Usable products: Too much to ask?

Backspin: Usable products: Too much to ask? 05/08/06

What I am arguing for – no, pleading for – is that vendors stop focusing on features and start thinking about usability. We don’t want manuals, weird key combinations to do basic things, text that can be read only if you have Superman-like vision and …

Rothman: Revamp your network security – now, 05/08/06

Did you like to blow things up when you were little? Come on, be honest. I’ll come clean. More than a few mailboxes fell under the onslaught of my juvenile pyromania. Being an adult means wanton destruction is frowned upon. But maybe there is …

Bradner: ‘Net neutrality: The end or the beginning? 05/08/06

With all the hype surrounding it, you would be forgiven if you thought the April 26 vote in the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce both killed and saved the Internet. I expect its effect will be more on the killed than saved side, but there …

Minoli: Needed: an enterprise security architecture, 05/08/06

What all organizations need is a comprehensive framework for the uniform and organized treatment of all aspects of security. This can be accomplished through a well-thought-out security architecture.

Cool Tools: The pros and cons of portable external hard drives, 05/08/06

While I absolutely adore the design, portability and storage capacities of these new devices, the bundled software that comes with them desperately needs some work.

Johnson: Effective WAN architecture more important than ever, 05/08/06

The bottom line: Effective WAN architecture is more important than ever, particularly in the light of changing business needs.

Dr. Internet: Getting WebGUI to actually download, 05/08/06

I read about WebGUI in one of your earlier columns. When I try to install it I run into errors at the point where the installer tries to download the system software from a Web mirror. I have tried all the available mirrors, and they all fail. What …

Gearhead: Saving on printer ink, 05/08/06

To achieve its sensational print quality, the i9900 uses eight ink cartridges – black, cyan, magenta, yellow, photo cyan, photo magenta, red and green. These cartridges hold a scant 15 milliliters (ml) of ink, which means that you run out of one or …

Editorial: Interop abuzz with yap about NAC, 05/08/06

One thing NAC suppliers agree on is customers should get their feet wet today by using NAC to scan mobile and guest devices before they are allowed to attach. Those are primary attack vectors, and limited NAC deployments can provide big gains.

Nolle: Is FMC the ‘real’ convergence? 05/08/06

VoIP convergence used to mean a bunch of softswitches, media gateways, replacing Class 5 switches and – not accidentally – spending telecom dollars that used to be spent on traditional TDM on VoIP voice instead. Not much of that ever happened. Today, …

Nutter’s Help Desk: Problems sending e-mail to one particular company, 05/07/06

Several days ago, my company started having problems sending e-mail to just one particular company. We are getting either NDR (Non Delivery notices) or a message indicating that the message has been delayed in delivery. I have been talking with the e- …

‘Net Buzz: Seen and heard around Interop, 05/08/06

We were told that attendance was up and that a number of big-name vendors – Microsoft and EMC among them – had returned to what has long been the industry’s premier trade gathering. Yet the show floor seemed somehow quieter to me, and it took a short …