Real hacking for real sysadmins
He's got a lock to pick with you ... September 21, 2004

Yet Another Thing to Worry About
Pagejacking is when your evil archenemy puts up pages with meta refresh redirects to your pages, then hopes that Google,... September 21, 2004

The home computer of 2004
As envisioned in 1954 by the chrome-domes at the Rand Corp. September 20, 2004

That didn't take long
Last Tuesday, Microsoft warned us about a potential hole in Windows XP related to JPEG images. Two days later, BugTraq... September 20, 2004

Just the FAQs, ma'am
Eric Brill, a senior research at Microsoft, has been trying to figure out how to take search engines to the... September 17, 2004

Some new intrusion-detection resources
We've added several new tools to the Intrusion detection downloads page, including rootkit detectors and forensics tools. Check 'em out,... September 17, 2004

Category 4 panic
Run for cover! The JPEG hole from hell wil destroy all life as we know it! Ya think? September 16, 2004

PHP and Domino
PHP works well with MySQL. What about Domino data? September 16, 2004

SIP: Not just for VoIP anymore
EarthLink SIPshare is a protoype app showing how you can use SIP for peer-to-peer applications: The emerging ubiquity of SIP... September 16, 2004

VoIP security
A new guide from NIST discusses the unique issues involved in securing VoIP systems. September 15, 2004

Good summation of the comment-spam issue
OJR article: Bloggers Declare War on Comment Spam, but Can They Win? over at Online Journalism Review will tell you... September 15, 2004

That was no tree, that was my wife!
Fraud Frond.com is a site devoted to cell towers disguised as trees: There are 130,000 cel towers in the USA... September 15, 2004

Forget Wednesday's child
In Japan, every desktop operating system has its own big-eyed little girl to represent it. September 14, 2004

SP2: Making third-party vendors sweat and end users go crazy
Diego Duval installs Windows XP SP2 and learns three important things: He still hates McAfee VirusScan with the burning passion... September 14, 2004

Getting RSS overload under control
All that RSS traffic is beginning to cause bottlenecks. Would a P2P network be the answer? September 13, 2004

Hot or not?
Rate my network diagram starts out with a warning that it's not just a place to vote on how hot... September 13, 2004

Blog scaling
When everybody's blogging, how do you manage the massive blogflow - both from the enterprise side and from the perspective of the end user looking for interesting stuff? September 10, 2004

Should I be posting links to cracking tools?
You can count on JoatBlog to posts links to all sorts of interesting security resources; it helps me keep our... September 10, 2004

When CEOs blog
CEO Bloggers' Club is a blog about CEOs who blog.... September 10, 2004

The armies of the night
The Internet Storm Center reports that a Norwegian carrier discovered and shut down an IRC-controlled zombie army of 10,000 nodes.... September 09, 2004

The anti-pop-up backlash
Phil Wainewright discusses the dilemma of anti-pop-up tools such as the Google toolbar and Windows XP SP2: sure, they block... September 09, 2004

We're shocked, shocked
When the government didn't like a Web poll showing singer Tom Jones as a Welsh "hero," it ordered the results changed, a former IT manager claims. September 08, 2004

Are area codes irrelevant?
In an era of mobile phones and VoIP, codes tied to specific areas are fast losing their meaning. September 07, 2004

Well that didn't take long
Dave Winer reports his first pop-up since he installed Windows XP Service Pack 2 (you'll recall it includes a pop-up... September 07, 2004

Any OS/2 users out there?
Time to move. IBM has been posting articles on porting your OS/2 apps to Linux, which it says is "evolving as the predominant operating system of the new millennium." September 03, 2004

Don't you just hate it when that happens?
Mike McBride loves his end users, but sometimes ... ... One of our department heads had numerous conversations and meetings... September 03, 2004

Blocking my Chinese fraudster friend
I posted my weird HTTP-requests-from China query on a Drupal mailing list (since the queries were coming in through a... September 02, 2004

Weird Web hacking nonsense from China
When I go home at night, I usually spend some time working on a non-networking related Web site (so, yes,... September 01, 2004

When one isn't enough
A company called Orion Multisystems yesterday announced a desktop workstation stuffed with 96 processors. September 01, 2004

Sun's fulltime blogger
Sun has just given Dave Johnson a fulltime job developing and deploying its Roller blog aggregator. Johnson is also in... August 31, 2004

Gmail as file system
So what do you do with a gig of storage? If you're Richard Jones, you figure out how to use... August 31, 2004

Longhorn sounding like Cairo
David Card of Jupiter Research wins the award for best reaction to Microsoft's announcement that it is scaling back Longhorn:... August 31, 2004

Bloggy reaction to the Longhorn news
More comments than you can probably read in one sitting. August 30, 2004

Feelings, nothing more than feelings!
"Who should work with whom?" is an article that posits the notion that personality may be more important than technical skills in determining the success of large software-development efforts. August 30, 2004

Sound familar?
Bryce Yehl makes a trip over to OfficeMax to pick up some cheap shelving for the *five* more used servers... August 30, 2004

So the sky didn't fall yesterday
Vmyths explains how some comments at a press conference by a Russian anti-virus exec turned into a Death of Internet... August 27, 2004

The ultimate shoot-em-up game
You're In Control is a new interactive game developed at MIT that might just piss you off: The You’re In... August 26, 2004

Where's my heli-car?
Will Life Be Worth Living In 2,000AD? is a reproduction of a magazine article from 1961. Some of the predictions... August 26, 2004

The Google browser?
Take Mozilla, add some JavaScripty goodness (Gmail is built on it, at least on the client side) and voila: the... August 26, 2004

Not banking on it
Why aren't banks doing more to protect their customers from phish? August 25, 2004

His RSS reader saves him about 300 hours a week
Greg Hughes loves his RSS aggregator: ... Research that used to take hours and hours of searching and browsing now... August 25, 2004

Today's best waste of time
Crunch Time is the game to play when your co-workers are getting just a wee bit out of control: You... August 24, 2004

Why he didn't go to Microsoft
Werner Vogels is leaving the academic confines of Cornell for a new job building distributed applications at Amazon.com. He reports... August 24, 2004

Free Wi-Fi almost leads to arrest
It almost sounds like the start of a joke: So this guy's sitting outside a library with a laptop ... August 23, 2004

Not-so-SmartFilter?
Seth Finkelstein notes an interesting story out of Wales: County officials began getting complaints when users of the local libraries... August 23, 2004

The Spinning Cube of Potential Doom
Best Security Resource Ever - if only because of the name. August 20, 2004

And thank you for flying Python ...
Frequentis, a company that makes software for air traffic controllers, explains why it used Python for one of its suites... August 20, 2004

Tracking a report
VoweWiki: RadicatiGroup is an attempt to chronicle everything that happened after the Radicati Group issues a report comparing Microsoft's and... August 19, 2004

