2.
IT
Field & Technology News Clippings: Topics about Technology and the
World of IT
- Microsoft shows off leaner kernel
for Windows 7: In
some of the first hints about Windows 7 [Windows NT 7.0] , a Microsoft
distinguished engineer provided some preliminary information about the
reduced size of the kernel for the new operating system scheduled for
release in 2010. Using what Microsoft calls the MinWin, it seems
that this latest version of the kernel may well be a new thin
hypervisor layer. It is not yet clear what will be relationship
between MinWin and Microsoft's own current hypervisor, Virtual PC, also
called a virtualization manager. [Software that
allows multiple operating systems to share a single hardware processor,
are known as hypervisors; they include Microsoft's own Virtual PC,
Linux'x Xen, and VMware Inc.'s VMware Workstation.] Stay
tuned for developments!!
- The
Desktop has now reached 1.0 TB of storage in reality thaks to to Seagate Barracuda -
hear is the news and the specs!
- 4
Terabytes on the Desktop!
You read that right. Hitachi announced today that they have
developed a new
nanometer recording technology that will enable them to create a
desktop
hard drive that will reach 4 TB by the year 2011 and in parallel, they
will have hard drives in laptops/notebooks that will store 1 TB by the
same year. While this may all be marketing to compete favorably
with
the likes of Toshiba, Seagate, and others, we can definitely discern
the upward direction of storage. And of course, that begs the
question: what about the growth of solid-state storage (the steady
growth of flash memory drives into eventual replacments for hard
drives)? [10/7/07]
- Now that we using virtualization, clustering, and grid
computing to
increase our utilization rates to higher and higher performance levels,
what
might some of the consequences when unforeseen factors arise?
Cascading faults were the ultimate cause of several major power grid
blackouts (such as the blackout of the Great Lakes region of the US
and Canada several years ago as well as ones on the West Coast and the
Northeast). What might the similar consequences be with our
computer
networks if the same systemic phenomena occur? So. what happens
if we
continue our Pushing
Technology to the Limit?
- How are things going for Vista, do we all love it, is it really
ready yet? In fact, it seems that some people and some
organizations are Giving up on Vista and they are
starting
to consider going back to or "downgrade" (the new software opposite of
"upgrade") to XP. It seems that
even Microsoft may be subtly admitting problems with Vista in that it
has extended availability of Windows XP for an additional five
months. Does it perhaps reflect that XP is NT 5 and Vista is NT 6
(remember the Microsoft evens-odds OS patterns).
- Excel
Can't Multiply/Excel Will Learn to Multiply? Should you
use Excel 2003 or Excel 2007? One part of the answer might be
that Excel 2007 doesn't know how to multiply certain numbers.
AppScout magazine, published by Ziff-Davis, has the find and
a
follow-up in which Microsoft has "fessed up" to the error and
promised a fix to this non-security bug.
- Multiply 77.1 by 850 or 10.2 by 6425. Do you get 65536
(the correct answer) or 100,000 (the rounded answer)? If you get
the rounded/incorrect (inexact) answer go to: support.microsoft.com/kb/943075.
- Are RFIDs ready for prime-time
yet? Dow Chemical thinks they may well be.
- An excellent
Baseline Magazine article provides some insights into where some
areas for present and near-future use of Radio-Frequency
Identitifaction Devices (RFIDs) in the chemical industry, especially
for tracking hazardous chemicals. But there are numerous other
uses in tracking routine shipments, inter-modal transfers, and
inventory that may well be equally applicable for many other industries
and organziations. Check it out and think about it!!
- Note this application of RFIDs for a really
buggy problem!
- Ever wonder where terms like wiki
(Hawaiian for "Quick, Quick") or blog came from? Here is some
insight into where
blogs came from - from all the way back to the early days of the
Inteernet and beyond as well as up to today. It kinda makes me
wonder whether this academic Web/Homepage has evolved into a "Blog" or
not. As a result of some "cutting edge" exposure to blogs, wikis,
bloglines, social networking, Web 2.0 technolgies and such at Radford
University this summer, by the Fall semster this page will be linked
into some form of newer blogs hosted on a true Blogger medium because
as the Trivia Geek says, "Blogito, Ergo Sum." . Stay tuned!
- Should
we replace the Internet? Will we (do it with
Internet2)? Can we (do a "clean slate" overhaul any time
soon)? [Bradner always has a humorous disclaimer of Harvard
involvement in his columns.]
- Are you hooked on the "G-rock" whenever you have to google the
Internet for information? <aside>See, even I am addicted
to saying it! </aside> Here is a
neat article and slideshow about some other search engines out
there, besides Altavista.com, GoodSearch.com, A9.com, Scroogle.com,
37.com, Dogpile.com, among many others, especially special anfd
technical ones. Beisdes, how many of you have even searched the
google.com site for alll of the many, many tools besides the obvious
search form?
