The bMighty Blog -- July 2008 Archive

A Word To The Wise: Working With Firefox Spell-Checking Tools

Posted by Matthew McKenzie 06:18 PM ET | Jul 31, 2008

When you work online, words are like clothes: Use them carelessly, and you might as well show up for a business meeting in dirty flip-flops and an "I'm with stupid" T-shirt.

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How-To | Internet/Web | Open Source

Credit Card Compliance And Security: New PCI Information Resource Worth A Visit

Posted by Keith Ferrell 01:15 PM ET | Jul 31, 2008

How much do you know about your business's compliance and security responsibilities for credit card data and other information involved in the transactions that your bank executes for you? Think compliance is completely the responsibility of the financial institution? Think again.

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Business & E-Business | IT | Retail | Sales/Marketing | Security

New Research Highlights Need For Server Security

Posted by Lamont Wood 09:54 AM ET | Jul 31, 2008

A recent report indicates that trusted sites are actually a major source of Web infections—meaning that in too many cases server security has taken a back seat to expediency.

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Server How-To

Websense Warns: Legit Sites Top Hack Targets

Posted by Keith Ferrell 12:31 PM ET | Jul 30, 2008

Another midyear security overview is out now, this one from Websense, and if the year-to-date is looking bad, the six months to come are looking worse.

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Business & E-Business | IT | Internet/Web | Security | Social Networking

Tame The Web With A Powerful Pair Of Firefox Extensions

Posted by Matthew McKenzie 10:39 AM ET | Jul 30, 2008

Do you use Firefox? If so, allow me to introduce two other members of the Mozilla menagerie that can help you to get things done when you're working online.

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How-To | Internet/Web | Open Source

Online Marketing Just For Smaller Businesses

Posted by Naomi Grossman 10:32 AM ET | Jul 30, 2008

For many smaller companies, online marketing is – or should be -- a crucial component of their business. But online marketing, which involves SEO, e-mail marketing, and pay per click ads, takes time, some money, and increasingly, some expertise. Products designed for small and midsize businesses are finally entering the market.

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Internet/Web | Sales/Marketing | Software-as-a-Service

Motorola Moves Squarely into WLAN Market

Posted by Paul Korzeniowski 06:37 AM ET | Jul 30, 2008

The old has become new again at Motorola. The company, which has experienced rough times recently, seems poised to dump its consumer products and focus once again on corporate networking gear.

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Mobile

Mobility Modder: The Best Insurance Against Bad Drivers

Posted by Matthew McKenzie 01:28 AM ET | Jul 30, 2008

If you own a Windows laptop with ATI graphics hardware, updating the display driver is often much harder than it needs to be. The solution to this problem is quick, easy, and free -- and now, it works on laptops running Windows Vista.

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Hardware & Software | Windows

Time Management Tips From an Inspiring Source

Posted by Naomi Grossman 04:37 PM ET | Jul 29, 2008

Former Carnegie Mellon University computer science professor Dr. Randy Pausch lost his valiant battle with pancreatic cancer on Friday. But Pausch left behind a timeless legacy that emphasizes living life to its fullest -- and for Pausch an essential element of that approach involved employing time management skills.

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Operations

IBM Midyear Security Report: A Bad Year That's Getting Worse

Posted by Keith Ferrell 04:14 PM ET | Jul 29, 2008

Time flies when you're having fun, and flies even faster when the bad guys are having their "fun." Already more than halfway through 2008 and a new security report let's us know in detail just how insecure a year it is.

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Did You Know That iPhone 3G Has a User's Manual?

Posted by Alan Zeichick 11:41 AM ET | Jul 29, 2008

When you look inside the box from a new Apple iPhone 3G, you'll find a handset, a cleaning cloth, an AC adapter, a USB cable, ear buds, and a warranty document. What you won't find is an owner's manual. But there is one!

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Apple | iPhone

Fewer Deaf Ears: HP's Noise Ratings for Office Servers

Posted by Lamont Wood 02:41 PM ET | Jul 28, 2008

In a small office, there's no escaping a server's noise. In the previous noise-related posting we looked at entry-level servers from Fujitsu and Dell that should not drown out conversation, with decibels outputs of 32 and 38 decibels, respectively. This time we'll look at Hewlett-Packard servers.

