Owner: OuterVillage.com | Technology News & Ideas URL:http://outervillage.com Join Date: Wed, 05 Mar 2008 14:33:23 -0600 Rating:0 Site Description: Technology news and ideas for technology professionals. We are dedicated to building a place where technology professionals can share ideas, solve problems, and help expand professional networks. Site statistics:Click here
View Excel Files Without Microsoft Office 2008-03-09 09:50:44 Ever work on a computer that doesn't have Microsoft
Office installed and you need to view an Excel
sheet? MS now makes a MS Excel viewer . The new version also support xlsx format.
You can view _and_ print spreadsheets created with any version of Microsoft Excel. You can also copy data from Excel Viewer to another program.
Edsor3
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Read more:Microsoft Office
Email Etiquette 101 2008-03-05 15:17:13 Email has become the standard communication tool in today’s business world. Those able to write effectively have shown to be more likely to be promoted or advance their careers more quickly than those who lack writing skills.
You don’t have to have a degree in writing to be an effective email writer. Following some simple “email etiquette guidelines” will go a long way in become an effective communicator via email.
read more Read more:Email
, Etiquette
IPv4 vs. IPv6; A Crisis Looms 2008-03-02 08:30:00 I came across this interesting presentation by Randy Bush concerning the transition of IPv6 from IPv4. It paints a gloomy picture and addresses some of the challenges and issues with migrating the world over to IPv6.
read more Read more:Crisis
A List of Providers that can Create Small URLs For You 2008-03-01 08:30:00 Ever wish you could take that long nasty looking URL and make it into something small and compact that can be easily forwarded to email or phone devices.
For those using Microblogging these tools are a necessity. Twitter has forced users to use TinyURL.com, but this service has its issues.
Many alternatives exist today that can do the job for you. Each have advantages/disadvantages, but they all handle basic functionality very well
A list of 21 small URL providers:
read more Read more:Small
Open source financial success stories. Aquisitions, mergers, and IPOs. 2008-02-29 10:32:41 Open source software (OSS) has been around since the inceptions of modern day computing. The ability of the Internet to bring together communities of developers to collaboratively work on software projects has helped the concept of OSS explode.
read more
Stealing Encryption Keys from Memory 2008-02-28 08:30:00 A group at Princeton University has discovered a way to steal keys from memory even after a computer has been shutdown. The technique described here involves freezing a computer memory chip using quick blasts from an air can. This enabled the researchers access to the chips contents allowing it to obtain keys that could be used to decrypt data on a users hard drive.
read more Read more:Stealing
, Encryption
, Memory
Skydrive Increases Free Online Storage 2008-02-27 12:33:17 Microsoft SkyDrive is now offering 5 GB of Online Storage Space for free. AOL XDrive is the only other provider offering this much online storage for general purpose files.
Now that it is out of beta it is available to many different countries.
Windows SkyDrive features include RSS feeds for folders so your subscribers will know when you upload new files. You can also embed files / folders in web pages for your readers to download files directly from your website.
More info can be found here:
skydrive.live.com
Projected Job Growth For IT Jobs 2008-02-25 12:22:16 These jobs will experience strong growth and be in great demand for the next decade, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
Information technology
1. Network systems and data communications analysts
Projected growth by 2016: 53 percent
Median annual salary: $64,600*
2. Computer applications software engineers
Projected growth by 2016: 45 percent
Median annual salary: $79,780
3. Database administrators
Projected growth by 2016: 29 percent
Median annual salary: $64,670
4. Computer systems software engineers
Projected growth by 2016: 28 percent
read more Read more:Growth
Looking for an OS to Run on that Old PC? Try Ubuntu linux. 2008-02-23 13:41:16 For those bargain shoppers or user with old hardware lying around needing an OS to run that doesn't consume lots of memory or CPU may want to look at Ubuntu
Linux. This OS will pretty much run on anything. It's a great utility OS to have around to run a variety of apps. Corporations could also use it to run low traffic apps like intranet sites, log servers, and other utilities instead of going out and spending precious capital dollars on new equipment to run such things.
