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• 10 Signs Your Company Wants You Gone - You can't always save your job, but you can reduce the time you're out of work if you see it coming!

• Tips for Older IT Job Seekers - The older you are, the longer it can take to get a job, a situation that is exacerbated in the ever-changing world of tech. ... "If you've been out of work for some time, either because you had prematurely retired and changed your mind or because you have had trouble getting back in the game after a layoff, it may have taken a toll on your confidence, making the job hunt more daunting. You're going to get dealt roadblocks in any career and you overcome them not by wallowing in self-pity but by looking at ways to keep yourself relevant. If you've got a lot of experience, you've got to find the organization that will benefit from that."
   

• The Experience Gap - When companies look for a manager, they should look for experience, right? Well, maybe not. ... “Conventional wisdom holds that as we do more things more often, we learn from experience and get better and better, and what we found in our research was that actually some of it may not be the case.”
   

• FREE CULTURE (FREE book download) - Professor Lawrence Lessig examines the diminishment of the larger public domain of ideas, and shows how short-sighted interests blind to the long-term damage they’re inflicting are poisoning the ecosystem that fosters innovation.
   

• The First 100 Days in a New CIO Position are Crucial for Success - CIOs face several challenges when they first start. There is a narrow window of time to get an assessment of what needs to be done in the early days, and stakeholders are impatient for visible signs of action from the new IT leadership.

• How to Identify Bad CIOs in Their Natural Habitat - Bad CIOs are a blight on the IT profession and on the organizations that employ them.
   

• Dealing with worst-case scenarios - "Imagine a natural disaster the likes of Hurricane Katrina or a terrorist attack on a major city wipes out business operations. In the mad dash to get back online as quickly as possible, security protocols and procedures take a back seat to regaining business continuity. And that's when a second catastrophe occurs: Information systems are vulnerable to attackers, who see an opportunity in the chaos as companies are forced to rely on backup operations (or even pen and paper)."
   

• IPv6 - What's in it for you

• China Builds a Better Internet (with IPv6) - Americans have been hogging Internet addresses for decades, leaving late-comers like China to divvy up the few remaining slivers. But China is fighting back by vaulting to an addressing standard that could rewrite the rules of the Internet—and business innovation—for decades to come.


 
• The Usability Paradox - How Much Progress Has There Been Since the 1950s and LEO (the world's first office computer)? ... Is the problem that IT is forever suffering from the poor return on investment that they suffered in the latter half of the last century? That it will forever be viewed as a cost center where only the minimum functionality is enough rather than a revenue-generating opportunity? Successful e-businesses understand that IT is the blood supply of their company and invest hugely in being able to deal with a world where customers exist in, travel to, and relocate around all corners of the globe and quality service must be provided 24 hours a day.
   
• Contract Sadness - "Too many CIOs cut enterprise software deals that look fabulous to the CEO and CFO but commit the people who do the real work to a nightmare of unrealistic expectations." ... [In this example] "The CIO, in cahoots with the CFO, has negotiated a contract that is all about cost savings and service-level agreements (SLAs) and completely disrespectful of what it takes - and what it means - to implement a working system enterprise-wide. The CIO has cheated and betrayed his people by committing his company to a contract that treats implementation as essentially irrelevant to how the system ultimately performs. That's unprofessional and contemptible. It's also shockingly common." ... "CIOs have an affirmative obligation to prevent IT contracts from becoming straitjackets for the people who have to implement the technology."



• How to Save the Internet
• Driven to distraction by technology - The typical office worker is interrupted every three minutes by a phone call, e-mail, instant message or other distraction. The problem is that it takes about eight uninterrupted minutes for our brains to get into a really creative state. ... humans just aren't that good at doing many things at once. ... there are only certain types of tasks that humans are good at doing simultaneously. Cooking and talking on the phone go together fine, as does walking and chewing gum (for most people). But try and do three math problems at once, and you are sure to have a problem. ... The paradox of modern life is that multitasking is, in most cases, counterproductive.
   
• Every Machine Needs an 'Off' Switch (read this article to find out why)
• Contrary Opinion: "The Internet Changes Nothing" - "What matters is that it doesn't fundamentally change a thing...no way, no how will it ever 'change everything' ..."
   
• How to Filter with Finesse - "With somewhere between 80 percent and 95 percent of all Internet messages now consisting of spam, phishing attacks and e-mail based worms, organizations have been forced to filter their incoming mail more aggressively than ever before. ... Ultimately digital signatures will prove necessary if we are going to keep spam from turning e-mail into a nonviable communication medium. ... Digitally signed mail probably represents our last, best chance for saving e-mail."
• Escaping email hell - "Outside of the sex trade, Viagra is probably not considered an essential daily ingredient for promoting workplace productivity. But that doesn't stop most of us having to sift through countless emails each day, offering us the virility miracle-drug at a low price or enticing us to receive large deposits in our bank accounts from former African despots. Email promised to make business faster, cheaper and more efficient. Yet increasingly Australian businesses and their employees are frustrated by the amount of time email and other "time-saving" technology is taking. ..."
   