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Server How-To

Password Security: With Prosecutors Like This, Who Needs Rogue Administrators?

Posted by Keith Ferrell 02:23 PM ET | Jul 28, 2008

So the San Francisco District Attorney, building a case against the rogue administrator who shut down city network access, decided to include actual passwords as evidence. Bonehead decisions may not get much more boneheaded than this.

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A Voice For Smaller Businesses

Posted by Naomi Grossman 09:14 AM ET | Jul 28, 2008

Running a smaller business is all about being flexible, available, and often trying to appear larger than you actually are. One of the ways to achieve that is with a speech-enabled auto-attendant: that slightly disembodied voice that can direct callers, make your calls and read e-mail, among other things. Those systems are usually expensive but Active Voice just came out with Active Voice SPEAK which is designed for small and midsize businesses -- in its ease of set up, use, and, most significantly, price.

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Hardware & Software | Internet/Web | Messaging | Networking & Communications

Juniper Gears Up for Additional Growth

Posted by Paul Korzeniowski 08:32 AM ET | Jul 28, 2008

Revenue growth brings with it new challenges: additional expansion, more layers of management, and continuing pressure to excel. Juniper Networks, which has been doing well, recently made some changes to better position itself for the future.

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Networking & Communications

Office Open XML Converter for Mac Office 2004: Better Than Nothing

Posted by Alan Zeichick 02:28 PM ET | Jul 26, 2008

Microsoft Office 2004 users can now finally read and write Excel, Word and PowerPoint documents in the new Office Open XML file format. The new XML-based file format was introduced with Microsoft Office 2007 for Windows, and Office 2004 users were out of luck reading documents in that format.

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Apple

Yahoo And Zimbra: Walking The Line Between 'Killer App' And 'Endangered Species'

Posted by Matthew McKenzie 10:12 PM ET | Jul 25, 2008

Yahoo is clearly gunning for big game with its next-generation Webmail technology Before the company bags an elephant, however, it will have to avoid blowing off its own foot.

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Open Source

Customer Service, the Web 2.0 Way

Posted by Naomi Grossman 12:37 PM ET | Jul 25, 2008

Are you still not convinced that using Web 2.0 tools to get in touch with your customers is incredibly effective? Check out Comcast's "digital care manager" whose sole job is to troll the Web responding to negative comments about the company. Yes, Comcast is a large enterprise but what this guy is doing is something your smaller business could do on a smaller scale.

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Business & E-Business | Internet/Web | Sales/Marketing

DNS Woes: How Worried Should You Be? Pretty Dang Worried!

Posted by Keith Ferrell 12:21 PM ET | Jul 25, 2008

Yesterday's news that the first DNS attack strategies are circulating was no surprise: once a vulnerability -- large, small or in-between -- is discovered, the exploit code follows like rats nipping at the heels of the Pied Piper. The question is, how worried should you be about this particular vulnerability? Pretty worried, is my take.

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The "Consumerization" Of Business Intelligence

Posted by Fredric Paul 06:06 PM ET | Jul 24, 2008

You might think that business intelligence is the last software category to be affected by the trend toward consumer technology eclipsing its business equivalents. But according to the CEO of BI vendor QlikTech, it's already happening.

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Finance/Accounting | Hardware & Software | IT | Management | Strategy/Analysis/Biz Dev

DNS Flaw Attacks Coming: Patch Now!!!

Posted by Keith Ferrell 11:28 AM ET | Jul 24, 2008

The first attackware strategies based on the widespread DNS flaw announced earlier this month have been spotted. If you haven't patched yet, do it now, before it's too late. (Some say it's already too late.)

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"Smaller - Cooler - Faster" Meets "Carry Small, Live Large"

Posted by Fredric Paul 12:01 AM ET | Jul 24, 2008

bMighty.com doesn't usually cover new chips and stuff, mostly because that kind of technology doesn't have an immediate impact on small and midsize companies. But when I heard not one but TWO awesome new marketing phrases in a single press briefing, I was hooked. And besides, Intel promises its new smart System on Chip (SoC) designs will accelerate some important trends that could benefit bMighty readers.

