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Ten Things Your IT Department Won't Tell You By VAUHINI VARA July 30, 2007; Page R1 Admit it: For many of us, our work computer is a home away from home. It seems only fair, since our home computer is typically an office away from the office. So in between typing up reports and poring over spreadsheets, we use our office PCs to keep up with our lives. We do birthday shopping, check out funny clips on YouTube and catch up with friends by email or instant message. And often it's just easier to accomplish certain tasks using consumer technology...

A 75 year old woman from Karlstad in central Sweden has been thrust into the IT history books - with the world's fastest internet connection. Sigbritt Löthberg's home has been supplied with a blistering 40 Gigabits per second connection, many thousands of times faster than the average residential link and the first time ever that a home user has experienced such a high speed. But Sigbritt, who had never had a computer until now, is no ordinary 75 year old. She is the mother of Swedish internet legend Peter Löthberg who, along with Karlstad Stadsnät, the local council's network arm,...

Rising wages prompt firm to pull out of India Image search firm Riya will consolidate operations in the U.S. By Tash Shifrin, Computerworld UK July 02, 2007 Image search firm Riya is to pull its research and engineering operations out of India to consolidate in the U.S. due to rising wages in Bangalore. The company, which is behind visual shopping Web site Like.com and specializes in image recognition software, had maintained offices in both Bangalore and the U.S. despite the difficulties of being based in locations 12 time zones apart because low wages and a strong pool of talent in...

People who have anxiety problems or depression can get just as good help on the Internet as face-to-face with a psychiatrist, according to a Swedish investigation, Now a new Internet service is being expanded. This means Sweden will become the first country in the world to offer cognitive behavior therapy via the Internet as a routine method for treating patients who have problems such as social phobias or panic attacks. Psychiatrists say the online service will compliment traditional care and it means more people can be treated, more cheaply. But critics say sitting at a computer simply can’t be as...

YouTube bites again. A law firm's attempt to get positive exposure for an immigration law conference by posting it on You Tube backfired when an organization that's been tough on H-1B visas and offshore outsourcing copied it and made a controversial video of its own. In the original video, posted by the firm Cohen & Grigsby from a May 15 conference, an attorney is shown advising attendees on how to meet the minimum requirements of advertising a job to U.S. candidates so that a foreign worker can more easily be hired. The firm's conference dealt with the U.S. government's labor...

In the report, some Web researchers say that even if they find a bug accidentally on a site, they are hesitant to disclose it to the Website's owner for fear of prosecution. "This opinion grew stronger the more they learned during dialogue with working group members from the Department of Justice," the report says. Hoffman says in his research, he occasionally won't fill out a required Web form field to see how the application reacts. "At one point [in the working group discussions], one of the federal people said as soon as you knowingly start using a site the way...

Search engine giant Google has slammed Sweden's proposed wiretapping legislation as illiberal and incompatible with Western democracy. Speaking on a visit to Sweden on Tuesday, the company's global privacy counsel, Peter Fleischer, warned that Google would rule out making any major investments in Sweden should the controversial bill become law. "We have contacted Swedish authorities to give our view of the proposal and we have made it clear that we will never place any servers inside Sweden's borders if the proposal goes through," Fleischer told Internet World. The proposal, which would allow the National Defence Radio Establishment (Försvarets Radioanstalt -...

Stockholm is investing yet another EUR 70.5 million in Internet services for its citizens. Everything will be accessible on the Internet – the city’s complete public services within schools, childcare and housing for the elderly. The investment will also help make Stockholm the world’s most accessible city for people with functional disabilities.

A potential collaboration between Telenor and Telia could result in extremely high speed broadband for 1.8 million Swedish households. Computer Sweden magazine reports that Telenor has invited Telia for talks about the new vdsl2 technology. The cost of developing a vdsl2 network in Sweden is estimated at 10 billion kronor ($1.5 billion). "The best thing would be for Telia, Telenor and Tele 2 to reach an agreement on how best to finance the investment," Telenor's Swedish CEO Johan Lindgren told Computer Sweden. If implemented, the system is expected to grant almost two million Swedish households access to a broadband capacity...

