15th November 2002 Archive

Browse by publication date, or search the site.

P.Eng Mail "I am an engineer. You are an MCSE. He is a train driver"

The vast majority of readers who responded to our story about Canadian engineers objecting to vendor exams conferring "engineer" status support the Canadian stance. The Canadian professional engineers' association has asked Microsoft not to describe Microsoft Certified Systems Engineers - people who have passed the vendor's …

Bootnotes 15 Nov 2002, 01:54
Linux, Open Source have ‘more security problems than Windows’

Aberdeen Group report

According to a report published November 12 by Aberdeen Group, "Security advisories for open source and Linux software accounted for 16 out of the 29 security advisories - about one of every two advisories - published for the first 10 months of 2002 by Cert (www.cert.org, Computer Emergency Response Team)." Aberdeen says …

Security 15 Nov 2002, 08:40
W3C publishes XForms 1.0

Let a thousand devices browse

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has released a standard that will make it easier for Web pages to be viewed on a variety of devices. The Internet standards organisation said it was recommending its XForms 1.0 specification as an upgrade from HTML forms. Ten years after their introduction, HTML forms can no longer cope with …

e-Business 15 Nov 2002, 08:40
IT directors unsure of tech benefits

But when were they sure about anything?

With tech budgets under intense scrutiny and vendors waiting with bated breath for a surge in spending, there's probably never been a better time to look at project success. According to a recent poll of IT directors from medium and large businesses, individually they will spend £37.7 million a year on some 45 annual IT projects …

e-Business 15 Nov 2002, 08:40
HP puts winds in Larry's sails

Fiorina waxes lyrical

"Where's Larry?" Carly Fiorina asked at the opening of her OracleWorld keynote speech yesterday. Her question was meant in the spirit of metaphor than genuine enquiry, though, Gavin Clarke writes. That's because Redwood Shores, California-based Oracle's chief executive had been - as OracleWorld delegates knew - ensconced …

Hardware 15 Nov 2002, 08:43
Ariba, Commerce One, I2, Siebel ‘will never come back’ – Ellison

Lack of charity does not begin at home

The future is bright, the future is Oracle Corp - and other large software vendors - who will offer increasingly diversified product portfolios, company chairman Larry Ellison said yesterday. The future does not consist of small or niche vendors who, Ellison claimed, will struggle against drying IT budgets and industry …

Hardware 15 Nov 2002, 08:43
Deutsche Telekom seeks US partner

Record loss

Deutsche Telekom AG has written €18bn ($18.2bn) off the value of its US cellular operation as it paid the price for its previous management's reckless acquisition spree and posted a record loss for a European company of €24.5bn ($24.7bn) for its first nine months. As expected, the German incumbent has appointed Kai-Uwe …

Business 15 Nov 2002, 08:44
Dell delivers on Q3, raises Q4

Gaining share

Dell Computer Corp set aggressive targets for the fourth quarter yesterday as it delivered on its earlier raised guidance for the third quarter. The Round Rock, Texas-based company turned in sales of $9.1bn for the quarter ending November 1, up 22.5% on the year. Operating income was up 39.3% to $758m, while net income was …

Business 15 Nov 2002, 08:45
Cray flogs X1 supercomputer

Aims for HPC Glory

If there is one thing that Seattle-based Cray Inc wants to do besides make a lot more money in the supercomputing market, it is to live up to the engineering genius of Seymour Cray, arguably the best HPC computer designer and visionary the world has ever seen, writes Timothy Prickett Morgan. A Cray computer used to be a serious …

Servers 15 Nov 2002, 08:45
Yahoo! adds premium email service

$29.95 a year

Looking for ways to increase the amount of revenue it gets from subscriptions and reduce its exposure to the volatile advertising market, Yahoo! Inc yesterday started to offer a paid-for version of its previously free web-based email service. Yahoo! Mail Plus has been priced at $29.95 per year. Users get 25MB of storage, …

Music and Media 15 Nov 2002, 08:46
Gates' freebies build support for MS in Indian governments

Giant condom counts as support, apparently...

Bill Gates' schmooze-cruise of India is working, reports an Associated Press eye-witness. Gates has been "handing out so many freebies to India's federal and state governments in the last three days that talk of open-source software [has] started annoying government officials." Step forward annoyed Karnataka state information …

Software 15 Nov 2002, 11:32
Internet blamed for marriage break ups

D-I-V-O-R-C-E

More and more spouses are blaming the Internet for the break up of their marriages. Two-thirds of lawyers meeting at an annual conference in Chicago said the Internet has played a significant role in divorces they had handled during the past year. Meeting a new lover online and an "obsessive" interest in pornography were the …

Music and Media 15 Nov 2002, 12:08
Could you be descended from a Shagger?

