News (113)

Yahoo to chop at least 1,400 jobs

Yahoo yesterday in the US reported a 64 per cent drop in net income for the third quarter, issued cautions about a weakening advertising market, and confirmed that layoffs were indeed on the way. Read more »

NASA hacker loses second appeal

The man accused by the US government of accessing more than 73,000 US military machines has lost his second appeal to the UK Home Office against extradition. Read more »

Strike cloud clears at IBM Australia

The chance of industrial action at IBM's Baulkham Hills, Sydney facility has dropped dramatically after a workers' meeting last night broadly accepted the direction that union negotiations with Big Blue had taken. Read more »

IBM and unions still talking

Negotiations between IBM and workers at the company's Sydney facility at Baulkham Hills were ongoing, a representative from the Australian Services Union said today. Read more »

IBM workers not happy with offer

Workers at IBM's Baulkham Hills, Sydney facility were not happy with the offer IBM presented them yesterday, and have sent representatives back to negotiate, according to the Australian Services Union (ASU). Read more »

IBM's Baulkham Hills deal due today

IBM is set to hand a new employment offer to some employees at its Baulkham Hills facility today after workers there decided to call off a planned strike to allow negotiations to go ahead between the company and the Australian Services Union (ASU). Read more »

Oracle destroyed Ellison's emails

Software maker Oracle deliberately destroyed or withheld CEO Larry Ellison's emails and failed to preserve audio recordings sought as evidence in a class-action lawsuit filed against the software maker, a US federal judge has ruled. Read more »

IBM splashes out on 'scab' labour

IBM has been recruiting "scab" labour to fill the gap that could be left by striking IBM Flightdeck workers, according to the Australian Services Union. Read more »

IBM strike could happen Thursday

IBM Australia could face strike action in a Baulkham Hills, Sydney facility on Thursday or Friday this week, according to the Australian Services Union, after the company failed to negotiate with the union over the weekend. Read more »

Strike vote fuels IBM Australia debate

A potential impending strike action at one of IBM Australia's Sydney facilities has sparked debate about whether it was still worth striving to work at one of the largest and most prestigious technology firms in Australia and the world. Read more »

Features (168)

Introduction to Policy-Based Management in SQL Server 2008

New to SQL Server 2008 is Policy-Based Management. This new technology allows for defining polices to ensure your database guidelines are met. This article gives an overview of this new technology. Read more »

How to recession-proof IT

In the current economic environment, IT is well positioned to make a compelling case for strategic spending that can help weather the storm. Read more »

Unit testing options for JavaScript

Unit testing is different from traditional testing because it is performed by the developer and not a tester. This article provides an overview of several options for unit testing client-side JavaScript code. Read more »

JavaScript -- a Flash competitor?

Open source software has its problems when it's trying to keep up with proprietary software, but when it does what it's good at -- creating ideas and developing them very quickly in public -- it can be revolutionary. Read more »

A Beginners Guide to Threading

The golden age for programmers is over. For a decade we have been able to get away with writing slow code, knowing that the hardware would pick up the slack. Not so any more, hardware developers have decided that software developers need to raise their game, and get ready for a generation of multi-core processors. Read more »

Visual Studio 2008 simplifies JavaScript debugging

One of the more cumbersome development tasks is debugging client-side JavaScript code. Tools such as Firebug are helpful, but in the case of Firebug, you're forced to use Firefox. Thankfully, Visual Studio 2008 provides a robust and developer-friendly environment for debugging JavaScript. Read more »

Explore new task scheduler triggers in Windows Server 2008

The task scheduler in Windows Server 2008 is quite different from what is in previous versions of Windows Server. The key elements to a scheduled task are triggers, actions, conditions, and settings. Read more »

Iterating through tables and databases in SQL Server

We look at two very useful stored procedures that live in the master database but are not mentioned in SQL Server Books Online. These system procedures come in very handy for jobs such as determining the space used, the number of rows, the indexes on the user tables, and so on. Read more »

Red ring of death is closer than you think

It can seem hard to believe that a company with all the resources of Microsoft can make make a billion-dollar mistake with a small chip-design fault. Yet chip design is not an exact science and Rupert Goodwins, who has been there himself, details how it can go horribly wrong. Read more »

How do I ... reject alpha characters in a SQL Server character column?

Enforcing your data's integrity is probably the single most important issue you face when designing a database. Validating user input is one way of keeping bad data from making its way into your analyses and reports. Read more »

Video (1)

IBM not the Big Blue it was: Union

IBM workers once believed they didn't need a union because working conditions used to be the best in the industry, but the competitive market has led to cost cutting measures which have had their toll, according to the Australian Services Union. Read more »

Blog (20)

Is Apple alienating App Store developers?

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- Apple's App Store is quite a success - but for that to continue, says Seb Janacek, the company needs to watch out it doesn't anger developers. Read more »

Competition: Gates vs Woz Deathmatch

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- Tell us who you think would win in a deathmatch between Bill Gates and Steve Wozniak, and go in the running to pick up some free gear. Read more »

Competition: Club Builder Christmas Hamper

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- To celebrate the 2007th episode of Christmas, and to look back at the year that was 2007, the Builder AU team are offering a Christmas hamper chock full of developer event goodies from 2007. Read more »

Where are all of those donated XO laptops going?

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- Given all the interest around One Laptop Per Child's "Give One, Get One" program, I've been wondering just where all those laptops that are being donated are actually going. Read more »

October DVD competition

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- If you could read peoples thoughts what would you do with your power and why? If you can answer that question you could win a dvd pack Read more »

So you want to buy Facebook?

Chris Duckett [blogs:betaliving] -- $500 million is an awful lot of money for a small stake in a Web site -- so I thought I'd make a list of things that Microsoft could spend its money on instead. Read more »

Top 25 open source projects at Microsoft

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- Microsoft has consistently lowered the bar for developers, and Codeplex seems to be doing a good job of doing the same thing for open-source development on the Microsoft platform. Read more »

Competition: Pick up a DVD -- over $2000 worth to be won

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- Music, Mars and Bra Boys -- which one do you want? We have over $2,000 worth of DVDs to be won. Read more »

July book giveaway

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- Help out in the Builder AU forums and win a book! Read more »

Giveaway to gadget showcase

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- We are giving away free passes to the upcoming "Experience More" product showcase. Read more »

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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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