News (75)

Patent fear plagues Aussie developers

Patents are being used as an offensive measure," John MacPhail, a partner at Baker & McKenzie, told attendees at forum on software patents in Sydney on Wednesday. Read more »

T-Visionarium: Behind the 360 degree 3D cinema

What do you get when you put two artists and a team of clever techies together in a dark room with a AU$1 million equipment budget? ZDNet.com.au visited the University of New South Wales iCinema centre to find out. Read more »

Microsoft reaches out beyond .Net

The software giant has announced the .Net Framework Developer Center portal to help educate non-.Net developers in its technologies Read more »

IBM offers up patents to open source developers

The hardware behemoth and IP powerhouse is to let developers freely use 500 of its 10,000 American software patents. Read more »

iPhone prepares for new life as a PC

Starting from February, you'll finally be able to call the iPhone a mobile computer. Read more »

Schmidt: Enterprise shouldn't fear Google cloud

Google CEO Eric Schmidt reckons the company's cloud computing model is mature and secure enough for the enterprise -- but without support staff, analysts say business users won't touch Google. Read more »

Ballmer tells Oz: get with the broadband

Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer yesterday tip-toed around Australia's broadband debate but said that if the country was to engage in cloud computing business that telcos and the government needed to 'get on with' delivering high speed broadband — at a fair price. Read more »

App stores shift power balance in mobile market

New mobile app stores launched by Apple, Google, and Research In Motion could shift the balance of power in the mobile market away from wireless operators and toward device and platform developers. Read more »

Shuttleworth defends Firefox licence in Ubuntu

Mark Shuttleworth, whose company, Canonical, funds the Ubuntu operating system, has stepped in to try to resolve a dispute on Ubuntu developer's forum Launchpad. Read more »

OLPC rivals get 'vicious'

When the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) organisation first mooted the idea of a super low cost laptop aimed at schoolchildren in the developing world some years ago, it was arguably on its own in the market. Read more »

Features (62)

Usability eye for the developer guy

When I think of software usability I think of that old chestnut: 'you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink'. Read more »

Should you fear IT ghost workers?

Ghosts of millions of former workers populate the databases of corporations. The workers have moved on, but their ghosts linger, awaiting a hacker intent on using the ghost's identity to damage the company's network systems. Read more »

Taking developers into the interface

In the second half of our interview with Matt Thompson, director of Sun Developer Network, we discuss JavaFX phones, Sun's view of Google and Adobe, Swing's appearance and just how much of a bubble the industry is in. Read more »

Test Driven Development explained

This month Steve Hayes introduces Test Driven Development and its importance in agile development projects. Read more »

Developing a code library can increase productivity

Creating and maintaining a code library to catalog your programming resources can reduce project development time and improve the reliability of your software. A code library will permit team members to quickly locate existing resources instead of reinventing the wheel. Read more »

XML development with the magic of the Butterfly IDE

Developing XML applications and performing transformations using XSLT is a complicated process, especially if you are not using proper tools. The Butterfly XML IDE is an open source tool that can greatly improve your XML development efficiency with features such as multiple open documents in tabs, element completion, and the ability to test XSL transformations. Read more »

Risk management drives development tool upgrades

Many development environment upgrade decisions are made from more than just a cost/benefit perspective. Tom Mochal examines the real reason many upgrades are performed: the risk of being left behind. Read more »

Did Ballmer hint at a Windows AppStore?

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer yesterday appeared to hint at the possibility of a Windows application marketplace that would be similar to the Apple iPhone AppStore. But the idea is not without its share of problems. Read more »

Nokia enters the mobile open source battle

Tuesday's big announcement, that several major mobile platforms — Symbian, UIQ, Series 60 and MOAP — are to be pooled into one open-sourced über-platform, came out of the blue. Read more »

10 ways the credit crunch will hit IT

As job losses mount and with HP announcing it will lay off tens of thousands of workers following its purchase of EDS, we look at what the crunch means for the IT industry. Read more »

Blog (9)

The Fud is Flying! (Again)

David McAmis [blogs:theneteffect] -- It seems like that the latest marketing technique for software vendors is to sling a little FUD and see if it sticks. Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt make for some attention-grabbing headlines and are great for scaring potential customers away from a competitors offering. Read more »

Miss out on Google Developer Day? Fear not.

Chris Duckett [blogs:betaliving] -- Yesterday the Google Developer Day took place in Sydney, but if you couldn't make it then fear not. A lot of the content and talks were already online. Read more »

Is Apple alienating App Store developers?

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- Apple's App Store is quite a success - but for that to continue, says Seb Janacek, the company needs to watch out it doesn't anger developers. Read more »

Creating Web apps at iPhone Developer Camp

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- "Apple is not ready to have a developer community yet ... you have to be on the Apple happy list to be a developer," Christopher Allen said. "There has always been this tension with Apple and the developers' community." Read more »

Q&A with EditMe: A wiki for non-geeks

Brendon Chase [blogs:codemonkeybusiness] -- Finally, a wiki CMS solution that you can safely give to your clients to use. But sshhhh... don't call it a wiki... Read more »

How to manage a team of geniuses

Brendon Chase [blogs:codemonkeybusiness] -- Hiring a team of developers and techies that are smarter than you is inevitable. As a manager how do you cope with this and keep things on track? Read more »

Stop arguing and start prototyping

Brendon Chase [blogs:codemonkeybusiness] -- The right work culture and approach to projects can be everything for a developer. Read more »

Sun considering GPL for Java

Brendon Chase [blogs:codemonkeybusiness] -- Sun Microsystems is poised to release "significant parts" of the Java Standard Edition(JSE) under a free or open source licence by the end of 2006 -- possibly under the Gnu General Public Licence(GPL). Read more »

Just how much memory is Firefox using?

Nick Gibson [blogs:byteclub] -- According to our logs 40% of you use Firefox: can you tell how much memory it's using? Here's a few tricks you should know if you're trying to cut it down to size. Read more »

Log in


Sign up | Forgot your password?

  • Brendon Chase Sun eye Web developers with Netbeans 6.5

    Despite the recent employment axe hitting Sun the company has pushed out a new release of its Netbeans open source IDE with an eye to appeal more to Web developers. Read more »

    -- posted by Brendon Chase

  • Renai LeMay BarCamp buzz: Let the hacking continue

    Attending last weekend's BarCamp in Sydney, it was hard to escape the conclusion that a certain "dot-com bust" flavour had seeped into the kool aid previously being drunk by Australia's web 2.0 and early stage start-up sector. Read more »

    -- posted by Renai LeMay

  • Staff Adobe briefly considered its own browser

    Internet Explorer dominates the Web browser market, but are that many people so in love with it? Meanwhile, the Flash player dominates its segment because lots of people find it to be a terrific. So might Adobe one day decide that the next logical step is to try its hand at building its own Web browser? Read more »

    -- posted by Staff

What's on?