johannacw - Slashdot User

Submission + - Ad tracking: Is anything being done? (computerworld.com) 1

Submitted by bsk_cw on Wednesday April 02, 2014 @02:15PM

bsk_cw writes: The W3C's Tracking Protection Working Group has been trying to come up with a way to make targeted ads acceptable to users and useful to advertisers — and so far, hasn't gotten very far. Computerworld's Robert Mitchell has interviewed people on all sides of the issue — consumer privacy advocates, vendors of ad-blocking tools, advertisers and website publishers — to try to unravel the issues and see if any solution is possible at all.

Submission + - Learning Programming in a Post-BASIC World (computerworld.com) 5

Submitted by ErichTheRed on Thursday June 23, 2011 @10:47AM

ErichTheRed writes: This Computerworld piece actually got me thinking — it basically says that there are few good "starter languages" to get students interested in programming. I remember hacking away at BASIC incessantly when I was a kid, and it taught me a lot about logic and computers in general. Has the level of abstraction in computer systems reached a point where beginners can't just code something quick without a huge amount of back-story? I find this to be the case now; scripting languages are good, but limited in what you can do...and GUI creation requires students to be familiar with a lot of concepts (event handling, etc.) that aren't intuitive for beginners. What would you show a beginner first — JavaScript? Python? How do you get the instant gratification we oldies got when sitting down in front of the early-80s home computers?

Submission + - Cisco Demos Public Rooms for Telepresence (computerworld.com)

Submitted by

CWmike

on Wednesday October 15, 2008 @05:32PM

CWmike writes: "Matt Hamblen reports that Cisco Systems Inc. has announced the first telepresence videoconferencing rooms available for public use. It demonstrated the technology simultaneously in four locations in India, the U.S. and the U.K. Three of the four demonstration sites were retrofitted rooms in Taj Hotels in London, Bangalore, India and Boston. The luxury hotel chain will build the videoconferencing rooms for business and guest use at rates starting at $400 an hour in the Boston location. Cisco said prices will vary from $299 to $899 an hour at various locations globally, depending on the number of users. The rooms can accommodate from one to 18 people."

Submission + - DNS Patch Dilemma? Quick-Fix: Use OpenDNS (computerworld.com)

Submitted by

CWmike

on Wednesday July 30, 2008 @01:43PM

CWmike writes: "It turns out that problems with the July 8 patch that was rolled out to fix a cache poisoning flaw discovered by researcher Dan Kaminsky are causing headaches for admins. Preston Gralla suggests a 30-second quick-fix, perhaps until everyone is patched up: Use OpenDNS, which as been patched, as your personal DNS. If you run a corporate network and need help getting OpenDNS set up, your best bet is to go to the OpenDNS FAQ page, he writes."

Submission + - SF Not An Exception in Giving IT Too Much Control (computerworld.com)

Submitted by

CWmike

on Thursday July 24, 2008 @02:26PM

CWmike writes: "The city of San Francisco's IT department is certainly not the exception when it comes to allowing just one person to have unfettered rights to make password and configuration changes to networks and enterprise systems. In fact, it's a situation fairly common in many organizations — especially small to medium-size ones, IT managers and others cautioned in the wake of the recent Terry Childs incident."

Submission + - Web Apps Get Real: GDocs vs. ThinkFree vs Zoho (computerworld.com)

Submitted by

CWmike

on Wednesday July 16, 2008 @01:58PM

CWmike writes: "Web-based productivity suites, once almost a contradiction in terms, have become real challengers to desktop applications. Google Docs, ThinkFree, and Zoho, have all made major improvements in recent months. They're becoming both broader, with more applications, and deeper, with more features and functionality in existing apps. The question is: Are these three applications really ready to take on a desktop-based heavy hitter like Microsoft Office?"

Web Use In 2008 Campaigns Shatters Records 19

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday June 18, 2008 @09:17PM from the president-of-the-internet dept.

