News (874)

Oracle destroyed Ellison's emails

Software maker Oracle deliberately destroyed or withheld CEO Larry Ellison's emails and failed to preserve audio recordings sought as evidence in a class-action lawsuit filed against the software maker, a US federal judge has ruled. Read more »

IBM splashes out on 'scab' labour

IBM has been recruiting "scab" labour to fill the gap that could be left by striking IBM Flightdeck workers, according to the Australian Services Union. Read more »

IBM strike could happen Thursday

IBM Australia could face strike action in a Baulkham Hills, Sydney facility on Thursday or Friday this week, according to the Australian Services Union, after the company failed to negotiate with the union over the weekend. Read more »

Users report IE8 Beta 2 issues

One day after Microsoft released the second public beta for Internet Explorer 8, users have started to report issues with its installation and sites and services that are incompatible. Read more »

Strike vote fuels IBM Australia debate

A potential impending strike action at one of IBM Australia's Sydney facilities has sparked debate about whether it was still worth striving to work at one of the largest and most prestigious technology firms in Australia and the world. Read more »

ASCII: An artful way around spam filters

An old computer art form is making a comeback as a newer way to evade spam filters. Read more »

Flaw in BGP net protocol

Security researchers have warned of an underlying security issue concerning the Border Gateway Protocol, the core internet routing protocol. Read more »

Firefox extension protects against man-in-the-middle attacks

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have released an extension for Firefox 3 that can protect wireless network users from so-called "man-in-the-middle" attacks. Read more »

Ubuntu issues security patch for kernel flaw

Ubuntu today became the latest Linux vendor to patch a vulnerability in the open source operating system's kernel that could have left the door open for hackers to find their way into users' machines. Read more »

Google's math == FAIL!

Google's calculator has some trouble handling math with some large numbers, an issue that's not unheard of in computing circles but that might not sit well at a supremely nerdy company that's named after a humongous number. Read more »

Features (1092)

Apples vs apples: Chrome takes on beta browsers

The internet has exploded in a single, joyous, mass-hallucination called Chrome. Apparently it's the fastest browser ever and will solve a myriad of problems from slowness within Google Spreadsheet to possibly creating an acceptable carbon trading scheme. Read more »

Brazil's love of Linux

Walk into the Ponto Frio electronics store at Sao Paulo, Brazil, which proudly displays a penguin-shaped logo, and you will find a healthy supply of Linux PCs alongside the usual Windows machines. 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 »

Sleep deprivation can spell big trouble

Most of us operate on short sleep from time to time -- it's the nature of our profession and modern lifestyles. But if skimping on sleep is a way of life for you, watch out: you could wind up functioning below par and incur some serious health problems. Read more »

JavaScript -- a Flash competitor?

Open source software has its problems when it's trying to keep up with proprietary software, but when it does what it's good at -- creating ideas and developing them very quickly in public -- it can be revolutionary. Read more »

Different types of Dreamweaver CS3 layouts

At this year's WebDU conference, Stephanie Sullivan, founder and principal of W3Conversions and Adobe community expert gave a thorough presentation named "CSS Layouts & Dreamweaver CS3". Read more »

A change of management primer for IT consultants

Determining the ability of the client organisation to cope with a major IT project can help consultants find the most appropriate solution. Learn how evaluating the client's roles, resistance, and resilience can help you gauge their capacity for change. Read more »

Getting to grips with parallelism

Although parallelism may be a new concept for many programmers, there are some for whom the concept is a part of their daily responsibilities. Read more »

Multi-core state of play

It promises to be the biggest revolution in programming since object orientation -- but it remains virtually unheard of to most developers. Thanks to the development and uptake of multi-core CPUs, developers must begin to consider truly programming in parallel. Read more »

A Beginners Guide to Threading

The golden age for programmers is over. For a decade we have been able to get away with writing slow code, knowing that the hardware would pick up the slack. Not so any more, hardware developers have decided that software developers need to raise their game, and get ready for a generation of multi-core processors. Read more »

Video (9)

ASCII, .Net Naming and the ATO -- Club Builder

This week's Club Builder looks at fixing .NET's versioning problems, how ASCII art can help remembering SSH keys, and how the ATO intends to let people running OS X or Linux file tax returns. Read more »

Gosling: Next big language is no problem

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Schneier: The problem of evaluating risk

Businesses don't share information on cyberattacks, making it almost impossible to assess risk. Read more »

Acknowledgement tickles Samba's fancy

With the normal TCP/IP setup it can take up to two hours for a dropped connection to terminate -- Andrew Tridgell explains how the Samba project faced this problem when creating clustered Samba. Read more »

Torvalds: Contributors' boss is not my problem

Linus Torvalds has revealed he sometimes doesn't even know who those involved in Linux work for. Read more »

Sex will solve IT skills shortage

20 years ago Indian students sweated for degrees in engineering and science, but today these courses are not being filled. The problem is sex appeal, says Gartner research fellow, Andy Kyte. It will take programmers driving sports cars to inspire kids to get degrees in the field. Read more »

Rashmi Sinha on Slideshare

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Is desktop security broken beyond repair?

At the AusCERT 2007 conference in Queensland last week, keynote speaker Ivan Krstic, who is the director of security architecture for the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project, told attendees that desktop security was fundamentally broken. We asked several security experts who attended the conference if they agreed and how the problem could be fixed. Read more »

Why women just don't want IT

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Blog (77)

2Vouch refers well

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

MyPerfect.com.au has potential

[blogs:bootstrappr] -- Victorian Web start-up My Perfect has a strong story and rationale for why it will succeed. But it has to overcome some challenges and design flaws first. Read more »

Going the extra step but not the extra mile

Chris Duckett [blogs:betaliving] -- I've always been a big fan of going the extra mile with error messages, it's a good way to show that you actually care about the product to take the time to customise it even when things are amiss -- and yes, things will go wrong, you will not create the perfect application. 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 »

Install usability practices in your shop with Silverback

Brendon Chase [blogs:codemonkeybusiness] -- Getting started with usability testing doesn't require an expensive lab full of equipment and science nerds in white coats to poke and prod your users. Cheap and accessible software is readily available to help your team create better software for end-users. Read more »

Do you trust data in the cloud?

Brendon Chase [blogs:codemonkeybusiness] -- Cheap hosted storage, app engines, and hosted code libraries. Can you really trust your data, or your client's data in the magical Web 2.0 cloud? Read more »

The future remains yesterday

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- Remember when MySQL was blazingly fast and cared little for SQL standards? When MySQL regarded a view as something nice from your window and a trigger was treated as a weaponry component? Those days are set to return with a MySQL fork called Drizzle. 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 »

Sysadmin hijacks San Francisco while Torvalds attacks security circus

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- This edition of the Weekly Roundup looks at how one man has taken over the network of the city of San Francisco, take a glance at a local news start-up and Linus Torvalds calls out the IT security sector. Read more »

Repent Open Sourcerers

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- The Anglican Diocese in Sydney is moving away from Microsoft technologies, Access and ActiveX provide another way for remote code execution and a local Aussie team wins the Imagine Cup. All that and more in this week's Roundup. 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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