Click Fraud Statistics from Around the World 2008-02-22 16:50:00 Click Forensics has published a heat map showing countries where the most click fraud is originating. (Red is bad, green is good). The biggest sources of click fraud are India (4.3 percent), Germany (3.9 percent), and South Korea (3.7 percent). Mexico is also in the red.
read more Read more:Click
, Statistics
, World
, Click Fraud
Firefox Extension that Monitors Site Content for Updates 2008-02-22 07:23:08 The Update Scanner Firefox
extension monitors web sites and alerts you whenever the site updates its content. This tool is useful for sites that don't have RSS feeds. For example, many company job pages or pages on sites you'd like to know have changed for whatever reason (competitor's site, make sure no one is changing your site, etc...)
You can adjust scanning intervals and "change thresholds" so insignificant changes are ignored.
A free plug in from Firefox.
Stacynu Read more:Extension
, Monitors
, Content
Have a Short Attention Span? Try Microblogging. 2008-02-21 21:14:43 I came across a service called Twitter a few months back. At first I brushed it off thinking it was probably a fad that would slowly fade away. But after looking at it a bit more closely I think that this idea may have legs especially in a society where information overload has caused our attention spans to shrink.
Twitter is in a category called "microblogging". What is Microblogging? Basically it gives you the ability to send very short (less than 140 characters) messages to family, friends, co-workers, or other people in your network.
read more Read more:Short
Playing Video Games Can Help Get You a Job 2008-02-20 14:12:48 Playing video games builds the skills needed to succeed in life and work according to the book authored by John Beck and Mitchell Wade "The Kids are Alright: How the Gamer Generation Is Changing the Workplace". They go on to say that playing games can help people be more sociable, develop strategic thinking, and become better leaders.
Wade and Beck survey asked questions to find out whether the experience of gaming, and growing up surrounded by games, changes attitudes, expectations, and abilities related to business, "the answer is a resounding yes," they say.
read more Read more:Games
Google Sponsors Wine Improvements for Photoshop and other Apps 2008-02-20 13:30:54 Google seems to be impressing Linux users with some recent improvements to Wine it has sponsored last year. An email posted on a Wine mailing list by Dan Kegel, a software engineer at Google, went on to describe recent efforts and improvements Wine has made.
For those not familiar with Wine, it is an open source initiative that tries to enable Windows binary runtime support on different OS's. In short this will enable a user to run some native Windows applications on Linux (or other OS's).
read more Read more:Google
, Sponsors
, Photoshop
Virtualization Advantages & Disadvantages 2008-02-20 11:02:45 Virtualization seems to be the buzz word all in IT are using these days. It can mean a bunch of different things depending on who you talk to. Refer to Wikipedia for many of the latest definitions. For our discussion let's define it as a technique for hiding the physical characteristics of computing resources in a way in which other systems, applications, or end users interact with those resources.
read more Read more:Advantages
Grid Computing and its Advantages 2008-02-20 06:22:37 Grid computing has been around for a few years now and its advantages are many. Grid computing can be defined in many ways but for these discussions let's simply call it a way to execute compute jobs (e.g. perl scripts, database queries, etc.) across a distributed set of resources instead of one central resource. In the past most computing was done in silos or large SMP like boxes. Even today you'll still see companies perform calculations on large SMP boxes (e.g. E10K's, HP Superdomes).
read more Read more:Advantages
, Computing
Top Paying IT Jobs 2008-02-19 19:52:50 CIO Magazine has come out with a list of IT jobs paying over 6 figures. Their top 30 job titles that average over $100K/year include the following:
* Applications Architect
* Applications Development Manager
* Applications Development Project Manager
* Business Continuity Analyst
* Business Intelligence Analyst
* Chief Information Officer
* Chief Security Officer
* Chief Technology Officer
* Consulting and Systems Integration Director
* Consulting and Systems Integration Practice Manager
read more
Merging Cultures More Difficult than Merely Merging Companies 2008-02-19 19:51:51 Often mergers are seen as synergistic business opportunities. There plans usually revolve around numbers and making them work. More focus should be put on merging corporate cultures. This is often much more difficult and can spell disaster especially for large corporate mergers. Microsoft and Yahoo! could fall into this category. Microsoft would have no problem coming up with the financial resources to make the deal successful, but can they merge cultures effectively?
read more Read more:Merging
, Companies
Blu-ray vs HD DVD. How did Blu-ray Win the War 2008-02-19 19:45:26 How did Blu-ray come out on top? I'm sure we'll see many Harvard Business Review case studies on this. Everyone is already comparing this to the modern day VHS vs Betamax battle of the early 80s.
