News podcast: Network World 360Security experts are debating whether the Conficker worm, expected to activate on Wednesday, April 1st, will set off a wave of destruction or be a big dud. Also, Cisco is announcing at VoiceCon Orlando a lower cost telepresence system designed for deployment in existing teleconference rooms without upgrading them to accommodate top-of-the-line telepresence gear. (6:38)

Conficker's patch gambit exposed by researchers
One technique deployed by the Conficker worm is to patch vulnerable Microsoft-based computers it has invaded. But University of Bonn researchers recently discovered that the Conficker patch is sufficiently different than the official Microsoft patch, giving security firm Qualys the opportunity to fine-tune its scanner to pinpoint computers where Conficker lies hidden under its own protective patch. Plus: 
Conficker Set to Strike: Protect Yourself with These Tips
What you need to know about the Conficker worm
Fake security software scammers jump on Conficker

Avaya announces server to unify communications via SIP
Avaya is announcing at VoiceCon Orlando a new server that connects disparate SIP-enabled PBXs into a single system with global dial plans and call routing - a cost-saving first step toward rolling out corporate-wide unified communications.

Siemens launches cloud experiment at VoiceCon
Siemens' unified-communications-in-the-cloud experiment with Amazon.com could result in services that avoid capital costs and provide an easy exit plan if customers decide to...

China denies cyber spy network charges
China on Tuesday denied suggestions it could be involved in a cyberespionage ring that attacked computers worldwide from servers mostly based in the country.

Fidelis spies data leakage via social networking sites
Fidelis Security Systems is looking to help enterprises monitor and block specific content that employees might try to post in social networking arenas.

Honda develops brain interface for robot control
The research wing of Honda Motor has co-developed a brain machine interface (BMI) system that allows a person to control a robot through thought alone.

Three Reasons Why Microsoft's App Store Will Thrive
Microsoft's plans for its mobile application store just may change the way consumers look at apps and the Windows Mobile operating system. Not only has Microsoft changed contentious policies still enacted in Google and Apple's respective app stores, it has partnered with some of the most popular contemporary content providers and introduced original strategies for businesses. Here are three major reasons why I think Microsoft could blow its competition out of the water.

Trade group: U.S. tech industry gained jobs in 2008
The U.S. high-tech industry gained about 77,000 jobs in 2008, despite losses of 38,000 jobs in the fourth quarter of the year, according to a report from trade group TechAmerica.

Today on Google Subnet
Monetizing 'Droids: The sub way; YouTube, Hulu vie for premium Disney content; Google gets into the venture capital game; and Kaila Colbin sees a big problem with Google.

IBM, HP, Dell aim to cut costs with new Xeon servers The world's top server vendors on Monday updated their product lines, launching new servers to coincide with the release of Intel's next-generation Xeon processors.

Broadcom unveils 10G chips that use SFP+ Broadcom this week introduced two 10 Gigabit Ethernet chips that support the SFP+ standard.

NetXen's 10 Gigabit Ethernet upgrade integrated with HP servers NetXen this week said it has integrated its 10 Gigabit Ethernet adapters supporting Windows and Linux offload with HP's ProLiant servers.

IBM again chooses NetXen for 10 Gigabit Ethernet NetXen this week revealed that IBM's new 10 Gigabit Ethernet SR adapter option for its System x servers uses NetXen technology.

Networking basics: Switch + wireless router Ron Nutter answers a reader question about connecting a switch to a wireless router. Got a tougher question? Ask it.

Can a switch substitute for a router? Cisco Subnet blogger addresses the question of whether switches can be used instead of routers for enterprise Internet routing.

Venture capitalists not willing to bet against Cisco Cisco Subnet blogger Brad Reese explains why VC losses from Hammerhead Systems could be the nail in the coffin for other start-ups competing with Cisco.

Juniper pounces on Cisco proposals A link on Juniper's Web site encourages buyers with proposals from "Goliath" Cisco to instead consider what can be offered by Juniper's "David".

How it works: Net monitoring & management Find out how management software works, and what you need to know to buy the right tool.

Enter for a Microsoft training giveaway from New Horizons
New Horizons Computer Training is offering a free Microsoft training course worth up to $2,500 to be given to one lucky Microsoft Subnet reader. Deadline for entry is March 31.

Network World on Twitter Get our tweets and stay plugged in to networking news.

