PetManimal - Slashdot User

Submission + - Best Places to Work in IT (computerworld.com)

Submitted by

jcatcw

on Monday June 18, 2007 @09:28AM

jcatcw writes: "Computerworld's annual summary of the best places to work in IT lists companies that excel in five areas of employment: career development, retention, benefits, diversity, and training. According to the scorecard, the top 5 retention methods are: competitive benefits; competitive salaries; work/life balance; flexible work hours; and tuition reimbursement. Sixty-four percent of these companies expect the number of U.S.-based IT staffers to increase in 2007, on average by 7%. The whole list contains the top 100. The top three are: No. 1: Quicken Loans; No. 2: University of Miami; No. 3: Sharp HealthCare. "

Submission + - Apple picks a fight it can't win with Safari (computerworld.com)

Submitted by

Ian Lamont

on Sunday June 17, 2007 @07:56AM

Ian Lamont writes: "Mike Elgan has an analysis of Apple's successes and concludes that the release of the Safari browser for Windows not only goes against the Apple success formula, but is doomed to a vicious failure:

The insular Apple universe is a relatively gentle place, an Athenian utopia where Apple's occasional missteps are forgiven, all partake of the many blessings of citizenship, and everyone feels like they're part of an Apple-created golden age of lofty ideas and superior design. But the Windows world isn't like that. It's a cold, unforgiving place where nothing is sacred, users turn like rabid wolves on any company that makes even the smallest error, and no prisoners are taken. Especially the Windows browser market. ... While security nerds were ripping Apple for a buggy beta, the UI enthusiasts started going after Apple for the look and feel. Here's a small sample. Apple can expect much more of this in the future. The problem? Safari for Windows just isn't Windows enough.
Elgan also expects that the Firefox faithful will fight the Safari infux — a theory that has been supported by comments from Mozilla executive John Lilly, who criticized Steve Jobs' 'blurry view of real world' just after Jobs announced Safari for Windows."

Submission + - Nuke-proof bunker turns out not water proof.

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 17, 2007 @07:18AM

An anonymous reader writes: CNN reports about the opening of a vault which should have been able to withstand a nucleair attack by the Russians. 50 years ago they put an Plymouth Belvedere in the vault to preserve it so that we could get a good look at it in the (for that time) magical year 2007. Unfortunatly it turns out that the vault wasn't capable to withstand water, the once beautiful car is now a real rust bucket in the literal meaning of the word.

Makes one wonder about the quality of the other shelters...

Submission + - IT ads from the past: From the quaint to the weird (computerworld.com)

Submitted by

PetManimal

on Thursday June 14, 2007 @05:50PM

PetManimal writes: "Computerworld has dug up some funny IT advertising gems from decades past. The highlights include "The Personal Mainframe", Elvira hawking engineering software, and an image of the earliest screenless "briefcase portables." Strange to think that people not only took these technologies so seriously, but also paid big bucks for gear that seems positively primitive now."

Submission + - Weapon found in Whale blubber from the 1800's (cnn.com)

Submitted by LABarr on Thursday June 14, 2007 @02:51AM

LABarr writes: AP and CNN are carrying this story. "A 50-ton bowhead whale caught off the Alaskan coast last month had a weapon fragment embedded in its neck that showed it survived a similar hunt — more than a century ago. Embedded deep under its blubber was a 3½-inch arrow-shaped projectile that has given researchers insight into the whale's age, estimated between 115 and 130 years old. The bomb lance fragment, lodged in a bone between the whale's neck and shoulder blade, was likely manufactured in New Bedford, on the southeast coast of Massachusetts, a major whaling center at that time. It was probably shot at the whale from a heavy shoulder gun around 1890." One tough whale...

Submission + - Google adjusts user privacy policy -- slightly (computerworld.com)

Submitted by

Lucas123

on Tuesday June 12, 2007 @12:44PM

Lucas123 writes: "Google's global privacy counsel posted a blog yesterday stating that the company would make data that it stores about users anonymous after 18 months. The blog came in response to a letter the company received last month from a European Union data protection working group regarding Google's privacy policies. 'In its letter, the Article 29 Working Party ... asked Google to explain why it needed to keep user data for 18 to 24 months.' A report released last week by Privacy International ranked Google worse than any other Internet company in protecting the privacy of its users."

Submission + - Tools that manage both Macs and PCs (computerworld.com)

Submitted by johannacw on Tuesday June 12, 2007 @11:48AM

johannacw writes: Ryan Faas takes a look at nine tools that handle systems management tasks clients and servers in both Mac and Windows environments. He gives his take on each tool's strengths and weaknesses, and explains why security concerns caused him to leave Apple Remote Desktop off his list.

Submission + - No iPhone SDK Means No iPhone Killer Apps (gizmodo.com)

Submitted by iPhoneLover/Hater on Monday June 11, 2007 @10:27PM

iPhoneLover/Hater writes: Gizmodo is running an article analyzing the potential failure of the iPhone as a truly revolutionary platform. The reason: no SDK to harness the true power of Mac OS X and the frameworks contained in Apple's smart cell. From the article: "According to Apple, "no software developer kit is required for the iPhone." However, the truth is that the lack of an SDK means that there won't be a killer application for the iPhone. It also means the iPhone's potential as an amazing computing and communication platform will never be realized. And because of this and no matter how Apple tries to sell it, the iPhone won't make a revolution happen."

