23rd October 2002 Archive

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Evesham buys Welsh system builder

Management redundos

Evesham Technology has bought Mertec, a Welsh-based system builder specialising in server networks design and installation. Terms were undisclosed. Following the takeover, Evesham is reorganising its business, removing 12 jobs, mostly in management. The jobs of three senior executives will no longer exist. There are no news of …

Channel 23 Oct 2002, 09:02
Baltimore launches Trusted Business apps

It's all in the packaging

In a bid to revive its flagging fortunes, internet security software vendor Baltimore Technologies Plc has launched a new suite of pre-packaged software modules designed to offer secure solutions for networking, messaging and electronic document management. The Dublin, Ireland-based company has been through some tough times …

Security 23 Oct 2002, 09:17
Cisco buy Psionic for IDS skills

ClearResponse

Cisco Systems Inc is expanding its presence in the network security software space with the acquisition of small, privately held intrusion-detection software (IDS) vendor Psionic Software Inc. San Jose, California-based Cisco is acquiring Austin, Texas-based Psionic to boost the efficiency of its existing network-based IDS …

Security 23 Oct 2002, 09:17
Feds investigating ‘largest ever’ Internet attack

Attack of the Drones

US Federal authorities are investigating an attack on the internet that has been described as the "largest and most complex" in history. Rather than a specific entity, the attack was aimed at the domain name system's root servers, essentially at the internet itself, writes Kevin Murphy. In a distributed denial of service attack …

Security 23 Oct 2002, 09:17
PeopleSoft aims to make noise in Europe

Energy SAPping

The opening day theme at PeopleSoft Connect EMEA 2002 in Paris yesterday was designed to address one of the problems that has been nagging at the enterprise applications company for years: the lack of awareness within the European market. "PeopleSoft in EMEA is no longer at a competitive disadvantage from a product point of …

Hardware 23 Oct 2002, 09:17
MS releases Office 11 to beta testing

Official

Microsoft Corp has announced that the next version of its Office suite, codenamed Office 11, has entered the first beta testing stage. The release of the new version comes as Microsoft arguably faces more competition in the office productivity software market than at any time in its history. Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft …

Software 23 Oct 2002, 09:18
Lotus chief worked, not fibbed, self out of job

So that's cleared up then...

"Former Lotus CEO speaks candidly about job shift," says the tantalising Computerworld headline and, given the colourful circumstances which preceded Jeff Papows' departure from Lotus in early 2000, how could anyone resist? Regrettably, Jeff's 'candid' interview makes no mention of the sexual harrassment charges or the grisly …

Software 23 Oct 2002, 09:53
Xandros Linux: ‘It just works’, even with Windows stuff

Review Thumbs up from Tina

The "premier release" of Xandros, formerly known as Corel Linux, is being released today at the Xandros.com Web site. Individual users can pick up a copy for $99, and corporate/enterprise users will see a discount price for multiple licenses. I was lucky enough to get an advance copy of Xandros to play around with. This …

Software 23 Oct 2002, 09:53
MGIF publishes m-gaming standard

v1.0

The Mobile Games Interoperability Forum released its new specifications this week, giving mobile gamers another reason to prepare for an industry explosion. As handsets improve and wireless data networks grow faster, it's a generally acknowledged fact that the market for mobile gaming will grow to become massive before the end …

Mobile 23 Oct 2002, 09:57
Novell touts MySQL with Netware 6

Momentum

Novell this week has finally found a solution to one of its underlying problems. Despite the fact that it offers a raft of network management, policy management, security management and central repositories, most notably with its eDirectory, it's never had a database. This was problematic in two respects, first it meant that …

Software 23 Oct 2002, 09:58
StorageTek pumps ATA drives into BladeStore

'Groundbreaking'

Advances in sub-systems are rarely groundbreaking - they simply mean data runs faster, only to hit a bottleneck elsewhere. But "groundbreaking" is what StorageTek is claiming for its new disk subsystem, launched this week. Called BladeStore, this product "alters the economics of information storage", the company says. In other …

Storage 23 Oct 2002, 10:57
NTL boss clarifies salary

'Poke in the eye'

Barclay Knapp - the boss of NTL - had to face some flak on Monday after the Times reported that he is to receive a threefold increase in his salary. Not bad for a man who helped the cableco run-up debts of more than £13bn before seeking the comparative shelter of Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. However, it seems Mr Knapp is …

Business 23 Oct 2002, 11:03
IE hopelessly bug ridden

Nine good reasons to disable Active Scripting

Nine closely-related Internet Explorer flaws leave users open to a variety of powerful attacks, security researchers at Israeli firm GreyMagic Software warned yesterday. The vulnerabilities revolve around object caching and a combination could enable an attacker to steal private local documents, steal cookies from any site, …

Security 23 Oct 2002, 11:12
Euro porn ops fined £125K for premium rate abuse

Noÿ

Two European porn operators have been thumped with fines totaling £125,000 for running ads featuring child pornography. Spanish-based Greenock and German-based Premium Call GmbH were also slapped for using dialer software that automatically downloaded itself onto PCs without users' knowledge before charging them £1.50 a minute …

Music and Media 23 Oct 2002, 11:52
Secure your Linux system with IT-Minds.com

'Linux System Security' at 30 per cent off

This week's featured book from Reg associate IT-minds.com shows you the pros and cons of the most valuable open source security tools and how to implement them, including all-new coverage of Bastille. Along the way, three long-time Linux sysadmins will show you the "gotchas," rules of thumb, and undocumented tricks it could take …

Site News 23 Oct 2002, 11:58
MS joins phone battle with debut of Orange Stinger in UK

So is there only room for one Microsoft in this town?