More top picks from the week:

TomTom caves, will pay Microsoft license fees; may force more open source patents

Microsoft founder's cable company goes Chapter 11; establishes millions in exec bonuses

Microsoft becomes Twitter's first big-time advertiser

Rogue SharePoint sites pose security menace

From our bloggers:

Mitchell Ashley: Converging on Microsoft
IBM Steps On American Workers - Future IT Managers Replace IBM
That great sucking sound isn't NAFDA, it's IBM (and their empty headed executives) thumbing their nose at 5k of IBM's productive, loyal North American workers, while IBM sucks their jobs right from under them and the American economy. Layoffs are layoffs, most companies have been forced to take some type of action, either out of necessity or by riding the curve and trimming during the recession. Even Microsoft was forced to make a 5k layoff move, but at least Microsoft was hiring another 2-3k positions at the same time. But IBM's move says much more about IBM's declining commitment to the American market and its workers.

Brian Egler: SQL Server Strategies
Business Intelligence load balancing? Have your check book ready…
As I outlined in a previous blog entry, Microsoft has produced a huge 16GB VPC Image that has the entire Business Intelligence development stack installed on a single virtual machine. While this works, it is clearly not a good idea to load all this software onto a single server. But how should you scale out this solution in production? Well, it depends…

Ron Barrett: A Better Windows World
MailArchiva: Open Source Email Archiving for Exchange
I thought I would finish the week talking about more email tools. I found a cool open source solution for email archiving call MailArchiva. MailArchiva is a great solution to help you to deal with email archiving in your organization as well as helping you to make sure you are in compliance if this is important to your organization.

Tyson Kopczynski: Hidden Microsoft
When a computer science degree matters, and when it doesn't
A very good question is posed in this article: Top 10 technology skills Why yes... it all depends. How about that for an answer? Given, I could have also answered the question with another question. For example, "What necessity are you referring to?" or "What would the person be doing?" and so on. I guess the point that I'm trying to drive home with my non-answers.

Kerrie Meyler: Managing Microsoft
Job hunting: What kind of college degree do you need?
As IT professionals, sooner or later we decide to look for another job (hopefully voluntarily). And even if you're not looking for a job at the moment, it's always a good idea to have your resume current ... you'll never know when you'll need it.

Glenn Weadock: Windows Server 2008
Of Quotas and Epoxy
I have a shower door handle that doesn’t want to stay connected to the shower door. I’ve tried two different kinds of epoxy, and if you look at the handle, you can see remnants of both kinds. I probably should have been diligent enough to remove all traces of the first glue before applying the second, but I didn’t think it would matter. It did.

Randy Muller: All About Microsoft Certifications
Should an IT Pro have a college degree?
So, do IT personnel need a college degree? That is the subject of an article in Network World: Does a Computer Science degree matter anymore? I don't think there is a definitive yes or no answer for this question. I believe that in some areas of the IT field, yes, a degree is required or at the very least should be strongly encouraged. A programmer, for instance, should have a prescribed course of instruction. Do Network Administrators require the same level of formal instruction as a programmer, or for that matter, does a Database Administrator? The Database Administrator probably should have some formal education. As to the Network Administrator, this is one IT position that probably does not require a college degree for normal day-to-day operations.

Hot discussions among Microsoft Subnet readers

SHAREBUILDER WEBSITE IS DOWN AGAIN!!! - ING DIRECT CUSTOMERS OUTRAGED OVER POTENTIALLY LOSING MILLIONS FROM THEIR ACCOUNTS

IBM Steps On American Workers - Future IT Managers Replace IBM

A Better Windows World tools library

SharePoint and the Three Bears: Getting Your Deployment Just Right

Xobni: Give your Outlook the power it deserves!

Multi-Gig File Transfers

Giveaways:

One lucky reader will win a Microsoft training course from New Horizons worth up to $2,500. Deadline March 31. See the Microsoft Subnet home page for entry details. Check out Microsoft Subnet’s library for free chapters.

Editor's note: Starting April 6 the Security: Network Access Control Alert will become the Cloud Security Alert to address this growing technology and it's impact on security. We hope you will enjoy this new and improved version. We thank you for reading Network World newsletters. If you wish to update your newsletter subscriptions, please click here.

A hidden chore of deploying NAC One of the great hidden chores of deploying NAC is finding all the devices that are attached to the network, even those that can't authenticate.

NAC remediation options When NAC was conceived, it had everything to do with finding out if endpoints met security checks, but not so much about what to do about it.

NAC as a compliance tool NAC is mainly pushed as a risk-mitigation technology that can reduce the likelihood that an endpoint is infected or carrying out unauthorized activity, but its features have been pressed into other duties.

Business size and NAC needs As NAC matures, it is becoming clear that the needs of smaller businesses and those of enterprises call for different solutions.