That's a lot of feeds
RSS can be a time saver - until the number of feeds in your aggregator starts climbing toward the millennium mark. August 18, 2004

Can you spot phish a mile away?
Prove it. Take MailFrontier's phishing IQ test (for the record, I got 90%, which sounds good, but given the damage... August 18, 2004

Not a capital idea from Wired News
Oh, ho, so Wired News will no longer use a capital I when referring to a certain globe-spanning computer network:... August 17, 2004

Phishing sites stay up long enough to do some damage
An AntiPhishing Working Group report shows that the average phishing site stays up for 54 hours before somebody shuts it... August 17, 2004

Programs that won't work with Windows XP SP2
Here's the official list from Microsoft, which also has some workarounds. Interesting that some of the programs are enterprise-level anti-virus... August 17, 2004

For you Scrooge McDuck fans
Is the Business Software Alliance's new anti-piracy mascot all it's quacked up to be? August 16, 2004

0, baby
Microsoft Windows: A lower Total Cost of 0wnership is the shocking title of a comparison of Windows and Linux. Well,... August 16, 2004

Searchstreams
John Batelle discusses searchstreams - those collection of search terms you use to triangulate yourself to information when your first... August 16, 2004

Today's most useful software
Light Speed! is a graphics application that simulates the appearance of objects as they approach the speed of light. Complete... August 13, 2004

Routing around a change in XP2
SilverStr discusses a change in nmap that will let it get around the way Windows XP service pack 2 tries... August 13, 2004

SP2 first impressions
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is linking to online comments about the XP service pack. Via Scripting News.... August 12, 2004

Perl as GUI builder?
Ayup! Check out Using advanced widgets in Perl/Tk: "Perl is one of the most popular languages out there, and is... August 12, 2004

New offshoring page
Our new Offshoring research center brings you the latest news on companies moving jobs overseas and legislative efforts related to... August 11, 2004

Knock, knock, knockin' ...
Why port knocking might not be all that. August 11, 2004

Keeping it simple
Adam Bosworth, late of BEA, now of Google, discusses why simple is often far better when it comes to things... August 10, 2004

Hacking RFID
RFDump is a Java tool for reading data off RFID chips (when connected to an RFID reader device). Its author... August 10, 2004

Surfing at work
Surf away, but cause any network problems and you'll have one angry network guy to deal with. August 09, 2004

Networking your IP phone
Omar Shahine provides instructions for connecting a Vonage VoIP system to a Windows home network. Via Greg Hughes, who adds... August 09, 2004

Duct!
Apparently, in Doom 3, you can either hold a flashlight or a heavy-duty gun, but not both. And even though... August 09, 2004

Two wheels are so redundant
What do you do after you've built a cheap knockoff of a Segway? Get rid of one of the wheels, of course. August 06, 2004

User to Microsoft: No thanks
Edward Mitchell reads a story in which Microsoft asks everybody to turn on Windows XP automatic updating for the upcoming... August 06, 2004

Know your enemy
Read up on a plan for bypassing all those pesky firewalls, proxies and content filters you're so busy running. August 05, 2004

Yogurt lids and inner tubes
Trygve Lode describes how he set up a data center with ordinary household items, including yogurt lids and inner tubes... August 05, 2004

So, should Sun buy Novell?
One observer wonders if Sun might not better use its cash reserves to shore itself up first. August 04, 2004

The PC-Bake Oven
ThinkGeek strikes again, this time with the PC EZ-Bake Oven: "Now the computer savvy among us can relive the fun... August 04, 2004

Taking Notes
At last: Web-services and Notes programmers find peace, love and harmony. Or something. August 03, 2004

Now that's support!
Mike Pope gets his home broadband from Comcast. He reports Comcast POP server was down for 48 hours" "... I... August 03, 2004

Stanford University and Weblog spam
Maybe they should call it the Spamford University Center for Internet and Society. August 02, 2004

Blog spammers find yet another technique
Those clever spammers have found an indirect way to boost their Google rankings. July 30, 2004

Have you hugged your system administrator today?
Or at the least, given him/her a peck on the cheek? July 30, 2004

Clear plastic raincoats
Jeremy Zawodny reports from an eBay techie user meeting: "The eBay API BoF tonight was dominated by a guy who... July 30, 2004

Power to the people
Jeff Schneider, CEO of Momentum Software, likes service-oriented architecture. And yet, he argues that large enterprises that want to quickly... July 29, 2004

Wireless at the Democratic convention
Ninja Stu has been chronicling his efforts to make sure that bloggers and other wireless users can go online at... July 28, 2004

Wi-Fi's cookin' now!
Pringles Can antennas are so last week. From New Zealand comes the $5 Chinese cookware parabolic antenna. July 28, 2004

Making RSS scale
RSS is great for users, but possibly not so great for sites that suddenly find themselves barraged with endless feed... July 27, 2004

Pining for IE (sorta)
Scott Mace installed his first Firefox browser patch: "I missed Windows Update! The Mozilla/Firefox patch mechanism essentially requires users to... July 27, 2004

SSH brute-force password attempts
Martin McKeay reads a SANS advisory about possible SSH crack attempts and comments: "I'm waiting to see more specific information,... July 26, 2004

Who designed this thing?
Last week, I wanted to find a press release from New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. So I headed... July 26, 2004

If Google had been around in the '60s
See what its search page would have looked like. July 23, 2004

Auto-validation of XHTML pages
Fiddle around a lot with XHTML and want to make sure your pages are still valid, but you can never... July 23, 2004

The IE blog
Microsoft's Internet Explorer development team has a blog.... July 23, 2004

Where is Steve?
Where is Steve? gives you more information than you probably need to know about just where Steve is at the moment (well, more specifically, his cell phone) July 22, 2004

Cisco volunteers
Cisco has set up an online tool for non-profit groups that could use a hand with networking: "As an Internet... July 22, 2004

Open source BPM
Open source workflow and the BPM-market: "This article gives a compact overview of the open source projects, standards and commercial... July 22, 2004

The Pringles can comes of age
No grease and you get radical Wi-Fi performance. July 21, 2004

Making the switch
Switching to Linux is an effort to create a comprehensive guide to everything you'd need to know and do to... July 21, 2004

Public and private bugs
Microsoft has set up a bug-tracking system for Visual Studio. Scott Mace notes an interview on the Microsoft developer site... July 21, 2004

Extreme networking
Strong Angel II is a DARPA-funded effort to develop network technologies that can survive the roughest conditions (yeah, yeah, we... July 20, 2004

Review of "I, Robot"
Jeremy Wright counts himself as an Asimov fan, so he found himself pleasantly surprised by the movie: "All in all,... July 20, 2004

