News (599)

Sun remains silent on ANZ staff cuts

Sun Microsystems, which recently announced it was shedding up to 6,000 jobs globally, is still unsure if or how its 640 staff based in Australia and New Zealand will be affected, according to the company's managing director. Read more »

Ballmer tells Oz: get with the broadband

Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer yesterday tip-toed around Australia's broadband debate but said that if the country was to engage in cloud computing business that telcos and the government needed to 'get on with' delivering high speed broadband — at a fair price. Read more »

Ballmer dismisses Google Android

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer today dismissed Google's Android operating system, saying he believed it was financially unsound. Read more »

Developers want Ballmer to show money

Australian developers have asked Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer what the company will do to address a Microsoft coding landscape that hasn't offered financial rewards like those available to iPhone and Facebook developers. Read more »

Steve Ballmer: Live on Builder AU

Don't miss Builder AU's exclusive live broadcast of a landmark Sydney speech by Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer on 6 November at 3:30pm, AEST. Read more »

NSW to censor student laptops

The NSW Department of Education and Training (DET) plans to limit internet access on the laptops given to NSW's senior students under the "digital education revolution" to a pre-approved list of websites. Read more »

Linux.conf.au hits domain disaster

The website of Australia's annual Linux conference has become temporarily inaccessible scant months before the event because of policy confusion over whether or not it is allowed to use its long-standing domain name. Read more »

MS piracy squad targets Aussie retailers

As part of Microsoft's attempt to stop software piracy, it has named several Australian individuals partaking in "the sophisticated, illegal trade of pirated and counterfeit software". Read more »

Ballmer: It's OK to wait for Windows 7

Some companies are planning to skip Windows Vista, and that's OK, according to Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer. Read more »

Red Hat: Crisis to boost open source

The global economic crisis would provide a boost for open source software, Red Hat chief executive Jim Whitehurst claimed during a visit to Sydney this week. Read more »

Features (229)

The 7 most important communication skills an IT leader should have

Everyone wants to tell IT pros that they need to develop people skills, but no one really tells what those skills are. Here are the most important skills an IT leader should have and how to develop them. Read more »

Why AOL wants developers to put passion over profit

Edwin Aoki, technology fellow at AOL, speaks about the impact web applications have had in the enterprise and what trends are emerging. Read more »

Build an AIR application for your website

Adobe AIR brings web technologies to the desktop through the integration of the Webkit rendering engine in a Flash-style desktop-based runtime. AIR applications running on HTML, CSS and Javascript can interact with the local file system, manipulate local SQL databases and even use AJAX on any domain. Read more »

Avoid problems when redirecting via drop-down lists

One of the most important skills a developer needs is the ability to debug and fix problematic code whether it is their own or another developer's handiwork. This article shows how to solve a problem involving redirection and drop-down lists. Read more »

10 ways the credit crunch will hit IT

As job losses mount and with HP announcing it will lay off tens of thousands of workers following its purchase of EDS, we look at what the crunch means for the IT industry. Read more »

UML needs fixing claims founder

One of the creators of the Unified Modeling Language, Ivar Jacobson, claims the technology has become too big and needs to be simplified. Read more »

Why Chrome will win and why it will lose

Google dipped its mighty toe into the increasingly crowded world of internet browsers today with the announcement of Chrome. We spoke to industry experts and Google's new rivals to find out why Chrome matters and whether the browser reality can deliver on the hype. Read more »

Ivar Jacobson: Developers are too fashionable

One of the fathers of software development processes says the industry is too fashionable, needs to stop re-inventing the wheel, and focus on being more creative. Read more »

Aussie IT unions rise from the dead

Australia's creaky technology unions have finally awoken from their long slumber and have started to throw their weight around. Read more »

Technology saturation affects developers and organisations

Juval Lowy, a member of Microsoft's internal design review team for .NET, has said that there is no doubt that the average developer and average organisation are completely saturated by an avalanche of technologies. Read more »

Video (13)

Chasing Ballmer in Sydney

ZDNet.com.au chases Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer around Sydney during his recent visit Down Under. Read more »

Unveiled: IBM workers' strike demands

Australian Services Union branch secretary Sally McManus tells ZDNet.com.au what IBM workers want out of the pending strike. Read more »

Fusing a Fibre Cable

At Pipe Networks' landing station tour last week, the company showed ZDNet.com.au how to fuse two pieces of cable together. Read more »

AusCERT 2008: Behind the scenes

ZDNet.com.au's Matt Oxley takes you behind the scenes at Australia's largest security conference. Find out why Microsoft's head of product security was afraid of being arrested, watch delegates swing at sheep on the driving range and discover who thinks security is like being chased by a bear — or is it a dog? Read more »

NICTA shows off 5Gbps wireless chip at CeBIT

NICTA gave ZDNet.com.au a close look at its 5Gbps wireless chip at CeBIT Australia 2008. Read more »