NAC-as-a-service The recent purchase of Mirage Networks by service provider Trustwave raises questions about whether NAC-as-a-service is a viable business.

Prevent intrusions: What to look for In the Buying Tips section of our Product Guide, find 15 questions to ask about IPS before you buy one.

Enter for a Microsoft training giveaway from New Horizons
New Horizons Computer Training is offering a free Microsoft training course worth up to $2,500 to be given to one lucky Microsoft Subnet reader. Deadline for entry is March 31.

Network World on Twitter Get our tweets and stay plugged in to networking news.

The need to focus Last week in Denver, Network World hosted an event entitled 'IT Roadmap conference.' At that conference Jim moderated two tracks - one track was on Network Management and the other was on Application Delivery. The overall conference was very interactive with a lot of dialogue amongst end users, industry analysts, and vendors. That dialogue highlighted the fact that in 2009 IT organizations need to focus even more than they do in normal economic times. With that in mind, this newsletter and the next two newsletters will discuss the need for IT organizations to focus on a handful of key applications.

Establishing SLAs for key applications The last newsletter highlighted the fact that the dialogue at Network World’s recent IT Roadmap conference in Denver emphasized that the challenging economic environment puts pressure on IT organizations to focus even more than they do in normal economic times. With that in mind, this newsletter will begin to outline a process that IT organizations should follow in order to focus on a handful of key applications.

Are SLAs worthwhile? The last newsletter discussed the fact that the conventional wisdom in our industry is that IT organizations need to offer service-level agreements internally within their company. That newsletter also pointed out that in many cases the SLAs IT organizations get from their WAN service providers are not that impactful and raised the question of what should IT organizations do differently to ensure that their internal SLAs are impactful. This newsletter will provide a part of the answer to that question./p>

Managing BUM expectations The last newsletter discussed the fact that the conventional wisdom in our industry is that IT organizations need to offer SLAs internally within their company. That newsletter also pointed out that in many cases the SLAs that IT organizations get from their WAN service providers are not that impactful and raised the question of what should IT organizations do differently to ensure that their internal SLAs are impactful. This newsletter will provide a part of the answer to that question.

7 reasons MPLS has been wildly successful The IETF Thursday threw a birthday party for one of its most successful standards: Multi-Protocol Label Switching.

Venture capitalists not willing to bet against Cisco Cisco Subnet blogger Brad Reese explains why VC losses from Hammerhead Systems could be the nail in the coffin for other start-ups competing with Cisco.

Juniper pounces on Cisco proposals A link on Juniper's Web site encourages buyers with proposals from "Goliath" Cisco to instead consider what can be offered by Juniper's "David".

How it works: Net monitoring & management Find out how management software works, and what you need to know to buy the right tool.

Networking basics: Switch + wireless router Ron Nutter answers a reader question about connecting a switch to a wireless router. Got a tougher question? Ask it.

Enter for a Microsoft training giveaway from New Horizons
New Horizons Computer Training is offering a free Microsoft training course worth up to $2,500 to be given to one lucky Microsoft Subnet reader. Deadline for entry is March 31.

Network World on Twitter Get our tweets and stay plugged in to networking news.

QLogic adds InfiniBand switch, own ASIC QLogic added breath to the InfiniBand platform last week with the launch of the QLogic 12000 Series switch - the second product to use its TrueScale ASIC platform.

Fibre Channel over Ethernet gains momentum The Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) bandwagon gathered steam last week at Storage Networking World as QLogic, NetApp and EMC introduced products that support the new transport protocol.

Vendors hype new Fibre Channel over Ethernet tech Storage vendors hyped up-and-coming Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) technologies at the Storage Networking World trade show this week.

QLogic adds InfiniBand switch, own ASIC QLogic added breath to the InfiniBand platform last week with the launch of the QLogic 12000 Series switch - the second product to use its TrueScale ASIC platform.

QLogic, Pillar Data, HP make storage waves at Oracle OpenWorld Oracle OpenWorld last week was a magnet for storage vendors intent on making their products.

ParaScale cloud storage software hits general availability Storage start-up ParaScale is heading into general availability with software that aggregates disk storage on standard Linux servers to create pools of storage that can be used by Web-based services providers and to build private clouds.

Video: Dell's new server and storage products Dell promised to cut IT managers' ongoing costs with a set of server, storage, and management products it unveiled Wednesday in San Francisco.

How To... Do storage virtualization right Get the basics of storage virtualization in this revamped Product Guide.

Enter for a Microsoft training giveaway from New Horizons
New Horizons Computer Training is offering a free Microsoft training course worth up to $2,500 to be given to one lucky Microsoft Subnet reader. Deadline for entry is March 31.

