Natural-born IT productivity killers
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Everybody wants to get more bang for the buck from their workforce. But some common strategies for boosting production may actually lower it in the long run. Managers who adopt these strategies think theyâre helping, but theyâre really not. See if you recognize yourself (or your boss) among these productivity killers.
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Blog: Some developers must have too much time on their hands
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In open-source software and new media, there's big money in unpaid labor
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Three new software management tools are designed to help businesses keep applications configured properly to avoid snarl-ups.
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It doesn't take a genius to catch on to the fact that in IT, innovation is a mandate. Push the envelope of what's possible, or find yourself relegated to wayside. But, to borrow a favored David St. Hubbins Spinal Tap aphorism, there's a fine line between clever and crackpot when it comes to making good on technological breakthroughs in the enterprise.                                                      It is in that spirit that we revisit last year's level-headed look at crackpot technologies that could transform the enterprise, putting the screws to a new rack of could-be enterprise contenders. But before you write off nanotech or direct brain interfaces as the next big enterprise thing, consider this:  [ For an in-depth look at last year's crackpot tech assessments, see: 12 crackpot tech ideas that could transform the enterprise ]  Of the dozen technologies we examined last year, several made significant enterprise-minded strides since we first assessed their IT prospects. Desktop Web apps, for one, lent credence to the conjecture that fat productivity suites might just have a shorter future than previously thought; solid-state drives popped up everywhere, from ultramobile laptops to the datacenter; and Sun's datacenter-in-a-box proved compelling enough for Google to move first to patent it. Even quantum cryptography received a vote of confidence, with Switzerland tapping the technology to protect parliamentary election transmissions.   Sure, some of this year's out-there technologies may prove fruit for future high-profile tech flops lists, but without forward-thinking, there would be no worthwhile enterprise advancement. So raise your eyebrows or your suspicions as you deem fit, and join us in assessing the potential each of the following technologies has to earn IT's respect or derision.  ? Nanotechnology ? Optical computing ? Pervasive computing ? Wireless power ? The $100 laptop ? Direct brain interfaces ? Enterprise supercomputing ? Virtual worlds
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One of the challenges facing computer artists is productivity, especially with repetitive tasks. Fortunately, this book shows you  how to automate your workflow by using several types of scripting, including: AppleScript, JavaScript, VBScript, data-driven publishing and more. By Nathan Segal. 0926
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No end in sight Just when the world thought it was safe to resume use of Microsoft Office, there's word that a new zero-day attack may be targeting the popular productivity package. Like so many of the others, it's capable of all kinds of mischief, including the execution of malicious code on a victim's machine.â¦
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On the Mark: The blame game within IT can slow the resolution of problems reported by end users. But there are tools that can put a stop to all the finger-pointing, Mark Hall writes.
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In a new entry on his blog today, Marco Tabini introduces us to 5 PHP Performance Tips that we "probably don't want to hear".   I thought it might be interesting to write an article about the performance-enhancing tips you probably don't want to hear about - that is, those that are most likely to produce measurable (and durable) results but do require some effort on your part.   His list consists of:  You Don't Need To Plan Ahead In Order To Have A Plan Combat Database Abuse Do You Really Need A Database Anyway? Scale Horizontally Refactor To Scale Vertically  For each, he explains the title and gives a bit of validation to the point. There's some great mentions of tools that you can use to help accomplish them too - a profiler, the Lucene and Xapian full-text databases, and Lustre.
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When I suggested in a recent column that a problematic 5 percent of employees account for 75 percent of the IT support burden, I expected a wave of âright on!â letters from IT support staffers. After the column was published, the letters did come â most of them disagreeing with my premise, with one reader suggesting that the real whiner was yours truly. I still think itâs outside the realm of overextended IT departments to provide training on basic computing skills (which I defined as âmanaging and finding files, and basic working knowledge of suites such as MS Officeâ). But my thinking was adjusted a bit by the thoughtful feedback.
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New .mobi and .jobs, a shift in the ownership of .net
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(Source: Symphoniq) Learn why traditional performance tools can't deliver the visibility and control required to manage today's complex architectures as well as requirements an optimal solution should provide.  Listen to this podcast now!
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Early Internet entrepreneurs envisioned a day when consumers would devour short bites of entertainment on their computer screens delivered over the Internet by fat broadband pipes. When the companies failed, executives blamed it on ...
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Surging data center power usage is building to a potential crisis, but there are many steps that IT managers can take today to start reducing power consumption without making a huge investment -- or sacrificing performance or availability.
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For about a decade, Frances B. Craig looked for a product to build her company around. She had started an information technology consulting company but missed building software to help companies operate efficiently.
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Think twice before you copy someone on an e-mail or hit "reply all." Such practices have made today's workers less productive, a research firm concludes.
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Originally conceived as a time-saving, productivity-enhancing tool, e-mail has matured into a time-wasting, productivity-draining smoking gun that can burden individuals and businesses alike.  According to research conducted by American Management Association and The ePolicy Institute, 10% of U.S.