It's not lovely code, it's an ugly monkey

At the AusCERT 2008 conference in the Gold Coast, ex-NSA staffer Brian Snow, told ZDNet.com.au that software can be secure -- but only if vendors overhaul their development processes. Read more »

Vista Needs Marketing -- Club Builder

Club Builder this week takes a look at Microsoft, Yahoo and Vista needing more marketing to sell more copies of it. We also look at Rusty Pong, a Wiimote based projector game seen at linux.conf.au's 2008 Open Day. Read more »

Torvalds: Stick to C for kernel coding

  Read more »

Linux is ready to go green: Linus Torvalds

The infrastructure and tools required to make Linux a green operating system are now in place, according to Linus Torvalds, who was in Melbourne attending Linux.conf.au -- Australia's largest Linux conference. Read more »

Europe probes again -- Club Builder

Europe takes another look at Microsoft with new anti-trust claims while we look back at the OLPC at linux.conf.au 2007. Read more »

Blog (109)

Theora, Firefox reach milestones

Chris Duckett [blogs:betaliving] -- Milestones were reached with two open sources projects: Theora has hit version 1.0 and Firefox reaches 20% global marketshare. Read more »

StartupCamp Melbourne: The review

[blogs:bootstrappr] -- StartupCamp Melbourne looks to have produced just as interesting ideas as the Sydney event which immediately preceded it, but the Victorian start-ups appear to have stumbled during execution. Sydney 1, Melbourne 0. Read more »

.NET looks to REST

Chris Duckett [blogs:betaliving] -- With news that REST will play a big part in the next version of the .NET Framework, it is timely to take a look at ADO.NET. Read more »

Spellr.us needs a new dictionary

[blogs:bootstrappr] -- One of the only Australian start-ups to present at the recent round of conferences in the US was Sydney-based spellr.us, which has launched a Web-based tool to check and monitor websites for spelling mistakes. Read more »

Plugger.com.au gets Wotif backer

[blogs:bootstrappr] -- Australian business news aggregator Plugger.com.au will re-brand as 'Wotnews.com.au' following a licensing and investment deal with high-profile Wotif.com founder and local multi-millionaire Graeme Wood. Read more »

Omnidrive website vanishes

[blogs:bootstrappr] -- Questions are being raised this morning about whether high-profile Australian Web 2.0 start-up Omnidrive has closed its doors, with the company's site being replaced by what appears to be some form of newsletter service offering financial rewards. Read more »

Ubuntu gets jaunty

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- This week's Roundup looks at Ubuntu's new Jaunty Jackalope, new rules of virtualisation, the world of browsers and more. Read more »

StartupCamp comes to Melbourne

[blogs:bootstrappr] -- In early October, Melbourne will get its own version of the StartupCamp project that saw three new technology start-ups launched last weekend. Read more »

Developer creates Mac UI for Java apps

Brendon Chase [blogs:codemonkeybusiness] -- Java developers may soon be able to get their apps looking less ugly and more Mac-like if a promising new project continues. Read more »

Startup Camp Sydney: The review

[blogs:bootstrappr] -- Three new Australian technology start-ups, uTag, TrafficHawk.com.au and LinkViz, were conceived and launched over the weekend in a lightning initiative dubbed "Startup Camp Sydney". Read more »

Others (6)

Gallery: Jamming it with Web 2.0

"So what is WebJam?" the girl at the bar serving my mate and I a beer asked. She's thinking that maybe there's something to do with music happening tonight, but it's nothing like that. Read more »

LCA Open Day

Yesterday was show and tell day for linux.conf.au with a pavilion full of gadgets, toys and cool stuff Read more »

Mini-Confs Day 2

Mini-conferences continued to be the order of the day at Linux Conference Australia 2007. Read more »

Mini-Confs Day 1

Linux.conf.au kicked off today with a series of mini conferences covering a range of topics Read more »

Sneak peek at Tech.Ed 06

In this picture gallery we take a look behind the scenes at Tech.Ed 06. Read more »

Is your desk a disaster? Show us and win!

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  • Staff Crying, mooning and leaving

    In this week's roundup we see that continuous whining can get results, Linux users get 64-bit Flash and Moonlight previews, the latest in the Yahoo/Microsoft relationship and Senator Conroy ducks and weave in Senate Question Time. Read more »

    -- posted by Staff

  • Brendon Chase Sun eye Web developers with Netbeans 6.5

    Despite the recent employment axe hitting Sun the company has pushed out a new release of its Netbeans open source IDE with an eye to appeal more to Web developers. Read more »

    -- posted by Brendon Chase

  • Renai LeMay BarCamp buzz: Let the hacking continue

    Attending last weekend's BarCamp in Sydney, it was hard to escape the conclusion that a certain "dot-com bust" flavour had seeped into the kool aid previously being drunk by Australia's web 2.0 and early stage start-up sector. Read more »

    -- posted by Renai LeMay

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