Network World on Twitter Get our tweets and stay plugged in to networking news.

Cloud Computing Meets Washington Last week I was invited to participate in a cloud computing panel at the Newseum, located smack dab between the U.S. Capitol Building and the White House. The Washington D.C. event marked the release of a new report, Envisioning the Cloud: The Next Computing Paradigm. I appeared with the two report authors, Jeffrey Rayport and Andrew Heyward. Rayport is a former Harvard Business School Professor who currently chairs Marketspace LLC, which provides digital strategy consulting services and is part of the high-end strategy consulting firm, The Monitor Group. (Rayport also coined the term "viral marketing.") Heyward, the former head of CBS News, serves as a senior advisor to Marketspace. My role was to provide commentary on their presentation of the report's findings.

Since when did cloud computing become/need a manifesto? In his search of the Internet, Tyson.Kopczynski found "The Open Cloud Manifesto," which looks into an open cloud standard. The issue he has with it in his blog is how it has seemingly been created in secret.

ParaScale cloud storage software hits general availability Storage start-up ParaScale is heading into general availability with software that aggregates disk storage on standard Linux servers to create pools of storage that can be used by Web-based services providers and to build private clouds.

How to navigate an IT career path Cisco Subnet blogger Jimmy Ray Purser shares tips on building an IT career, and points to the data center as "the hottest ticket out there."

Next up in the data center project: Device configuration Cisco Subnet blogger Michael Morris gives an update on a data center project based on the Cisco Nexus-series line.

California is in a land all its own Cisco Subnet blogger Jimmy Ray Purser looks at what makes Cisco Unified Computing Fabric radically different from other data center architectures.

Microsoft criticizes drafting of secret 'Cloud Manifesto' Microsoft is criticizing the drafting of what it has characterized as a secret "Cloud Manifesto" that sets guidelines for interoperability among cloud-computing networks.

Even Cisco makes mistakes Cisco Subnet blogger Brad Reese shares a Cisco rival's take on five bad technology moves that the company has made in the last 10 years.

Former Cisco data center chief chimes in on UCS When she left Cisco in May of 2008, Jayshree Ullal knew that the blade servers were coming. After all, she had been at Cisco for 15 years -- the last few as senior VP in charge of data center, switching and security.

Dell upgrades enterprise servers, storage Dell has released fourteen new products in a significant refresh of its enterprise server,...

Dell unveils enterprise flash drives Dell EqualLogic this week joined the enterprise flash drive community and showed it's spinning the...

Enter for a Microsoft training giveaway from New Horizons
New Horizons Computer Training is offering a free Microsoft training course worth up to $2,500 to be given to one lucky Microsoft Subnet reader. Deadline for entry is March 31.

Network World on Twitter Get our tweets and stay plugged in to networking news.

Cloud forecast calls for WAN optimization There's no shortage of news about cloud computing. Service providers such as Amazon and Google and traditional IT vendors such as Microsoft and IBM have been bolstering their cloud computing platforms and services ...

Akamai puts configuration control in users' hands Akamai Technologies unveiled a tool this week that aims to take away some of the pain associated with configuring application-specific acceleration parameters. The new Configuration Manager tool lets users configure and ...

OpSource Says "Get On The Bus" If you are at all involved in the software-as-a-service, hosting or MSP industry, you've likely heard of Internet startup OpSource. Headed by co-founder and CEO Treb Ryan, a former Metromedia Fiber Network exec, OpSource seeks to be the operations services company for others looking to get into the SaaS game.

SaaS Spawns Entrepreneurs I'm attending SaaS Summit this week in San Francisco, sponsored by SaaS aggregator OpSource. Companies ranging from Microsoft to my company Absolute Performance attended. To demonstrate the diversity of companies involved in SaaS, even the smallest of companies exhibited.

Podcast: It takes a village in the cloud Not to be undone by others in the industry, Savvis announced its SaaS Platform initiative at the end of September. Because Savvis is one of the first top-tier companies to put such a comprehensive program together, I asked Bryan Doerr to join me on the Converging On Microsoft podcast. Savvis has taken a "best of" approach, borrowing ideas from Jamcracker and OpSource for the software-as-a-service marketplace component of the offering. It also took a page out of OpSource's book on wrapping services around what independent software vendors need to get their software onto the SaaS model.

Akamai CEO sees opportunity in economic downturn With many companies cutting headcount and costs to weather the economic downturn, Akamai Technologies President and CEO Paul Sagan wants his sales team to spend more time with customers, part of a bid to make sure that ...

