foray into portable digital music. Microsoft plans to license their software for the Media Center to third-party manufacturers as well. Samsung Electronics, Sanyo, ViewSonic, and iRiver are already on the list. The actual Microsoft-branded devices are promised to start at $350." -
First Napster 2.0 Review
prostoalex writes "Matthew Fordahl from Associated Press is trying out Napster 2.0, which, according to the review, has some serious stability issues. At least for Fordahl the software 'repeatedly crashed during installation and brought down the entire computer with it.' They also have this picture of this Samsung Napster-branded digital music player." -
IBM Opens A Linux Training Center In Russia
prostoalex writes "IBM and Russian Ministry of Communications announced the opening of the first Linux Competency Center in Moscow. Representative of the goverment was quoted saying that such a center will help 'create a Linux ecosystem enabling Russian hi-tech companies to expand into global markets faster. IT solutions based on Linux and open standards will open up great opportunities to businesses in Russia.' This news piece in Russian also quotes Russian government official planning to expand the Linux initiative into provincial cities as well, if the center in Moscow turns out to be a viable idea." -
Open Source Making Inroads in Small Businesses
prostoalex writes "In a story mainly about new OpenOffice release, NewsFactor Network quotes an interesting finding of Jupiter Research analyst: "Open-source productivity suites did "surprisingly well" in the mid-size business market, with the OpenOffice suite alone claiming a share of about 6%. Furthermore, [Joe Wilcox] found that some 19% of small businesses ran Linux on their desktop, and a whopping 26% ran Linux on their servers."" -
Massachusetts Adopts Open Standards Strategy
prostoalex writes "The state of Massachusetts at a meeting of state information officers adopted a broad-based strategy to move to open standards. The strategy does involve Linux among other open standard solutions, while moving away from Microsoft-based platforms is one of the decisions. State Administration and Finance Secretary Eric Kriss insisted that decision was made on technical grounds and had nothing to do with antitrust investigation of Microsoft by the state of Massachusetts." -
Personal File Server For The Masses
prostoalex writes "California-based Inspiri is coming to the market with Mirra - a personal file-server with simple backup solutiion, remote access as well as file-sharing capabilities. The $399 device comes with 120 GB hard drive, front-mounted USB ports and Ethernet interface. There are some pictures of Mirra on the corporate Web site. The founder of Inspiri, Tim Bucher, according to the corporate documents, had an interesting career, having worked at both Apple and Microsoft, while the VP of Engineering in this company used to work as acting CEO of Apple's Newton business group." -
Yahoo Shutting Out Third-Party IM Clients?
prostoalex writes "Following the lead of America Online's previous attempts and MSN's actions, Yahoo is planning an update that may cut out third-party providers like Trillian or Gaim. If you're a current Trillian user with a valid Yahoo ID, you probably noticed the new welcome message: 'Yahoo! is upgrading to its newest version of Yahoo! Messenger on September 24, 2003. The upgrade is part of an ongoing process to continually enhance the overall quality of the Yahoo! Messenger service for our millions of users'." Update: 09/18 01:17 GMT by S : Trillian has just released a patch that updates the IM software "...to the newest Yahoo! and MSN protocols, to remove the recent upgrade messages."
