Nolle: Does WebEx change the Cisco model? 04/05/07
Cisco’s acquisition of WebEx is in many ways as startling as if Alcoa had bought an aluminum canoe company. Cisco makes network gear, and WebEx is a consumer of network technology. The apparent disconnect has created all kinds of speculation on the motivation behind the deal, and the big question is whether WebEx is an indicator, or even a driver, of a major change in the Cisco model – and if so, to what?
Snyder: Tech support that makes you feel small, 04/05/07
We soon discovered that this vendor’s tech-support system is designed to keep customers from actually being able to get support. You can’t send e-mail: there’s no address. You can’t call in – the voice mail says, “You must use the Web.” But you can’t enter a trouble ticket on the Web site unless you have an account – which, because this vendor seems to have a CRM built using punch cards, they had neglected to give us.
Cool Tools: Sony ships new Vaio, 04/05/07
The arrival of spring brings rain showers, flower gardens and, of course, new colorful notebooks. Sony recently announced four Graphic Splash Edition notebooks available in its VAIO C and FE series.
Antonopolous: Security markets: Fame to fortune, 04/05/07
It used to be that computer attacks were perpetrated mostly for fame and recognition. In the last five years the motivation behind the majority of attacks seems to have shifted inexorably from fame to fortune. Parallel to this shift we are now …
Editorial: Data center design revisited, 04/05/07
While power and cooling have always been core data center issues, with the price of providing these essentials now rivaling the cost of the computing gear itself, it’s time to take a new look.
Gearhead: Delivering audio, 04/05/07
In the last two weeks we’ve cleaned up our MP3 collection, played with Wi-Fi, looked at the annoyingly high radio frequency attenuation properties of our walls, and solved our connectivity problems using HomePlug (aka Ethernet over powerline). (See ” …
Dr. Internet: Microsoft issues patch for cursor flaw, 04/05/07
Are there any workarounds to stop the most recent Windows animated cursor exploit? Do you know when we can expect Microsoft to release a patch to repair the problem?
Nutter’s Help Desk: Bonding T-1s as a cheaper alternative to DS3, 04/02/07
We are adding an additional T1 to our existing T1 connection to the Internet. We would have liked to have installed a fractional DS3 but the installation and ongoing costs were just to much for us at this point. The ISP that we use has talked about ” …
Bradner: DRM-less music? Let consumers decide, 04/02/07
News of a pending announcement was buried among the April Fools Day fake stories on the techie Web sites. EMI, the world’s third largest music company, and Apple were going to hold a joint press conference in London on April 2. It turned out that the …
Insider Threat: When information-protection policies are broken, 04/02/07
What are some information protection policies that are commonly broken in enterprises? Are these the main policies that I should focus on when training employees on policies regarding company data?
Backspin: IT automation: right and wrong, 03/30/07
“AUTOMATE! AUTOMATE! Every place you can. Lord knows there isn’t enough of me to go around as it is, and that isn’t going to change!” – Gibbs Irregular Dan Wakeman