Microsoft's Stinger smartphone is finally with us, a year on from its first promised ship date, and after numerous missed ETAs in the intervening period. The winner, the Orange SPV, was unveiled in what Microsoft's press people curiously refer to as a "posh London nightclub," but which we thought was Old Billingsgate (a name …

Mobile 23 Oct 2002, 12:22
Arson suspected in Manchester cable melt down

First quakes, now this

Phones services in Manchester and parts of the North West have been disrupted following a suspected arson attack. Police were called to two incidents in the early hours of this morning. In one incident in Salford, a fire started in a wheelie bin near a cable box damaged underground cables. Shortly afterwards, police attended a …

Data Networking 23 Oct 2002, 12:49
Hutchison orders 2 million 3G phones from NEC

That's more like it

Hutchison Wampoa has doubled its order of dual-mode 3G phones from NEC to two million units. Nice work for NEC and nicer for Hutchison which needs lots of handsets, if it is to roll-out its greenfield 3 mobile phone networks in a meaningful fashion. To date it has taken delivery of just 1,000 handsets from NEC. The value of the …

Mobile 23 Oct 2002, 13:32
Powerllel claims go-faster algorithms for grid apps

The Lobster Quadrille

At first glance, Powerllel looks to be a distributed computing solution similar to Platform LSF, Sun Grid Engine and DataSynapse LiveCluster. But after a closer look, it's clear that Powerllel's unique optimised and dynamic parallel computing technology actually complements these resource-sharing grid offerings. Rather than …

Storage 23 Oct 2002, 14:09
Danish watchdog calls for ban on intrusive online ads

Finds echoes in Norway

Our thanks to Kasper Larsen, founder of Klarisma, a web data-mining specialist, for drawing our attention to calls in Denmark to ban in-yer-face online ads such as "shutter" banner rolldowns and interstitials. According to ComputerWorld Denmark, the Danish "Forbruger-ombudsmand" - described by Larsen as "the consumers watch …

e-Business 23 Oct 2002, 14:14
ASA slams ‘intimidating’ Domain Registry of Europe mailshots

DROE ordered to stop sending 'bills'

The advertising watchdog has ordered the Domain Registry of Europe (DROE) to stop issuing mail shots that "look like bills". In a ruling published today against the domain registry outfit, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) upheld complaints that the mailings "misleadingly exaggerated the importance and status of the …

Music and Media 23 Oct 2002, 14:17
Furore over Comparex Europe MBO

'Cash heist', ex-director claims

A former director of Comparex has placed two full page ads in Business Day, in South Africa, slamming the networking reseller's proposed sale of its European operations for a bargain basement price to an MBO team. Dave Sullivan, who calls the attempted MBO a 'cash heist' is calling on shareholders and staff to vote against the …

Channel 23 Oct 2002, 14:17
BTo flogs travel insurance

Fantastic news

Crikey - things must be getting bad at BTopenworld. BT's ISP is now flogging travel insurance to make ends meet. The latest press release from BTopenwave, as it was described recently, tells us of a "fantastic insurance deal". "For £69 per person, customers receive fully comprehensive multi-trip travel insurance for a year, …

Bootnotes 23 Oct 2002, 14:19
Online banks, retailers shut out Linux, Opera, Konqueror fans

So much for customer segmentation

We've received an enormous amount of feedback from our story on the impossibility of opening money-saving online energy accounts with Scottish Power if you are a Linux or Opera user. Many of you reporting that it's difficult for Linux users with default browser configurations to view the Scottish Power site at all. Instead, …

e-Business 23 Oct 2002, 14:55
We're being spanked by Nokia – Gates

Making a Stink

Nokia is creaming Microsoft in the phone business, Bill Gates said yesterday. Gates admitted the company is "way, way, way behind Nokia", according to a Financial Times report. Three "ways" is significant - because Bill's "way"-scale is logarithmic (not a lot of people know that) - and the comment punctures the publicity bubble …

Personal 23 Oct 2002, 20:32
Claranet drops virus outbreak blocker

Generic filter causes 'false positives'

Claranet, the leading British ISP, this week abandoned its first line of defence against email-borne viruses following performance issues with its in-house developed technology, its global mail filter. Claranet continues to market to business users a separate service which uses more sophisticated virus scanning and filtering. …

Anti-Virus 23 Oct 2002, 21:21
SuSE 8.1 illustrates MS' fear

Windows killer around the corner

Anyone wondering why MS execs Steve Ballmer and Brian Valentine are so bent out of shape about Linux should check out SuSE's most recent distro, 8.1, for insight. For a desktop PC or small-biz network it's already miles ahead of Win98-SE and ME and closing fast on XP for ease of installation and use by first-timers. The user …

Software 23 Oct 2002, 21:25