WAN optimization earnings roundup: Late '08 troubles take a toll on results A handful of WAN optimization and application acceleration vendors recently announced financial results for the last three months of 2008, and it's clear the economy is taking a toll. Still there are some bright spots ...

WAN optimization: New form factors, multi-function appliances on tap, experts say When I asked WAN optimization veterans to weigh in on what they think will be the biggest technology and industry trends to watch during the year ahead, the economy (not surprisingly) played a part in many predictions.

WAN optimization in the year ahead As 2009 kicked off, I asked a handful of WAN optimization veterans to weigh in on what they think will be the biggest technology and industry trends to watch during the year ahead. Here’s what some had to say (and please stay tuned for more predictions in the next newsletter).

Choices abound: How to track Web performance Figure out the best way to watch your site in our Product Guide.

Enter for a Microsoft training giveaway from New Horizons
New Horizons Computer Training is offering a free Microsoft training course worth up to $2,500 to be given to one lucky Microsoft Subnet reader. Deadline for entry is March 31.

Network World on Twitter Get our tweets and stay plugged in to networking news.

Editor's note: We will no longer be publishing the IT Market Watch Alert, the last installment will be mailed the week of March 30. Starting April 6 look for our new alert titled: IT Best Practices in your mailbox. We hope you will enjoy this new alert and we thank you for reading Network World newsletters. If you wish to update your newsletter subscriptions, please click here.

Google lays off 200 in sales and marketing Proving that it is not immune to the economic downturn, Google plans to lay off 200 people in its sales and marketing group, an executive said on Thursday.

IBM layoffs incite backlash IBM's news that it will shed some 5,000 North American jobs and potentially send more positions overseas has stirred up some bad sentiment toward Big Blue as the economy continues to languish.

IBM layoffs raise ire in N.Y. State Assembly Social network Twitter and message boards brought the fallout of IBM's layoffs on Thursday to life, as employees posted the news about their job losses in real time.

Sun making deep job cuts this week, analysts say Sun is laying off about 1,500 employees this week in a follow-up to a restructuring plan announced a few months ago, the company confirmed Monday.

IP issues could be slowing IBM-Sun talks, experts say If IBM is in the due diligence phase of acquisition talks with Sun, as news reports suggest, then it has an awful lot to be diligent about.

10% pay cuts for EMC's Tucci, other top executives EMC's top five executives, including CEO Joe Tucci, are taking 10% pay cuts, the storage vendor reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission this week.

Google triumvirate sticks with $1 salaries, no bonuses or stock options Google CEO Eric Schmidt didn't receive a bonus or any new stock or option awards in 2008. Nor did Larry Page or Sergey Brin, who each took a $1 salary and nothing more.

Put more IT spending in stimulus plans, Obama advisor says Governments should include more information and communication technology investments in their economic stimulus plans, according to an advisor to President Barack Obama's transition team. But governments must also move quickly to realize the desired short-run stimulus effects of these investments.

Venture capitalists not willing to bet against Cisco Cisco Subnet blogger Brad Reese explains why VC losses from Hammerhead Systems could be the nail in the coffin for other start-ups competing with Cisco.

Cisco on the trail of federal stimulus money Hoping for its share of the stimulus pie, Cisco has assembled a team to identify local and state government projects that will be funded with stimulus funds.

Juniper pounces on Cisco proposals A link on Juniper's Web site encourages buyers with proposals from "Goliath" Cisco to instead consider what can be offered by Juniper's "David".

Charter Communications goes Chapter 11; establishes millions in exec bonuses Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's cable company, Charter Communications, has filed for bankruptcy to clean up $8 billion in debt. That didn't stop it from planning more than $9 million in bonuses for executives, reports Microsoft Subnet.

Survey gauges Web application security spending A new survey shows that despite the dismal economic conditions, more than a quarter of the companies polled expect to spend more on Web application security this year.

Good Business Intelligence Can Help With the Right Cuts Before companies make any cuts during a downturn, using IT to help strategize which reductions will be effective is one way CIOs can prove their worth.
5 Things You Need to Know: Budget Cutting
Boeing Saves Big By Cutting Imaging Costs
How Boeing Used Managed Services to Cut Imaging Costs

Sagging enterprise sales plague Cisco rival Juniper Channel partners are finding that Juniper customers are more demanding in terms of cost savings, and competition is more intense. Could this indicate a tough Q1 for Cisco as well?

IBM confirms North America layoffs Amid reports that it is moving thousands of jobs from the U.S. to India, IBM said Thursday it is notifying employees that some jobs are being eliminated.