• Next big thing: The Web as your servant - This coming wave doesn't even have a name yet. Some in tech call it the world network. A big part of the promise is that it will turn the Web around: Instead of having to find information or entertainment, it will find you — and be exactly what you want or need at that moment. The network becomes a butler. "This is the real Internet 2.0"
• What's Needed, Gartner Says, Is An Internet With Brains - the Internet, as it exists now, is a rudimentary tool that does not allow for the kind of instant, collaborative environment that will be hallmarks of a "smarter Internet." ... While today's Internet and Web services are distributed over disparate networks, the next generation Web will have intelligence embedded into every device that accesses it. ... This kind of technology, however, is still a dream. "We always say we live in the information age. But in fact we live in an information wanna-be situation. It will take a century or more to get to ubiquitous intelligence."
   
• The top five IT myths >> RFID is just a better bar code - Instant messaging: Not an enterprise technology - Open source is the anti-commercial community - SOA is the future - There is no 'next big thing'
   
• From fundamental to human, these are the factors that define The Limits of Technology ...
  • The laws of physics
  • The laws of software
  • The challenge of algorithms
  • The difficulty of distribution
  • The problems of design
  • The problems of functionality
  • The importance of organization
  • The impact of economics
  • The influence of politics
     
• The Basics of Customer Experience - "Basics sell. ... Most companies would rather have a large, general customer base than a small core of tech-happy users. It's time ... to focus on the basics."
• IBM Global CEO Study 2004 - Growth is back on the corporate agenda. Read why CEOs are turning from cost cutting to revenue growth.
   
• How to Capitalize on the Opportunities You're Missing - for many companies, marketing success is often a result of fortuitous accidents. ... "All you have to do to get different results is ask better questions."
• The Key to Innovation: Overcoming Resistance - "Simply put, good ideas are cheap; good implementations aren't. Experience teaches that aspiring IT innovators don't need better ideas that make more sense. They need better implementations that make - or save - more money. If organizations can boost their "return on innovation" by investing more in good implementations than in good ideas, then that's where their capital should go."
   
• Bonjour paresse : De l'art et la nécessité d'en faire le moins possible en entreprise
  • French author urges slacking
  • Hello Laziness - Vive la Loafing - a review of the above book in Slashdot
   
• RedMonk
  • Compliance Oriented Architecture - how Service Oriented Architectures can be applied to Compliance challenges.
• The Sarbox Conspiracy - "compliance efforts are eating up CIO time and budgets. Worse, CIOs are being relegated to a purely  tactical role. ... CIOs are getting left out of Sarbanes-Oxley efforts, and it’s a travesty."
• Regulatory Compliance - Peril and Promise
• Recipe for Good IT Governance - Companies with better than average IT governance earn at least a 20 percent higher return on assets than organizations with weaker governance.
   
• ITtoolbox's 2004 IT Spending Survey - and for comparison: ITtoolbox's 2003 IT Spending Survey
  You will find answers to questions such as:
  • Are companies increasing their IT budget allocations?
  • Which technologies are companies planning on implementing?
  • What strategies are utilized when making purchasing decisions?
     
• How much is Windows worth?
   
• Survey suggests new computers will drive up software costs - major changes in how computers are designed and used (such as multi-core processors and shared on-demand usage) are underway and few software makers are preparing for it. The fact that all four are happening at the same time is a recipe for software pricing mayhem.
   
• Re-negotiate software license deals now - Emerging trends in IT hardware could force software licensing costs up by more than 50 percent over the next year, unless businesses renegotiate existing contracts now. Gartner claims the move to multicore-chip architectures, virtualized hardware and utility computing threatens existing capacity-based, or CPU-based, licensing agreements offered by the major software vendors.
• Negotiation Dynamics
  • CLICK HERE to download ...  Negotiation: The Art of Getting what You Want 
  • Articles >> Managing the Sales Negotiation Process, Value Add Negotiating for Sales Professionals, The Power of 1% Negotiating,, Using Silence in a Negotiation, Authority Limits
     
• IBM extends lead in server market
• Big Blue: The future is now - IBM has effectively erased its epitaph as corporate dinosaur.
• Office, Beware -- Here Comes Workplace - IBM's new Web-based software package aims to let corporations use as much or as little of Microsoft's software as they want -- or none at all.
   
• Momentum favors Microsoft, and the snowball is growing - ComputerUser on the Dynamics of Monopoly: "This is not another Microsoft-bashing column, however. It's a reality check.  ... This is what we're in for with the Microsoft monopoly: an endless stream of expensive new products that taxes companies and their users to the breaking point. Are you ready for it?"
• Microsoft woos Asia in Asia - In Southeast Asia, the software giant is offering unprecedented bargain prices on its Windows operating system and Office suite.
• Microsoft: Can we check your software license? - Microsoft is trying to get to know its pirates a little better. The software maker has launched a pilot program in which some visitors to the main Windows download page are being asked to let the software maker check to see whether their copy of the operating system is licensed
   
• Sun Microsystems - A CEO's Last Stand
• Technology in Turmoil - "Microsoft and Sun face open source, Intel seems weakened, outsourcing threatens services players—these are just a few of the recent shifts in the firmament. ... Industry icons are under threat, market leaders are at risk, and the whole pantheon of tech greats seems to be under renovation."
• Users tire of Microsoft’s product lifecycle treadmill
   
• Six degrees of separation - "If everybody's address book was available on the web there'd be no place to hide." and "social networking sites may expose their users to a risk of guilt by association ... A person's name may innocently appear in the address book of a criminal under police investigation, putting that person at risk of being associated with criminals in police databases. That information is then available to other law enforcement agencies, such as customs, or even other countries, particularly the US. Each of us has zero control over that guilt-by-association factor in the case of social networking services because anybody can put any kind of data they like about us in any little black book."
   
