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Put down the vendor white papers and turn down the volume on that webinar. If you want to secure your data and pass a PCI (Payment Card Industry) audit, take a look at the past -- the long-ago past. Between the ninth and 15th centuries, the castle was the Western world's emblem of strength and security. It enabled small villages and towns to repel...

You're the manager of a Hilton Garden Inn, and it's the height of family vacation season. The lobby is abuzz with kids toting skateboards and moms pushing strollers; your front desk agents are overloaded with check-ins. In the middle of all this, a harried business traveler calls to the front desk for extra towels. Quick, what do you do? This isn't...

A lot of us are focused on Microsoft and Bill Gates this month as Bill's last day at the company he founded and ran to dominance passed last Friday. I've met Bill several times but only really once spoken to him. From a personal aspect, he has mostly been cordial, and he once personally came to my rescue back when my career as an independent analyst first started, something I'll never forget. Something else I'll never forget was the Windows 95 launch, which in my mind and evidently his, was the high point for Microsoft.

Part 1 of this two-part series looked at the constant behind-the-scenes refinement of the technologies that enable the compression of audio and video files for online distribution. Part 2 delves into the specialized, somewhat arcane world of A/V compression and the role open source plays in standards development, and in the overall marketplace The ...

Social networks are peppering the Internet with Facebook-like interactive features. Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) is fast becoming the defacto programming tool for Web developers. But by itself, Ajax is a daunting challenge that requires demanding coding skills Ajax toolkits offer Web developers a shortcut method to build in the convenient...

The explosion in Web-delivered music and video we're seeing today just wouldn't be possible without the use of sophisticated encoded compression algorithms, or codecs, and the file storage formats in which compressed audio, images and data are saved. As Internet bandwidth and broadband access has expanded, so has the transmission of much denser digital audio and video files. Compression algorithms and file format development has had to keep up and in-step...

New research has suggested that technology-based, non-invasive and drug-free techniques may be effective at relieving pain for some migraine sufferers, according to a study presented at the annual American Headache Society meeting in Boston. The treatment used in clinical trials conducted by Dr. Richard B. Lipton, a researcher in the cause and tre...

Microsoft is facing a new wave of resistance against its Vista operating system, thanks to reports that one of its most well-known partners hasn't made the upgrade. An anonymous source -- described as having direct knowledge of the situation -- told The New York Times Intel found no compelling case to switch its own employees' computers over to Vista. The decision followed an in-depth analysis of costs and benefits by Intel engineers, according to the Times' source...

The universe of Internet domains will soon experience a Big Bang, thanks to Thursday's vote by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) approving a new system for handing out Web addresses Corporations and other public and private entities will no longer be limited to Web extensions like .com, .net or .org; for a fee that wil...

Microsoft's new hypervisor-based server virtualization software, Hyper-V, is now available for download, and it's several weeks ahead of "schedule" -- though it's also months late. Microsoft previously wanted to deliver Hyper-V with Windows Server 2008. In any event, Hyper-V is here, and it's real Hyper-V is a feature of some versions of Windows Se...

After a few months of use, a PC never seems to run as fast as when you first opened the box and turned it on. As you install and remove programs, large quantities of unwanted files pile up. These files take up space on your hard drive and can be loaded when you start your computer. This can slow your boot process to a snail's pace PC Tune-Up 2.0 i...

Since the enactment of Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) on July 30, 2002, many executives and board members have developed an almost palpable degree of anxiety when it comes to corporate governance and board service. In fact, some friends of mine who have been asked to serve on boards of publicly held companies have answered with a resounding "no!" out of fear of the legal implications and entanglements of serving on a board post-SOX...

Over the past year, the business intelligence (BI) landscape has transformed drastically. Formerly, this market was comprised of a vast collection of solution providers, but it has evolved to just four major players -- IBM, SAP, Oracle and Microsoft These BI titans have expanded through acquisition, snatching up the BI solutions provided by Cognos,...

Personalized medicine is touted as the wave of the future, but recent government action points to problems for Americans looking to join the health revolution. Last week, California's Department of Public Health issued cease-and-desist letters to 13 genetic testing startups, threatening to deny service to consumers curious about their DNA "Any labo...

Candy bar maker Mars is working with IBM and the United States Department of Agriculture - Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) to apply their scientific experience and computing resources to sequence and analyze the entire cocoa genome. This scientific inquiry is more than a simple effort to produce richer chocolate for candy lovers. The team...

Google and Microsoft have teamed with Intuit, WebMD and a consortium of more than 100 healthcare providers, insurers and consumer and privacy groups to develop a framework of practices governing online personal health record (PHR) services. Under the leadership of the Markle Foundation, the Connecting for Health guidelines are an effort by PHR ser...

In a bid to tap into the citizen journalism movement and emphasize the interactive possibilities of social media, MySpace will team with NBC News and MSNBC.com to offer two of its millions of users the chance to attend and cover this summer's national political conventions Starting Thursday and until July 16, members of MySpace over the age of 18 w...

Dell on Thursday introduced a new, colorful laptop line aimed at artistic and creative consumers Combining aesthetics and technology, the new Studio line launched with two distinctively styled laptops: the Dell Studio 15 and Dell Studio 17. Both offer sleek designs, striking visual color elements and personalization options with features such as st...

Sony's Blu-ray won the battle of high-definition DVD formats, but its PlayStation 3 gaming console has been losing the war over networked home entertainment. That will change this summer, promised Kaz Hirai, president of Sony Computer Entertainment, during a Tokyo press conference announcing new PS3 services for the U.S. market Sony will roll out o...

Chrysler is putting WiFi on wheels with plans for a new vehicle-based wireless Internet system. The automaker's upcoming Uconnect Web service -- announced Thursday in Detroit -- will let travelers turn their cars into moving WiFi hotspots. The service, powered by AutoNet Mobile, will cost US$29 per month and will require a dealer-installed $449 mo...