- Will the growth of Google enable it to surpass Microsoft as
the prime software giant? Will the Google hiring increase of 15%
and its expansion of hardware and software portend more IT
growth? How will Google affect the relationship of software and
content? These are just a few questions to ponder as you read
through this report of Google's continuing growth
and its impact on the stock market (its unexpected revenues, profits
and growth helped to propel the DJ to near 13,000 as well as help other
markets).
- Will battery-powered mote-sized sensors drive the network into
two developing technologies - low-powered wireless and IPv6. A
new draft standard 6LoWPAN being developed by the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF) could put monitoring devices into almost every
imaginable thing to tell us remotely what is happening - another
application of Web-services and the Services Oriented Architecture
(SOA). Read
all about it!
- Here is a good article that tells you about how NOT to
do it - the downside of B2B eCcommerce -- VENDOR
WEB SITES BIG TURNOFF FOR CIOS, FORRESTER SAYS
- How do we incorporate
growth, improvement, and innovation into our business processes along
with technology? As this
article relates, there are "Six
Things That Innovative Companies Do
Well":
- Don’t
leave the innovation to the engineers
- Be
wary of market research
- Here is another
perspective on whether or not you want to buy into Microsoft
Windows Vista: if you add a new device or application program, the
device driver software might upset the initial identification of your
computer and cause it to think that you have a new computer and hence
you need a new copy of Vista. Microsoft has recognized this flaw
and is attempting to provide a remedy. Part of the reason that it
happens is: Microsoft is intent on preventing piracy of its software
through its Software Protection Platform which is the follow-on to its
Windows Genuine Advantage (piracy checker); the SPP is programmed to
recognize whether you have it installed on the original computer - but
what is the orginal computer and how much hardware/software change
constitutes a new computer? It sure should make us pause before
buying a new computer with Vista on it - despite all of the "bells and
whistles" of the neat 3-D effects.
- The recent attack on the DNS root servers:
could it have been a targeted attack by the Chinese government rather
than a group of amatuers trying to show off their prowess to the RSA
Security Conference? If so, what does it mean - an attack to
practice taking down the Internet for wartime control, an atempt to
blackmail and control Western industry, espcially IT, OR WHAT? Winn Schwartau's thoughtful article echoes themes of many recent books on IT
warfare and the "Digital Pearl Harbor " scenarios that experts warn
about.
- Y2K+7?
There are some fears that "Y2K
Memories breed complacency as daylight-savings time deadline looms."
Is the problem as simple as adjusting your systems clock by one hour
twice every year, or like Y2K, will it impact more complicated
systems. Read on further for some more serious
security ramifications of DST legislation written by
lawyers.....
- Holy
Holography, Batman! A new approach to storage
using holograhy may soon increase the storage of our DVDs far beyond
the HD-DVD/Blue-Ray controversy . Can you imagine a DVD
with 1.8 Terabytes (TB ) of digital materials stored on it? It
may be "coming to a store near you," but the initial disks will cost
$180 aned the recording device will cost about $18,000! Maybe we
should wait a while for the prices to drop (as they inevitably will).
- Microsoft
vs. AT&T at the Supreme Court - an
interesting court case argued this past week that might affect the
costs for the software we use. Microsoft is involved in another
series of Federal
court cases that also affect the costs for all MP3 technology we
use.
- Long
Live the Mainframe! ----- Yes
or No
??
- After
recently taking second place in PC sales behind HP, Dell Computers has
started to remedy its errors in ill-advised offshoring (overseas
outsourcing) of its customer service help-desk, financial
irregularities, and other efficiencies that sacrificed their customers,
Dell may be learning by expanding their CPU and motherboard options, considering
Linux on the desktop, OpenOffice installation and other customer
wishes - so Dell 2.0 means listening to the customer rather than only
the bottom line (and it may be good for the bottom-line in the end).
- Mitsubishi
Projected Upgrades. The Japanese giant has developed a
protototype device that will provide data encryption using IPsec v2 on
10G bps Ethernet. Note that they are also promoting 10G bps
service over fiber optics cable - fiber to the home (FTTH) for use in
Japan. If you read this article very closely, you will see that
the author mentions very casually that Mitsubishi is starting to look
for the next upgrade - 100G bps!
- Where
is the IT field going in the next five years? What are the
drivers? Gibbs says that the main ones will be virtualization,
software-as-a-service (SaaS), outsourcing, mobile staff? I don't
think I completely agree with him - what about you?
- All-new
two factor security devices for secure eCommerce transactions -
news just released at the RSA Conference last week seems to be a HOT
solution for a real problem!