• Where IT could go from here - "Recently, there have been a number of commentators speculating that the IT industry is finished, or at least has matured. They argue that the industry will have to get used to growth rates similar to that in other industries like utilities or cars. This, to be frank, is a load of garbage. ... The current consensus on information technology is wrong. It's far from mature or out of steam. Certainly, there will continue to be booms and busts as we're experiencing at the moment. Despite this, over the next couple of decades IT will remain one of the most exciting and opportunity-filled industries on Earth."
   
• Application quality and its business impact - a view from the top
• Mail Order - "Any way you look at it, e-mail is a fixture in our business lives - and increasingly the bane of many an organization's digital existence. However, within the pain there is promise: The tacit knowledge contained in e-mail, if recognized, shared and managed, can result in improved efficiency, higher productivity and increased revenues in practically any business function."
   
• 5 questions for your web development team - "When we purchase a car most of us aren't aware of the underlying technical issues. Double overhead camshafts, limited slip differential, inline 6 cylinder engine all mean little to most purchasers. But there are always a number of key issues to address. What's the mileage? How long is the warranty? How safe is it in an accident? How does the resale value hold up? Is there a new model due? ... You should ask the same sort of questions before you invest in a new or improved web site. You don't need to understand the minutiae of the technology - XHTML, CSS, SVG, PNG, ECMAScript may mean little to most of you - however these underlying technologies do have an impact on a number of key issues. ... It's your developers' job to build the site. But it is your job to understand enough that you make the right decisions about your investment. If you make the right choices it may be paying dividends several years down the track. Go down the wrong path and it may cost you a lot more than you think."
   
• How to revive the technology business - Paul Knapp, of Brainbox.com.au asks "What’s wrong with the technology business? That's the question of the moment, to which I think I have an answer." Also: Don't give up on it - just bring IT on
• Getting from Oranges To Apples - Seven Ways to Effect Change (Reason, Research, Resonance, Representational Redescriptions, Resources and Rewards, Real-World Events, Resistances.) Harvard professor Howard Gardner says it is possible to get others to see things differently; but it takes perseverance and finesse.
   
• China is rapidly growing into a technology juggernaut - "The technology dominance of China is inevitable." - China is rapidly growing into a technology juggernaut, says John Gage, Sun's chief researcher. What's driving this expansion — and what does it mean for the rest of the world?
   
• Why Moore's Law Matters to You - New technologies like grid computing promise that you'll reap the benefits of ever-shrinking transistors even faster.
• The New Face of the Silicon Age - How India became the capital of the computing revolution. ... This is a story about the global economy. It's about two countries and one profession - and how weirdly upside down the future has begun to look from opposite sides of the globe.
• China to overtake India in software soon - China is only 3-5 years behind India in software development, steadily closing the gap on the strength of better technology and learning from its competitors mistakes.
• The Future of Software - "A Land Where Giants Rule ... CIOs put their careers on the line in a desperate guessing game ... Innovation Dries Up ... Open-Source Slays Goliath"
• When PDAs become a Pretty Daunting Application - Want to know what your PDA really can do? Then be warned - buy it only from a specialist retailer.
• Microsoft readies XP-Lite to keep Linux out of Asia
• The $100 PC?  No Chance in Hell - "It's quite hypocritical of Microsoft to call for a $100 PC, when what we really need is $10 software. ... When the world sees a $100 PC, it will be running Linux, not Windows XP, just as the first ready-to-use $200 PC was running Linux."
   
• Skype - VoIP and Instant Messaging
(we use it and like it!)
• Download Skype - it's FREE, quickly installed, easy to use, and works very well
• Free phone calls over the Net - How Skype has raised the VoIP bar (a review)
• New invention, Skype, could turn telecom on its ear - "Some industry watchers think Skype or something like it could eviscerate all the world's phone companies. ... Skype is not a company in any 20th-century sense of the word. It's an entity that could only happen in this era of the Internet and globalization. ... Skype has barely any staff and has no real headquarters. It has no infrastructure whatsoever but is serving millions in 170 countries and could, with the same lack of infrastructure, scale that up to billions. ... the company's hard assets are little more than a Web site. It's a phone company with no network, no switches, no repair guys in trucks. The users, the users' computers and the public Internet do all the work. It costs almost nothing — one-tenth of a cent — for Skype to add a new customer. Skype is almost like running a cookie company by just sending out recipes."
   
• Feeding frenzy - a simply better way of getting news, Really Simple Syndication (or RSS) promises a new challenge to the browser, and perhaps even the television. ... "The browser is definitely not dead, but subscribing to RSS feeds makes getting information online more relaxing and more suited for monitoring tasks, because you don't have to remember all the places to check and because you don't have to expend the energy to explicitly go to all these places".
   