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Mobile | Retail | Services | Storage

Server Noise Issue Is Falling On Deaf Ears

Posted by Lamont Wood 06:10 PM ET | Jul 23, 2008

True, typically nobody sits in front of a server—but that doesn't mean that server ergonomics can be ignored, especially fan noise. In a small office, there is no escaping that noise. But there is little evidence that the vendors take the issue seriously.

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Server How-To

The Crowd Will Judge The Best PowerPoint Presentation

Posted by Benjamin Tomkins 05:09 PM ET | Jul 23, 2008

For modern business, the presentation has reached iconic status: we celebrate, debate, and decorate presentations -- elevate them to iconic status. Hyperbole? Perhaps, but how many contests do you see for spreadsheets or word processing? Flickering, projected images haunt our collective business conscious as we mouth the words "next slide" in unison. If you haven't thrown your latest, greatest presentation into the ring, you best hurry: the entry window for the World's Best Presentation Contest closes next week.

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Sales/Marketing

McAfee Says Small, Midsize Business Sweats Security Too Little. You Agree?

Posted by Keith Ferrell 04:15 PM ET | Jul 23, 2008

A new survey from security firm McAfee warns that small and midsize businesses don't consider themselves to be targets for cybercrime. Do their findings match your feelings? Let's hope not.

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Business & E-Business | IT | Internet/Web | Security | bMighty

Network Management Vendor or Social Networking Supplier?

Posted by Paul Korzeniowski 12:32 PM ET | Jul 23, 2008

Consumer trends, such as social networking sites, are having an impact on the network management market. While it does promote its network management software, one vendor is also trying to make itself into a destination spot for IT executives.

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Management

Web Site Optimization That Costs Nothing -- But Time

Posted by Naomi Grossman 11:04 AM ET | Jul 23, 2008

Good, free advice is rare. Good free advice that only confirms what you've been saying all along is even rarer but yesterday both happened to me and it concerns something all smaller businesses should be doing: Web site optimization.

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Internet/Web | Strategy/Analysis/Biz Dev

Recent Outage Shows Drawbacks of Cloud Reliance

Posted by Lamont Wood 12:45 PM ET | Jul 22, 2008

A premiere example of cloud service—Amazon's Simple Storage Service (S3)—was down for eight hours on Sunday, providing another example of why that the cloud cannot do away with the need for servers inside the firewall.

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Server How-To

Apple Really Messed Up With the MobileMe Launch

Posted by Alan Zeichick 04:53 PM ET | Jul 21, 2008

The real black spot in Apple's recent iPhone launch isn't the phone itself, but the MobileMe online service. The service is an upgrade and a revamp of the .Mac service that Apple has offered for some years. MobileMe offers a variety of services, but sadly, a lot of them don't work right, and that's causing customers no end of frustration.

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Apple

Picture This: The New bMighty Imaging How-To Center

Posted by Fredric Paul 04:08 PM ET | Jul 21, 2008

Despite repeated promises that the paperless office is just around the corner, the true paperless office remains "just around the corner." Nevertheless, bMighty's brand new Imaging How-To Center can show you how to leverage document imaging to save money, improve your company's workflow, and even go a little green.

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Green Business | Hardware & Software | Imaging How-To | bMighty

There'll Always Be An England -- It Just Won't Have Any Secure Laptops

Posted by Keith Ferrell 10:13 AM ET | Jul 21, 2008

The news that more than 650 of the British Ministry of Defence's laptop computers have been stolen over the past four years, along with dozens of thumb drives over the last few months, all containing sensitive information, offers a startling reminder of just how mobile your mobile devices can unfortunately be.

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Business & E-Business | Government | Mobile | Security

Apple Keeps Gaining Computer Market Share

Posted by Alan Zeichick 08:06 AM ET | Jul 21, 2008

About one out of every 12 personal computers shipped in the United States is now a Macintosh. That's according to research giant Gartner, which places Apple in third place behind Dell and Hewlett-Packard.

