If you’re avoiding iPad Bluetooth keyboards for fear that hackers will nab your keystrokes, you might want to look over your shoulder. Hackers are also using a new app that can visually pick up on the glowing iPad keyboard as you hit the keys.

We all envy those corporate leaders who seem to pull it off without seeming stressed. Seth Godin says the secret is in not worrying about anything. Yeah, it’s just that simple.

Don’t you wish that all of your conference rooms came with a 20-foot touch-screen wall? Heck, bet you could get them as long as the CEO got one in his office first. The kids at the University of Illinois at Chicago get all the coolest toys!

The next time you hear grumbling about the speed of your Ethernet, remind the complainer that back in your day, 10 Mbps was smoking fast. Check out this history of Ethernet for a little perspective on just how far we have come.

In 2008, there were more things connected to the Internet than people on the Earth. This cool infographic takes that statistic and runs with it, starting with a story about cows. Nifty!

Did you miss Cisco Live last week? CIO Scott Lowe has the inside track on what happened in Vegas.

The art of software engineering is totally different than the art of software engineering management, writes Mark Shuttleworth. He details considerations for managing your techies.

Don’t expect any sympathy from Microsoft about the fact that you can’t upgrade to IE9 without moving off of XP. IE9′s senior director, Ryan Gavin, has no patience for any complaints. “You simply can’t build on something that is 10 years ago,” he said. Who can blame him? (And also, I’m starting to feel like a maiden aunt at a family reunion. XP was released 10 years ago! How is that possible? They grow up so fast.)

Anyone who has been around an IT shop for even a matter of days knows this is nothing new: We’re constantly in a state of innovating our systems while cursed with foundation apps that no longer work with this program or that plug-in. In my last role, at least once a week, one of my team members would complain that the production management database was broken. Even though I haven’t worked tech support in years, I usually diagnosed the problem without even leaving my desk. “You installed Flash, didn’t you?” I’d say, and they would assure me that they did not break my seemingly draconian rule of never, ever, ever installing Adobe or Java updates — and yet, when we’d take a closer look, they magically had an updated version of Flash sitting on their desktops.

They’d blush and get quiet — to say more would reveal that they had been clearly trying to watch videos on YouTube. Hey, “Charlie bit my finger” is hilarious, and I dare anyone to watch it without cracking a smirk, but the simple fact was our ancient collaboration tool got jacked up when YouTube helpfully guided them to update their Flash software and that single mouse click brought their job performance to a screeching halt.

Operating systems aside, I wonder how many other processes broke when thousands of employees installed the Mozilla Firefox 4 or IE9 releases. Last week, SearchCIO-Midmarket.com editorial director Scot Petersen wrote in a post about IT innovation that the ‘we’ve always done it this way’ philosophy will eventually hurt your business,” and here we see that sentiment being demonstrated by those scrambling to deal with these browser upgrades. CIOs dealing with “broke and busted” this week are paying the price by being stuck with outdated tech or upgrading systems before they were ready.

If Microsoft is telling people that it’s time to move on from one of its biggest business products, perhaps CIOs should take this as a cue to look at their legacy apps and get transition plans in place before it’s too late. Otherwise, they’ll forever find themselves racing to keep up while dragging years of outdated technology behind them.

Are you in the middle of a headache caused by the Mozilla Firefox 4 or IE9 releases? Hit the comments and commiserate with the group.

Of those who are using ITIL, two-thirds say their ITIL strategy has lived up to expectations. The problem is getting started, training staff and getting buy-in from upper management to implement the practices.

Probably the easiest method to get ITIL into your organization is through software tools that have ITIL processes embedded into them.

Jennifer Gianfrancesco, director of IT at Pittsburgh’s Magee-Women’s Research Institute and a certified ITIL practitioner, threw out the old Excel-based help desk system she inherited three years ago and brought in Cherwell Software Inc.’s Cherwell Service Management.

Her staff uses it for asset intelligence, configuration management, incident reporting and software management, among other services. The key, however, she says, is that the tool enables you to apply ITIL where you need it, and doesn’t require you to go for everything. Like ITIL itself, the software enables “a method. It doesn’t tell you how to implement.”

If you are looking for some advice on ITIL strategy and picking ITIL tools, check out contributor Jonathan Hassell’s column on must-have ITIL tool features.