Sweden will open the first 'diplomatic representation' in the virtual reality of web-based Second Life, a fantasy world inhabited by computer-generated residents, on May 30, the Swedish Institute said Friday. "The Second House of Sweden, the world's first virtual embassy in Second Life will be inaugurated on May 30," the institute said in a statement. Related Articles Swedish taxman sets sights on Second Life 31st January 2007 Sweden to set up embassy in Second Life 26th January 2007 Article Options Send to a friend Printable version Submit to Digg.com Sweden's Foreign Minister Carl Bildt and Director General of the Swedish...

California continues to employ far more technology workers, pay higher wages and attract more venture capital than any other state. But the overall U.S. tech sector is also growing at a surprisingly brisk clip - for now. That's the conclusion of a highly anticipated annual report by AeA, formerly the American Electronics Association, the country's largest technology trade association. Researchers relied on data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, mostly from 2006. According to the 2007 "Cyberstates" report, to be published Tuesday, the U.S. tech industry employed 5.8 million people last year - up 2.6 percent from 2005. The...

US Work Visa Battles   Aired: Monday, April 09, 2007 10-11AM ET By host Tom Ashbrook: America's hard conversation on immigration tends to focus on illegal desert border crossings and low-paid, low-skilled workers. But there's another end of the immigration debate. Highly-educated, high-skilled largely high-tech workers from abroad that the American industry says it desperately needs to compete. Tens of thousands already come every year. Business says it needs more of the planet's best and brightest. Opponents say the program is abused, and the US should educate its own high-tech talent. This hour On Point: the high end of the...

The Internal Revenue Service has not corrected numerous information security weaknesses that impair its ability to ensure the confidentiality, integrity and availability of financial and sensitive information, the Government A. These problems constitute a major weakness in the IRS’ internal controls over its financial and tax processing systems, the Government Accountability Office said. The tax agency experiences gaps in access controls related to user identification and authentication, authorization, encryption, monitoring, and physical security. Data is at risk from weaknesses in configuration management, segregation of duties, media destruction and disposal, and personnel security controls. The IRS has not resolved these vulnerabilities...

"Good morning, you're fired and getting replaced by a software engineer from India with an H-1B visa… April Fools!" This is a bad joke to play on an engineer these days because it is just too close to actually being true. The root of "April Fools Day" goes back to the 1500s when the New Year date was moved from April 1st to Jan 1st. Those who were unaware of the change were open to pranks and jokes. They were the "April Fools". April 1st, 2007, is still however, the beginning of the New Year for H-1B applications and it...

For decades, self satisfied PC politicians from Stockholm have refused to listen to local politicians from Malmö (third biggest city in Sweden and part of the Malmö-Lund-Helsingborg-Copenhagen conurbation of appr 4 million inhabitants) who've said the city just can't handle more immigration. Now it seems to backfire, although the Stockholm IT consultant featured in the article below probably is rather innocent in this context. Inner city/downtown Malmö is still a very nice place, I recently visited it. But it would be foolish to think the city can continue to absorb huge numbers of immigrants lacking the qualifications for a decent...

Why Google put a research lab in Poland Western technology firms are increasingly seeking talent in Eastern Europe. By Colin Woodard | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor KRAKOW, POLAND - When Artur Hibner graduates from college this year, he won't have to worry about getting well-paid work in his field right here in Krakow, Poland's thriving former royal seat. For years, Western technology firms have come to Eastern Europe to lure away talented computer-science graduates like Mr. Hibner, who attends AGH University of Science and Technology. But now, the region's universities are producing so many top programmers that many...

A flashing exit sign is boosting the valuations of venture-backed companies, according to a study released Wednesday. The median valuation of U.S. venture-backed companies—before the capital infusion—climbed to $18.5 million in 2006, the highest level since the boom year of 2000, Dow Jones VentureOne reported. Startups are fetching higher values because the opportunities for a handsome return via an initial public offering or an acquisition have improved, an analyst said. “In 2006, the U.S. had the strongest exit climate in several years with the median pre-money valuation of IPO companies reaching $201.6 million and a median $52 million being paid...

