Articles by Alison Diana

Online learning has come a long way from its roots in simple how-to Web pages. Today, corporations hoping to enhance their employees' skill sets and individuals seeking to advance their careers can choose among a smorgasbord of online tutorials, courseware and classes After suffering as a result of the poor economy last year, the U.S. market for co...

The Web hosting industry is vast and growing -- but for potential customers, the array of choices can be mind-boggling. "We're looking at a market that was in the range of (US)$5.5 billion last year," Gartner principal analyst Lydia Leong told the E-Commerce Times. When the latest numbers are released, she added, "it'll probably grow about $1 bill...

Today's teenagers have powered the ongoing success of apparel seller Abercrombie & Fitch and music heavyweight MTV, among many other brands -- but the vast majority of e-tailers have long ignored the buying power of this group of consumers That neglect is shortsighted, say industry experts who track and work in the youth market. Last year, people b...

When it comes to fighting traditional crime, tipsters play an integral role in reporting suspicious activities, questionable characters and true confessions. But while few people question the existence of Crime Stopper hotlines or highway billboards, Microsoft's recent plan to offer a bounty for information leading to the arrest of malware authors brings tip lines into the digital age...

Corporate America is outsourcing an increasing number and variety of jobs to foreign shores, a trend that few industry experts predict will slow, let alone reverse, in coming months and years "Offshore outsourcing is just one small part of a (US)$5 trillion global outsourcing market. This market is growing by more than 15 percent per year, and the ...

The first installment of this two-part series explored the notion that despite consumers' increasing demand for strong multimedia capabilities, vendors' low-end notebook computers can be a suitable replacement for home desktop PCs After all, the days of hundreds of dollars' difference between laptops and notebooks have disappeared, Randy Ramirez, p...

Executive road warriors probably would not want to tote Dell's $849 Inspiron 1100 or Gateway's $699 M305S. However, while sub-$1,000 notebook computers may be bulkier and less technologically cutting-edge than their more streamlined siblings, they still pack a powerful punch for a consumer's buck Indeed, for average consumers, who generally need to...

For the most part, today's businesses are investing in infrastructure and doing more with fewer resources, rather than buying ping-pong tables and BMWs for their workers While this bottom-line focus may seem like a return to normalcy for those who entered the workforce before the dot-com boom, twentysomethings who first entered the professional emp...

While corporate employees have enjoyed the benefits of WiFi (802.11) high-speed wireless networks for several years, consumers finally are gaining more widespread access to this technology as vendors install WiFi capabilities in airports, hotels and restaurants across the United States The main challenge faced by these vendors is economic, rather t...

Corporate demand for computer security experts is growing -- and so are the options available to higher-education students and IT professionals who want to increase their expertise without overstepping legal or ethical boundaries At present, financial institutions worldwide allot 6 percent of their total IT budgets to security, according to a repor...

In recent weeks, high-profile arrests of hackers and malware authors have trained a spotlight on the sometimes-shadowy underworld of computer crime.The Internet may seem like a more dangerous place than ever before, but Web security administrators can greatly reduce the number of vulnerabilities that allow hackers to illegally enter, deface and destroy Web sites...

Although worms can create media furor and disrupt business, to date they have adhered to a strange dichotomy: A given worm may spread rapidly or deliver a destructive payload -- but no worm has accomplished both tasks with equal aplomb SQL Slammer and SoBig.F, for example, tunneled voraciously through the Internet. On the other hand, the Magistr wo...

Even as annual e-commerce sales storm past the US$45 billion mark, according to U.S. Census Department figures, companies engaged in an older form of selling are soldiering on, using TVs and telephones to communicate with potential customers in homes across the United States One of the largest such companies, QVC, was founded in 1986 and earned rev...

Data security has become a far more complex proposition than it was a few years ago, thanks to the rise of storage area networks, or SANs. These networks allow users to store information anywhere within an enterprise and access it from any point as well, rather than tying storage to specific servers. Although such a model boosts storage efficiency, it also raises questions about the security of sensitive data that is accessed over a network.

Although ciphers long have been a staple of spy thrillers and mysteries, data encryption now has gained a real -- and critical -- foothold in the business world "Encryption and authentication are playing a very important role, in particular with most businesses moving online and adding business processes online," said Ed Kim, product line manager f...