Shocking revelations from the UK 1901 census

It's good to see that the UK's 1901 census site is finally up and running after its considerable teething problems. True, it's still in test mode, but there is already a wealth of fascinating information to be gleaned from this online resource. Among the insights visitors can gain is that our Victorian ancestors - contrary to …

Bootnotes 15 Nov 2002, 12:09
US loves broadband

Untapped demand

Three in ten wired homes in the US access the Net using a broadband connection. So says a survey by Dataquest, which found that over the last two-and-a-half years the rate of broadband Net use in the US has nearly tripled. This works out at a growth rate of 9 per cent a month at a time when the total number of US households …

Telecoms 15 Nov 2002, 12:10
Roxio to buy Napster assets

For the record

Roxio is to buy the assets of Napster, the dead P2P music-swapping firm. In other word's it's not taking on liabilities or Napster's litany of legal battles with the music major. The deal is subject to approval from the bankruptcy court and, presumably, to legal challenges from creditors and, err, lawsuitors. Roxio is offering …

e-Business 15 Nov 2002, 12:52
Security concerns hinder remote access

Small firms fight shy

Security concerns are hampering to roll-out of remote access, particularly to those working for smaller firms. A survey from In-Stat/MDR, released this week, which found companies are evenly split, more or less, between those who allow remote access to the corporate LAN and those that do not. In-Stat/MDR notes that larger …

Data Networking 15 Nov 2002, 13:07
IBM racks up 128 CPUs with P655

Pitched at HPC, supercomputer apps

IBM today launched an ultra dense Unix server targeted at the high performance computing and supercomputer markets. The eServer p655 packs 128 POWER4 processors in a single rack and is available in four or eight processor building blocks. It has a maximum performance of half a trillion operations per second at maximum …

Servers 15 Nov 2002, 14:06
Microsoft SEC filing shows hideous losses except for Windows

Where - surprise - it shows hideous profits

The mysterious shroud surrounding Microsoft's revenues was dispelled yesterday, when the company revealed that it is losing shedloads of money on everything bar client Windows, server and Office software. In these, naturally, it's making even bigger shedloads, but it's abundantly clear who's paying the rent, and financing the …

Software 15 Nov 2002, 14:34
How to trace spammers and deal with them – permanently

Two new O'Really products from Cash'n'Carrion

There's good news this crisp autumnal Monday for all aficionados of O'Really. The latest additions to the Cash'n'Carrion O'Really range are the provocative Tracing Spammers and Windows NT User Obliteration. As ever, the message is delivered on a 100 per cent premium cotton t-shirt, available in Medium and Extra Large. …

Site News 15 Nov 2002, 14:47
Not the season to be jolly for PC vendors

The Ghost of Christmas Past

PC sales are seasonal, with the second half of the year doing better than the first. The last quarter is when the hay is made, for that's when consumers of the Western world and Japan make their big pre-Christmas purchases, and corporations which operate Jan-Dec financial years make sure they get rid of any surplus in their IT …

Personal 15 Nov 2002, 17:00
The Orange road to personal data protection

Norton? You want me to use Norton? On a phone?

We'd be the last people to accuse Orange of not having its act together as far as personal data is concerned, but at least some of the people who work for the company seem to be a little bit fuzzy on the subject. What, for example, would you think if a refurb phone you were given had all of the contacts of the previous user …

Mobile 15 Nov 2002, 17:49
Linux server shipments to double next year

As x86 overtakes RISC

Linux will provide the brightest hope for server manufacturers in the next year, according to Gartner-Dataquest's crystal ball. The analyst firm reckons that although the server market will only grow by 1 percent, Linux shipments will double to almost $4 billion, or 9 per cent of the market. The OS will expand into telecomms, …

Servers 15 Nov 2002, 21:45
US 'doesn't need wireless data' – readers

Letters Bah, humbug - we'll stick with what we know

Recently we invited ideas from readers how the US could close its cellular wireless deficit. It's not impossible, we suggested: with the right infrastructure and a competitive market, there's no reason why North America shouldn't get the coolest phones and services first. As it is, it trails most of Asia and Europe, and our …

Letters 15 Nov 2002, 23:16