Recent Blog Posts
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Inspect-a-Gadget
CES 2013 REVIEW: Tech Tips precision stylus
Pop the piece of plastic on the end of your finger tip and make sure you practise for a little while. It's a bit tricky to get the angle right in order to make a connection with the screen, but these Tech Tips from a US start-up company try to compensate for sloppy handwriting and difficulties when clickin...
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CWDN
Programming for Mac, a first taste of Cocoa
The Computer Weekly Developer Network speaks to David Bass, enterprise VP for engineering at (unstructured and semi-structured) data governance software company Varonis. Bass shares his thoughts on software application development for the Mac and how it compares to Windows and .NET. Bass and his team recen...
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Inside Outsourcing
Has the rapid rise of China created the perfect environment for offshore IT services?
The Chinese economy might have slowed a bit during the current economic conditions but it has exploded in recent years.China is the world's powerhouse today and heading towards world domination.Usually when a nation develops everything becomes expensive. Less developed countries can undercut them and provi...
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Inside Outsourcing
If Fujitsu system has sent people to prison, will Post office face huge compensation claims?
Over the last few years Computer Weekly has written about the plight of sub-postmasters that allege that the accounting system that they use has been faulty and caused them to be falsely accused of cooking the books.Some sub-postmasters have even gone to prison.But there are a large number of claims that i...
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Open Source Insider
Ford drives programmers to hack up vehicle data
Ford has launched its OpenXC vehicle application research platform running on Arduino and Android to allow software programmers to build new in-car apps. The motor giant says that it wants to "unleash" the power of the open-source programmer (and hacker) community to explore what can be done with vehicle d...
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Computer Weekly Data Bank
Businesses still cautious about outsourcing security
(Click on the image to englarge)Businesses are still cautious about outsourcing their IT security, a survey of over 250 IT professionals in the UK and Europe reveals. Almost two-thirds of IT professionals said they do not want to outsource security, according to the research by Computer Weekly and TechTarg...
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Open Source Insider
How to create a successful open source business model
This is a guest post for the Computer Weekly Open Source Insider blog by Dr Shay David, co-founder of the Kaltura "first and only" open source online video platform. David co-author's this piece with Zohar Babin, Kaltura's senior director of community who currently heads up the firm's 50,000 members strong...
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When IT Meets Politics
Why changing your on-line "shop" should be no harder than changing your supermarket
I blogged yesterday on the implications of the split of priorities between access to broadband and protecting the environment as revealed in the recent Policy Exchange report. Today I would like to expand on why I think Dido Harding was correct when she used the presentation meeting to call for more to be ...
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Computer Weekly Data Bank
Most in-house software will be hosted in the cloud within 4 years
(Click on the graph to enlarge)A growing proportion of organisations are hosting their internally developed software in the cloud, a survey of over 250 UK IT professionals by Computer Weekly and KEW Associates reveals. During 2011 over 40% of respondents hosted internally developed software in the cloud, b...
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Inside Outsourcing
I wonder how HP workers feel about Meg Whitman's pay packet?
According to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission last Friday HP CEO Meg Whitman got over £9m pay in 2012 despite HP's heavy losses.She was only paid a basic salary of $1 but this was more than made up by $1.7m in bonuses and the remainder made up of shares and other income.Whitman, who ...
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The Full Spectrum
You have to love David and Goliath court room drama...
East Carolina University (Photo credit: phi1317)We all know if you are a big gun in the world of technology, especially from the US, you can seem untouchable. If you are the world's largest networking company, you definitely act like it. So, I wasn't hugely surprised when I read today that Cisco has been a...
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When IT Meets Politics
Midsomer Murders: The Broadband Killings
The feud turned to slaughter after Mavis Goodenough, the Wiccan High Priestess of Midsomer Harvest died of septicaemia after stepping on one of the mantraps protecting the poles of the overhead fibre link from the server in the Snug of the Fig and Femto to the wireless mast beside the changing hut at the F...
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Inside Outsourcing
Over 60% of people agree with outsourcing local government service
With more and more local authorities looking at ways to cut costs there is inevitably a focus on outsourcing services to the private sector. And IT is one of the areas that always seems destined to be farmed out.Recently councils such as Barnet and Cornwall have hit the headlines as a result of controversi...
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Inside Outsourcing
HP troubles show dangers of demotivated staff to business
Is the ability for IT services firms to provide the high levels of service their clients demand being undermined by a lack of motivation amongst mistreated staff.I wrote last week about how HP could shut down under-performing units. I suggested the services unit, which has been devalued by $8bn since it wa...
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Inspect-a-Gadget
What I learnt at CES Las Vegas
Spending a week in Sin City for the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) was surreal and exhausting. It never sleeps, and as a technology journalist in Las Vegas covering the biggest tech show of the year - neither do you. So CES is over and now that I'm no longer jet lagged -proven by being able to make a cup ...
