News (113)
Firefox extension protects against man-in-the-middle attacks
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have released an extension for Firefox 3 that can protect wireless network users from so-called "man-in-the-middle" attacks. Read more »
Magnet allows tongue driven PC
Engineers have developed technology that would allow people with severe disabilities to operate a wheelchair or computer by moving their tongue. Read more »
In China, Microsoft eyes innovation
Innovation can often come unexpectedly, so researchers should be given the freedom and opportunity to explore new ideas, says the head of Microsoft's research lab in Beijing. 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 »
Microsoft tries to one-up Google PageRank
Though a distant third place to Google, Microsoft thinks it can teach its rival a thing or two about searching the Internet. 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 »
Microsoft puts Australian in charge of Earth
Microsoft has appointed Peter Ulm, a Microsoft veteran of 11 years, to head up its Virtual Earth program in Australia. Read more »
Sydney Uni "hero" chip breaks light speed record
A team of Australian scientists have demonstrated a photonic chip that boosts the data rate of fibre-optic connections by more than 64 times to 640Gbps, promising faster, cheaper internet for all. Read more »
Gates looks back on 30 years at Microsoft
If you were to ask Bill Gates what life will be like when he stops working full time at Microsoft, he'd have to get back to you.Read more »
IBM breaks petaflop barrier with PS3 and AMD chips
Computing giant IBM has built a supercomputer that can operate at one petaflop — 1,000 trillion floating point operations per second — twice as fast as the world's previous fastest computer, IBM's Blue Gene. Read more »
Features (86)
Getting to grips with parallelism
Although parallelism may be a new concept for many programmers, there are some for whom the concept is a part of their daily responsibilities. 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 »
Can you be a self-respecting Web developer without knowing HTML?
I can't accept a so-called Web developer who doesn't fully understand the technology used to create their applications. Do you think a Web developer is doomed if he doesn't know HTML? 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 »
What's more important to become an IT consultant: education or experience?
What does it take to become an IT consultant? You need a good mix of book smarts and on-the-job knowledge -- with a dash of something else. 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 »
Top 10 reasons to avoid IT salespeople
Like the rest of us, salespeople and consultants are only doing their job -- but why do they have to be quite so annoying? Read more »
Manipulate text with sed
Sed is a very handy and very powerful little text manipulator. Sed is short for "stream editor" and what it does is manipulate and filter text. We'll show you some of it's uses. Read more »
Five simple ways to improve your SEO
Continuing our Web Directions South content, we asked SEO expert Scott Gledhill what developers can do to improve their search engine ranking on their own sites. Read more »
80% of software is no brain work: Ivar Jacobson
Efficiency, Code Reuse and Artificial Intelligence -- we sat down with one of the inventors of UML and the RUP to talk about how the software industry has to change in the next five years. Read more »
Video (2)
Exploring Mars with Java
At the JavaOne conference in San Francisco Friday, James Gosling, Sun Microsystems vice president and fellow, talks to Arizona State University geological sciences professor Phil Christensen about the school's geospatial software, JMARS. The open-source project is available to the public and used by NASA to find and gather scientific data... Read more »
Sex will solve IT skills shortage
20 years ago Indian students sweated for degrees in engineering and science, but today these courses are not being filled. The problem is sex appeal, says Gartner research fellow, Andy Kyte. It will take programmers driving sports cars to inspire kids to get degrees in the field. Read more »
Blog (8)
Install usability practices in your shop with Silverback
-- Getting started with usability testing doesn't require an expensive lab full of equipment and science nerds in white coats to poke and prod your users. Cheap and accessible software is readily available to help your team create better software for end-users. Read more »
Enterprise Architecture has failed in a big way
-- Most EA initiatives failed. My guess is that more than 90% never really resulted in anything useful. Read more »
The most interesting Web OS experiment yet
-- I still don't fully get the whole Web operating system concept. Why run an OS inside a browser when your browser is running in an OS to begin with? But AjaxWindows, a Web OS and application suite that launched today, makes a very good case for the Web OS. Read more »
How Microsoft beat Linux in China and what it means for freedom, justice, and the price of software
-- Thanks to some major concessions on source code and a precipitous price drop, the Chinese government has now thoroughly embraced Windows and Office, what does this mean for the world? Read more »
5 reasons restricting hacking is not like gun control
-- Let's get it out of the way: Guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people. People with hacking tools can steal your personal data, shut down your system and deface your web site -- but is that any reason to ban them? Read more »
FileMaker upgrades to version 9
-- We haven't heard a lot from the folks at FileMaker recently, but they've got a new version of their database software for PCs and Macs out in stores. Read more »
Certification Nation
-- Is a lack of certification really a hole in a developers resume? Are certificates become part of the way of life for software developers, or are we beginning to see the light? Read more »
Secure By Default or Usable?
-- We are stuck in a position where OS vendors have to make a choice between secure by default for enterprise customers, and usable for the home market. Which way do we go? Read more »
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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 »
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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 »
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MyPerfect.com.au has potentialVictorian 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 »
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Microsoft slams Google on privacy
2008/08/29 12:37:41
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Gosling: How Java handles multi-core
2008/08/19 12:13:05
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.NET multi-core support yet to arrive
2008/08/19 12:15:29
What's on?
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Club Builder: Seinfeld, Wiimotes and Woz
On this episode of Club Builder: Jerry Seinfeld is the new face of Vista, we learn how to make a cheap whiteboard, and Woz talks about Steve Jobs.