Computers that feel your pain
Rather than trying to figure out how to make software more reliable, a Taiwanese researcher has studied ways to reduce the odds that frustrated users will simply toss their PCs out the window. July 19, 2004

Really into your Nokia phone?
The Nokia Content Syndication Program lets you create RSS feeds to keep up with the latest comments from the Nokia... July 19, 2004

Back!
That's right, I didn't really drop off the face of the earth! Apologies to those of you still reading for... July 19, 2004

How Microsoft could beat Linux
Free and low-cost tools could be its newest weapon against the Linux onslaught. July 01, 2004

Nerds hate change
Bowulf has a new boss: "I am currently in an adjustment period with a new boss, which is always tough.... July 01, 2004

Wait'll the spammers figure out VoIP
Spam is just packets. So is VoIP. Welcome to the brave new world. June 30, 2004

Some new Fusion resources
New for your drill-down enjoyment: Research centers on CRM, ERP and networking standards. All three feature the latest news and... June 30, 2004

Apple as predatory as Microsoft?
That's what Om Malik says about a proposed Mac OS add-on that pretty much copies an existing third-party app called... June 30, 2004

The Heisenberg-uncertainty database
The Justice Department says one of its databases would be destroyed it if tried to make a copy of it. June 29, 2004

Telcos and fiber to the home
Jim Stewart discusses fiber to the home and wonders if, in a few years, LECs will know what hit them. June 29, 2004

Take two Tablets and call him in the morning
Greg Hughes points to an interesting article on how Microsoft field-tested its Tablet PCs before their launch - in trials... June 29, 2004

The real reason Comdex died
Was it the Internet? The economy? Nah. June 28, 2004

Social networking? Who cares?
Never waste time at a conference session on social networking again. Just read David Hornik's transcription of one such discussion.... June 28, 2004

Help route around censorship
Adam Morris lives in Tianjin, China. He reports that China is stepping up its 'Net censorship: "We are in throes... June 28, 2004

Escaping this mortal coil
Bob Bemer, the father of ASCII and the escape key died earlier this week.... June 25, 2004

Wireless disintermediation
Martin discusses some innovative ways people are beginning to get around restrictions placed on them by cellular carriers - some... June 25, 2004

DNA in XML
Just when I think I might be getting over my fixation with people applying biological techniques to computing (viral immunity,... June 25, 2004

Suggestions on comment spam?
Our Weblogs run on Movable Type, and over the past few months, MT-Blacklist has proven an invaluable tool for combatting... June 25, 2004

Does anybody actually read e-mail from IS?
Or: How many times does he have to tell you about viruses? June 24, 2004

It's not dead. It's resting
News that Comdex has been cancelled this year but might return reminds one of an old Monty Python sketch: Customer:... June 24, 2004

Just-in-time network upgrades
Riedesg works at a university, where major system upgrades have to be planned around the academic calendar (i.e., they can... June 24, 2004

Microsoft owns you
Microsoft has just won a patent for using the human body to transmit power and data: "Abstract:Methods and apparatus for... June 23, 2004

New convergence pages
File this under "drilling down." We've set up a bunch of new research centers under Convergence for folks who really want to get the latest on certain specific areas. June 23, 2004

Spam hip hop
Get your Flash client ready and your sound turned up and then go to U Got Spam for the best... June 23, 2004

The problem with end users
Douglas Chick discusses why phishing works: Because users keep responding to the e-mails, no matter how many times you tell them not to June 22, 2004

The phishers get smarter
One of the "problems" faced by phishers in trying to suck out your bank-account info is that their URLs, should... June 21, 2004

Ancient Irish hacking
Sean McGrath presents evidence that the Irish have been hacking for at least 6,000 years. Via Diego Doval.... June 21, 2004

Finally, working servers?
Bowolf has been chronicling his woes with some IBM xSeries 345 servers (as in: they don't work). He now reports... June 21, 2004

How to fry an egg in a PC
How to fry an egg on an XP delivers what it promises: A photo-essay on how to use your computer... June 17, 2004

The no-points-of-failure myth
Diego Doval wonders: Sure, the routers will stay up, but what about the services? June 16, 2004

Imagining DDos on a VoIP net
Arrigo reads that BT plans to go all IP by 2009 and isn't happy: "People expect a phone to work... June 16, 2004

Zap: There goes a little piece of the Web
Back in days of yore, Dave Winer's UserLand Software let people set up free Weblogs on its weblogs.com site. On... June 15, 2004

Iranian encryption
Bruce Schneier has some interesting speculation about the Ahmad Chalabi telling the Iranians we'd broken their codes story: "Whatever the... June 15, 2004

SOA Editor
Cape Science has released a free SOA Editor "which enables programmers to rapidly create, view and edit Services using Web... June 15, 2004

Paying for RSS
Is advertising the end of RSS as we know it? June 14, 2004

A tempermental beast
Bill Manning was working until 11 p.m. this past Saturday. He explains why on Sunday: "... WebShere is such a... June 14, 2004

Findory Blogory
With a name like Findory Blogory, you know it has to be good. Findory Blogory is an interesting effort to... June 14, 2004

Convincing your boss you need to test your security
A paper could help convince C-level types why you need to go to all the bother. June 11, 2004

Desperate measures for desperate times
So what do you do when you're on the road and your laptop fan dies? If you're Steve Taylor, you... June 11, 2004

Flock this
Remember flashmobs? Yeah, they sure were fun for, oh, ten minutes or so. Get ready for the wireless version: flocking. June 10, 2004

It was a dark and stormy net
Darknet is a project to help you monitor malicious traffic on your network: "A Darknet is a portion of routed,... June 10, 2004

Scamming an eBay scammer
The Powerbook (P-P-P-Powerbook) is a long, funny discussion of how one guy managed to put one over on a foreign... June 10, 2004

Not happy with IBM xSeries servers
Guess we won't be seeing Bowulf in any of those snazzy IBM TV ads. He continues to chronicle his problems... June 09, 2004

Not happy with HP support
Mike Gunderloy has an old HP Jornada PDA. The battery leaked, basically welding itself to the inside of the unit,... June 09, 2004

The right tool for the job
Stonyfield Farms, a New Hampshire yogurt maker, has started a barnyard of blogs on yogurt-related topics. One guess which blogging tool they're using. June 08, 2004

Fluid information architectures
Mike Rowehl writes that Web services and service-oriented architectures sound cool, but they do them little good when he can't... June 08, 2004

Desperate for Gmail
Why are people so anxious to get an account? June 07, 2004

Sun, the universe and everything
Blogs for Sun is an aggregator that will show you postings from every blog written by a Sun employee: "This... June 07, 2004

Open source won't save e-voting
Eric Rescorla explains why he doesn't think open-source systems are necessarily better than proprietary ones for ensuring electronic voting systems... June 07, 2004