Report: IBM poised to cut more U.S. jobs IBM is planning to cut "a large number" of U.S. jobs in its Global Business Services division, with many positions being switched over to workers in India, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, citing anonymous sources.

H-1B lottery approaches, experts mull TARP effect Economic conditions could lessen demand for H-1B visas as U.S. government officials work to limit abuse of the program.

Intel CEO Otellini gets $12.4 million in '08 Paul Otellini's 2008 compensation includes a $3.9 million cash bonus plus stock options and awards valued at $7.2 million at the time they were granted.

Strike looms for AT&T AT&T faces an April 4 deadline to negotiate a new labor contract or it will run the risk of a massive labor strike, the Communication Workers of America said this week.

Enter for a Microsoft training giveaway from New Horizons
New Horizons Computer Training is offering a free Microsoft training course worth up to $2,500 to be given to one lucky Microsoft Subnet reader. Deadline for entry is March 31.

Network World on Twitter Get our tweets and stay plugged in to networking news.

The 10 Worst Microsoft Product Names of All Time
If Microsoft had invented the iPod, it would have been called the Microsoft I-pod Pro 2005 Human Ear Professional Edition. The cult-hit video that makes that assertion may have been a joke, but it rings true. And when word emerged that the video was a self-parody produced within Microsoft, the point was even clearer: The world's largest software developer just isn't very good at naming stuff.

Researchers exploit Conficker flaw to find infected PCs
Just days before the Conficker worm is set to contact its controllers for new instructions, security researchers have discovered a flaw in the worm that makes it much easier for users to detect infected PCs.

Feds give $50B IT services deal a second try
The U.S. federal government has chosen 59 IT services firms including AT&T Government Solutions, Nortel Government Solutions and IBM for a government-wide IT services program that could be worth $50 billion over the next 10 years.

3 Ways Pen Testing Helps DLP (and 2 Ways It Doesn't)
Penetration testing's future has been caught in heated debate recently, sparked by Fortify Co-Founder and Chief Scientist Brian Chess' prediction that the practice would die off this year.

Don't look now, but you're a cyborg
Are we cyborgs yet? The cyborg, or cybernetic organism -- part human, part machine -- is a staple of science fiction, from Star Trek to The Six Million Dollar Man to RoboCop to the Terminator. These pop culture cyborgs usually involve robotic machinery to enhance physical capabilities rather than mental ones because that's more visual, more entertaining and easier for the general public to understand.

GhostNet highlights evolving threat environment
The high-profile disclosure over the weekend of the GhostNet cyberespionage ring that targeted 1,295 computers in more than 100 countries underscores how highly targeted and sophisticated attacks, often run by criminals, are changing the security landscape, according to a security researcher at Symantec.

HP unveils Nehalem-based servers, touts energy efficiency
HP has built 11 new servers which use the highly anticipated Intel Nehalem architecture as well as HP technology to improve performance and manage power more efficiently, the vendor is announcing Monday. Each server in the new line uses fewer than half as many watts as its predecessor, says Paul Gottsegen, vice president of marketing for HP's industry standard server group.

Sun making deep job cuts this week, analysts say
Sun is laying off about 1,500 employees this week in a follow-up to a restructuring plan announced a few months ago, the company confirmed Monday.

Twitter Tips: How To Search Twitter Smarter
It's easy to miss little gems of information on Twitter, the social networking service that allows users to exchange short messages. Because we all can't spend hours in front of the service, we miss important messages (or tweets) posted by colleagues, friends and family while we're away. As the list of people you follow on Twitter grows, the problem becomes more acute: hundreds of messages pass by and flow off the page before you've even had a chance to look at them.

TomTom caves, will pay Microsoft license fees; may force more open source patents
Microsoft Subnet reports that GPS navigation device vendor TomTom has agreed to settle its lawsuit with Microsoft by paying Microsoft license fees. Financial terms were not disclosed. The patents at the center of Microsoft's infringement claims involved technologies found in a version of the Linux OS that TomTom's portable devices run on.

Venture capitalists not willing to bet against Cisco Cisco Subnet blogger Brad Reese explains why VC losses from Hammerhead Systems could be the nail in the coffin for other start-ups competing with Cisco.

FAA exec offers blunt, scary assessment of its network security
Its not often you hear a highly placed IT executive dump on his own network security let alone a person entrusted with as much riding on such a systems as the Federal Aviation Administration.

FBI: Computer crime cost $265M in 2008, an all-time high
Online fraud and other computer schemes cost the U.S. $265 million - up from $239 million in 2007 or an average of average individual loss was $931. The FBI said 275,284 complaints were received in 2008 by the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C), up from 206,884 (33%) over 2007.

