For decades, Microsoft was a software company. Now, with the purchase of Nokia’s phone division, Microsoft has officially shifted to being a serious hardware company as well.
September 3, 2013
by sjvn01
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August 30, 2013
by sjvn01
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Graying Linux developers look for new blood
It’s not that Linux’s core developers are “old.” After all, Linus Torvalds, Mr. Linux himself, is only 42. But for a few years now, the core Linux kernel developers have been aware that the top programmers have been getting older.
This isn’t just an impression. While as Amanda McPherson, The Linux Foundation‘s VP of marketing and developer programs, told me that “participation in Linux is greater than ever before” and that “more than 8,000 people had contributed to the Linux kernel since 2005,” a closer look at the Linux developer numbers reveals that the older generations of Linux programmers are fading away.
August 28, 2013
by sjvn01
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How the Syrian Electronic Army took out the New York Times and Twitter sites
Once more, the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA), a pro-Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad organization, has struck on the internet.
This time, SEA hit The New York Times (NYT), Twitter, and other popular sites. Unlike previous attacks that relied on phishing attacks to gain password information from the target site’s authorized users, SEA is using the weak security of the internet’s master address book, the Domain Name System (DNS), to re-route internet traffic from its real destination to SEA-controlled sites.
How the Syrian Electronic Army took out the New York Times and Twitter sites. More >
August 28, 2013
by sjvn01
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Red Hat releases new OpenStack cloud certification
How do you judge if someone really has the expertise you need to run your OpenStack Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud? Red Hat, the Linux giant and OpenStack backer, has a suggestion: Look for someone with a Red Hat Certificate of Expertise in Infrastructure-as-a-Service (RHCEI).
August 27, 2013
by sjvn01
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The lunacy of trying to avoid NSA spying by moving e-mail and cloud out of the US
The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation recently claimed that thanks to the National Security Agency (NSA) spying programs, US cloud providers would lose at least 10 percent of its foreign market, $21.5 billion, to European or Asian competitors. Others are considering abandoning American Internet companies and e-mail providers in favor of European providers.
But if I were the NSA, I could only say, “Yes! Please move out of the US so we don’t need to deal with the he Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC)!”
Why would the NSA want you to move your data to cloud and e-mail providers in other countries?
Because, in the United States, the NSA and friends need to jump through the FISC hoops to listen in to your e-mail, cloud data transfers, phone calls, whatever. If you’re doing any of the above to someone or some site outside of the US, any of your communications are pretty much fair game.
The lunacy of trying to avoid NSA spying by moving e-mail and cloud out of the US. More >
August 27, 2013
by sjvn01
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Not fast enough, not broad enough: The US Internet in 2013
Say good-bye to Internet’s narrowband yesterday of modems when a great connection could bring you the Internet at up to a breath-taking 53.6Kbps (Kilobits per second). Today, only 3 percent of U.S. Internet users are stuck at dial-up speeds. Better still, the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project reports that “As of May 2013, 70 percent of American adults ages 18 and older have a high-speed broadband connection at home.”
That’s 4 percent better than April 2012, but don’t get ready to throw a party quite yet. Both Pew and the FCC define broadband as being 4Mbps (Megabits per second) down and 1Mbps up. According to the Akamai State of the Internet report for the first quarter of 2013, the United States’ average broadband speed is only 8.6Mbps (PDF Link).
Not fast enough, not broad enough: The US Internet in 2013. More >