Never cross somebody in IT
Unless you've never visited a porn site, that is. June 03, 2004

Wireless Unleashed
Wireless Unleashed is a group Weblog (by "Stupid Networks" guru David Isenberg, wireless doyen Kevin Werbach, former AT&T Labs... June 03, 2004

Possible Google time saver
Lushe.net is a JavaScript "bookmarklet" for IE and Mozilla that lets you search multiple sites at once via Google. What... June 02, 2004

Death of 'Net predicted
Film at 11? "People For Internet Responsibility (PFIR) is pleased to announce an 'emergency' conference aimed at preventing the 'meltdown'... June 02, 2004

Password issues
So you think you have problems convincing your users to use hard-to-crack passwords? Bruce Blair recounts what happened when then... June 02, 2004

Liquid computing
No, it's not computing underwater. Nor is it using flasks of liquid to do computations. It's BEA's new service-oriented architecture strategy. June 01, 2004

Microsoft Office Solution Accelerator for Sarbanes-Oxley
Microsoft has released a set of Office add-ons for managing all the work related to this corporate governance law. Greg... June 01, 2004

Linksys is good again
A few days ago, Tim complained about Linksys customer service. The post got action - in a follow-up, he writes... June 01, 2004

Linksys routers as disruptive technology
How a $70 device could be the undoing of the local telephone companies. May 28, 2004

Yakking it up over Wi-Fi
Earlier this week, the BBC had an interesting story about a wireless network in Nepal that is helping remote yak... May 28, 2004

Not happy with Linksys
Tim A. chronicles a fruitless, month-long attempt to get help from Linksys with a product problem: "... April 29 -... May 27, 2004

Finally, a reason to switch to Mozilla
Pornzilla is a suite of tools for users of the Firefox variant of Mozilla: "These bookmarklets and extensions makes it... May 27, 2004

XP security better, but not good enough
Preston Gralla says that while Microsoft's impending XP Service Pack 2 does have some security enhancements, Zone Alarm far outpaces them. May 26, 2004

Protesting oneself
Following up on yesterday's posting about the anti-Semite using a legitimate site to build up his Google page rank, Seth... May 26, 2004

Security testing exercises
Jeremy Wright is writing a proposed set of security excercises to help a company test its defenses. He's looking for... May 26, 2004

What the homefolks are looking for
An IT pro notes a change in the advice requests he gets from users. May 25, 2004

The problem with anonymous comments?
Seth Finklestein notes the latest wrinkle in the Google "Jew" controversy: Seems another Jew hater, possibly jealous at all the... May 25, 2004

Exchange clustering
Running a big Exchange installation? Evan's WebLog, by Microsoftie Evan Dodd, is all about Exchange clustering. Via Paul Robichaux's Exchange... May 25, 2004

Remember when the Web was new?
Ed Costello was IBM's first Webmaster, and he recalls ibm.com's launch ten year's ago: "... This was actually the subject... May 24, 2004

Building up your immunity
So we have researchers using the models of disease epidemics to make large-scale database systems more efficient. Why not study... May 24, 2004

The impending end of big telcos?
Martin discusses the commodification of telecom services: "Perhaps we're heading towards a future where instead of a dozen large vertically-organized... May 24, 2004

So who wrote Minix?
Andrew Tannenbaum wrote Minix, a Unix-like OS that came before Linux. In this essay he shows how Linus Torvalds wrote... May 21, 2004

SIP interoperability
Joel Snyder helped put together the SIP interoperabilty testing at the recent NetWorld+Interop. In this audio interview, he discusses SIP.... May 21, 2004

Technology as the death of us all
A chance encounter with a colleague whose DVD burner has, well, burned out, gets Greg to thinking about the impact... May 20, 2004

Best headline ever
I would RTFM if there was an FM to FR - in which the author decries the sad state of... May 20, 2004

And Henry Ford didn't start Ford?
GrokLaw notes an interesting story: The Alexis de Tocqueville Insitution says Linus Torvalds didn't invent Linux. As GrokLaw notes, the... May 19, 2004

Oopsies: Dual-booting Linux and Windows XP
In a word: Don't even think of it with certain versions of Mandrake and Fedora. May 18, 2004

Honeypot on a disk
Honeywall CDROM is a bootable honeypot that lets you see what would-be intruders are up to: "You simply boot off... May 18, 2004

BitTorrent: Akamai for the masses?
Linux Magazine has a BitTorrent overview that explains how this many-to-many ad-hoc network could change the way large files (yeah, video, but also things such as Linux distributions) are distributed May 17, 2004

Low IQ?
Bruce Schneier says he's a bit wary of IQ Networks - a European security concern: "... IQ Networks claims to... May 17, 2004

Visio stencils
If you're a Visio user, here's a site for sore eyes. May 14, 2004

Movable Type and eating
So yesterday I grumped about the cost of new licenses for Six Apart's Movable Type tool. Timothy Appnel says buck... May 14, 2004

The cost of blogging
Six Apart has come out with the pricing for Ver. 3.0 of its Movable Type blogging tool (sorry, for their "publishing system"). Ouch. May 13, 2004

Get ready to rumble on the 'Net
A couple of gangs used the 'Net to arrange a fight. May 13, 2004

Live comment spammers
Scott Johnson, CEO of Feedster, has a blog, but he's using blogging software that doesn't have a way to automatically... May 13, 2004

An enterprise-networking aggregator
Welcome to Feeds, our new RSS aggregator and search engine. May 12, 2004

Web-enabled garage-door opener
Mr. Blog explains the usefulness of being able to control his garage door from the comfy confines of his house. May 12, 2004

Dear Paypal phishers
If you're going to try to scam me out of my account information, couldn't you come up with a better... May 12, 2004

Bloggers to Google: We're watching you
So Google now has its own blog. On Monday, it had an item about how Google's hiring. So? The original... May 12, 2004

The Fusion OPML file
Get your Network World Fusion OPML hot from the oven. May 11, 2004

Don't blame the worm
Add Greg Hughes to the list of people who think there was no excuse for companies to be shut down... May 11, 2004

He won't allow RealPlayer on his network
Why one network administrator puts it on his list of banned applications May 07, 2004

Remember the giblets!
Larry Osterman reports on a talk by Michael Howard, the author of Writing Secure Code. Howard, Osterman says, left his... May 07, 2004

Hiring as information warfare
Can who you hire be as effective as corporate espionage in learning what your competitors are up to? May 06, 2004

Fixing a wireless problem
The continued growth of wireless use means more interference, because few people bother (or know how to) change the channels... May 06, 2004

Incompetence at the higher levels
How could a bank let Sasser get into its network? Sheer incompetence, perhaps? May 05, 2004

Latest trend in Indian outsourcing
They click and the click and then they click some more. They are India's secret army of online ad clickers. May 04, 2004