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Apple

Hotspot Usage Remains White Hot

Posted by Paul Korzeniowski 06:26 AM ET | Jul 21, 2008

“Does your hotel, (office, site, restaurant, airport) offer Wi-Fi connectivity?” That is one of the first questions a business traveler asks when booking a trip. Increasingly, the answer to that query is yes.

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Mobile

Mobile Collaboration and Data Sharing, Without Exchange

Posted by Alan Zeichick 09:07 PM ET | Jul 19, 2008

Want to share documents with colleagues? Want to be able to access them whether you're on a desktop, notebook or iPhone? That generally calls for a collaboration server, such as Microsoft's Exchange Server. The iPhone 3G's updated software is being heavily promoted as being interoperable with Exchange. But that doesn't mean that you need an Exchange server in order to share documents with coworkers. You can use a much simpler hosted system like HyperOffice instead.

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Apple

Business As Usual For Dell's Linux Lineup

Posted by Matthew McKenzie 04:43 AM ET | Jul 19, 2008

Dell's partnership with Ubuntu looks to have something the PC maker's last desktop Linux effort did not: a future.

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Business & E-Business | Hardware & Software | Linux | Open Source

Developer's Toolkit Makes It Easier To Find Data In Your iPhone

Posted by Alan Zeichick 08:49 PM ET | Jul 18, 2008

How often do you need to search through lists of things? A list of bookmarks, a list of addresses, a list of files, a list of songs, a list of restaurants. Searches are easy to a desktop PC, thanks to scroll buttons on your mouse. But they're a pain on handheld devices. That's about to change, says kannuu.

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Apple

Open-Source Support: The More You Know, The Better It Looks

Posted by Matthew McKenzie 01:49 PM ET | Jul 18, 2008

Open-source support has a problem: People who assume, for no good reason, that it has a problem.

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Hardware & Software | IT | Linux | Open Source | Services

Everybody Loves "Presence" -- In Unified Communications

Posted by Fredric Paul 08:56 PM ET | Jul 17, 2008

OK, so that may be the worst pun I've ever used in a blog headline, but according to a Yankee Group post in No Jitter, presence -- not VoIP -- is the key to Unified Communications. And frankly, that seems like one of the few reasonable things I've seen written about UC.

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Networking & Communications

State Of Spam: Illinois Tops Badmail Target List

Posted by Keith Ferrell 12:35 PM ET | Jul 17, 2008

A new study claims that Illinois receives more spam traffic than any other state in the union. But a close look at the data shows that the other 49 aren't doing all that well either (with one interesting exception.)

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Internet/Web | Messaging | Security | Technology/Telecom

Got a Large File to Send? No Problem

Posted by Naomi Grossman 11:53 AM ET | Jul 17, 2008

The need to send large files can stop many smaller businesses in their e-mail tracks. Suddenly, it's going to take at least a day to get those large files -- podcasts, videos, or just lots of data – to where you want it to be and that it involves dealing with a local delivery service. Ugh. But there are web-based delivery services that can get your large files -- up to 2GB -- sent in a few minutes. I just used one and I'm ready to say goodbye to my DHL guy forever.

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Hardware & Software | Internet/Web

San Francisco Network Lockout: Who Controls System Access -- And Who Controls The Controllers?

Posted by Keith Ferrell 11:39 AM ET | Jul 16, 2008

San Francisco's misadventures (to put it mildly) of being locked out of part of its own computer network by a disgruntled but password/access-controlling employee raises one of IT security's oldest and still thorniest questions: who has the authority to grant or deny system access, and who has authority over the authorizers?

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Latest Figures Show That Web Server Security Is Indispensable

Posted by Lamont Wood 10:52 AM ET | Jul 16, 2008

Do you worry about serve security? If your Web server acquired an infection that turned the machines of visitors into remotely controlled zombies, would you be embarrassed? If you answered yes to both questions you are, sadly, ahead of the pack.