Twenty years before most scientists expected it, a commercial company has announceda quantum computer that promises to massively speed up searches and optimisation calculations. D-Wave of British Columbia has promised to demonstrate a quantum computer next Tuesday, that can carry out 64,000 calculations simultaneously (in parallel "universes"), thanks to a new technique which rethinks the already-uncanny world of quantum computing. But the academic world is taking a wait-and-see approach. D-Wave is the world's only "commercial" quantum computing company, backed by more than $20 million of venture capital (there are more commercial ventures in the related field of quantum cryptography). Its...

Some people claim the iPod index tells you more about the economic situation of different countries than the Burger Index or GDP/capita statistics, in fact, some will even tell you it says more about this issue than any other stats available. Anyhow, In this case, what could one possibly make out of the compilation featured in the article below? What does the economies of Brazil, India and Sweden (my home country) have in common? I've heard of research reporting that Sweden is poorer than Mississippi (at least an internet profile like Instapundit - perhaps not the most frequent visitor to...

How Infinera packs dozens of optical components onto photonic integrated circuits for ultrafast optical networks. Shown here are fourteen 100-gigabit photonic integrated circuits sitting in a plastic carrier for performance testing. Credit: Emily Nathan In his lab in Sunnyvale, CA, ­David Welch, cofounder of telecom startup Infinera, holds up a rigid two-­centimeter-wide strip featuring four patterned, gold-colored rectangles. It's made of indium phosphide, a semiconductor prized for its optical properties. The chip's simple appearance belies its complex engineering and gives little hint that it could be the key to cheaply supplying the bandwidth demanded by a YouTube-addicted world. The gadget...

new data center site selection study echoes findings from a similar one last year: the Midwest is best. Princeton, N.J.-based site selection specialists, The Boyd Company Inc., has published its list of the best places to build a data center, taking into account 50 cities in the U.S. and focused on the healthcare industry. The list compares the annual operating costs of building a 150,000-square-foot facility with 150 employees. Sioux Falls, S.D........$16,131,793 Ft. Walton/Destin, Fla..$16,386,387 Pensacola, Fla..........$16,562,083 Jacksonville, Fla.......$16,879,315 Lee County, Fla.........$17,022,961 San Antonio, Texas......$17,054,703 Ft. Wayne, Ind. ........$17,062,231 Orlando.................$17,076,394 Sarasota/Bradenton, Fla.$17,136,032 Birmingham, Ala.........$17,185,474 ...."This is the outsourcing of the...

Lisa Perry wanted to leave Washington D.C. and come home to Maine after living there during the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon, anthrax scares and the Beltway sniper shootings. She quit her job designing databases for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and moved back to the Portland area to live with her parents, returning to Maine after 13 years away. She worked on personal projects and took care of her parents' home for about a year, then started looking for an information technology job in the fall of 2004. She put out a number of resumes, and one ad in...

Apple is purportedly talking to small development company Eneco, which has developed a chip that converts heat into electricity. If it works, it could have a big impact on how IT equipment, and in particular laptops and other mobile devices, are designed and powered. However, there are still several technological issues to be resolved. According to articles at Green Business News and Macworld UK, Dr Lew Brown, president and CEO of Eneco, told investors that its new chip technology “will revolutionize the way we generate electricity.” Eneco is a development stage company that claims to have invented and patented a...

How not to get outsourced IT leaders and analysts point out that business orientation is key. Joanne Cummings October 24, 2006 (Network World) -- When Karl Kaiser took over as CIO for the city of Minneapolis, he found a dysfunctional IT organization. The employees were caught up in technology for its own sake, and very few brains or dollars were focused on the business of running the city. "The city was looking for business value, but we in IT were perceived as the techies who run around with screwdrivers and fix machines," he says. "Over 60% of my management energy...