Anti-censor tool winds up censoring
So last fall, the U.S. government's International Broadcasting Bureau (think Voice of America and Radio Free Europe), signed a deal... May 04, 2004

Fire in the hole!
Alexander Scoble has been documenting his progress in buying a fire-suppression system for his server room. May 03, 2004

Wi-Fi as a GPS replacement
Mark Frauenfelder, discusses Quarterscope, a company that says it has a way to use wireless access points to see where... May 03, 2004

The Google IPO
Notes from all over on the Google IPO. April 30, 2004

Rule Britannia
The BBC reports the arrest of some geek for phishing: "Police have said a 21-year-old man is the first in... April 30, 2004

Best use of Linux, bar none
Bar Monkey is a home bar set up that uses Linux to help mix and pour drinks for you. April 29, 2004

A couple of interesting security links
Both via joat, who does an excellent job of collecting such things: WormRadar is an effort to build a distributed... April 29, 2004

Epidemic networking
We've already adopted the "virus" paradigm from the biologists, so why not use other natural phenomenon to describe - and improve - networking? April 28, 2004

Questions that defy answers
But Mike McBride asks them anyway. April 27, 2004

Social networks: The Next Big Thing?
It's a long essay (I'm about halfway through it myself), but Smarter, Simpler Social provides a good overview of efforts... April 27, 2004

When routers go bad
His router is now all shot to hell. April 26, 2004

Anti-phishing tool for IE
SpoofStick, a browser plug-in that prominently displays the real URL of any site, is now available for Internet Explorer (previously,... April 26, 2004

Don't let perfectionism ruin your life
Joel Spolsky, professional coder, discusses the insanity of perfectionism. April 23, 2004

Wireless Braille
The normally sober BBC breathlessly reports on an effort by some German researchers to translate wireless text mssages into tactile... April 23, 2004

A dead process
Just when you think the InterWeb can't possibly get any more useful, along comes something like Died Online. April 22, 2004

Time for Time Warner to cut AOL loose
John Battelle says Time Warner is screwing itself when it comes to AOL and needs to just spin it off:... April 22, 2004

JavaScript and us
About those JavaScript errors you might be getting on our pages. April 21, 2004

RSS in ten words or less
RSS is one of those "standards" (Mark Pilgrim has identified at least nine different variants) that nobody seems to be... April 21, 2004

Knock it off
Jeremy Zawodny likes how people use instant-message software to let people know if they're available. However, he cannot stand people... April 21, 2004

Being one with the access point
Instead of hunting for wireless access points, why not just wear one on your back? April 20, 2004

Why national ID cards won't work
Cryptography expert Bruce Schneier wonders why we want to spend billions on a security program that won't work. He notes... April 20, 2004

Charles Colson on technology in the church
Nowadays, he's a born-again Christian who ministers to the prison set - which includes writing a regular column for Prison Fellowship. His most recent column addresses the consequences of over-ambitious, over-budget technology spending. April 16, 2004

Fiber to the home
Jim Stewart's been thinking about fiber to the home - he looks at why we'll need it and who should... April 16, 2004

Gaming your life
Intel's IT Manager Game is what The Sims would be like if all the Sims worked as IT managers in shops full of sluggish, annoying end users whose productivity will collapse unless you upgrade their desktops and network gear ... April 15, 2004

Amazon's new search engine
Well, make that: Amazon's sorta new search engine. A9, unwrapped in beta yesterday, basically consists of Google's database and algorithms... April 15, 2004

Clueless California lawmakers
So Google gets all this attention for its beta GMail, which the company plans to pay for by incorporating ads... April 15, 2004

Warts and all
If you gave an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of HTML editors, would they eventually create pages with... April 14, 2004

IE to get makeover?
IE 6.x was supposed to be the end of the IE line. But Microsoft is hiring developers ... April 13, 2004

Cut Google some slack
Diego Duval wonders if the complaints about privacy in Google's GMail miss the point. Sure, Google isn't guaranteeing 100% privacy:... April 13, 2004

The cable companies must love it
One observer says Verizon is playing chicken with its future by threatening to cancel a major fiber project. April 12, 2004

On the Cisco LEAP hacking tool
Mike Rowehl reacts to the news that somebody's released a tool for automating attacks against Cisco's LEAP wireless encryption: "...... April 12, 2004

Wi-Fly: Faster than DSL
Ami Ben-Bassat reports: "On Friday, March 12, 2004, a group of several dozen Internet addicts from Israel and abroad, gathered... April 09, 2004

The exciting world of computer security
Ejovi Nuwere, a security researcher (and co-founder of InfoSec Daily), brings his kid brother into the office: "... Unfortunately computer... April 09, 2004

Catching a scammer red handed
So this scammer walks into an Internet cafe ... April 08, 2004

Small-town wireless giveaway
Wheat Wireless is giving away $100,000 in wireless gear to a small town: "The town selected for this grant will... April 08, 2004

Now cut that out!
Why people should stop citing stupid queries as proof that Google is dying. April 07, 2004

Smacking spoofers
Phil Libin has posted a cool little widget for reducing your odds of being phished. His SpoofStick is a free... April 07, 2004

Why he's not a lawyer
The vice president of legislative affairs at Mike McBride's company asks him for a consult on a proposed anti-spam law... April 06, 2004

Online payment insanity
Jeremy Zawodny rants about certain online payment schemes: "You know, I really can't wait until all these stupid little on-line... April 06, 2004

GMail review and notes
As with everything else Google, people are talking about its new GMail Web-based messaging service. April 05, 2004

It's one thing to stay up all night for a good cause ...
But to learn that staying up to oversee the migration of data into an upgraded app was a waste of... April 05, 2004

Evil conspiracy theory, Java editon
Clemens Vasters speculates on the real reason IBM wants to make Java open source. April 02, 2004

Google: The comment spammer's friend
Well, in one small way, at any rate. Every morning for the past couple of weeks, I've opened up my... April 02, 2004

Standards Watch
The great thing about standards is that there are so many of them (did I just hear a snare drum out there?). April 01, 2004

New RFC aims to combat piracy
Our very own Scott Bradner has just released RFC 3751 - the Omniscience Protocol, whose goal is to figure out... April 01, 2004

Diebold gets a new CSO
Avi Rubin, a Johns Hopkins researcher who keeps punching holes in electronic-voting systems, today writes he is taking a job... April 01, 2004

Catching insiders
It's one thing to snare the outside script kiddies. But what about security violations by your own people? March 31, 2004

The problem with Java
Russell Beatie says the problem with Java isn't the language itself but the too-clever computer-science majors making it too complex. March 31, 2004

What's it called?
An IM situation that happens to me far too often must have a name ... March 30, 2004