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Server How-To

Boston-Area Startups, Get Your 15 Minutes

Posted by Naomi Grossman 09:50 AM ET | Jul 16, 2008

For smaller businesses, it's all about getting noticed. Well, if you're a Boston-area tech startup, here's your chance to get your 15 minutes in the spotlight. InformationWeek's Startup City TV crew is coming to the Bay State and they've got more spots to fill.

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Company Size: 1-49 | Internet/Web | Sales/Marketing | Strategy/Analysis/Biz Dev

Vendor Speeds Up its WAN Accelerator

Posted by Paul Korzeniowski 05:58 AM ET | Jul 16, 2008

The Wide Area Network accelerator market has picked up steam as small and medium businesses try to move information more quickly over those connections. One leading vendor recently pumped its product line to gain more market traction.

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Networking & Communications | Technology/Telecom

9 (+1) Things NOT To Do On Your Web Site

Posted by Fredric Paul 01:47 PM ET | Jul 15, 2008

I love lists, and I especially love negative lists. They kind of remind me of the old elephant joke: QUESTION -- How do make a sculpture of an elephant? ANSWER -- Get a giant chunk of granite an carve away everything that doesn't look like an elephant. Nevertheless, check out this list of Web site DON'Ts.

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Internet/Web

Crooks Making Less From Bank Data Look To Steal From Other Businesses (Including Yours)

Posted by Keith Ferrell 11:30 AM ET | Jul 15, 2008

Things are tough all over, as a new report on the drop in the value of stolen bank data shows. But as stolen bank info drops in price, you can bet that the crooks are going to be looking elsewhere to make up the difference. And small and midsize business data is definitely one of the elsewheres.

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Remote Offices, Remote Workers: Tech Tools to The Rescue

Posted by Naomi Grossman 10:05 AM ET | Jul 15, 2008

It's time for small and midsize businesses to accept that at least some of their workers will be working remotely – whether in satellite offices or from their home offices. Between rising gas prices, costs of maintaining central offices, and the increasing need (and desire) for flexibility, it's a trend that is not going away. But before your IT department starts to panic, check out this list of technologies for remote office support.

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Hardware & Software | IT | Networking & Communications | Technology/Telecom

Backup Wars at HP: Tape v. Disk

Posted by Benjamin Tomkins 09:33 AM ET | Jul 15, 2008

The question is not if you should back up your business data, but how. There's no shortage of vendors out there trumpeting their solutions, be in tape or disk or hosted, as the best option for cost, ease of use, regulatory compliance or myriad other business needs. Sometimes the vendors even compete with themselves.

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Storage

Small Businesses Hate Government, Like McCain

Posted by Fredric Paul 08:11 PM ET | Jul 14, 2008

A whopping 86% of small businesses believe that the government is doing "little" or "nothing" to help them, according to a new survey. So what else is new? Well, the survey also reveals that small business owners lean significantly farther to the right than does the general public.

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Company Size: 1-49 | Economics | Entrepreneurs | Government

Marketing 101: Add Video to Your Web Site

Posted by Naomi Grossman 11:53 AM ET | Jul 14, 2008

Online video -- when done well -- is an incredibly effective marketing tool. But you knew that already. But did you know that small and midsize businesses, can now more easily, and affordably, get in on the action?

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Sales/Marketing

Latest Figures Confirm That Server Virtualization Is the Wave of the Future

Posted by Lamont Wood 11:42 AM ET | Jul 14, 2008

Figures from Europe and around the world show that the bulk of IT managers have begun to grapple with server virtualization. Results, meanwhile, can be dramatic.

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Server How-To

Why Isn't Internet Infrastructure Security A Bigger Issue?

Posted by Keith Ferrell 11:14 AM ET | Jul 14, 2008

The ongoing debate and discussion about the domain name server vulnerability disclosed last week may be getting a bit of traction in the world beyond IT, but the size and potential seriousness of the problem ought to raise other questions: Namely, why the security of the Net itself, as well as its users, doesn't loom larger (or at all) on the campaign trails.

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Carriers Roll Out New TV Services

Posted by Paul Korzeniowski 07:26 AM ET | Jul 14, 2008

So you wanna know what is on TV? Well, the nation’s largest carriers have begun making hundreds of channels (Is anything really on?) available to small and medium businesses as well as consumers.