• Marketing means solving customers’ problems profitably
• Bill Gates describes how Weblogs could be used a tool for business to communicate with customers
• Bridging the Chasm Between IT and Marketing
• The Art of Making Offers That Get Accepted and Great Service - The Key to Sustainable Differentiation
• Experiencing Value - Customer satisfaction has little to do with loyalty. What they are looking for first and foremost is value—not the monetary kind of value, but value that impacts a person’s life.

• INS webinar - Justifying the Business Value of New IT Investments

• The CIO Web Transaction Diet - "How many Web pages can you serve for one cent?"
   

• 'Stolen' parts make for a better intranet - the Department of Victorian Communities has won a place in the Nielsen Norman Group's list of the 10 best government intranets. ... "Keep your aims realistic. Work to a tight timeline. Use what's already built. And talk to the users all the way through. ... Many intranets try to develop into knowledge management systems. But, as management expert Peter Drucker puts it, you can't manage knowledge, because it's inside people's heads. ... It is better to let people get in touch with each other."
   
• Firing Line - A poorly handled employee termination can create a slew of security risks.
• Fads, Fancies and Expensive Bungles - The “expensive bungles” that still occur with computer systems are an embarrassment to the computing profession and managers of IT installations.

 
• IT is the Engine That Drives Success - The best companies have the best business models because they have the best IT strategies.
• Cross the line and IT is a winner - Has IT turned into a commodity? Should it be managed simply to minimise risk?
• How to Run IT Like a Business
• Small Business Lessons for Big Business
   
• What's the Business Case for New Technologies? - For the best payoff, get the business side involved in both testing and deploying — and measure the business value after the technology is up and running.
• Build an airtight business case for new IT investments - the Microsoft Rapid Economic Justification (REJ) Guide can help you sell senior management on the enterprise technology projects you want to pursue.
   
• The Tactics of Strategy - "It’s hard to have a long-term strategic view when you’re up to your armpits in problem solving. But that’s the difference between a CIO and a CTO."
• Long Bets - "Accountable predictions"
• Welcome to the Feelings Economy - Fundamental shifts in commerce and consumer psychology have permanently changed the competitive landscape for years to come.
• Ten Common Server Consolidation Mistakes — and How to Avoid Them
• The Top 10 Rules for Building the Ideal IT Organization



• White House National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace
  • Improviing Security Across the Software Development Life Cycle - "At its core, the value of software is derived not only from its ability to increase productivity and efficiencies, but also from its resiliency to attack and always performing at needed levels during times of both crisis and normal operations. This task force’s central thrust is towards establishing a world with robust software security, where users continue to benefit from software innovations. This is not an easy challenge and will take the persistent,combined efforts of industry, academia, government and others to make long-term progress."
     
• Attack jams spy cameras - "An electronic invisibility cloak generated by nothing more than an off-the-shelf PDA would allow intruders to elude wireless security cameras using vulnerabilities in the most common wireless technologies. ... The vulnerability is "trivial" to exploit and only took 30 minutes to master. ... It just uses off-the-shelf hardware and you don't need to write specific software, you just need to know the correct commands to use with the software that's supplied. On a difficulty rating of one to 10, it's probably a two. ... Any organisation that continues to use the standard wireless technology, 802.11b, to operate critical infrastructure could be considered negligent. ... A defence is yet to be found."
• Critical wireless flaw identified - "Could lead to the breakdown of some critical infrastructures in just five seconds."

 
• Crypto researchers abuzz over flaws (August 17, 2004) - Encryption circles are buzzing with news that mathematical functions embedded in common security applications have previously unknown weaknesses.

 
• Internet Explorer Is Too Dangerous to Keep Using (opinion
  and US-CERT warns against use of Internet Explorer
  and How to Replace Internet Explorer - Which alternative browser do you use, and how do you migrate users?
• Are the Browser Wars Back? - Mozilla's Firefox trumps Internet Explorer
• Web Browser Wars, Second Edition - Competition between Web browsers is now heating up again. This article looks at that competition from an engineering perspective.

 
• Unpatched PCs compromised in 20 minutes - an unpatched Windows PC connected to the Internet will last for only about 20 minutes before it's compromised by malware, on average (down from around 40 minutes in 2003).
• Security professional says Windows easier to 'own' - Microsoft has been waiting for security researchers to say that its Windows operating system has a lower total cost of ownership. One finally has, but that's not good news. ... He claims that  "owning" a computer -- hacker-speak for compromising a system -- is easier if the target computer runs Windows.
• The threat of Browser Helper Objects - BHO attacks are intended to steal user account access information through the use of a keystroke logger. The logger will completely bypass the “locked” security designation for which users have long been trained to watch.
• The Password Is: Chocolate - a survey to be presented at Infosecurity Europe found that 71% of office workers polled were willing to reveal their passwords for the price of a chocolate bar. The survey also found the majority of workers would take confidential information with them when they change jobs and would not keep salary details confidential if they came across the details.
• Teaching Users How to Spot Fraudulent EMail
   
