News (105)

Kernel coding no picnic, says Torvalds

Linux project lead Linus Torvalds has said it is not easy to become a major contributor to the Linux kernel. Read more »

Kevin Mitnick: Social engineering 101

Kevin Mitnick has proven that the weakest link in any security system is the person holding the information. Read more »

Virtualisation to drive staff-owned PCs at work

Virtualisation's ability to separate the operating system from hardware will give companies the choice to let staff run their own devices at work, according to analysts — but security remains problematic today. Read more »

.NSW, .Uluru, .Oz, .footy domains coming in 2009?

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has voted to allow the creation of thousands of new domain names, from .paris to .Pepsi, in one of the biggest shake-ups in internet history, a French web official said. Read more »

ICANN vote to allow .xxx URLs?

The organisation that manages the world's most important web address extensions â€" what goes after the dot in a URL â€" is to hold a vote on Thursday that could see an entire new generation of URLs made possible. Read more »

Google feels the Force with Salesforce deal

Today Salesforce.com announced a "global strategic alliance" (also known as a partnership) with Google, introducing a new integration point, Force.com Toolkit for Google Data APIs. Read more »

The bonfire of online vanities: Web 2.0 critic speaks

Lee Siegel is a cultural critic who has written for The New York Times, Slate and The Nation. However, he is perhaps best known for what happened in 2006 when writing for The New Republic. Read more »

Rootkit threatens Cisco routers

Cisco and the security community are debating the reality of rootkits attacking the Cisco's Internetwork Operating System (IOS) after a researcher presented a proof of concept attack, which threatens Cisco routers and voice over IP phones. Read more »

Windows chief opens up on '7'

Since taking over the Windows development reins from Jim Allchin, Steven Sinofsky has chosen to keep silent about new products, but now in an exclusive interview, he spills the beans on Windows 7. Read more »

ODF finally defeats OOXML in document format war?

Microsoft will add native support to Office 2007 for the OpenDocument Format (ODF) instead of OOXML because of compatibility issues — but Microsoft refuses to admit that ODF has won the document format war. Read more »

Features (158)

Why would anyone choose Windows over Linux?

Why would anyone choose Windows over Linux? This article lists some of the advantages of Linux over Windows. Read more »

Programming for Cell

As the Cell has seven usable cores and some exotic memory features, it can offer more parallelism than other chips in the marketplace but it comes at the cost of ease of programming. We discuss the challenges faced by this difficult yet highly parallel architecture. Read more »

Why traditionalists should take Web developers seriously

There used to be a sharp distinction between application developers and Web developers. This made sense when technologies such as Perl/CGI, classic ASP, standard JSP, and PHP ruled the Web development roost. But this distinction is becoming less relevant. Read more »

AJAX should not mandate HTTP

AJAX applications rely upon the existence of an application server always being available, and many Web developers are assuming that the user will not want to save the Web page or lose network connectivity. This article discusses why this is a mistake. Read more »

An adventure in IT consulting

An outside consultant can provide the voice of disinterested honesty. If the client doesn't like what you have to say, the most you lose is the engagement. If they listen to you and it doesn't work, things could get ugly. You're not part of the protected herd of employees who will be all too happy to blame you. Read more »

HTML 5 aims to formalise Semantic HTML

It's kind of hard to believe that it's almost been a decade since HTML 4.01 was made official. However, it has taken browsers a while to recognize the standard, and this process continues today. 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 »

Interview: Simplifying Web app design

Following the Web Directions South UX conference in Melbourne, we interviewed Robert Hoekman Jr in an email on his presentation -- "Essential elements of great Web application design". Read more »

Use prototyping to visualise project requirements

Prototypes are built early in the development lifecycle, and they're used to provide valuable insight into the look, feel, and general workflow of an application. Read more »

The 10 most dangerous species of IT team leader

There are many competent and sociable team leaders in IT departments; but they don't make for great storytelling. Picking the worst and most dangerous types can help us recognise the signs and maybe even glean a little entertainment from them. Read more »

Video (6)

Schneier: The problem of evaluating risk

Businesses don't share information on cyberattacks, making it almost impossible to assess risk. Read more »

The reality of mobile Linux: Part two

At the Mobile World Congress, we examine Linux handsets which are already on the market, as well as a low-cost Linux-based 3G phone and Google's Android platform Read more »

The reality of mobile Linux: Part one

At the Mobile World Congress, we look at how mobile Linux is already making an impact on handsets, with platforms and toolkits shown off by Trolltech, Access and Azingo Read more »

Bruce Schneier: Is the media to blame for our fear of terror?

While the media bombards consumers with frightening stories, discussions about security are thwarted by the failure of language to separate the "feeling" and "reality" of security, says security guru Bruce Schneier. Read more »

Minority Report interface with Sun SPOT

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Mixing VR input and a Sun SPOT

  Read more »

Blog (13)

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 »

Bracing for Applefest

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- It's that time of year again, Steve Jobs' reality distortion field is about to extend throughout the internet and consume your favourite tech news sites for days. To Apple fanboys it is more than Christmas -- to others it is WWDC and you cannot escape it . Read more »

Everyone wants to be agile

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- During a recent trip to China and Australia I observed that everyone wants to be agile. In a round table meeting with CIO’s, I usually ask what people are particularly interested in right now. Five years ago a common answer was we are trying to adopt the Unified Process. Now, the same question returns the answer we are trying to move to agile. Thus you would assume that people know what agile is. Read more »

Will China produce the next GTA?

Brendon Chase [blogs:codemonkeybusiness] -- Is it only a matter of time before the next big gaming hit in the west is built in the east? Read more »

Unlocking the Wii's hidden potential

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- In a collection of videos, notable for their lucid explanations, Johnny Lee, a Ph.D. graduate student from CMU's Human-Computer Interaction Institute shows exactly how versatile the "Wiimote" system can be Read more »

You need to be smart

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- One of the most popular buzzwords in software development agile. Today everyone wants to be agile. That is good! However, being agile is not enough. Read more »

Microsoft's Supermarket Sweep

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- Attention entrepreneurial developers: Steve Ballmer wants to pay you somewhere between $50 million and $1 billion for your company. Read more »

OS X + NFSv4 == SSHFS + open bitterness

Chris Duckett [blogs:betaliving] -- Has anyone, who isn't a die-hard Darwin fanatic, ever tried to recompile their kernel in OS X? If you answered yes then you are among a rare breed of user indeed. Read more »

Don't bother with the counter offer

Brendon Chase [blogs:codemonkeybusiness] -- While Australia is currently in a tight labour market should you really bother with a counter offer when an employee already has one foot out the door? Read more »

Take off your suit pants and jacket -- It's Web 2.0

Brendon Chase [blogs:codemonkeybusiness] -- With the shortage of talented IT staff on hand the smell of dot-com culture has made a comeback. Welcome to Web 2.0 work culture , the future of yesterday. 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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