Enter for a Microsoft training giveaway from New Horizons
New Horizons Computer Training is offering a free Microsoft training course worth up to $2,500 to be given to one lucky Microsoft Subnet reader. Deadline for entry is March 31.

More Gearhead and Backspin:

Aardvark solves my Gmail problem
Mark Gibbs suddenly found that with Firefox on his Mac he couldn't log in to Gmail and there was no obvious reason. After asking his friends he tried asking strangers by using Aardvark, a social search service. Surprise of surprises; he got an answer!

Becoming green or just greenish?
Becoming an environmentally responsible organization isn't easy particularly in IT. It requires seeing the bigger picture and treating effort of becoming green as a comprehensive, strategic issue. So far, not many organizations are doing anything like that.

Keeping IT honest
Just over a week ago Forrester Research posted a blog item titled "Sponsored Conversations: When it's OK to pay bloggers to post."

Generating regexes and Gmail filters
Mark Gibbs is very impressed with a service that generates code for regular expressions and he has found that Gmail now supports importing and exporting filters. His happiness knows no bounds.

Search tools: hardware, an add-on and a service
Gibbs outlines a product awaiting test that searches and captures television programs, raves about a browser search enhancement plug-in he can’t live without, and is quite impressed by a service to help you identify errors.

To Tweet or not to Tweet, that's not an option
I'm writing this column for one simple reason: Once I get it written then the next time someone says to me "I don't get Twitter, it seems kinda stoopid to me. What is it all about?" I can direct them to this polemic and save my breath.

Computers and five kinds of insanity
I wrote last week about New Zealand's insane copyright legislation that would make people accused of content piracy guilty until proven innocent. Over the last few days I've been marveling at how that seems to be consistent with the general level of insanity that surrounds the digital world at present.

Wrapping up TiddlyWiki
The excitement is coming to an end...Mark Gibbs has covered TiddlyWiki up one side and down the other and is still amazed with the application.

New Zealand gets insane copyright law
A law has just been passed in New Zealand that allows for alleged online copyright infringers to have their Internet access cut off before being proved guilty.

TiddlyWiki macros and plugins
Continuing with his exploration of TiddlyWiki wiki technology, Mark Gibbs looks at the system's macros and plugins that modify and extend the how and what the software can do.

IT's glass - full, empty or too big?
In times of economic chaos and budget cuts you need to check your perspective. You know the old saw: A pessimist sees the glass as half empty; the optimist sees it as half full. These are both wrong ways of looking at the problem. The realist's perspective, the right way, recognizes that when there's space above the contents the glass is simply too big.

Exploring TiddlyWiki
Mark Gibbs discusses some reader feedback on TiddlyWiki and then starts to break down the TiddlyWiki system. Will the excitement never end?

Fixing the privacy joke
The whole idea of privacy has become a joke. On one hand we have consumers who will give away their personal details to random Web sites (as well as to Mrs. Sikiratu Seki Adam, "a widow to Late Saheed Baba Adams") at the drop of a virtual hat, and on the other we have businesses losing personally identifiable information and transaction data with wild abandon … yes, I'm talking about you Heartland Payment Systems. (Heartland lost data on more than 100 million transactions although it is hardly alone — check out the data loss database at the Open Security Foundation).

Network World on Twitter Get our tweets and stay plugged in to networking news.

Intrusion prevention strategies for 11n
There are several ways to scan your 802.11n air environment for nasty goings-on. At a glance, the options seem pretty straightforward. However, you need to look carefully under the hood to draw a true apples-to-apples comparison of the accuracy and cost of the various offerings.

Smart grid, other environmental control systems not smart about security
If lengthy requirements were a measure of success, then smart grid technology is well on its way to being an anomaly in the environmental controls space. But I'm not going to try to hold my breath for that to happen.

EC to probe online profiling by Web sites and ISPs
The European Commission is about to launch an investigation into how consumers' online data is being used by search companies, social networking Web sites and ISPs, a spokeswoman said Monday.

Preparing for the Pre: Palm and Sprint must get it right
Palm and Sprint are betting heavily on the success of the forthcoming Palm Pre smartphone. Here's what they need to do to get it right.

8x8 Introduces Enterprise Hosted VoIP Service
Nickasch: The news from VoiceCon 2009 continues to pour in this Monday morning, perhaps fueled by sunny Orlando skies and a forecast high of 80 degrees. 8x8, the provider of 8x8 Virtual Office and the Packet8 services, introduced an enterprise-level Hosted VoIP environment this morning, titled 8x8 Virtual Office Enterprise.

