News (438)

Security firms slam Microsoft 'capitulation'

Major security companies have criticised Microsoft's OneCare security software and the software giant's decision to stop charging for the offering. Read more »

Yang's departure could open Microsoft door

Jerry Yang's resignation as chief executive of Yahoo opens the door wide for another Microsoft offer, analysts and shareholders said this week. Read more »

Ballmer rules out new Yahoo bid

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer today said that Microsoft was "not interested" in making a new offer for internet company Yahoo, despite Yahoo's share price currently sitting at less than half what Microsoft initially offered. 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 »

Windows 7 gets mixed reviews

As developers received their copies of Windows 7 on Tuesday in the US, they offered varied reactions to the Microsoft operating system update. Read more »

Opera CEO: Chrome has been very good for us

Opera CEO Jon von Tetzchner was in town today, so I spent a few minutes with him talking about the browser company he co-founded way back in 1995. With browser battles raging, I wanted to know how this almost historic company was holding up. Read more »

Microsoft to offer Office online

Microsoft announced at the Professional Developer Conference today that it is finally putting Office apps Word, Excel, and Powerpoint online, but not killing the traditional versions. Read more »

Microsoft launches Windows Azure

Microsoft has announced a version of Windows that runs over the internet from inside Microsoft's own datacentres. Read more »

Amazon adds Windows to its cloud

Amazon has taken its Elastic Compute Cloud service out of beta status and added Windows to Linux and Solaris on its list of supported operating systems. Read more »

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 »

Features (274)

What Ray Ozzie sees in Azure's cloud

In an interview after his keynote at the PDC, Ozzie talked about what Azure means for developers, businesses, and even the everyman. Read more »

Using Object Dependencies in SQL Server 2008

Tracking object dependencies has always been difficult with SQL Server. SQL Server 2008 makes it easier because it tracks dependencies by the object's name rather than ID. Here's how it works. 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 »

Using Grouping Sets in SQL Server 2008

A neat new feature in SQL Server 2008 is the GROUPING SETS clause, which allows you to easily specify combinations of field groupings in your queries to see different levels of aggregated data. This article looks at how you can use the new SQL Server 2008 GROUPING SETS clause to aggregate your data. Read more »

10 ways to survive office politics

Friction, deceit, gossip, rivalry, power plays -- fine for movies and TV, but potentially disastrous in the workplace. Calvin Sun looks at strategies for steering clear of issues that can unravel company culture and hurt your career. Read more »

Audit data using SQL Server 2005's COLUMNS_UPDATED function

This article looks at how the SQL Server 2005 COLUMNS_UPDATED function works and then discusses how to parse out the field names. Read more »

Serialise objects with XStream

This article explains why XStream is a perfect fit for parsing and writing small, simple XML files. Check out an example which shows how you could use XStream to read a configuration file for an application that needs to know a server's location. Read more »

Amazon S3: For now at least, sometimes you have to reboot the cloud

Amazon.com's Simple Storage Service, S3, spent a few hours Sunday in a big pothole on the road to the glorious cloud computing future, with an outage taking the storage system offline for several hours Sunday. Should we be surprised? Read more »

Comparing SQL Server constraints and DML triggers

This article sheds some light on when to use constraints and when to use DML triggers. Read more »

Using Google as an application platform

Find out why Google Apps is a powerful alternative to more established products such as Microsoft SharePoint and IBM Lotus Notes. And, if Google Apps doesn't offer the applications you need, see why the Google App Engine might fit the bill. Read more »

Video (2)

The stealthy Apple clone

It runs Apple's Mac OS X Leopard, but doesn't look anything like an Apple computer and certainly doesn't come with an Apple price tag. Kara Tsuboi and Tom Krazit discuss Psystar's open computer. Read more »

iPhone 3G makes its debut

At Apple WWDC 2008, Steve Jobs reveals the iPhone 3G with faster download speeds, longer battery life, GPS, a lower price, and a near worldwide release on 11 July. Read more »

Blog (32)

The Best of Ballmer

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- In this week's Roundup we cover Steve Ballmer's talk at the Microsoft's Power to Developers event in Sydney, Saleforce's annual Dreamforce conference and more. Read more »

How many Windows 7s will there be?

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- The internet has been awash with rumours about Windows 7, with a pre-beta release being handed out to attendees at the Professional Developers Conference in the US this week. But how many Windows 7 versions will there be? Read more »

Azure: A matter of trust

Brendon Chase [blogs:codemonkeybusiness] -- Ray Ozzie hit the nail on the head when he said Azure's success will hinge on trust. Who outside (and inside) the core circle of ISV trust Microsoft? Read more »

XP stays on life support for longer

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- This week's Roundup looks at Microsoft's decision to extend the life of Windows XP, the release of Microsoft Surface SDK, Firefox's new Geode plug-in, Yahoo's new tool -- Smush It and more. 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 »

MyPerfect.com.au has potential

[blogs:bootstrappr] -- 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 »

Discounted entry to Web Directions

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- Web Directions 2008 returns to the Sydney Convention Centre in September and Builder AU can help you save on the entry fee. 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 »

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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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