One of Rudy Giuliani’s early achievements as mayor of New York City was to make people think twice about urinating on the streets. “If somebody was urinating on the street,” he once told the New York Times, “the reaction would be, oh, we can’t do anything about that. And then the idea would start to develop that there must be some inherent human right to urinate on the street. So the police started ignoring all kinds of offenses. They’d even stand by when drug deals were going on. The police became highly skilled observers of crime.” Something had to be...

After an aggressive campaign, Kim Coco Iwamoto earned a seat on Hawaii's statewide Board of Education and, according to national advocacy groups, a place in history as the country's highest-elected transgender official. Iwamoto, a 38-year-old lawyer, did not tout her gender status in the campaign but has openly advocated for transgender youth and related issues at the state capitol. She placed third in Tuesday's election among six candidates for three seats on the board. She was not immediately available for comment. However, in a statement early Wednesday she said she was looking forward to "working in collaboration with the other...

The city wants to make it easier for transgender New Yorkers to switch the sex listed on their birth certificate even without undergoing sex-change surgery, putting the city at the forefront of efforts to redefine gender. Under present city rules, only people who can show proof of surgery qualify for getting a revised birth certificate. Even then, the only change made is the elimination of any reference to gender on the document. The new plan, unveiled last month, would let birth records reflect the new gender. It would also allow changes for people who hadn't had genital surgery, but could...

An Italian opposition MP and former showgirl has expressed outrage after meeting a transgender colleague in the parliament's ladies' toilets. Elisabetta Gardini, spokeswoman for former PM Silvio Berlusconi's party, said she felt ill after the encounter during a break in Friday's session. The incident led to heated debate about which toilet the transgender MP, known as Vladimir Luxuria, could use. [Ms Luxuria is Italy's first transgender MP] Ms Luxuria says she has been using ladies' toilets for years. Using the men's would have created even bigger problems, she said. The matter has now been passed to parliamentary procedural officials to...

Greetings! This document describes how to install Postfix, Amavisd-new, SpamAssassin, Pyzor, Razor, and DCC on one box running Fedora Core 4. The installation assumes that Postfix will not be the final destination of incoming mail. Also, no e-mail is sent through it to the outside world. It is a simple MTA that receives e-mail, scans it, and moves it to another MTA for processing.

Segway Inc. is recalling all 23,500 of the self-balancing scooters it has shipped to date because of a software glitch that can make its wheels unexpectedly reverse direction, causing riders to fall off -- and in at least one incident, break some teeth. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, with whom Segway is cooperating on the voluntary recall announced Thursday, said consumers should stop using the vehicles immediately. Segway has received six reports of problems with the Personal Transporter, resulting in head and wrist injuries. The vehicles were previously known as the Human Transporter. Segway is offering a free software...

Toshiba Corp. plans to build a liquid crystal display television plant in Poland to boost production of large screen LCD television sets for the European market, company sources said Sunday. Toshiba, which is now negotiating with the Polish government to conclude a deal for the plant construction, will invest about 5 billion yen to build the facility in the southwestern Polish city of Wroclaw to launch the production of 32-inch and larger LCD television sets at the plant in 2007, the source said.

The Army has awarded its five-year, $5 billion Worldwide Satellite Systems contract to six vendors. The award winners include two large businesses—Boeing Co. and General Dynamics Corp.—and four small businesses: DataPath of Duluth, Ga.; D&SCI of Eatontown, N.J.; Globecomm Systems of Hauppauge, N.Y.; and TeleCommunications Systems of Annapolis, Md. Under the indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract, each vendor is required to bring turnkey commercial satellite systems and associated support services for satellite terminals, including all hardware, software, services and data to operate the terminals. Both Defense and non-DOD agencies can order from the contract. Army officials say WWSS products and services will support...

There’s been a lot of talk about identity theft in recent days, and a lot of technology is being thrown at the problem. But with all the technology that’s out there, it’s still pretty easy for a good social engineer to steal an identity and exploit it swiftly, even if they only have a single piece of personal information. In a recent project, my penetration testing firm was able to gain an alarming amount of access to personal information — and even financial accounts — with only a birth date to go on. We were hired by a private college...