Why Microsoft Should Buy Facebook
Facebook is in trouble and Microsoft can solve those troubles, at least for now, by taking over the company. Yes, it is hard to believe that a company growing as rapidly as Facebook is growing should be in trouble, but it is.

Terabit Ethernet in sight
Looking down the LAN road, the Terabit Ethernet milestone is very much in sight. While 3.2Tbps and 6.4Tbps speeds were demonstrated in test environments by Siemens/WorldCom and NEC/Nortel respectively starting in 2001, the first set of viable solutions are just now taking shape.

Slideshow: 20 free software favorites Network managers have long turned to freeware applications and open source software to address pain points without breaking the bank. The applications offer quick fixes to management and security issues with no budget approval and often become core to IT toolboxes. Here we highlight 20 freeware and open source tools, some that are well established and others that are newcomers to the free software game.

Free tools to manage, search virtual environments Start-up vendors looking to grab some of the management software spotlight at VMworld 2008 next week recently released free software downloads designed to help IT managers track and search data on virtual machines (VM).

Free tool secures VMware servers Enterprise IT managers dealing with a proliferation of virtual servers might want to check out a free tool that promises to ensure virtual servers are configured for optimal security.

Vendors scramble to rein in virtual environments The rush to virtualize data-center resources has players across the entire IT landscape working to deliver virtualization products and win customer favor. Management and automation vendors see the technology as an opportunity to improve current tools and create news ones designed to help enterprise IT shops optimize their virtual environments.

Embotics adds granular policy control to virtual management Managing virtual environments became a dominant theme at a Gartner conference this week, and start-up Embotics took the opportunity to launch the second generation of its policy-based management tool that the vendor says tracks virtual machines throughout their entire life cycle.

Veeam takes on virtual management A Cleveland start-up with roots in Windows management is taking its past successes and applying them to virtual environments.

Veeam launches free monitoring tool Veeam Software has launched a free tool for VMware professionals designed to provide real-time monitoring of ESX and ESXi.

Could endpoint virtualization solve IT management problems? As if managing complex environments wasn't difficult enough, IT executives today must do so with less staff and cash. With this in mind, Symantec polled 300 network administrators to get a better gauge on what worries them in regards to managing IT, specifically distributed endpoints, in a down economy.

Outing blind spots in the virtual realm Virtual servers help data centers provide more resources on demand, but they also create a bit of a blind spot for IT managers responsible for network and application performance across the virtual environment.

How it works: Net monitoring & management Find out how management software works, and what you need to know to buy the right tool.

Enter for a Microsoft training giveaway from New Horizons
New Horizons Computer Training is offering a free Microsoft training course worth up to $2,500 to be given to one lucky Microsoft Subnet reader. Deadline for entry is March 31.

Network World on Twitter Get our tweets and stay plugged in to networking news.

Skype For Asterisk vs. Skype For SIP Nickasch: After this week's announcement by Skype of their "Skype for SIP" business service, rumors speculating the longevity of the previously-released "Skype For Asterisk" product are flying about.

Tata, BT launch managed WAN optimization services For companies that want a hand measuring, controlling and accelerating application delivery over the WAN, managed service providers including AT&T, BT Global Services and Verizon Business are standing by.

Sipera gear protects Microsoft OCS when used in unified communications At VoiceCon Orlando next week, Sipera will announce that its unified communications security gear supports Microsoft Office Communications Server, enabling businesses to safely extend OCS to telecommuters and business ...

Avaya partners with DiVitas for Dual Mode Mobile Unified Communications Today, we highlight three product-related announcements made recently: Avaya has announced DiVitas is their preferred partner for Dual Mode Mobile Unified Communications; Polycom launched its VVX 1500, a business media ...

Report: Skype for iPhone May Launch Next Week Skype may launch a version of its mobile Voice-over-IP (VoIP) and instant messaging service as early as next week, according to a report from Om Malik of GigaOM. If true, the...

Charter Communications goes Chapter 11; establishes millions in exec bonuses Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's cable company, Charter Communications, has filed for bankruptcy to clean up $8 billion in debt. That didn't stop it from planning more than $9 million in bonuses for executives, reports Microsoft Subnet.

Enter for a Microsoft training giveaway from New Horizons
New Horizons Computer Training is offering a free Microsoft training course worth up to $2,500 to be given to one lucky Microsoft Subnet reader. Deadline for entry is March 31.

Network World on Twitter Get our tweets and stay plugged in to networking news.