News (86)

Kernel coding no picnic, says Torvalds

Linux project lead Linus Torvalds has said it is not easy to become a major contributor to the Linux kernel. Read more »

BT bets on open development

BT, long considered a risk-taker in the telecommunications market, has laid a US$105 million bet to open its network to application developers in the hopes of creating innovative voice services. But will other phone companies take a similar gamble? Read more »

FAQ: Yahoo-Google ad deal's antitrust scrutiny

Nobody, least of all Yahoo and Google, doubted that the two companies' search-advertising deal would escape any antitrust scrutiny. Read more »

Browser faceoff: IE vs Firefox vs Opera vs Safari

Web 2.0, with its complex sites and rich Ajax applications, is an increasingly demanding platform for a browser. In this review feature, we look at how the leading browsers measure up. Read more »

Google diving into 3D mapping of oceans

We've got Google Earth and Google Sky. Next up will be a map of the world below sea level — Google Ocean. Read more »

Yahoo-Microsoft to hitch this week say analysts

As Yahoo gears up to report its first quarter performance next week, one analyst predicts the Internet search pioneer may clock in at the lower end of its revenue range, while other analysts predict a buyout deal with Microsoft may be in the mix this week. Read more »

Yahoo tests Google AdSense, Microsoft worried

Yahoo will test Google AdSense in a significant departure from Yahoo's present ad strategy; Microsoft, which is hoping to acquire Yahoo, is worried the move may stifle competition. Read more »

Europeans warn search engines: Delete user data sooner

A European Commission advisory body has suggested that search companies delete data collected about their users after six months — a far cry from what most companies currently do. Read more »

Steve Wozniak: $100 laptop deserves a Nobel Prize

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has revealed he's a big fan of Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project but confessed that his own plans to switch entirely to the device have gone awry. Read more »

Server 2008 adoption not driven by virtualisation

Despite being touted as a key reason for adopting Windows Server 2008, virtualisation is not why companies will buy Microsoft's server operating system Read more »

Features (105)

Implementing the Soundex function in C#

For years Microsoft SQL Server has provided developers with a method called Soundex that is used to retrieve an encoded string. Words that sound alike have similar encodings, so you can use this functionality to provide some flexibility in searches. This article shows how to implement Soundex completely in C# without having to use the SQL function. Read more »

Aussie IT unions rise from the dead

Australia's creaky technology unions have finally awoken from their long slumber and have started to throw their weight around. Read more »

My move from VB.NET to C#

The author confesses why he stuck with VB.NET for so long rather than moving to C# and reveals how life has been now that he's taken the plunge. Read more »

Interview: Simplifying Web app design

Following the Web Directions South UX conference in Melbourne, we interviewed Robert Hoekman Jr in an email on his presentation -- "Essential elements of great Web application design". Read more »

10 ways to be more persuasive and win your case

This article shows 10 tips on how you can persuade people. 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 »

Are key performance indicators a true measure?

Some managers love to look solely at numbers when assessing performance, and key performance indicators are right up their street. But how useful are they in the context of software development? Read more »

Interview: The importance of being Erlang

He's one of the few developers in Australia with experience working in Erlang, the functional programming language which is gaining fans for its handling of parallel processing and creating distributed systems. We sat down with Andre Pang to see what all the fuss was about. Read more »

10 signs that you aren't cut out to be a support tech

So you want to be a computer support technician? Or perhaps you are one already, but you can't decide whether you're just having a bad week or you're really not cut out for the job. What does it take to be an effective support tech? Is this a career at which you can excel and be happy? Read more »

3 tips to improve your executive presence

One of the most frequent issues clients ask me for help with is "executive presence". It's one of those beauty-is-in-the-eye-of-the-beholder issues to some extent. What works for some people is a turnoff to others. Read more »

Blog (21)

Microsoft services VS2008 & .NET 3.5

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- Microsoft has just announced the release to manufacturing of the .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 (SP1) and Visual Studio 2008 SP1. Read more »

Omnidrive: Alive and kicking?

[blogs:bootstrappr] -- Troubled online storage start-up Omnidrive late last week said it was continuing to develop its products and was examining the potential to merge its technology with that of other companies. Read more »

Bootstrappr comes out of stealth mode

[blogs:bootstrappr] -- bootstrappr is a new blog that will track the fortunes of Australia's technology start-up scene. We'll hang out at Barcamp and keep an eye on twitter, test out the latest and greatest from Aussie entrepreneurs, and be the first to tell you when they fall in a heap. Read more »

Screw-ups, Mobile Linux shakeup and kthxbai Bill

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- The Roundup looks at where Sun went wrong with open source, what is happening in the Mobile Linux world and look at the departure of Bill Gates from full time work duties. 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 »

Microsoft says "open sesame"

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- While you may have been out last night watching the latest Rambo adventure with Sly Stallone making war for war's sake, Microsoft was busy declaring a truce with the open source community. Read more »

The typical Linux conference geezer

Chris Duckett [blogs:betaliving] -- Asking delegates to pick their distribution, shell and editor of choice gives us a chance to gain some insight into the average Linux conference attendee. Read more »

Clusters bucking Microsoft's desktop dominance

Chris Duckett [blogs:betaliving] -- The latest TOP500 shows that you can takes Microsoft's percentage in the desktop space, invert it and you have the percentage of supercomputers using Windows. Read more »

Adobe bashes open source alternatives

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- Adobe Systems has embraced open source software for some products, but its core Creative Suite line looks like it'll remain proprietary. Read more »

Who really owns your open source code?

Chris Duckett [blogs:betaliving] -- If you are a developer committed to open source and you wish for your contributions to always remain open, do not reassign copyright to an external party Read more »

Others (3)

Gallery: Jamming it with Web 2.0

"So what is WebJam?" the girl at the bar serving my mate and I a beer asked. She's thinking that maybe there's something to do with music happening tonight, but it's nothing like that. Read more »

Mini-Confs Day 2

Mini-conferences continued to be the order of the day at Linux Conference Australia 2007. Read more »

Sneak peek at Tech.Ed 06

In this picture gallery we take a look behind the scenes at Tech.Ed 06. Read more »

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  • Staff Apple to developer: Fart jokes aren't funny

    When Apple announced it would be vetting every application submitted for inclusion in the App Store, this was just the kind of question that entered many a mind: just how arbitrary would the company be in wielding that veto power? Read more »

    -- posted by Staff

  • Staff Chrome is just another browser

    Hands up if you missed the Chrome release -- didn't think anyone did. Google's browser arrived with all the fanfare and hype that only Google can produce. Read more »

    -- posted by Staff

  • Renai LeMay 2Vouch refers well

    Melbourne-based Web start-up 2Vouch yesterday launched the first public beta of what it dubs its "social recruiting platform". Read more »

    -- posted by Renai LeMay

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