• Privacy exposed  - "An increasing number of private or secret documents are being kept online in out-of-the-way corners of computers around the world, leaving governments, individuals and companies vulnerable to security breaches. ... For many reasons - improperly configured servers, holes in security systems and human error - a wide assortment of material not intended for public viewing is publicly available. Once Google or another search engine finds it, it is nearly impossible to draw back into secrecy."
• Nowhere To Hide - "Your information is out there. And thanks to database technology that has become ever more pervasive, it can be aggregated and collated and turned into a startlingly comprehensive dossier on you in the blink of an eye. Okay, so maybe you should be a little worried. ... One thing you should not be is surprised."
• U.N. Aims to Bring Spam 'Epidemic' to End - The United Nations is aiming to bring a "modern day epidemic" of junk e-mail under control within two years by standardizing legislation to make it easier to prosecute offenders. Is prosecution an effective means of dealing with spammers?
• SpamArrest is itself Spamming
• The Australian Spam Act in Profile (Part 1) - looks at the Australian Spam Act, which came into force in April of 2004 ... how the Act is structured and how it's already making significant progress in the ongoing battle against spam.
• Network pro says only a risk management policy will reduce security threat - A senior consultant with the biggest private US computer security firm says there is no use in keeping one's anti-virus software up-to-date to guard against attacks unless one has a risk management policy in place. "To me this looks like a negative feedback loop. Spend more. Get less. It suggests that there is something fundamentally wrong with our actions - with our thinking. We are reactive. We are doing what the other guy does. We fix 'problems' that don't exist and completely miss out on the relatively easy fixes for the real and big problems. We focus on vulnerabilities, patches and paperwork instead of pragmatic, holistic, risk management."
• The 10 Immutable Laws of Security Administration (Microsoft)
   
• Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) - an industry association focused on eliminating the identity theft and fraud that result from the growing problem of phishing, social engineering and email spoofing.
  • Phishing archive - examples of phishing attacks
  • Anti-phishing resources
  • Phishing Attack Trends - report for May 2004
• The new face of Cybercrime - "Whereas hacker vandals once coveted bragging rights, professional hackers have profit in mind. What's more, they are considerably more determined and have better resources than vandals. A new approach is necessary, and we must unlearn some of the lessons drawn from hacker vandalism."
• Fighting Phish, Fakes and Frauds - Companies on the front lines of the phishing wars share tactics for making their sites spoof-proof and protecting online transactions.
• Credit cards and the internet - "Have you ever used Google to search for your own credit card number? It can be a very enlightening experience. ..."
• Newest Phishing Scam Employs Legitimate Web Sites
• MasterCard, Others Unwittingly Help Phishers - Leading financial institutions have adopted a more aggressive attitude toward online identity theft cons known as "phishing scams" in recent months. But companies, including MasterCard International, may be unwittingly helping phishers trick online shoppers
• Phishing Fall-Out - As phony e-mail scams increase, targeted organizations (including some of the world's biggest banks and credit companies) worry that consumers will lose faith in doing business online
• Gone phishing - It used to be that enterprises only had to worry about their own security, but as fraudsters get more and more sophisticated, the security of the end user – the customer – has never been so important. ... "Criminals are starting to mix things like hacking techniques and keyboard loggers with financial fraud and spamming. We’ve got a fairly interesting mix that I don’t think we’ve seen before.”
   
• e-Security Guide for Small Business (Microsoft)
• 4 out of 5 Company execs admit IT idiocy - Most of the world's top executives now consider security the single most important issue for their corporate networks. While at the same time nearly four in five admit they open email attachments from strangers.
• Employees are lazy, slipshod rabble - Office workers typically don't backup their desktop computers. Worse, many businesses don't have desktop backup routines either ... huge amounts of data are at risk of destruction-causing mayhem. Also they are ignorant about how to detect viral e-mail attachments and are not motivated to find them.
• Keep your PC safe - Learn to wield your firewall, anti-virus and anti-spyware tools expertly.
  
  
• Toward a Global "Internet of Things" - The EPC (Electronic Product Code) network, using tiny RFID (Radio Frequency ID) tags, will enable computers to automatically recognize and identify everyday objects, and then track, trace, monitor, trigger events, and perform actions on those objects. The technology will effectively create an "Internet of things." RFID will fundamentally impact the industries of manufacturing, retail, transportation, health care, life sciences, pharmaceuticals, and government, offering an unprecedented real-time view of assets and inventories throughout the global supply chain. And in the process, whole new vistas (and challenges) will open up to software developers.
• Technology to change our lives again from 2006
   