AT&T on Tuesday said hackers broke into one of its computer systems and accessed personal data on thousands of customers who used its online store. The information that was illegally accessed includes credit card numbers, AT&T said in a statement. The cyberattack affects about 19,000 customers who purchased equipment for high-speed DSL Internet connections through AT&T's Web site, the company said. "We deeply regret this incident," Priscilla Hill-Ardoin, chief privacy officer for AT&T, said in the statement. "We will work closely with law enforcement to bring these data thieves to account." The break-in occurred over the weekend and was discovered...

Recently, I overheard an IT professional complaining about her users. Veronica's company has 300 employees, many of whom would have been called "paper pushers" in an earlier era. Some of those employees download software and install it on their computers, and it often causes havoc for the support staff. Veronica's specific rant was about screensavers (some of which carry a payload of spyware, making it a security issue as well as a support problem), but it could have been any sort of application. Veronica had looked at a $10,000 hardware solution, but even that required 10 hours a week for...

Yet another example of how evil, capitalist globalization is impairing the living conditions of poorer nations..(sarcasm) The article: "Bharti Airtel has awarded Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) an estimated USD 1 billion contract, including expansion and an upgrade of its GSM/GPRS network and managed services. The deal will enable Bharti Airtel to rapidly extend its GSM footprint in the country and increase its network capacity. The three-year services agreement will see Ericsson manage design, development and deployment of Bharti's network, including capacity and coverage, enabling the operator to expand in rural India and reach out to all towns and cities in 15 regions....

Panic in the Year Zero!!! Got the DVD from Amazon.com. Also on that DVD, "The Last Man on Earth!"

Polish teenager world's best computer scientist 21.08.2006 Filip Wolski has won the gold medal at the World Computer Science Contest in Mexico. More from Iwona Lejman Filip Wolski came first amongst some fifty thousand young IT specialists from around the world. That’s how many entered the elimination round to the World Computer Science Contest. During the finals in Mexico, the Pole competed against several hundred students from eighty countries. The competition lasted two days during which they were to solve and encode several mathematical problems prepared by the world’s top universities. Filip, 19, became the youngest person and the first...

ANKARA, Turkey - The Turkish Foreign Ministry said Friday that it had forced two Syria-bound Iranian planes to land and be searched for rockets and other military equipment during the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. The newspaper Hurriyet reported Wednesday that Iranian planes were forced to land at Diyarbakir airport on July 27 and on Aug. 8 — but that no military equipment was found. Foreign Ministry deputy spokesman Murat Ozcelik said those were not the only planes that were forced to land. "We inspect Iranian planes upon any suspicion that they may be carrying any weapons," Ozcelik said. He...

BOSTON (Reuters) - The maker of the Segway scooter on Monday unveiled the second generation of its self-balancing electric one-person vehicle. The redesigned scooter allows the rider to steer by leaning to the right or left, rather than by turning the handlebars. It also features a wireless electric key and alarm system. The scooters feature two side-by-side wheels, and are ridden in a standing position, with the rider grasping handlebars. A gyroscope provides balance, making it fairly easy to remain in the upright position. Officials at Bedford, New Hampshire,-based Segway Inc. said they have sold tens of thousands of the...

VENEZUELAN President Hugo Chavez today said Cuban leader Fidel Castro was now able to leave his bed and hold conversations following stomach surgery that required him to temporarily hand over power to his brother. "This morning I learned that he's doing well, that he's already standing up out of bed, he's talking - more than he should, because he talks a lot," said Mr Chavez during a conversation with Bolivian President Evo Morales broadcast on television. "He has sent us regards." Venezuelan government sources yesterday said Mr Chavez does not have a trip to Cuba on his agenda despite media...

If you’re not living underneath a rock you probably know about the escalating war in Israel and Lebanon. I am very sympathetic to the innocent people who are affected by this war. I prefer not to turn this into a war discussion, I am just talking about the potential effects that it has on our industry. Over the years Israel has been on the cutting edge of research and development in various advanced technologies. Israel boasts many thousands of high technology companies in a wide range of fields such as telecommunications, software, semiconductors, biotech, and medical electronics. Many of the...