CWmike writes "Heather Havenstein writes that the increased viewing of online political videos and the use of social networks to gather campaign data and online donations for candidates has fueled use of the Internet in this year's election cycle that is shattering records, according to a study released this week. (Download a PDF of the study.) A record-breaking 46% (compared with 31% in the last cycle) of Americans have used the Internet, e-mail or cell phone text messaging to get news about a campaign or to share their views, according to the "The Internet and the 2008 Election" report compiled by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. So far, according to the report, supporters of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) are using online tools for election matters more often that those of rival Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). Obama was an early supporter of Web 2.0 technologies, and that effort appears to be paying off, the study finds."

Submission + - Why it's not business as usual for Microsoft (computerworld.com)

Submitted by

CWmike

on Tuesday June 10, 2008 @04:34PM

CWmike writes: "Bill Gates will be leaving Microsoft for good at the end of the month and Microsoft would have you believe that it will be business as usual for Microsoft. I understand they also have a great bridge between Manhattan and Brooklyn that they'd like to sell you. Cheap! Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols lays out the reasons it ain't biz as usual. 1) (and there are four more) You can't replace genius. Steve Ballmer is moving into the top slot, but I've met Bill Gates, and Steve Ballmer is no Bill Gates. He's a big, bouncy sales guy. Can't you just see Ballmer selling used cars on a local TV ad spot? Instead of running around a stage shouting: "Developers! Developers!" just visualize him running around a car lot shouting, "Cars! Cars!" I find it far too easy to do just that. This is the man who's going to replace Bill Gates? I don't think so. Besides, he already has a track record as acting head of the company, and it's lousy. Fire Ballmer now, why wait for him to fall on his face?"

Submission + - Verizon Wireless to buy Alltel for $28B (computerworld.com)

Submitted by

CWmike

on Thursday June 05, 2008 @12:08PM

CWmike writes: "Matt Hamblen reports that Verizon Wireless has officially announced an agreement to purchase Alltel for $28.1 billion, which would make the new company the largest wireless carrier in the U.S. with 80 million subscribers. The deal will undoubtedly provoke scrutiny by the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice, they acknowledge. Who loses? 'This [deal] is another nail in the coffin for Sprint," said Michael Voellinger, an analyst at Telwares in Parsippany, N.J. 'Alltel is a highly valuable and strategic roaming partner to the top four providers, and this acquisition would put long-term pressure on pricing and terms of those arrangements.'"

Submission + - Smart phones 'bigger security risk' than laptops (computerworld.com)

Submitted by

CWmike

on Monday June 02, 2008 @01:49PM

CWmike writes: "A recent survey of 300 senior IT staff found that 94% fear PDAs present a security risk, just above the 88% who highlighted mobile storage devices as a worry. Nearly eight in 10 said laptops were an issue. Only four in 10 had encrypted data on their laptops, and the remainder said the information was "not worth" protecting. A key danger with PDAs was that over half of IT executives surveyed were "not bothering" to enter a password when they used their phone. Peter Mitteregger, European VP at the company, said: "Companies need to regain control of these devices and the data that they are carrying, or risk finding their investment in securing the enterprise misplaced and woefully inadequate." Is this just iPhone fear-factor stuff? Do you think the passwords execs could remember would help with securing PDAs and smart phones?"

Submission + - Microsoft linking Silverlight, Ruby on Rails (computerworld.com)

Submitted by

CWmike

on Monday June 02, 2008 @01:41PM

CWmike writes: "Microsoft will demonstrate integration Friday between its new Silverlight browser plug-in technology for rich Internet applications and the Ruby on Rails Web framework. Microsoft's John Lam, a program manager in the dynamic language runtime team, said in a recent blog item: "Running Rails shows that we are serious when we say that we are going to create a Ruby that runs real Ruby programs. And there isn't a more real Ruby program than Rails." Also at the event, Microsoft officials will demonstrate IronRuby, a version of the Ruby programming language for Microsoft's .Net platform, running a Ruby on Rails application."

