News (145)

Stallman warns of cloud vendor lock-in

Free Software Foundation founder Richard Stallman this week said cloud computing was "stupidity" that ultimately would result in vendor lock-in and escalating costs. Read more »

CSIRO victorious in Wi-Fi appeal

Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) has come one step closer to defending its patent relating to several Wi-Fi standards, with defendant Buffalo Technology losing a US appeal on the matter. Read more »

Is Microsoft a threat to VMware?

The talk of this year's VMworld conference in Las Vegas was how much of a competitive threat Microsoft, which weeks earlier announced the free release of its hypervisor product, will prove to virtualisation leader VMware. Read more »

O'Reilly: Stop throwing sheep, do something worthy

NEW YORK -- Tim O'Reilly, founder of O'Reilly Media, is known as a futurist, but his keynote address on Thursday morning at the Web 2.0 Expo was heavy on the realism in the wake of sobering news from Wall Street. Read more »

OLPC rivals get 'vicious'

When the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) organisation first mooted the idea of a super low cost laptop aimed at schoolchildren in the developing world some years ago, it was arguably on its own in the market. Read more »

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 »

Interview: Red Hat's new CEO

Red Hat's new chief executive officer, Jim Whitehurst, talks about the Linux maker in an extensive interview with ZDNet Australia sister site CNet News. Read more »

When do we declare Google a monopoly?

I did a double take recently after listening to Microsoft CFO Chris Liddell acknowledge that his company was ready to lose even more money in online services in the near term, if that's what it takes to catch Google. Read more »

BlackBerry PDF flaw exposes corporate networks

BlackBerry maker Research in Motion is warning businesses to disable the function which allows a BlackBerry to read PDF files until it can issue an update, after a security flaw was found in the company's software. Read more »

FAQ: Yahoo-Google ad deal's antitrust scrutiny

Nobody, least of all Yahoo and Google, doubted that the two companies' search-advertising deal would escape any antitrust scrutiny. Read more »

Features (169)

First impressions of ASP.NET's MVC framework

Find out why you may want to use Microsoft's Model View Controller (MVC) framework instead of Web Forms. Read more »

Help! My SQL Server Log File is too big!

Overgrown transactional log files can turn into real problems if they are not handled properly. This article discusses the perils of not handling SQL Server log growth properly, and what can be done to correct the problems. 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 »

Getting started with Delphi for PHP

This article guides you through a brief tour of CodeGear's Delphi for PHP, a visual IDE for developing applications in PHP. Read more »

10 common mistakes to avoid when you're installing Linux software

Installing software in Linux is nothing like it used to be, but there are still some pitfalls to watch out for. If you follow this little guide, your Linux life will be made simpler and safer. Read more »

Why Chrome will win and why it will lose

Google dipped its mighty toe into the increasingly crowded world of internet browsers today with the announcement of Chrome. We spoke to industry experts and Google's new rivals to find out why Chrome matters and whether the browser reality can deliver on the hype. Read more »

Sleep deprivation can spell big trouble

Most of us operate on short sleep from time to time -- it's the nature of our profession and modern lifestyles. But if skimping on sleep is a way of life for you, watch out: you could wind up functioning below par and incur some serious health problems. Read more »

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 »

Olympics are a boon for Silverlight

Here's the way things work at Microsoft. After correcting shortcomings in the first and second editions of its software, version 3.0 of a Microsoft product usually silences the company's worst critics, allowing management to get on with business of crushing rivals. But I'll be first to acknowledge that Silverlight breaks with that pattern. Read more »

Employ refactoring via Visual Studio to write better code

Refactoring is the practice of making your code cleaner and clearer without affecting the functionality. Find out what's included in Visual Studio's Refactor menu, and discover a couple of Visual Studio add-ins that bring refactoring to the Visual Basic community. Read more »

Video (2)

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 »

Novell CEO: We used to lose Linux deals to Microsoft

  Read more »

Blog (17)

Scott McNealy's tips for a successful start-up

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- If you're itching to take your struggling start-up to the big time, you could do worse than take Sun Microsystems' Chairman and co-founder Scott McNealy advice to heart. Read more »

Android devs less than gruntled

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- Yet more discouraging news on the Android front. Having hacked off its developer community by releasing updated SDKs to just a small group of chosen devs, Google has now given the brush-off to a petition that called for more to be given to the wider community. 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 »

Install usability practices in your shop with Silverback

Brendon Chase [blogs:codemonkeybusiness] -- 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 »

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 »

Google to allow third party code in Gmail?

Brendon Chase [blogs:codemonkeybusiness] -- According to executives from the company, Google are preparing to open Gmail to developers outside the Googleplex labs. Read more »

Dealing with the ego elephant in the room

Brendon Chase [blogs:codemonkeybusiness] -- Egomaniacs, swell-heads, know-it-alls, showboats, show ponies, narcissists, ego-trippers, big heads, and peacocks – work with one of these? Read more »

In a world of Goliaths, who's got a stone?

David McAmis [blogs:theneteffect] -- It seems like it is that time of year again... the days are getting longer, the weather is getting a bit warmer and the top-tier software vendors are on a buying spree. Will you get lost in the shuffle? Why not support your local software developer! Read more »

Microsoft's two faces of SharePoint

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- One way or another, proprietary and open-source companies need an answer to SharePoint. Content is the center of the enterprise ecosystem, when all is said and done. SharePoint is Microsoft's answer for controlling the next decade of IT. 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 »

Log in


Sign up | Forgot your password?

  • Staff XP stays on life support for longer

    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 »

    -- posted by Staff

  • Chris Duckett The good and truly awful celluloid depictions of computers

    Ever wonder why your lawyer uncle leaves the room whenever you turn over to Boston Legal? Or why your forensic science cousin can't stand crime drama? You know the answer: it’s the horrid trivialisation and dumbing down of an occupation to make it appear entertaining. Sometimes it is so unbelievable that it actually hurts and yelling at the screen is the only outlet. Read more »

    -- posted by Chris Duckett

  • Brendon Chase Apple's iPhone engineers to tour Sydney, Melbourne

    Aussie developers will be able to get up close and personal with some of the iPhone engineers in November to learn how to build applications for the platform. Read more »

    -- posted by Brendon Chase

What's on?