I love Novell. This company has been on the ropes more than Ali in Zaire. But like Muhammad, Novell clearly has the knock-out punch. Whereas Wang, DG and WordPerfect all died because they couldn't escape their legacy, Novell did. NT killed NetWare and Office killed WordPerfect (which Novell bought), but yet Novell not only survives, but prospers.
Don't believe me? Well, why else would a hedge fund offer a cool $2 billion (in cash) for Novell?
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Posted by Doug Barney on March 05, 20103 comments
Many IT pros are wary of the cloud because they can't control the data and must rely on the service provider to keep hackers at bay. But the cloud, in many cases, is financially and technically compelling. So if the economics lead you to a cloud solution, do your best to make sure your apps are secure. A report from the Cloud Security Alliance has some advice -- and a few warnings.
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Posted by Doug Barney on March 05, 20100 comments
It's been tough in IT for, what, about the last 10 years? It's gotten even worse in the last two, as you've been asked to not only do more with less, but sometimes do more with nothing!
How have these budget cuts affected you? How does it feel to lose co-workers or even be the one to give them their pink slips? How do you keep your head up and respond to these challenges? How do you prioritize spending when you're dealing with chump change?
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Posted by Doug Barney on March 03, 20102 comments
Windows Server 2008 R2 is hot enough to literally lift the x86-based server market out of its doldrums. IDC says server sales in the fourth quarter were up nearly 14 percent, with 42 percent of those running Windows Server. That's more than double the amount of servers running either Linux (at 14 percent) or Unix (at 18 percent). In that part of the market, Linux is rising slightly while Unix continues to fall.
Posted by Doug Barney on March 03, 20102 comments
Microsoft has just helped eliminate a spambot that could send some 1.5 billion spams every day. The Botnet Task Force, which Microsoft runs, got an injunction against the still unidentified botnet "herders," and the botnet domains are now shut down.
While the folks behind the botnet are still unknown, the botnet itself, W32.Waldedac, is fairly well-understood and hopefully will be gone for good.
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Posted by Doug Barney on March 03, 20101 comments
If an e-mail directs you to a Web site, and that Web site asks you to push the F1 key -- don't! This is a new attack that takes advantage of a flaw in VBScript running on IE and Windows 2000, 2003 or XP, and if successful, can run malicious code on the attacked computer.
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Posted by Doug Barney on March 03, 20103 comments
Microsoft has been on an interoperability kick of late, and its most recent move involves Outlook's .PST format for storing e-mail. Microsoft recently published all the how-to's and wherefores for .PST so other vendors can tie more directly into the mail store.
There are limits, however: You can only access .PST files running on Outlook, and you can't implement the format in your own products.
Posted by Doug Barney on March 01, 20100 comments
All good or even mediocre things must come to an end, and so it is with XP SP2 and Windows Server 2000 and 2003, for which extended support will end this summer.
Microsoft is pushing customers to upgrade before July 31 or suffer the no-support consequences. If you don't upgrade but still want a failsafe, you'll have to buy a custom support plan. XP users have another, simpler option: Just upgrade to SP3! That will be supported for three more years.
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Posted by Doug Barney on March 01, 20101 comments
The recession had a lot of victims; jobs, mortgages and IT projects were all killed. While there's not a lot of good job and foreclosures news, IT projects may be on their way back. Cancelled projects as well and new ones are starting to get funding -- a development that could make IT fun again!
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Posted by Doug Barney on March 01, 20102 comments
Most of us have several machines, and most of us are pretty mobile. So how do you keep a common set of files accessible from different PCs and locations? Are your files in the cloud or on a server? Do you use remote control software and have one PC as the master? Any cool third-party apps help you out in this regard?
I' m looking to explore the best options in a future feature story for Redmond magazine. Share your solution with the world be writing me at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on February 26, 20107 comments
When most think people of Google, they picture free apps and services supported by ads. But a lot of Google wares have real price tags, including the enterprise version of Google Apps. And with paid products often come dealers -- and Google Apps can now claim nearly a thousand resellers. A big chunk of those are service providers who sell the apps as part of their overall service.
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Posted by Doug Barney on February 26, 20102 comments
Recently, I asked Redmond Report readers about your experiences with the beta version of Office 2010. Over a dozen of you agreed to be interviewed, giving deep insight into this new tool.
But due to space limitations in the magazine, I wasn't able to report on some of the problems you've run into. Take Redmond Report reader Bernie M. Bernie was interested in the new rev of Visio -- particularly because it sports the new ribbon interface -- and was told by Microsoft that Visio 2010 would coexist with his earlier version.
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Posted by Doug Barney on February 26, 20104 comments