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Networking & Communications | Technology/Telecom

Saturday's Report from the iPhone Store

Posted by Alan Zeichick 05:41 PM ET | Jul 12, 2008

Looking for an iPhone 3G? Maybe you got lucky. Maybe not.

This morning, at around 9:30am, I drove past the AT&T store near Stanford University in Palo Alto. The queue was wrapped around the building — many, many dozens of people.

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iPhone

Your iPhone 3G Wait Might Be Days...

Posted by Alan Zeichick 07:50 PM ET | Jul 11, 2008

I visited my two nearby AT&T stores again this afternoon, at around 3:30pm. Neither had lines... because both sold out of iPhone 3G handsets before noon.

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It Looks Like Apple Wasn't Quite Ready

Posted by Alan Zeichick 02:31 PM ET | Jul 11, 2008

There's plenty of anecdotal evidence: Apple wasn't sufficiently ready for the iPhone 3G rollout. There have been widespread reports of problems with activations of the phones. At one store I visited, a customer left with an activated phone. However, news reports say that there have been issues with the process at both Apple and AT&T stores.

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Apple

Expect a Long Wait in Line for Your iPhone 3G

Posted by Alan Zeichick 01:40 PM ET | Jul 11, 2008

Apple's iPhone 3G went on sale today. In the U.S., the on-sale time was 8:00am in your local time zone. I've just come back from visiting two AT&T stores. In both locations, the queues were huge.

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iPhone

New Media Trojan Exploits Bad Old Piracy, P2P Habits

Posted by Keith Ferrell 11:33 AM ET | Jul 11, 2008

A particularly aggressive new Trojan takes advantage of the oldest of vulnerabilities -- human nature. Hiding in pirate software sites, the Trojan infects the music and video files of illegal software seekers, then spreads when those files are peer-shared.

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Wubi: The Easy Way To Test-Drive Linux On A Windows PC

Posted by Matthew McKenzie 06:23 AM ET | Jul 11, 2008

Linux has long made life easy for tire-kickers. The latest version of Ubuntu, however, makes it simpler than ever before to take Linux for a realistic test drive -- without risking a single byte of data on an existing Windows system.

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Hardware & Software | Linux | Open Source | Windows

Windows XP Lives to Take Another Breath: XP SP3 Released Today

Posted by Naomi Grossman 05:16 PM ET | Jul 10, 2008

After delaying its distribution twice, Microsoft is releasing its third -- and final -- service pack for its Windows XP operating system to users today.

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Hardware & Software | Technology/Telecom

Why Business Blogs Suck -- And How To Make Sure Yours Doesn't

Posted by Fredric Paul 04:28 PM ET | Jul 10, 2008

Business blogging can't that hard, right? After all, this Fredric Paul character does it, so it can't be rocket science. Well, maybe it's tougher than it looks. According to a new research report, most BtoB blogs are "dull," "drab", "unimaginative" "failures."

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Internet/Web | Sales/Marketing

Justice Breyer's Data Exposure A Reminder Of P2P File Risks

Posted by Keith Ferrell 12:24 PM ET | Jul 10, 2008

The news that Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer's personal information was among thousands of other personal data files compromised as a result of a file-sharing snafu raises a couple of issues, chief among them whether or not peer-to-peer file sharing via public programs is ever appropriate for business info.

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Stability Is The New Growth For IT Economic Outlook

Posted by Benjamin Tomkins 10:03 AM ET | Jul 10, 2008

"If you're not growing, you're dying." This adage of the dot com boom has given way to business leaders scaling back budgets and feeling bullish about holding the line on spending and flat growth projections. Yet in the face of stasis, midsize business IT decision makers are cockeyed optimists with growing budgets, but small businesses are having none of it.

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Business & E-Business | Company Size: 1-49 | Economics

Good News: The EPA Has Decided Against Regulating Data Centers

Posted by Lamont Wood 09:39 AM ET | Jul 10, 2008

According to a recently published interview, an official with the Environmental Protection Agency says the EPA will proceed with its plan to extend the Energy Star program to enterprise servers, but it is otherwise not likely to regulate data centers.