Candygrams?
Lookee here: Not only can you still send a Western Union telegram, you can order one online. The obvious question,... March 30, 2004

Virtual reality for cancer patients
A study at the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center showed that some breast-cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy experienced less fatique and fewer side effects when hooked up to virtual-reality systems during treatments. March 30, 2004

Computers suck
It's one thing for your computer to crash when you're sitting at your desk. It's quite another to have it crash when you're 45 feet under water. March 29, 2004

Webcams work!
Why you should install a Webcam in your house right this second. March 29, 2004

Mongrel Web services spec
Phil Wainewright discusses why he thinks a new Web services spec from IBM and BEA is a dog. March 26, 2004

Ultimate Boot CD
The Ultimate Boot CD is a project to cram as many (open source) diagnostic and recovery tools as possible onto... March 26, 2004

Why you shouldn't steal from bloggers
If you're going to crash a party and steal stuff try to make sure it's not a house full of... March 26, 2004

IM policies for the enterprise
David Marshak of the Seybold Group writes about "Instant Messaging at Work" - and provides some guidance on establishing IM policies: March 25, 2004

An indexing index
Jeremy Wagstaff provides a handy listing of desktop indexing applications, i.e., apps that will help you keep track of all... March 25, 2004

What's old is new again
The Speak & Spell Emulator is exactly what it sounds like. ... March 25, 2004

A handy household tool
And you thought Python was only a Web scripting language!. Andrew Koenig writes on how Python helped him design his new kitchen. March 24, 2004

Upgrading to Windows XP Service Pack 2 RC 1
Kayode Okeyode provides lots of links to people who have detailed their experiences upgrading to Windows XP Service Pack 2... March 24, 2004

Fiber-seeking cable operators
We all know about the disruptions caused by fiber-seeking backhoes. Al Bonnyman writes about an equally bad above-ground problem. March 23, 2004

Ow, my head
I spent a good part of yesterday working on an events calendar module for our upcoming community platform (more on... March 23, 2004

Bill Gates snares free-software biggie
From Slashdot comes the news that Free Software Foundation founder Richard M. Stallman today moves his office into the new... March 22, 2004

You ever notice ...?
If Andy Rooney covered outsourcing. March 22, 2004

Centralized identity for the blogosphere
Six Apart, the company behind Movable Type, plans a centralized identity management system called TypeKey. Users of the planned Movable... March 22, 2004

Spam: What goes around comes around?
Seems that China has become the world's second largest recipient of spam: "The Internet Society of China (ISC) said that... March 19, 2004

Sex addicted IT director sent to jail
The former IT director for the town of Leesburg, Va., will be spending the next four months in jail for... March 19, 2004

Physical security
From aerogels to questionnaires, some things to think about for your data center. March 18, 2004

The real threat
Viruses and worms get all the pubilcity, but IT needs to start spending a log more time worrying about security... March 18, 2004

Beating up the hackers
Security vendor says it's time to take the intrusion wars into the hackers' homes. March 15, 2004

You'll eat it and you'll LIKE it
Bob Congdon digs into the origins of the phrase eating their own dogfood and discovers it's more than just a... March 15, 2004

When variables go bad
Bad Variable Names is a fun discussion about programmers who use, well, bad variable names: "On an old VB project,... March 12, 2004

Infinite loop
When I pick up food at our local Chinese take-out place, my daughter likes coming along because the places has... March 12, 2004

When India calls
Michael Broschat gets two calls from an Indian call center to try to sell him AT&T service: "What's a kick... March 11, 2004

Oh, those script kiddies
What they're up to and how to stop them. March 10, 2004

Newbies and support forums
Why do some people like to harass the newbies? March 10, 2004

The Great Firewall of China
Chinese Internet users could outnumber American users by 2006. March 09, 2004

Can a company blog be too open?
It's Lotus vs. Microsoft in a mini blog war. March 09, 2004

How to crack code
Michael Giagnocavo has started a series of articles on cracking .Net code, in an effort to show how crackers think... March 08, 2004

Becoming one with the users
Anil John says he runs his Windows XP Pro machine as a non-Administrator: "... In developing as a non-administrator, I... March 08, 2004

Learning my way around Drupal
Still playing with Drupal as a possible community platform. It's pretty cool, and so I'm starting a series of notes... March 08, 2004

Putting locks on bagles
Is Bagle the future of worms? Don't count on it, one security pro says. March 05, 2004

Unix as flowchart
The Unix history chart shows the interconnections between every last one of the Unices. Via Kayode Okeyode... March 05, 2004

Needed: IQ test for e-mail users
Brandon Fuller works at a large company. He reports on the fun related to the most recent spate of virus-infested e-mail. March 04, 2004

Web services as disruptive technology
Phil Wainewright notes a report that a London brokerage has downgraded SAP's stock rating because of the potential impact of... March 04, 2004

Googling as a Supreme Court argument
US Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson claims he found more than 6.2 million free-porn links when he Googled "free porn"... March 03, 2004

Exploding money
You can hardly bump into a Weblog this week without reading something about $20 bills exploding in microwaves because of... March 03, 2004

Hey, Microsoft, protect this!
Bowulf helps his aunt remove tons of spyware from her Windows XP PC and in the process finds the spyware... March 02, 2004

Unit of measurement serves as head of standards body
One of the (many) quirky things about Boston is how the Harvard Bridge (which crosses the Charles River and leads,... March 01, 2004

Every language war ever
Bill Stilwell deftly summarizes every debate you've ever had about computer languages. Sample: Idiot 1: Your Favorite Language is bad... March 01, 2004

Offshoring debate
There's an interesting discussion about application-development offshoring at Ask Joel.... March 01, 2004

Wireless as the death of us all
One of the Scripting Guys at Microsoft discusess that now common phenomenon: people working on their wireless-connected laptops during meetings.... February 27, 2004

I hear you knocking ...
Port Knocking is a site devoted to an interesting way of securing a network: An outside node seeking access to... February 26, 2004

The latest academic discipline
Ludology - the study and theory of videogames. No, really, could I make something like that up? Take one entry:... February 26, 2004

Microsoft's embedded anti-virus service
Mixed feelings out there on the news that Microsoft is looking to incorporate anti-virus technology into the next Windows XP... February 25, 2004

Take care in reporting security holes
So a guy walks into a bar. No, wait a sec. So a guy wants to talk to somebody in... February 24, 2004

Elephants with cell phones
The Kenyan government is using GSM technology to try to preserve the country's elephants. The Nation, a Kenyan newspaper reports... February 24, 2004

Forum RSS feeds
I've set up an RSS feed for our forums. Right now, it's not terribly sophisticated - it's RSS 0.91 and... February 23, 2004

Spam from MIT
A friend, let's call him Deep Packet, is not surprised that he's gotten spam relayed from an MIT server. Hey,... February 23, 2004

