News (276)

With JavaFX, Sun seeks new coders, new revenue

With a back-to-the-future technology called JavaFX, Sun hopes to attract a new class of developer while building a much-needed new revenue source. Read more »

Adobe cuts 600 amid slow CS4 sales

Adobe added its name this week to the list of companies warning of weaker sales and cutting jobs, although it is unclear what the effect will be on its Australia and New Zealand operations. Read more »

Why I switched from Firefox to Chrome

Sorry if it sounds like I'm drinking the Google Kool-Aid here, but I have switched from Mozilla Firefox to Google Chrome as my default browser for the very reason Google's executives said we should: speed. Read more »

Dreamforce: Benioff preaches cloud computing gospel, Facebook

After a decade as the chief evangelist in the wilderness of software as a service, which has morphed into cloud computing, Salesforce.com founder and CEO Marc Benioff is having a more challenging time coming up with groundbreaking industry disruptions. Read more »

Windows 7 pre-beta receives positive response

Microsoft on Tuesday offered up far more details on Windows 7, successor to the company's oft-maligned Windows Vista. Read more »

Keystrokes can be recovered remotely

Wired keyboards, like those found on desktop PCs, emit electromagnetic waves that can be read remotely, according two Swiss researchers. 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 »

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 »

Yahoo tool helps Web programmers shrink images

Yahoo, which has considerable expertise in maximising Web site performance, has long offered advice on how to speed up sites up by minimising photo size. Now it's released a tool to help Web programmers automate the process. Read more »

Adobe CS4 hits BitTorrent

Little more than a week after its global launch, Adobe's Creative Suite 4 has shown up on popular BitTorrent tracking sites in large numbers. Read more »

Features (332)

Key features in the upcoming Windows Server 2008 R2

Microsoft plans to release an R2 edition of Windows Server 2008 in 2009 or 2010. Here are the key features of the R2 release that you need to know. Read more »

10 ways to get a slipping project back on track

Plenty of things can derail a project plan: underestimated tasks, departing staff, misallocated resources. Here are some practical techniques that can correct the direction of a project that's losing ground. Read more »

Patent ruling good or bad for tech?

Now that the U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled that abstract processes, or business methods, cannot be patented, it's important to look at how this could affect the tech industry. 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 »

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 »

Reduce application coupling with the Java Message System

Did you know that too much coupling -- which, in development terms, is a measure of how dependent two entities are upon each other -- can make your enterprise software hard to manage? Learn how the Java Message Service (JMS) can help reduce dependencies between applications. Read more »

How start-ups can survive

Here we go again: Another boom, another bust. But we've learned something from the last time, haven't we? Read more »

10 surprising things about Windows Server 2008

When you take a look at Windows Server 2008, you'll discover big changes -- including some legitimate improvements. This article outlines a few of the unexpected aspects of the new OS, both good and bad. Read more »

10 ways to make Linux boot faster

On those infrequent occasions when you need to reboot Linux, you may find that the process takes longer than you'd like. This article gives you a number of tricks you can use to reduce boot times. Read more »

Using Mirrored Media Sets in SQL Server 2005

Mirrored Media Sets is a new feature in the Enterprise Edition of SQL Server 2005. It enables the creation of redundant copies of a backup file to reduce the possibility of a backup device malfunction. Here's how you make it work. Read more »

Video (2)

How HP layoffs will impact IT

ZDNet correspondent Sumi Das and senior editor Sam Diaz talk about the recent announcement that Hewlett-Packard will be reducing its workforce by nearly 25,000 due to its integration with EDS. They also discuss how HP is competing with IBM for more IT services market share. Read more »

LinuxWorld: Merrill Lynch on going stateless

At the LinuxWorld conference in San Francisco, Jeffrey Birnbaum, managing director and chief technology architect at Merrill Lynch, speaks about using cloud computing to reduce the complexities and costs of financial services. He discusses the move away from dedicated machines and why old ideas like virtualization have become useful again. Read more »

Blog (16)

Microsoft's PDC Potpourri

Chris Duckett [blogs:betaliving] -- While not game-breaking in their own right, these little titbits complete the picture from Microsoft's recent PDC conference at Los Angeles. Read more »

Wired keyboards lead to tin foil hat wearing

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- Just because you don't wear a tin foil hat, doesn't mean they aren't after you keystrokes. 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 »

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 »

10 PR 2.0 tips for startups

Brendon Chase [blogs:codemonkeybusiness] -- You’ve got a great product and spent much of your budget on developing your software or service and now you’re left with a marginal budget for marketing and PR. Sound familiar? Read more »

Google decides to dominate javascript libraries

Chris Duckett [blogs:betaliving] -- With each passing day Google begins to look more and more like a Trapper Keeper. The latest move for the Web behemoth is to store commonly used javascript libraries with Google AJAX Libraries API. Read more »

Discover what you already knew

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- Have you ever thought the metrics measured against you as a code monkey to be unfair or a waste? Well you could be right. Read more »

Adobe release H.264 video support for Flash player

Brendon Chase [blogs:codemonkeybusiness] -- In a bid to stay relevant in the world of high definition video Adobe's new Flash player has officially shipped with the H.264 video standard included. Read more »

No, you can't have private attributes in Python

Nick Gibson [blogs:byteclub] -- Is the lack of privacy a real shortcoming of the language, or is our judgment clouded by the old conventions of C++ and Java? Why do we need private variables anyway -- at what point does defensive programming become paranoia? Read more »

Simonyi tells programmers to leave the Dark Ages

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- Charles Simonyi -- legendary Microsoft programmer and space tourist -- doesn't have many good things to say about the current state of his own profession, software engineering. Read more »

Others (1)

Gnome 2.16 Preview

With the next major release of the GNOME desktop scheduled for release next month, each passing day sees more of the code frozen. This is the first iteration since version 2.14 was released in April, which saw extensive improvements in performance. Here is our first look at some of the features in Gnome 2.16. Read more »

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