Weekly Wrap-Up

Weekly wrap-up

What we did this week:

Suggested CIOs have a little mercy on their overworked security experts and data architects.

Imagined a world without microsoft.

Wondered why on earth CIOs would take themselves out of disaster recovery planning.

Seriously, get on that whole disaster recovery thing. The planning takes longer than you think.

You can’t really stop the government from hacking your phones. But you can try to stop everyone else.

MSM Monday Round-up

Happy Monday. Here’s some stuff:

The Jerry Seinfeld/Bill Gates Microsoft commercial is out.

The New York Times has a nice look at what Google has grown into as the company hits its 10-year anniversary.

In other news, cable and Internet providers seek to become the robber barons of the 21st century. Comcast seeks to overturn a completely reasonable FCC ruling. And phone companies don’t see why they should have to follow completely reasonable reporting rules.

Weekly Wrap-up

Oh my. Taking a look at our output this week, we can’t help but worry the summer good times are over. Brace yourself, scary news ahead.

Face it, you’re probably going to use your disaster recovery plan some day (if you have one). Attorney Jeffrey Ritter advises us on how to keep out of legal trouble when it happens.

In another “it can/will happen to you” scenario, we looked at exactly how bad your life will get if you’re not prepared for a software license audit.

Sorry to continue with the bad news, but we put out our CIO salary special report and it turns out this isn’t a good year for getting paid.

The good news is that the best band in the world plays Montreal Friday night and we’ll be there. May your weekend be as rocktastic as ours.

Weekly MSM Round-up

Summer isn’t over…technically. But since we’re past Labor Day, maybe people will go back to work and news will pick up? Maybe?

A few things did happen and slipped their way into the big papers these past few days:

Google is the little brat Microsoft babysat. Then Google grew up and started dating all of Microsoft’s girlfriends – search, office apps, etc. This time, the search giant has built a browser.

Fresh off losing the gold medal count, America is put on notice that we’re falling behind on innovation as well.

Reports of data theft are way up. Have you been robbed lately?

Newspapers will never stop writing stories about how the Nintendo Wii is good for you, as if you could replace a fitness program with a freaking video game. Now we have Tiger Woods involved. For profit. Imagine that.

Weekly Wrap-up (Labor Day edition)

Dear people in the IT industry:

Please don’t all go on vacation at once, like you did this week. We’ve been trying very hard to reach you for comment on stories. Won’t anybody look out for the journalists?

We still did manage to get some work done and post some stories, of course. A wrap-up:

You all hate your boss, or have hated your boss at one point or another. You hate your boss so much that you’re looking for another job.

Late August, an exciting time for sports. Baseball is coming to the wire. Football, football, football. And this year we had the Olympics, as well. In honor, we took a look at all the sports-themed IT stories we’ve written recently.

The Real Niel laughs in the face of your antiquated cost-benefit analysis. (Side note: Niel would never laugh in anything’s face. He’s a totally nice guy.)

Ok, weekend time. Labor Day weekend time. We’re going to Cape Cod, along with everybody else in Massachusetts. One final blowout before the darkness descends.

MSM Monday Round-up

A few worthwhile tech reads in the big papers over the last few days:

The Washington Post reports on the good deals tech companies are finding by moving out of the metropolis to Prince William County in Virginia. We recently wrote a similar story about Virginia drawing in data center business. It’s on SearchCIO-Midmarket.com.

The Post also reports on efforts to snapshot federal government web pages before Bush leaves office. Now we can show our children and grandchildren what the Web looked like without civil liberties.

The San Francisco Chronicle speculates that the new Palm Treo Pro could help the market-share-losing smartphone manufacturer regain some ground. Of course, recent Forrester research suggests otherwise.

Haven’t really digested this long piece yet, but author Jonathan Franzen is going off about cell phones and technology in the MIT Technology Review. Whatever Franzen is on about, he probably doesn’t like all the dopey shopping gadgets The Boston Globe cheerfully reported on. Isn’t there a point where going to the grocery store is as efficient a process as we need it to be?

Weekly Wrapup

Things we did this week:

Considered that master data management might just be
asking a bit too much of midmarket companies.

Took all our servers outside and trashed them.

Dealt with the fact that nobody, and especially CIOs, is getting a big raise this year.

Two summer weekends left. Have a good one.

MSM Monday Round-up

The government had its hand all over the tech world this week.

First we had that little incident with the MIT students who say they’ve figured out how to hack Boston’s subway fare cards. But now two judges still have a gag order on them. Writing in The Boston Globe, attorney Harvey Silvergate explains why the judges’ rulings are muzzling free speech.

The nimrods at major label record companies continue to fail to see the big picture. And now, due to greed and a ruling from the federal Copyright Royalty Board, streaming radio service Pandora – and presumably many others – could go under, as The Washington Post reports. See, the record companies will soon get twice as much cash every time you listen to a song online. Never mind you might decide you like the band you’re listening to and then go buy a few overpriced concert tickets. Innovation: Not a music mogul’s strong point.

And as long as we’re on nimrod-like behavior, check out the first lines of this USA Today story about the Transportation Security Administration’s new rule that will allow some laptops to go through airport metal detectors without coming out of their bags.

“It’s not surprising that Tim Burke is taking an airplane flight Monday, but it is unusual that he’s looking forward to it. The reason: Starting on Saturday, some of the nation’s airline passengers will not have to remove their laptops at airport checkpoints.”

Ok, to recap, Tim Burke can’t wait to fly because one of countless inconveniences has been eliminated. And now that gas has gone down ten cents, I can’t wait to fill up my tank.

Weekly wrap-up

Every year at SearchCIO-Midmarket.com we get a bunch of CIOs to tell us how much spare change they’re picking up. We also ask them a lot of questions about their careers, aspirations and doubts.

Then we compile all the answers and look for interesting trends. Then we write news stories.

The first one of those hit the site this week and it’s about telecommuting.

In non-career related news this week we took a look at the rapidly diversifying mobile OS market, which could have CIOs scrambling to support a variety of smart phones in the coming years.

Executive Editor Kate Evans-Correia wondered about the Olympics and what all this daytime streaming video will do to network speed.

And just for a little something extra, here are some tips on database security. Hint: Don’t give everyone full access.

MSM Monday Round-up

Anybody else fed up with passwords?

A San Jose State University professor tells us why we should be in The New York Times. It’s about time. Does anybody really think there’s a password strong enough to keep a determined intruder out? Plus, all these single-sign-on pop-ups are ticking me off.

Actually, is the Times hiding the fact that it covers hacker conventions? This story here tells us about a major Internet security hole. We meet Dan Kaminsky at a “technical conference in Las Vegas” on Wednesday. Now, DEFCON16 didn’t start until Thursday, though Kaminsky was scheduled to speak at that as well. And the Times interviews other “technical experts” which is a pretty bland title. Hackers?

The coolest thing about DEFCON? Three MIT students have managed to hack Boston’s subway fare cards. So what does the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority do? Sue the students to stop them from preventing their findings. Hey, that’s a step up from the MBTA’s average, everyday in competency.

And over at Slate, Vista just can’t catch a break.