- Could
we be looking at a whole new wave of the future, the future of
computing as electronics gives way to photonics and photonics gives way
to quantum computing? D-Wave
Demonstrates First Quantum Computer tells about the Vancouver
Canada
company's creation which they exhibited in Silicon Valley - it has
created some waves of
controversy.
- IBM
has increased
the size of its on-die cache memory ofr its new upcoming release
of the Power6 microprocessor chips which are used in its p-series
(small PC-sized) servers!
- Software projects ARE getting better. You have probably heard me say in class
at one time or another that studies done on DoD (a major actor back
then) software projects in the late 1960s and early 1970s showed less
than 4% success rates. A new study
by the Standish Group reports that success rates in 1994 hit 16%
and last year actually rose to 31%.
- Should
we have truly open document formats [ODF] that will live and be
available for a long time OR should users have a greater choice and be
able to select a (maybe) better format [Open Office XML - OOXML] that
is started by a proprietary company like Microsoft, that is offered as
an open source standard (through Ecma and later perhaps through ISO,
and that is in wide use due to the "real world" conditions (Microsoft
is still dominant for many reasons)? Should legislation or the
market settle the issue? Good
questions !!
<aside>I do like the way
Mike Vizard of EWeek calls Microsoft a company "having a great
corporate reputation, proprietary predilections notwithstanding."</aside>
- Adam
Bosworth of Google explains why
AJAX, PDAs, natural language and other innovations often fail
at first only to succeed and
succeed big later. He gives some
very interestings insights into how developers (coders,
(designers, programmers, or whatever) see the world diffeerently from
the users they need
to reach and serve.
- Twenty-five
years ago, fifteen years ago, five years ago they said, "Tape is Dead
.... Long Live Tape." Now it is 2007 and what are they
saying? The
next generation of tape technologies compete with removable disk and
online alternatives.
- Can
computers and networks fix
themselves? Is that a threat to Computer/Networking professional
? They call it Autonomic Computing or Automated Network Management
Processes - is it here yet for real or
is it hype?
- One
Answer to E-Attention Deficit Disorder - E-Ritalin?
- SEE!
I told you so - Copper
10 Gigabit Ethernet NICs Unveiled
- Another
advance for electronic health records - electronic
prescriptions via the Web.
- Mobile
is It! Two key points in this article: by 2010 half of all Internet
services will accessed by mobile devices;; also by 2010, the number of
mobile devices could go from 1 billion today to 1 trillion -
remember that 2010 is only three years away.
- Look
at all the security
problems of 2006 (nothing
new - don't forget that we have them
every year!). Notice an underlying theme of programming problems
by the "good guys" and the expertise in programming by the "bad
guys"? Nobody thinks that students should learn programming
because it is all going overseas, and students in America think it is
toooo hard ("and besides I'm going into networking")!
- Should
you be allowed to virtualize (what does THAT
mean?) with your copy of
Microsoft Vista at home if you want? Why
or why not?
- Here
are some really interesting and some thoughful
predictions for 2007.
- First
it was 10 MBps, then 100MBps, then
1000MBps or 1 GBps, then 10
GBps. What will be next - will it be 40 GBps or 100
GBps?
Two thoughtful commentaries from Network World, by Jeff
Caruso
and Sandra
Gittlen.
- A
followup article by Sandra Gittlen in Computerworld that leans more
toward 100 GBps tells why : 100G
Ethernet
to the masses - The need for
bigger pipes for operations like YouTube is driving the move
- Do
you trust your network or
do you just use it
because it serves your needs and you know what
remedies you have if something goes wrong - check
out this survey of users.
- Service
Oriented Architectures - Just start
here at Wikipedia
or Webopedia
- No
matter whether Windows or
UNIX/Linux is your strongest and most comfortable operating system, as
a professional you must be at least conversant in the other "side" of
the OS world. Need help -- read this.
- How
much do you know about Business
Continuity Planning? Take this Quiz!
- !!
Document your network cabling
- !!
IP addressing and subnetting: What network administrators need to know
- !!
Longhorn
Slideshow
- Finding
a job in IT demands that you are aware of the problems of the
marketplace in general. The article referenced ("IT Turkeys:
Technology Issues That We Don't Give Thanks For") has a theme of
Thanksgiving - or its negative - but there are several issues raised
that are especially relevant: the resume, Indian offshoring,
outsourcing, and finally, IT and the recession. Even though the
subject matter is addressed to corporate CIOs, the ideas presented are
meaningful to all of us if we are thinking about the job market both
now and later.
[For
many of the websites (above) you can make a good clean copy
for saving/printing by clicking on their "print this" or the
equivalent.]