Submission + - U.S. K-12 schools must comply with ediscovery rule (computerworld.com)

Submitted by

Lucas123

on Sunday June 10, 2007 @04:26PM

Lucas123 writes: "K-12 school districts throughout the US have a daunting IT homework assignment over the summer: Develop systems that ensure their electronic documents, email and instant messages are in compliance with new federal e-discovery regulations, much in the same way corporations have been preparing over the past year. The new Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) are expected to be widely enforced by the end of 2007, according to a Computerworld story. '"A lack of preparation could prove dire for K-12 school districts, which oftentimes lack technical proficiency, funding and legal expertise," said Robert Ayers, technology coordinator for the Kingston, Pa.-based Luzerne Intermediate Unit 18 school district.'"

Submission + - PCs are cheaper than Macs, right? Wrong! (computerworld.com)

Submitted by

jcatcw

on Friday June 08, 2007 @07:44AM

jcatcw writes: "The recently converted Scot Finnie went notebook shopping. At the high end of the notebook spectrum, in order to get comparable power and features, a Dell machine comes in $650 over the Apple, and it was clunkier and weighed more. Sony couldn't beat the Apple either. Midrange and low-end machines, though, turn out to be pretty comparable, with more choices in the PC arena but some good values if you happen to want what Apple has decided you need. So, if you're talking name-brand hardware, it's just no longer the case that PC's are cheaper than Macs."

Submission + - Sun CEO reveals ZFS will be OSX default filesystem

Submitted by Fjan11 on Thursday June 07, 2007 @03:43AM

Fjan11 writes: Sun's Jonathan Schwartz announced that "Apple would be making ZFS "the file system" in Mac OS 10.5 Leopard". It seems likely that Leopad's Time Machine feature will require ZFS to run, because ZFS has back-up and snapshots build right in to the filesystem as well as a host of other features, such as built in Raid. Jobs is probably not happy about his thunder being stolen right before for the June 11th keynote...

Submission + - Erroneous HD DVD Report Gets Tongues Wagging

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 24, 2007 @02:01PM

An anonymous reader writes: HD DVD fanboys learned a valuable lesson in "don't believe everthing you read" this week, after the trade publication Home Media Magazine reported that the HD DVD camp planned to release more than 20x the number of releases planned on Blu-ray through the end of 2007. The suggestion was so preposterous that even the official HD DVD Promotions Group (which has the most to gain from the spread of such misinformation) has requested a correction.

Submission + - Top 10 dead (or dying) computer skills

Submitted by

Lucas123

on Thursday May 24, 2007 @09:02AM

Lucas123 writes: "Computerworld reporter Mary Brandel spoke with academics and head hunters to compile this list of computer skills that are dying but may not yet have taken their last gasp. As 'Stewart Padveen, Internet entrepreneur and founder of AdPickles Inc., says, "Obsolescence is a relative — not absolute — term in the world of technology.". 'In the early 1990s, it was all the rage to become a Certified NetWare Engineer, especially with Novell Inc. enjoying 90% market share for PC-based servers. '"It seems like it happened overnight. Everyone had Novell, and within a two-year period, they'd all switched to NT," says David Hayes, president of HireMinds LLC in Cambridge, Mass.'"

Submission + - Microsoft "too busy to name Linux patents"

Submitted by bob_dinosaur on Wednesday May 23, 2007 @10:43PM

bob_dinosaur writes: According to The Register, Microsoft's Patent Attorney Jim Markwith told the Open Source Business Conference that the reason they hadn't named the 235 supposedly infringing patents was "The response of that would be administratively impossible to keep up with." The Register is suitably skeptical.

Submission + - OpenDNS says Google-Dell browser tool is spyware

Submitted by

PetManimal

on Wednesday May 23, 2007 @04:48PM

PetManimal writes: "David Ulevitch, the founder of OpenDNS, claims that Google and Dell have placed 'spyware' on Dell computers. Ulevitch made the claim based on his observation of the behavior of the Google Toolbar and homepage that comes preinstalled on IE in new Dell machines. He says that a browser redirector sends users who enter nonexistent URLs to a Dell-branded page loaded with Google ads. Another observer, Danny Sullivan, says that this is a different result than what happens on PCs without the redirector. However, the original article notes that Ulevitch has a vested interest in the results of mistyped URLs:

Ulevitch's complaint also stems from the fact that the error redirector breaks some of OpenDNS's functionality. If an OpenDNS user types "digg.xom" by mistake, their browser pulls up the correct "digg.com" instead. But the redirector breaks the free service's typo correction — as well as the browser shortcut feature it unveiled last month. "Google's application breaks just about every user-benefiting feature we provide with client software that no user ever asked for," Ulevitch said.
"

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