Building a community platform on Fusion
We know we have to do better; now the search is on for the tools to support us (and you). February 20, 2004

Finally: Proof Macs are the work of the devil
Richard Paley, who, among other things, teaches "theobiology," writes that Mac OS X is the work of godless evolutionists: "The... February 20, 2004

The new Yahoo
Do a search on Yahoo today and the results come from its own search engine, rather than Google. Diego Doval... February 19, 2004

What a mess
A site called bash.org is holding a competition to find the messiest computer work area. Via /usr/bin/girl.... February 19, 2004

The end of your server-monitoring woes
All it takes is a couple of used AA batteries. February 18, 2004

Not a smooth upgrade
Last Thursday, Bill Manning bit the bullet and began upgrading his Cisco call-center software from Windows NT to Windows 2000.... February 18, 2004

When a geek tells you something, pay attention
Dave was not a happy camper yesterday. While the rest of the US took the day off, he was in... February 17, 2004

Spim attack
Was it only a couple of weeks ago that we were writing about the impending flood of spim - spam... February 17, 2004

Log analysis
LogAnalysis.org is a site entirely about, surprise, firewall log analysis: "Log Analysis is one of the great overlooked aspects of... February 12, 2004

What's that smell?
Bowulf learns the importances of properly securing processors in blade servers: "... I turned on the 6 servers, which were... February 10, 2004

FrankenPIX
Want a challenge? Why not build build a clone of a Cisco PIX device? That's what Bill Bradford just did:... February 09, 2004

Smile, you're on riot camera!
You may have heard that Boston had a little of the old ultra-v following the Patriots' Super Bowl win last... February 09, 2004

You canning spam?
The CAN-SPAM law has been in effect for about a month now. Noticed a dramatic reduction in incoming spam? Noticed any reduction? February 06, 2004

Yo mamma
Top 11 Yo Momma Insults for Coders, including: "Yo momma's so stupid, she leaves possible buffer overruns in a 'Hello... February 06, 2004

The lab vs. the real world
Web-site redesigns are always so much fun. And the absolute bestest part is when you go live and all that cool new code that looks great behind the firewall slooooows your site to a crawl. February 05, 2004

Internet Worm Crossing - Next 5 Miles
Microsoft security posters you can download and print off. Via Mike McBride... February 05, 2004

Buffer overflow for beginners
See what you're up against. Via RootPrompt.... February 05, 2004

Don't click that link!
In which a geek descends into computer hell with just one click. February 04, 2004

A broadband plan that stinks?
The New Orleans water and sewer board figured that when it upgrades downtown sewers soon, it could make some money... February 04, 2004

Mouse clicks are so 2002
Microsoft's latest advice on avoiding malicious URLs - type in URLs yourself. February 03, 2004

Kid 2.0
A guy in Michigan somehow convinced his wife give their new son a version number: "Jon Blake Cusack talked his... February 02, 2004

Collateral damage in the war on spam
Kasia discusses what happens when innocent people get caught in the spam war, i.e., folks who suddenly find their e-mail... January 30, 2004

Why I love Movable Type, redux
As mentioned earlier, we're going live with a redesigned Fusion on Monday. We use Movable Type for both traditional Weblogs... January 29, 2004

MyDoom counts
First, let's get this out of the way: Whenever I see a mention of the virus, I think of Victor... January 28, 2004

Electrocuted TV news crews
File this under "who knew?" Ed Mitchell discovers a common workplace hazard among TV news crews: electrocution when their mobile... January 28, 2004

Designing a new Fusion
It's coming Monday to a Web site near you! Better research centers, easier navigation and a cool new Weblog called... January 27, 2004

Yo, anti-virus vendors
You're making me get all Travis Bickle - yes, I'm tawkin' to YOU! Could you kindly shut off the "feature"... January 27, 2004

BEA and APIs
In this article, BEA deputy CTO Benjamin Renaud is quoted as saying that Microsoft must adhere to industry standards, but... January 26, 2004

Weblog DDoS
Bloggers are now unfortunately very familiar with comment spam - in which spammers try to bolster their search-engine rankings by... January 23, 2004

Where have I heard that scream before?
Listening to some of the Howard Dean remixes (yes, of course people have put his speech to music), something about... January 22, 2004

Novel methods for defeating viruses, porn
Proof that high tech pervades everything, including religion: First, a photo, showing Japanese businessmen holding "a service aimed at fending... January 22, 2004

Stop the madness
Raymond Chen says doesn't want phone books - he looks numbers up online. But Qwest keeps delivering them - he... January 21, 2004

From the romance help desk
Desperate writes the help desk: " Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed a distinct... January 21, 2004

Collaborative software that saves lives
Michael Helfrich spent a month in Iraq last fall and writes about the value of a collaborative GIS app (based... January 20, 2004

My first LinkedIn spam
A couple of weeks ago, I signed up for LinkedIn mainly just to see how this Friendster for the corporate... January 20, 2004

Cisco bloggers
When it comes to some companies, you can hardly toss a dead cat without hitting bloggers who write about them... January 16, 2004

Celebrating today
Why? Because today is officially Personal Firewall Day: "If you are a computer expert, share your knowledge with those around... January 15, 2004

Curses, foiled again
When Chris Kirk's friends wanted to pull a prank on him, they did it in style - over five days,... January 15, 2004

Thanks for writing
A few months ago, I complained about a p.r. company spamming an off-hours forum I run. Naturally, I took the... January 15, 2004

Take a SIP
SIPIntro is "An Introduction to the SIP Protocol for the Impatient Technologist" and is an overview of how to use... January 14, 2004

Why is Palm bad at networking?
Mike Rowehl says he doesn't understand why Palm seems to make it so hard to network its devices: " ...... January 14, 2004

Sanity checks
Jeremy Zawodny was trying to help a co-worker with a database problem - the server kept running out of steam... January 13, 2004

OSI must die
David Chappell is getting really tired of the seven-layer model: "Reviewing a manuscript for a book on service-oriented architecture (SOA)... January 13, 2004

Another Movable Type intranet
Last year, we re-built our corporate Intranet using Movable Type, which is best known as a blogging tool, but which... January 12, 2004

Fixing a problem with Norton anti-virus software
A reader reports some problems with Norton anti-virus updates from Jan. 7 and 8 - they froze up his Word... January 12, 2004

More on the Say Hey Kid
The father of the kid suspended for using DOS's NET SEND command to send the word "Hey" to all the... January 12, 2004

Hey, kid learns a lesson
A middle-school student in Richland Hills, Texas, was suspended for three days last month when he dropped into DOS and... January 09, 2004

My contribution to the presidential campaign
If it's not already taken, the Bush campaign should grab w.com (I don't get anything when I go there, but... January 09, 2004