• Netscape Co-Founder Marc Andreessen's 12 Reasons for Growth of Open Source
• Is Open Source bad for you? Doctor Reports Open-Source Software Health Risks - According to his study, "The rising use of OSS is the most significant health issue in the world. My research shows that the risks from OSS are higher than the risks of all other diseases combined." He concludes that each OSS component is a potential health risk and that when users combine OSS components, they greatly compound both the seriousness and the complexity of their potential illnesses.
• CIO Says Open Source Is Too Risky - while open-source software can deliver a low-cost business solution quickly, it was labelled too risky for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s new content management system ... would have been a "high-risk strategy" because of the amount of development work required.
• There's so much more to open source software than just Linux - "There is still a perception in many quarters that open source software is nerdy, techy stuff with plenty of rough edges. That is often the case but it is not always so. There is also a perception that it is immature software that is not ready for serious mission-critical applications. That is also not always the case." ... "Open source software is not the same as free software. It is not for everyone. It requires a certain level of technical expertise but there are many advantages. Your vendor cannot hold you hostage, and the software is much cheaper. But to use it in production you need support services, just as you do with any other piece of software."
• Victoria IT leaders deem open source laws unnecessary- The Victorian government's newly appointed chief technical officer Tony Aitkenhead is standing firm and refusing to buckle to demands from industry body Open Source Victoria (OSV) to adopt ACT-style open source procurement legislation. ... "Open source is not excluded and each business area makes its own decision. ... The amount that could be saved by open source is definitely on the lower end of IT budgets. During procurement, any sensible person would look at all technologies, including open source, so it doesn’t need to be mandated.”
• ComPiere (an open source ERP and CRM solution) - "Open Source Solutions are advantageous if you have the skills required to maintain the application in house. When problems occur, you need to be able to tolerate downtime until a solution can be found. Sure, you’ll get some help from the community, but you need to be able to maintain the system in house for maximum efficiency."
   
• Technicians 5, Managers 0 - "What we have is a small family of languages that in most respects owe their origin to C - called the world’s first write only language (since no one can read it). Java, C++, and C# do pretty similar things and they are all equally obtuse, terse, and not the least bit representative of the jobs they often [called upon to] do. ... That organisations around the globe are employing technical staff that use languages such as C++ and Java is a triumph of technology smoke and mirrors over a common sense need to have programming languages that mere mortals can read and understand."
   
• Internet Explorer Bug Lets Fake Sites Look Real - via URL spoofing - December 2003 - "Successful exploitation allows a malicious person to display an arbitrary FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name) in the address and status bars, which is different from the actual location of the page. This can be exploited to trick users into divulging sensitive information or download and execute malware on their systems, because they trust the faked domain in the two bars."
  • Test to see if your browser is vulnerable
  • Article - IE bug lets fake sites look real - "Microsoft did not set a timetable for its investigation, but said it may eventually release a patch to address the problem. Meanwhile, the company recommended that people follow basic security procedures, including the use of firewalls, software updates and antivirus software. Microsoft faulted security mavens for publicizing the flaw, implying that they hadn't given Microsoft sufficient time to craft a patch."
   
• Net visionary urges e-mail ID standard - Making mass e-mailers identifiable is the first step toward curing the epidemic of spam, said Vint Cerf, one of the architects of the Internet.
• Spam's tenth birthday
• SMTP authentication. currently being driven for spam prevention, is also a cure for modern SMTP-based e-mail worms
• New Anti-spam Initiative Gaining Traction - Sender Policy Framework (SPF)
• Who Will Win the SMTP Authentication Wars?
• Operation Secure Your Server - Did you know that the settings on your servers may make it easier for spammers to send more junk email? This Web page has information about the efforts of an international government partnership to let individuals and organizations know that their mail servers or proxy servers can be abused by spammers. "Open proxies" and "open relays" (also known as "spam relays") allow unauthorized people to route their spam through your server. These unsecured servers are in all sorts of organizations  all over the globe.
• Can E-Mail Survive? - Facing increasing threats from spam, viruses, and outdated protocols, e-mail is crumbling under its own weight. Here are products and techniques you need to know to survive in today's e-mail environment.
• Spam Solution: Make the Spammers Pay - shift costs from recipients to spammers!
• Selling interrupt rights: A way to control unwanted e-mail and telephone calls
• Fast Plan to Can Spam - The ASRG (Anti-Spam Research Group)  is developing technologies to allow e-mail administrators and end-users to avoid unwanted e-mail, which would include spam, newsletters once subscribed to but now no longer desired, and all other forms of e-mail that the users don't want to receive.
• The IIA National Spam Initiative aims to empower all Australians on the internet, from corporate employees right through to home users, to better control the spam problem.
• Can Private E-Mail Communities Keep Out the Spam?
• Companies Divided Over Message Archiving - For litigation and regulatory purposes, the ability to access old e-mail and IM message content is becoming critical. However, not all enterprises are prepared.
• Preventive Steps for Securing the Corporate Network - The Yankee Group offers six recommendations for enterprises to improve intrusion detection.
• OWASP - Open Web Application Security Project
  • The 2004 Top 10 Most Critical Web App Security Flaws (a review)
  • The 2004 Top 10 Most Critical Web App Security Flaws (original PDF)
• Do you have protection?
• The anti-virus industry scam - The "cure" provided by anti-virus companies is worse than the problem which its products allegedly treat
• Email deluge a peril of the paperless office
• See more below: SPAM, SCAMS & E-MAIL MANAGEMENT
• Internet Attackers on Phishing Expeditions - the type of Internet scam in which a user is tricked into giving up personal information (like bank account or credit card information) - also known as "carding".
  • Wordspy's definition of Phishing
     
• Seven Deadly Sins of Web Writing - What’s the single most important thing that could improve the Web? It’s not broadband. It’s better writing.
• Choose your words carefully - The words you use make a big difference on the Internet. Carefully chosen, they can keep a customer happy. Sloppily chosen, they can infuriate.
• A Matter of Trust - What Users Want From Web Sites (a report on consumer concerns about credibility of Web sites) - "Based on responses from a telephone survey of 1,500 U.S. Internet users, less than one third (29%) say they trust Web sites that sell products or services. And just 33 percent say they trust Web sites that provide advice about such purchases or services. That's surprisingly low when compared to the 58 percent who say they trust newspapers and television news and the 47 percent who say they trust the federal government in Washington."
   