Just like Betamax Toshibas HD DVD format looked very good.
- They were first to market
- Quality was just as good as blu-ray
- Extra capacity for movie extras
- Lower cost for disk production. HD DVD didn't need blue laser diodes
- Almost just as many movie titles as blu-ray.
In hindsight they made several strategic mistakes:
read more
Web Site That Posts Leaked Material Ordered Shut 2008-02-19 15:46:30 A judge ordered wikileaks.org shut down. Wikileaks.org is a site dedicated to allowing users to post leaked materials with the goal of discouraging “unethical behavior” by corporations and governments. A kind of spin-off of wikipedia, wikileaks.org is a community censored and edited site that tries to discourage unethical behavior of both corporations and governments. This shutdown will surely test the 1st amendment and will have large legal ramifications throughout all of cyberspace.
read more Read more:Web Site
Wikipedia Page Views; How to View Search Statistics. 2008-03-12 21:52:43 Wikipedia administrator Henrik has created a tool at stats.grok.se that shows how many times any particular page has been viewed on Wikipedia. It allows the public to view web stats on how many time a particular page has been viewed or accessed.
read more
Read more:Wikipedia
, Search
, Statistics
Memory Usage Statistics for Firefox 3 2008-03-12 21:24:44 Firefox has many new plugins and features which make it a very worthwhile upgrade. Among one of my favorite additions is all of the improvements made to the way it handles memory consumption.
Much work has been put into optimizing memory usage for Firefox 3. Initial results show that Firefox 3 may be one of the leanest and meanest web browser out there today in terms of memory consumption.
read more
Read more:Statistics
, Memory
, Usage
, Firefox
Using BitTorrent for Patch Management 2008-03-12 14:01:11 BitTorrent has been getting a lot of press recently with regards to the amount of illegal activity that is associated with this tool. Many companies and universities have banned it from their organizations to limit liability.
read more Read more:Patch
, Management
Unison Develops Linux Based Alternative to Microsoft Exchange 2008-03-12 12:08:19 Unison announced at CeBit that it has launched what it claims is the best Linux
based communications suite available. It combines IP telephony, e-mail, instant messaging, address book, capable of running on a single Linux server. It is available free as a public beta.
read more
Read more:Alternative
, Microsoft
, Exchange
Business Executives Fail to See Value of IT 2008-03-11 14:27:00 An interesting article in the Wall Street journal tries to outline some reasons as to why most business executives fail to see the value of IT within an organization.
IT has been proven to provide numerous competitive advantages within the business world. Companies like UPS, FedEx, Netflix, Amazon, Google to name a few have differentiated themselves through innovative uses of information technology.
read more
Read more:Business
, Value
Java on the iPhone is a Bid to Move the iphone into Enterprise IT 2008-03-10 12:06:32 You can bet that Apple wants to move the iphone into the corporate world to compete with the likes of Research in Motion. They should consider the iphone their "trojan horse" into the corporate world.
read more
Blu-ray vs HD DVD. How did Blu-ray Win the War 2008-02-19 19:45:26 How did Blu-ray come out on top? I'm sure we'll see many Harvard Business Review case studies on this. Everyone is already comparing this to the modern day VHS vs Betamax battle of the early 80s.
Just like Betamax Toshibas HD DVD format looked very good.
- They were first to market
- Quality was just as good as blu-ray
- Extra capacity for movie extras
- Lower cost for disk production. HD DVD didn't need blue laser diodes
- Almost just as many movie titles as blu-ray.
In hindsight they made several strategic mistakes:
read more
Web Site That Posts Leaked Material Ordered Shut 2008-02-19 15:46:30 A judge ordered wikileaks.org shut down. Wikileaks.org is a site dedicated to allowing users to post leaked materials with the goal of discouraging “unethical behavior” by corporations and governments. A kind of spin-off of wikipedia, wikileaks.org is a community censored and edited site that tries to discourage unethical behavior of both corporations and governments. This shutdown will surely test the 1st amendment and will have large legal ramifications throughout all of cyberspace.
read more
Read more:Web Site
Using Hadoop 2008-02-18 08:25:15 Ever wonder how Google and Yahoo!
read more
The New Face of Advertising 2008-02-16 19:51:13 Facebook is going to move into a new realm of online advertising. It will rival networks like google, amazon, and even television. Their strategy was detailed late last year .
read more
Read more:Advertising
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