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Computer Weekly Data Bank
Huge interest in cloud security technologies 2013
(Click on image to enlarge)Most companies have plans to deploy cloud security technologies, which include products designed to secure cloud servers and data, in 2013. Some 62% are either using cloud security technologies already, are about to use them, or are evaluating them. Only 38% do not have plans to ...
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Computer Weekly Data Bank
Application Software Spend - Manufacturing
Beverages manufacturers, with 100-999 employees, typically spend nearly £90k per annum on application software packages. The next largest outlay of £50k is by pharmaceutical companies. At the other extreme, wood & wooden products firms expend only £10k.Source: IT & Telecom Spend - 80 In...
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CWDN
'Live' Earth video camera on International Space Station
UrtheCast (pronounced "Earth-Cast") is launching and installing two cameras on the Russian module of the International Space Station. The UrtheCast team now says it will subsequently open up its API (application programming interface) so that software application developers can use its data to create appli...
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Open Source Insider
Open source clouds gather over Microsoft
The Microsoft Open Technologies subsidiary has announced a public preview of its app store for Windows Azure known as VM Depot. This programmer resource is hoped to allow developers to construct, deploy and share Linux configurations and create custom-made open source stacks. Developers can also use this c...
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Inspect-a-Gadget
CES 2013 VIDEO: Amzer screen protectors
Would you risk hammering or drilling your smartphone?In this video from CES 2013 in Las Vegas, Kyle Zurkan from Amzer, demonstrates the company's ShatterProof screen protection for smartphones.
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WITsend
Changes in attitudes needed so girls don't get left behind
Recently the United Nations (UN) said that women and girls are at risk of being left behind if countries don't start putting measures in place to change attitudes towards women studying in scientific and technological fields. The UN pointed out that this gap is an obstacle to a nation's progress and stems ...
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Inside Outsourcing
Forget giving up booze here are KPMG's New Year's resolutions in IT outsourcing
I have been doing blogs about IT predictions for 2013 but I haven't done any resolutions. Here are some New Year's resolutions from KPMG as well as some advice on achieving them.Leverage business services as a strategic asset, not just a transactional processing engineTackle end-to-end change management - ...
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The Full Spectrum
RIP MSN - the messenger of my generation
msn (Photo credit: Rufus Gefangenen)This week I have been pondering the end of an era and come close to wiping away a tear over the loss of a staple of my teenage dramas. The sword was already hanging over the head of Microsoft Messenger - or MSN Messenger as we all knew it - but I today received the email...
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Public Sector IT
CSC shoulders NHS loss by moving jobs offshore
CSC UK said last week it was cutting costs in the UK by moving jobs offshore, after posting a loss of nearly £1bn.It also revealed declining profits at its flagship, 10-year outsource with Royal Mail, which Computer Weekly revealed recently had avoided paying tax by front-loading contract costs.Directors s...
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Open Source Insider
A minor Enterprise Linux symphony
Red Hat has released an unashamedly labelled 'minor' release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. This 5.9 version features better hardware enablement, security and certification improvements, improved developer tools and refined virtualisation technologies. The firm positions these so-called minor increments as p...
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Inside Outsourcing
Innovator describes challenges in finance sector IT in 2013
I have had some good feedback from the series of 2013 predictions I have been running.Experts from across the IT and outsourcing sector have given me their thoughts. As we are still in January I am going to continue to post people views.In the financial services sector CIOs face flat budget, along list of ...
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Computer Weekly Data Bank
Viruses and hacking are top security challenges in 2013
(Click on the image to enlarge)Malware and hacking tops the list of security concerns for organisations in 2013 in the wake of increasingly sophisticated attacks from criminal and state sponsored groups. Compliance is in third place, outranking mobile security, web application and cloud security, re...
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CWDN
Vorsprung durch Technik in the land of gold & blue
Everybody knows that Germany is the land of Vorsprung durch Technik and that you have to get up pretty early if you want to get your towels around the pool before the Shmidts, the Müller and the Rhinehousens - right? But did you also know that Deutschland is the land of gold and blue? There's a good lesson...
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Inspect-a-Gadget
CES 2013 HANDS ON: Huawei Windows 8 phone and giant phablet
Huawei launched a few devices at CES in Las Vegas this week, while none of them were confirmed with regions, dates or prices, two smartphones, which are expected to ship to China and then worldwide, caught my eye. The Ascend Mate - giant phablet with the "worlds largest screen" Again, a growing trend at CE...
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Computer Weekly Editor's Blog
Your customers are digital - are you?
In the hopefully unlikely eventuality that your company executives still need convincing that the internet is going to transform your business, the past few days have provided further evidence of the accelerating changes brought about by consumers moving to the web.Only last week, I highlighted, "Which bus...