• Rage against the machine - including the Top 5 ways to beat computer rage
• Lies, Damned Lies and Requirements - "Unfortunately, most CIOs today confront clients and colleagues who have allowed the perverse economics of requirements to create unrealistic expectations and dysfunctional business behaviours. Requirements should be a means to an end, not the end itself."
   
• Symantec CEO Warns of Drop in Internet Use - "If software vendors and security companies don't get their act together and start producing better products, users will begin dropping off the Internet out of sheer frustration."
• The future of Broadband in Australia and the impact of the Telco Broadband price war - Inflexible pricing plans and the lack of compelling content are slowing the mass market penetration of Broadband Internet Services in Australia.
• Government neglect blamed for broadband lag (Australia)
• Australia's broadband shame - To understand what catchphrases like the "internet economy" and "information age" really mean, one needs to look at the South Korean experience.
   
• White paper - Communication, Collaboration and Technology: Back to the Future - "It's time for a back-to-basics assessment of the goals, challenges and opportunities in the application of technology to communication and collaboration." (Ray Ozzie, CEO of Groove Networks Inc. and creator of Lotus Notes)
• Your Web Site is Useless and Invisible - The wireless handheld Web is finally arriving for the masses. Hundreds of thousands of your Web site visitors are increasingly unable to use or even see your Web site.
• Macs vs. PCs - "A lot has happened during the past 18 years. The Cold War ended, mobile phones appeared, Different Strokes went off the air and Lara Croft became a sex symbol. Yet during this time the battle over which are better, PCs or Macs, continued to rage."
• A decade on and how the mighty have fallen - "IBM is having trouble growing. Its revenues topped out at $US87.5 billion four years ago and have declined every year since. It remains the most broadly based supplier and has been the most successful in moving into services in recent years. But its absolute and relative decline means it is now just another vendor, unable to set the agenda like it once did. Every year sees it occupy a smaller and smaller proportion of the total IT industry."

     "Much ado about .NET thing"

• Clash of the .Net, J2EE Clans? - A report in September 2004 found .NET has gained majority status in the enterprise world, if only by a slight margin. ... .NET is the preferred platform in five of seven industries (public sector; business services; media, entertainment and leisure; retail and wholesale trade; and manufacturing), while J2EE is favored by the utilities/telecom and finance/insurance industries. ... Firms with higher IT budgets are more likely to go with J2EE, while smaller firms and companies facing rough economic times are likely to choose .NET ... A number of factors help .NET's popularity, notably the dominance of the Windows operating system and the novice-friendly programming languages like Visual Basic and C# that are used on the platform. ... BUT ... Java proponents don't see .NET maintaining its popularity edge much longer, especially with the advent of J2EE 5.0 (previously named J2EE 1.5). With J2EE 5.0, an extension of the September 2004 release of J2SE 5.0, the Java community is making it easier for less-experienced developers to create applications.
   
• J2EE Plus .NET Is Greater Than J2EE Versus .NET - "A heated debate [has] raged over the benefits of two competing technologies: .NET versus J2EE. Microsoft advocates affirmed that .NET was superior and likewise Java enthusiasts asserted similar observations about J2EE. As it turns out, both camps were at least partially correct. ... The progression has been interesting to watch: both technologies have carved out niches on either side of the corporate firewall. For example, the large enterprise software makers - especially the major ERP vendors such as Oracle, PeopleSoft, and SAP - have developed business software applications almost exclusively based on J2EE. However, a quick glimpse behind the firewall shows that application customers are selecting .NET as the internal development tool of choice."
   
• New Internal IBM Report Says "Another Flawed Study" - IBM Response to Study "Comparing Microsoft .NET and IBM WebSphere/J2EE?" ... The latest Middleware Company study is flawed and does not accurately reflect the capability of WebSphere J2EE vs. Microsoft .NET. Like two previous discredited Middleware Company studies, this study was funded by Microsoft. While expert Microsoft programmers were allowed to contribute to the .NET side, neither IBM nor other WebSphere J2EE product experts were invited to contribute to the testing.
   
• J2EE in Jeopardy - Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition, or J2EE, is a standard with an uncertain future, according to some analysts who are preparing a presentation that suggests market forces, including commoditization, open source alternatives, and new disruptive technologies, are conspiring to change the landscape of the J2EE specification and its market. ... "Customers need to be wary of whom they ask to provide their J2EE stack and they should also consider some of the alternative frameworks." ... Companies like JBoss, Apache Geronimo and Object Web's Jonas are commoditizing the standard and other projects like Spring, Hibernate and Apache Tomcat are providing a "simpler and good enough" model. ... and ".NET is a big threat. It is not a good enough platform. It is just as good." ... Making Java open source on some level, as IBM and BEA have called for, does make sense, however, to keep the open source and Java communities aligned. They need to form a viable, long-term alternative to .NET development."
   