Submission + - Surveillance rights for the public? (computerworld.com)

Submitted by

Ian Lamont

on Thursday January 03, 2008 @06:23PM

Ian Lamont writes: "Mike Elgan has an interesting take on surveillance technology, and how audio and video recordings should be used in private and public life. He cites the case of a New York City Police Detective who was secretly taped by a suspect during an interrogation that the detective initially denied took place during the suspect's murder trial, as well as a case involving two parents in Wisconsin who slipped a voice-activated recorder in their son's backpack after suspecting he was being abused by his bus driver. In the first case, even though the detective was later charged with 12 counts of perjury, Elgan notes that the police interrogation probably would not have taken place had the suspect announced to the detective that he was recording the session. In the second case, the tape was initially ruled inadmissible in court because Wisconsin state law prohibits the use of "intercepted conversations" (it was later allowed as evidence). Elgan argues that there should be no questions about members of the public being allowed to record such interactions. He says surveillance should be "legalized, normalized or even required" when members of the public have interactions with police, and the public should be allowed to record interactions between caregivers and children, meetings between politicians meet with lobbyists, court sessions, and phone conversations. Elgan says, "Surveillance technology is on the rise. Powerful organizations — law enforcement, corporations, governments and others — have demanded and won their right to videotape the public, often secretly. They do this in order to hold individuals accountable for their actions. Yet the rights of individuals to use similar technology to do the same are often restricted. Why should shoppers, pedestrians, bank customers and citizens be held accountable, but politicians, police, judges and others are not? What kind of democracy is that?" What's your take? Would Elgan's proposals improve democracy and the rule of law? What kinds of complications or unintended consequences might result?"

Submission + - 27 Billion Gigabytes to be Archived by 2010 (computerworld.com)

Submitted by

Lucas123

on Tuesday January 01, 2008 @03:50PM

Lucas123 writes: "According to a Computerworld survey of IT managers, data storage projects are the No. 2 project priority for corporations in 2008, up from No. 4 in 2007. IT teams are looking into clustered architectures and centralized storage-area networks as one way to control capacity growth, shifting away from big-iron storage and custom applications. The reason for the data avalanche? Archive data. In the private sector alone electronic archives will take up 27,000 petabytes (27 billion gigabytes) by 2010. E-mail growth accounts for much of that figure."

Submission + - Newmark denies Craigslist is killing newspapers (computerworld.com)

Submitted by

Ian Lamont

on Monday December 24, 2007 @11:51AM

Ian Lamont writes: "Computerworld has an interview with Craig Newmark about the history of Craigslist and it's growth over the years (it's now expanding into foreign-language markets — it recently created several Spanish sites in Spanish cities). He also disputes the notion that Craigslist is responsible for dismantling newspapers' revenue models. Rather, he blames niche-classified sites like autotrader.com and Monster as well as newspapers' unrealistic profit expectations in the new media world: 'Newspapers are going after 10% to 30% profit margins for their businesses and that hurts them more than anything. A lot of things are happening on the Internet that never happened before because the Internet is a vehicle for everyone. The mass media is no longer only for the powerful, and that's a huge change for the entire newspaper and news industry."

Submission + - Plexiglas-like DVD to hold 1TB of data (computerworld.com)

Submitted by jcatcw on Friday December 21, 2007 @03:08PM

jcatcw writes: Lucas Mearian has a story about a company that plans to demonstrate a new DVD-format at the January CES conference. The .6mm thick disc stores 500GB of data by writing 5GB of data on each of 100 layers within a polymer material similar to Plexyglas. The Israel-based company, Mempile Inc., said its TeraDisc DVDs will offer 1TB of storage for consumers in the next few years, but it's also targeting corporate data archive needs with the new technology that write bits at the molecular level on the florescent-colored polymer. The company plans to sell its first product, a 700GB disc for $30.

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