News (609)

Nasa hacker loses legal challenge

UK resident Gary McKinnon has lost his legal challenge against extradition to the US to face charges of hacking Nasa and military installations. Read more »

IBM boosts Ballarat facility

IBM today said it would create 300 new technology jobs in the Victorian city of Ballarat, using government funding to open a new building at Ballarat Technology Park. Read more »

Gates: Privacy a 'challenge' as software advances

As software gets more powerful, privacy issues pose an "interesting software challenge," says Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates. Read more »

Georgia accuses Russia of co-ordinated cyberattack

The Georgian embassy in the UK has accused forces within Russia of launching a co-ordinated cyberattack against Georgian websites, to coincide with military operations in the breakaway region of South Ossetia. Read more »

Data breach laws years away

The Australian Law Reform Commission yesterday released a report recommending Australia introduce data breach disclosure laws — but Senator John Faulkner said that bridge would not be crossed by government at least for the next 18 months. Read more »

Olympics cybersecurity

At the Beijing Olympics, cybercriminals will be on the prowl for credit card information to steal, and security forces could well direct snooping efforts at unsuspecting travellers, warns the US government. Read more »

Judge halts Defcon hacking speech

A federal judge on Saturday in the US granted the Massachusetts transit authority's request for an injunction preventing three MIT students from giving a presentation about hacking smartcards used in the Boston subway system. Read more »

IBM teams with Linux firms for Microsoft-free PCs

IBM has launched its latest attack on Microsoft in the enterprise, forming an alliance with three top Linux distributors to promote Microsoft-free PCs around the world. Read more »

Google Street View now in Australia

Close-up photos of Australian homes, businesses and famous landmarks in cities, towns and remote areas are now available on Google Maps Australia, absolutely free. Read more »

UK hacker to face US court

A British man accused of hacking into US military and NASA computer systems today lost his appeal against extradition to face trial. Read more »

Features (159)

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 »

Hacking with no technology

The typical image of a hacker is a kid hunched over his keyboard in the wee hours of the night staring at commands on his computer screen that unlock the secrets of the national government. But the woman sitting next to you at Starbucks fiddling with her digital camera could be just as dangerous. Read more »

Inside the San Fran network lockout

A strange sort of techno-drama is playing out in the city of San Francisco, California right now. The blame for the fiasco may not be as easily assigned as it at first appears. Read more »

Realise the flexibility of OpenSSH

OpenSSH is one of the most useful tools available. With it, you can access systems remotely and securely, transfer files securely, execute single commands on remote systems, secure normally insecure services, and much more. Read more »

Effective and affordable User testing

At the recent Web Directions South UX conference in Melbourne, Lisa Herrod, the Principal Usability consultant at Scenario Seven offered advice on usability testing with her presentation -- "User testing for the rest of Us". Read more »

Ecosystem breaking from Microsoft's grip?

Microsoft got where it is today through its influence over manufacturers. It no longer has the control it once enjoyed. Read more »

Sanity check: Five reasons to centralise your IT department

This article takes a look at the top five arguments for centralisation of your IT department. Read more »

Microsoft plays open but patent jaws still have teeth

Despite Microsoft's claim it will not sue developers that build free open source software on Microsoft platforms, a caveat leaves a yawning space for its legal teeth to gnash those that commercialise the software. Read more »

10 ways to effectively estimate and control project costs

Estimating what a project will cost is only half the battle; controlling those costs during the project and after delivery is equally critical. Take a look at these methods for predicting and managing costs. Read more »

You say you want a revolution?

Failure to innovate on your part will lead me to innovate with you (by force), without you, in spite of you, in lieu of you Read more »

Video (6)

Handling governance of open source projects

Simon Phipps, chief open source office at Sun and OpenSolaris board member discusses the issues in trying to impose a governance model on open source projects. Read more »

Government CIOs 'do not understand open source'

  Read more »

Is Google sharing your information with US govt?

Google CEO Eric Schmidt yesterday admitted that the US government has made "requests" for the search giant to share information about its users – and he said Google would comply if the requests were legal. Read more »

Gartner: Australian Government starves its IT industry

Australia will continue to lose IT inventions and skills to foreign interests because the government has failed to invest in education, says Gartner's government specialist, John Kost. Read more »

CeBIT: NZ CIO on Web 2.0

  Read more »

Why women just don't want IT

  Read more »

Blog (29)

Q&A with EditMe: A wiki for non-geeks

Brendon Chase [blogs:codemonkeybusiness] -- Finally, a wiki CMS solution that you can safely give to your clients to use. But sshhhh... don't call it a wiki... Read more »

The Portal of the Future

Lana Kovacevic [blogs:webanatomy] -- At this year's Gartner Application Development, Integration and Web Services Summit, I attended Gene Phifer talk: "Portal of the Future: What's Beyond Web 2.0?". Read more »

Gestation, robots and NASA hacking

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- Firefox 3 made it out the door last week, and set a world record while doing so; after 15 years Wine 1.0 also hit the street. We also look at robots, google developer day and outsourcing in this week's Weekly Roundup. Read more »

Outsourcing made wrong – a real case

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- A few days ago I wrote about how outsourcing goes wrong. Now I will explain more in detail with a real case. Read more »

Jonathan Schwartz's free software foundation

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- Sun has become its own free software foundation, open sourcing everything from Java to Solaris, and acquiring the open source MySQL database for $1 billion in January of this year, as a way to grow its revenue. Read more »

Outsourcing made wrong

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- Outsourcing is hot! Every major corporation around the globe is outsourcing all or part of their software development -- and unfortunately the result is lots of unsuccessful projects. Read more »

When software becomes an entertainment report

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- This week's roundup covers Microsoft no longer being interested in Yahoo, Stallman suggesting that foil be used to stop RFID chip reading and something about the iPhone. Read more »

Microsoft's Surface goes to Vegas

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- This might not be what Bill Gates originally envisioned with his "information at your fingertips" concept, but in Las Vegas, the Rio hotel will unveil a new Surface computer application called Flirt, that will let bar patrons "interact" with each other through video cameras and text messages. Read more »

China poised for 3G

Brendon Chase [blogs:codemonkeybusiness] -- A major overhaul of the telecommunications industry in China will clear the way for 3G services to possibly over half a billion mobile phones. Read more »

Get a discount on Web Directions entry

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- By simply reading Builder AU, you can save money on entry to the upcoming Web Directions conferences. Read more »

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  • Staff Shadow chasing in browsers

    The punching and counterpunching continued in the ongoing web browser development bout. Each time one browser closes a feature gap, a new feature appears in one of the others -- how we ever put up with the years of browser stagnation, I'll never know. Read more »

    -- posted by Staff

  • Chris Duckett Safari gets Gears

    Since its release in May last year, Gears has supported only Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers. With the addition of Safari into the Gears fold, it closes the loop of major browsers to support Gears Read more »

    -- posted by Chris Duckett

  • Renai LeMay MyPerfect.com.au has potential

    Victorian Web start-up My Perfect has a strong story and rationale for why it will succeed. But it has to overcome some challenges and design flaws first. Read more »

    -- posted by Renai LeMay

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