• J2EE or .NET - Pick one and stick to it - Forrester Research's core recommendation is to "focus on one as strategic because of the broad number of investments you're making in a strategic platform. ... If you're in a situation where there's a good business reason to have both -- and sometimes there is -- then make sure you go in with your eyes open ... Make a conscious business choice to have both. ... Those platform investments go beyond the technology. Staff has to understand how to remediate problems, manage patches and software upgrades and integrate management tools. On the development side, programming skills, best practices and tool investments are mandatory as well. Companies tied to both platforms that want to construct a portal, for example, have to do everything twice essentially, in addition to any add-on products necessary to a business process. ... If you have to do it twice, it's just that much more expensive. ... All of these complexities add up, so our recommendation is to go down one side or the other."
• The Great Migration - The rocky road to J2EE and .NET- "While industry debate about the relative merits of J2EE versus .Net has at times taken on the tenor of a holy war, the argument over which technology will triumph is largely moot. The .Net developer strategy is remarkably similar to Sun's Java strategy in many ways. Each has merits, and their common goal is a laudable one. There's no real reason why either platform should emerge as the sole victor; in fact, many organizations will ultimately use both."
• Has .NET desktop development exploded? - While Java on the client has been slowly picking up, have there been more .NET applications out there?
   
• Microsoft is programming the programmers (becoming tied to the .NET Framework)

• November 2003 ... MS shifts from .NET and Web Services focus

• Microsoft re-explains .NET strategy

• .NET name ties Microsoft in knots

• MICROSOFT WRITES >> Building XML Web Services in Microsoft .NET vs. IBM WebSphere 4.0
  IBM RESPONDS >> Building Web Services the Right Way Using IBM WebSphere Studio
  THEN MICROSOFT WRITES BACK >> IBM's response contains many errors and inaccuracies
  Java Developers Journal observes >> Interview with IBM and also Read this

• Creator of .NET Pet Shop defends implementation

• Java leads, but .NET is gaining fast (September 2002)
• New Survey Shows Java Use Increasing - But .NET Still a Threat (October, 2002) - Evans Data Corporation's North American Developer Survey series, 40 percent of developers are developing apps for Microsoft .NET now but 63 percent will target .NET a year from now. Yet while 51 percent are developing for the Java architecture today, 61 percent expect to write for Java next year.
• "Microsoft Can Outspend Sun Tenfold & On Anything" Says Father of Java - September 27, 2002) - James Gosling concedes in a press interview this week that the sheer profitability of archrival Microsoft Corporation gives them a 10-to-1 spending advantage.
• Benchmark Bust-Up in Javaland - Recent report on J2EE vs .NET relies on "highly flawed methodology" says J2EE titan BEA. >> The Middleware Company Responds >> BUST-UP TAKES NEW TWIST - The Middleware Company Is Prepared to Re-Run J2EE vs .NET Performance Benchmarking Tests, Says CEO

• Java’s dad buckets .Net - James Gosling said the Common Language Run-Time (CLR) has fatal flaws, including a problematic memory model and unsafe access facility, that will have implications for the security and reliability of .Net applications.

• Job site captures cost savings and stronger efficiencies with .NET
• 101 Reasons Why Java Is Better Than .NET ???
• Both Java *AND* .NET Will Continue to Dominate Middleware, Says Grady Booch
• No Touch Deployment with .NET - The next big movement in development?

• Skipping Dot Net >> About Skipping Dot Net|
  "Open Source / Free Software is better, more powerful, more reliable, and more usable than you think. And using it is the right thing to do.

  It is a near-term and long-term mistake for your business to choose closed, proprietary entries in commoditized areas like operating systems, database servers, application servers, office suites, graphics tools, programming languages, or email and instant messaging clients and servers. These and more are all already freely available, free in terms of both finances and liberty.

  None of these commodities are the things that give your business any competitive advantage: it is what you do with them, what you build on those foundations, that counts. What matters is the knowledge and skill of you and your staff. That forms your custom business processes, which can then be automated, distilled into custom software that lets you build long-term business advantage."

• Microsoft says .NET usage passes Java
   

• Can't J2EE and .NET just be friends? - In the long term, the choice of whether to pick J2EE or .NET remains highly subjective to the requirements of each individual environment. For most companies, it's not even an either-or choice: Gartner recently reported that "more than 90 percent of medium to large organisations that develop applications for their own projects will most likely use a mixture of both Microsoft and Java technologies through 2005."
   

• Exposing J2EE Urban Myths - "It has become fairly common these days when looking through blogs and various opinion pieces to hear a common cry: J2EE is a terrible, unwieldy, and cumbersome specification. ... many of these complaints are misguided, spread through rumor mongering and anecdotal stories with little to no effort made to validate them or place them in context."
   

• .NET Executive Guide -  ".NET is Microsoft's vision for computing ...  .NET promises to use common Internet protocols to seamlessly interconnect devices, data and applications. Heavily reliant on XML, .NET is designed to allow users to access applications and data wherever they may be on whatever device is most convenient. oday, what's of use in .NET is mostly aimed at Microsoft's legion of developers. ... But today, to most companies .NET means using XML and SOAP to let diverse and even proprietary systems talk to one another and share data -- a goal that by no means defines just .NET. After all, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Novell and Sun are among other vendors using the same standards for their own strategies similar to .NET."