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Server How-To

Can You Keep A Secret?

Posted by Matthew McKenzie 07:58 PM ET | Jul 9, 2008

A typical laptop computer is a disaster waiting to happen. There is a quick, cheap, simple, totally effective way to fix the problem -- preferably, before it fixes you.

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Server Hijack Problem Prompts Unified Industry Response

Posted by Keith Ferrell 02:58 PM ET | Jul 9, 2008

The show of patch-unity displayed by many of the industry's major players in addressing a domain name sever flaw is gratifying -- and annoying too. Nice to see them working together. Nicer if we knew more about the problem they're working to fix.

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Microsoft Dangles Carrot To Lure Smaller Businesses To Vista

Posted by Benjamin Tomkins 11:58 AM ET | Jul 9, 2008

Though support for Windows XP will continue until 2014, Microsoft stopped shipping the OS last month. Redmond is wielding that stick in hopes of prodding users toward Vista, but there's also a carrot: free user support -- though it's a limited time offer.

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Company Size: 1-49 | Hardware & Software

It’s the Graphical User Interface, Stupid

Posted by Alan Zeichick 11:15 AM ET | Jul 9, 2008

Over the past couple of years, I’ve watched many consumers and business users move from Windows to the Mac. (Comparatively few have moved from the Mac to Windows.) It’s funny what trips up and frustrates new Mac users. It’s not the system architecture, or any broad paradigm variations between the two operating systems. Those, nearly all new users take in strike. Rather, it’s trivial difference between the Windows user interface (which is formally known as Presentation Manager) and the Mac user interface (called Finder).

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Third-Party Solutions Target iPhone 3G Users

Posted by Alan Zeichick 11:10 AM ET | Jul 9, 2008

Unless you’ve been living in a cardboard box lately, you probably know that the iPhone 3G goes on sale this Friday morning, July 11. My inbox has been filled with pitches from companies that have developed offerings to leverage, exploit or augment the iPhone. I’ll share the best ones as they come in. Here are a couple that seem worthy.

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I'm a Mac, You're a Bad OS

Posted by Naomi Grossman 10:50 AM ET | Jul 9, 2008

Microsoft is finally admitting that those "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" ads have had some impact on Vista's reputation and performance in the market. The software giant is planning to respond with a huge advertising campaign of its own -- which will not involve admitting that Vista is a bad OS.

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Apple | Hardware & Software | IT

Tips to Enjoy Your Summer Vacation

Posted by Paul Korzeniowski 05:20 AM ET | Jul 9, 2008

Chances are that a few days away from the office will invariably include some office tasks, such as answering your email. Given the advent of today’s always connected technology, how does an IT executive get some well deserved down time?

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IT

Hacked ICANN Not Master Of Its Own Domain

Posted by Keith Ferrell 12:34 PM ET | Jul 8, 2008

You know the security threatscape is getting weirder when the organization in charge of domain names gets some of its own domains hacked.

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Business & E-Business | Internet/Web | Security | Services

The Cloud Does Not Spell The End Of The Server

Posted by Lamont Wood 11:54 AM ET | Jul 8, 2008

Offering cheap, accessible hosting, the cloud would seem to make servers superfluous. On closer inspection, it does no such thing.

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Server How-To

Obama + Web 2.0 = A (Presumptive) Presidential Nomination

Posted by Naomi Grossman 11:30 AM ET | Jul 8, 2008

The campaign of the presumptive democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama, has made liberal use of social networking tools to garner support, raise campaign funds, and get their message out. So far it's working.

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Hardware & Software | Internet/Web | Messaging | Networking & Communications

Microsoft Readies New Windows XP SP3 -- And Windows Small Business Server 2008

Posted by Fredric Paul 09:11 PM ET | Jul 7, 2008

Microsoft says it will distribute a new version of Service Pack 3 for Windows XP through its Automatic Update service "shortly," and launch Windows Small Business Server 2008 on November 12.

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Windows

The bMighty Blog -- July 2008 Archive

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