My new year's resolution
Yeah, I'm late with it, but here goes: For 2004, I resolve that if I create any date-specific settings for... January 09, 2004

Pre-made blog lists
Dave Winer has built an interesting site, feeds.scripting.com, that lets people share their blogrolls or RSS-aggregator reading lists. Once you... January 08, 2004

Hotmail better?
Mike Pope says Hotmail seems to be catching more spam: "... I won't got so far as to say that... January 08, 2004

How secure are your proxy servers?
Adventures of an Open Proxy Server discusses how hackers are exploiting proxy servers: "Web traffic has grown at a phenomenal... January 07, 2004

CSI: Data center
So, did you happen to catch "CSI: Miami" the other night? The one that involved a rogue wireless access point... January 07, 2004

Semantic hacking
As information continues up the OSI stack (Layer 3 switches? How quaint. This year, I want IS to buy me... January 06, 2004

Why can't IT emulate the medical profession?
Jim Stewart delves into a leading principal in medicine: "Learn One, Do One, Teach One," which, basically, means doctors should... January 06, 2004

DNS just wants to be free
Paul Mockapetris, the inventor of DNS, says he designed the system to be flexible enough to carry almost any sort... January 06, 2004

Social beings
Are services such as LinkedIn and Friendster the beginnings of the next tech tsunami or just interesting niche products destined... January 05, 2004

2004 Predictions
SlashNot foretells the coming year, including: "Anti-spam software will finally become useful, allowing you to blame it for not getting... January 05, 2004

Anatomy of a DDoS attack
Sean Conner describes trying to combat a DDoS attack: "... Doing it by hand, I see that the web server... December 19, 2003

Abusing technology
Edward Mitchell discusses a new service that uses GPS to find hikers and mountain climbers in distress. Last month, the... December 18, 2003

When free isn't free
Linux.com has an interesting article about how the IEEE rejected free Microsoft networking software and gear for its conferences in... December 18, 2003

He doesn't like IT people
Rob Reed has a bone to pick with many IT people: "They have a distinct gate when they walk. If... December 17, 2003

Biculturalism
Joel Spolsky discusses the cultural differences between Unix and Windows developers: "There are many details and subtleties, but for the... December 16, 2003

Sneak peak at the future?
Living in the mobile information society, Japan-style is a preview of an upcoming ITU case study on the use of... December 16, 2003

Saddam and the geek image
Joey DeVilla notes a disturbing similarity between photos of post-capture Saddam Hussein and certain well known geeks. "Really, my fellow... December 15, 2003

Wi-Fi in a can
OverclockersClub has a review of two Wi-Fi antennas made from long metal tubes, you know, like Pringles cans. Sure, you... December 15, 2003

Them's big databases
Winter Corp. has released a list of humongous databases. Top honors go to France Telecom for a 29-terabyte datadbase running... December 12, 2003

SSID broadcasts not so bad
Almost every guide to wireless security says one of the first things you should do is to get your router... December 12, 2003

Linux now more expensive than Windows?
No, I'm not reading some Microsoft press release. Instead, I'm looking at Enterprise Linux, a draft paper by open-source maven... December 11, 2003

Movable Type and Oracle
Back in July, I discussed how we'd settled on Movable Type as the platform for the Network World intranet. Unfortunately,... December 10, 2003

Why gadget geeks love winter
Dennis must be a northerner: "Anyway, d'ya know why I like winter? Really the only reason why except for seeing... December 10, 2003

Real luxury
Jim discusses real luxury in today's fast-paced IT world. Ironically, what's luxury today was once considered a sign of backwardness,... December 10, 2003

Finally: A glowing USB duck
The iDuck USB Storage Device stores up to 16M-bytes of stuff. But who cares? If you're going to buy it,... December 09, 2003

Why not outsource the CFO?
With companies busy sending IT jobs overseas, Jeremy wonders, why stop there? "[W]hy don't we see Big Companies outsourcing their... December 09, 2003

Get ready for bluejacking
Forget wardriving; it's so impersonal. From the U.K., comes bluejacking: "Welcome to BlueJackers - dedicated to the latest fun (and... December 08, 2003

Budget troubles
Jeremy Wright discusses the perils of changing direction in a large organization at budget time: "So, when I'm having to... December 08, 2003

Just stick your finger there ...
Sam Ruby works for a certain TLA, but not in the hardware division: When his kids' PC started making funny... December 05, 2003

Mac Eye for the Windows Guy
The next breakthrough TV series? "You're kidding me ... Beige? Hello! The '80s called, they want their computer back!" Via... December 05, 2003

Ron Nutter is in the house
Ron is our long-time Help Desk editor, writing a weekly column to answer reader questions. Starting this week, though, you'll... December 04, 2003

How not to do e-commerce
Mike tries to buy something from the This American Life Web site, but only gets a mess of VBScript errors.... December 04, 2003

And the problem here is?
Yesterday, I got a press release from a company called Topcall, bringing my attention to what it considers a shocking,... December 03, 2003

RSS's bandwidth problem
Gary Murphy discusses RSS's dirty little secret: it's a bandwidth hog. Sure, RSS files are smaller than their HTML counterparts.... December 03, 2003

A higher purpose for embedded Linux
Hacking Big Mouth Billy Bass in Linux gives step-by-step directions for turing that silly singing fish on a plaque into... December 02, 2003

What if the Victorians had invented the Internet?
Check out the Victorian Internet by contributors to B3ta. Via blog.org.... December 02, 2003

World peace through collaborative software
A project to try to bring peace to war-torn Sri Lanka is using collaborative software from Groove Networks: "Info-Share has... December 01, 2003

Collaboration blueprint
Communication Trends and the On-Demand Organization is an IBM paper on the company's Lotus Workplace strategy, but it has some... December 01, 2003

All hell breaking loose on Google
Well, it is for the sort of company that exists solely to increase clients' weighting in Google searches, that is.... November 26, 2003

Utility computing as loss leader
Doug Kaye isn't buying the mantra that utility computing is cheaper. In fact, he thinks they might just be an... November 26, 2003

RFIDs get easier to swallow
The ITU Strategy and Policy Unit Newslog reports on a tasty use of RFID technology: "Pintokona, a Sushi restaurant in... November 25, 2003

Cracked: Case of the weird search queries
Last week, I marveled at some of the queries entered into our search box - why would somebody be searching... November 25, 2003

Weblogs on the hockey-stick curve
Dave Sifry started Technorati last year to see which Weblogs were linking to which sites. Of late, the site's been... November 24, 2003

Searches, we get searches
For the past couple of days, I've been analyzing the search queries input into Fusion's search engine to see if... November 21, 2003

The Case of the Drive-By Spammer
What if Dashiell Hammett had known about 802.11? The result might be something like Case of the Drive-By Spammer, a... November 20, 2003