Hackers are taking a page from the open-source playbook, using the same techniques that made Linux and Apache successes to improve their malicious software, according to McAfee Inc. Nowhere is this more apparent than within the growing families of "bot" software, which allow hackers to remotely control infected computers. Unlike viruses of the past, bots tend to be written by a group of authors, who often collaborate by using the same tools and techniques as open source developers, said Dave Marcus, security research and communications manager with McAfee's Avert Labs. "Over the last year and a half, we've noticed how...

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 13, 2006--The following is a statement by Christopher Wolf, Proskauer Rose LLP, Counsel for Ambassador Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame Wilson We have become aware of the communication between Mr. Fitzgerald and Mr. Luskin concerning Karl Rove's status in the criminal investigation. We have no first-hand knowledge of the reason for the communication or what further developments in the criminal investigation it may signal. While it appears that Mr. Rove will not be called to answer in criminal court for his participation in the wrongful disclosure of Valerie Wilson's classified employment status at the CIA in retaliation against...

Scooter's Catch On With Cops, But Not Consumers (AP) LOS ANGELES Thieves used to break into as many as five cars a week in the parking garage at Los Angeles' Union Station. Then the Metropolitan Transportation Authority came up with a simple solution: They put a security officer on a Segway Human Transporter. "The first day that one of the security officers was on the device was pretty much the last day there was a break-in," said Robin Blair, a transportation planning manager for the MTA, which owns about 19 Segways. Although the electric, self-balancing Segway scooter never quite caught...

WASHINGTON — The nation's leading engineering group expressed disappointment with immigration legislation approved this week by the Senate. The controversial Senate immigration bill includes a provision raising the cap on H-1B visas for highly educated temporary workers by 50,000 to 115,000 per fiscal year. It also provides exemptions from both H-1B and employment-based, or "green card," visa caps for foreign workers with advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering or mathematics. High-tech and business groups lauded the bill as a boost for U.S. competitiveness. But the IEEE-USA criticized the measure. "We don’t understand why the Senate wants to expand a program...

Indian IT companies, whose spectacular growth have made many of them household names, have failed to make it to the global list of 100 fastest- growing tech companies prepared by Fortune group magazine Business 2.0. Country's second largest software exporter Infosys Technologies, which was ranked eighth in last year's list, was surprisingly absent from this year's rankings. Infosys was the only Indian company in the list in 2005. US-listed Infosys had sky-rocketed to the eighth position last year ahead of global IT majors like Apple Computer, eBay Inc and Cognizant Technologies, registering a big leap over its 59th rank in...

The United States needs to overcome its fear of nuclear power and embrace the technology as a way to wean itself from fossil fuels, Sen. John McCain told an audience in Manchester yesterday. Nuclear power "is safe. The technology is here," McCain said, speaking to a crowd of about 200 at a breakfast hosted by The New Hampshire Federation of Republican Women. "It's a NIMBY (not in my backyard) problem, and a waste-disposal problem. It is not a technological problem." McCain pointed to France, which draws more than three-quarters of its power from nuclear plants, and Russia, which has plans...

Small and medium-size enterprises are lagging on IT security, and many still utilize first-generation security solutions that are now ineffective against significant threats that may sabotage their networks, experts are telling United Press International's Networking column. A forthcoming survey by The Yankee Group, and the Information Technology Solution Provider Alliance (ITSPA), an advance summary of which was provided to Networking, indicates that smaller firms are "struggling" with basic technology issues, including keeping up to date with technology and effectively using technology already on hand.

Remember the Big Bad Wolf? He dressed up as Grandma, hoping to fool Little Red Riding Hood long enough to eat her. Well, that's the same tactic some liberal groups and Democrats are using these days in Washington, D.C., to get government control over the Internet: Dress up a bad idea in familiar and comforting words and hope the American public will be fooled. This very bad scheme is dressed up in the oh-so-sweet sounding notion of "net neutrality." Those who coined the "net neutrality" term are hoping the words will make the public, and especially lawmakers, believe it's a...