5 hot IT certification picks for 2010

Certifications have always been beneficial to IT job seekers, but lately there's increased emphasis on vendor- and technology-specific training as the economy begins to recover and companies look to plug talent holes in their IT organizations.

"There are great opportunities in technology, but there is increased competition for jobs," says Ray Kelly, CEO of certification provider Certiport. "I have never seen a time like today where there is such a focus on certifications."


Cisco, Microsoft certifications increase high-tech salaries

When the economy tanked, certifications became more important for IT pros who wanted to make themselves more employable.

"For the past couple of years, the economy has been challenging, but from a technical education standpoint it has been a positive market," says Fred Weiller, director of marketing for Learning@Cisco. "In pure volume, the foundation technologies such as routing and switching -- without which no network exists -- represent a huge amount of our certification portfolio."

These days, Cisco Certified Internetwork Experts see virtualization as the top networking investment area (cited by 67% of 970 CCIEs polled by Illuminas on behalf of Cisco). Another 64% say security and risk management will continue to be the networking skills in greatest demand -- an expectation echoed by Weiller.

Already, "professionals with 'cyber' on their resume can command a 20% salary premium as both the public and private sectors are becoming more aggressive in building their security talent pipeline," notes Thomas Silver, senior vice president at Dice. The high-tech job board listed more than 62,000 tech jobs available as of early April, about half of which are contract or part-time positions.

Determining the best IT certification to pursue depends on an individual's existing skill level, career goals and accessibility to training. Here we detail five of the hottest IT certifications for 2010.

1. VMware Certified Professional

The VMware Certified Professional (VCP) program, now available on vSphere 4 (VCP4), seems like a no-brainer. With virtualization technology growing within the majority of organizations, it is critical that the talent pool keep up with the technology. Yet recent research shows that enterprises are worried about a lack of expertise specific to virtualization. New skills need to be acquired for virtual systems, and new management and automation technologies must be introduced into the environment to truly reap the rewards of virtualization. According to Forrester Consulting, which interviewed 257 IT professionals on behalf of CA, "the proper skills for the future are difficult to attain and retain."

2. Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist

Microsoft continues to dominate most desktops in U.S. business. Its Windows operating system boasts more than 91% market share, according to March figures from Net Market Share, and Microsoft has seen accelerated interest in the latest revision, Windows 7.

"Microsoft continues to leave its computing fingerprints on most desktops," says Forrester Research analyst Sheri McLeish.

IT professionals who become a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) can prove their abilities around implementing, building, troubleshooting and debugging specific Microsoft technologies, such as a Windows operating system, Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Visual Studio. (Check out this 9 year-old, who's working on his fifth Microsoft certification.)

"In terms of training and certification, we have seen the fastest ramp up on Windows 7 than any technology in the past five years," says Chris Pirie, general manager of sales and marketing for Microsoft Learning. "We are anticipating a big wave of desktop refreshes and we will be having a new wave of Office software this summer. Certification is very hot for us right now."

3. Cisco Certified Architect

IT professionals with a few certifications under their belts could consider upgrading to what has been dubbed the Ph.D. in Cisco.
The network giant last year added to its educational roster with a new level of certification, the Cisco Certified Architect (CCA). While Cisco boasts more than 20,000 CCIEs worldwide, the vendor decided to build another layer of expertise on top of its proven certification program. The CCA requires applicants to already be certified as Cisco Certified Design Experts (CCDE) and have 10 years of experience. The training for CCA would equip IT professionals with the C-level know-how and skills to prevent wasteful investments on technology and better align network projects with business goals, according to Cisco.

"One of the key things we are testing or investigating is the ability for a candidate to understand the business side and translate that into technology demands," Cisco's Weiller says. "The CCA builds upon the CCDE program, which in itself is very much in demand. Networks have become very sophisticated and to be able to design and build a network that can adapt to changing needs and stand the test of time is critically important in making an individual successful in a networking career."

4. CompTIA Strata Green IT

While vendor-specific knowledge and foundational certifications seem a prerequisite for most jobs, IT professionals in 2010 should also consider amping up their vendor-neutral skills around technologies that continue to gain attention from high-tech as well as business leaders.

"From CompTIA's perspective, entry-level certifications such as the A+ and Network+ are going through the roof, and we are seeing double-digit growth in Security+ certifications," says Terry Erdle, senior vice president of skills certification at CompTIA (Computer Technology Industry Association).

Building on the basics, CompTIA just announced a new training track, green IT. CompTIA's Strata Green IT certificate is recommended for IT professionals with 18 months of technical experience and IT credentials such as CompTIA A+ or Server+, and the program is designed to show that a candidate is schooled in power management as well as virtualization techniques. The certification also includes training on developing and calculating ROI for green IT initiatives and knowledge of environmentally sound waste disposal techniques.

"We just launched the Strata Green IT certification to help build the funnel from the lower end to the higher end for people with advanced skills. The best thing we as a nonprofit in the IT industry can do is help fix the unemployment problem in the country, and we do that by adding such advanced skills training to address emerging employment needs," Erdle says.

5. ITIL v3 Foundations

For many, the goal this year is to streamline IT operations, adding automation where possible, while at the same time increasing services to users. The premise of overhauling the way IT works is outlined in the IT Infrastructure Library, or ITIL (Version 3 is currently being adopted).

With four levels of ITIL certification, IT professionals can prove they understand the principals around service life-cycle management and apply them to real-world environments. Companies seeking such expertise would likely desire a candidate who couples ITIL skills with security or other technical expertise. Considered more of a process-oriented area, ITIL can still deliver benefits such as improved availability, faster problem resolution and reduced costs due to streamlined processes.

"Whether you want to call them soft skills or business skills, IT professionals need communications skills, they need to be able to manage a project, and they need ITIL skills to show they understand the service lifecycle," Cisco's Weiller says. "Individuals need all these skills, not just technical skills."

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Adobe vs. Apple is going to get uglier

You think things are bad now between Apple and Adobe? Just wait until the lawsuit.
Usually I write about security here, but Apple's iron-bound determination to keep Adobe Flash out of any iWhatever device is about to blow up in Apple's face. Sources close to Adobe tell me that Adobe will be suing Apple within a few weeks.

It was bad enough when Apple said, in effect, that Adobe Flash wasn't good enough to be allowed on the iPad. But the final straw was when Apple changed its iPhone SDK (software development kit) license so that developers may not submit programs to Apple that use cross-platform compilers.

Officially, Adobe's not talking about such actions, but there's no question that Adobe is ticked off big time at Apple. I mean how often in print does one company representative say about a former partner, "Go screw yourself Apple," as Lee Brimelow, an Adobe platform evangelist, did on his personal Web site, The Flash Blog. While Adobe had him retract some of his words, and the blog now has a big disclaimer, "[Adobe would like me to make it clear that the opinions below are not the official views of the company and are entirely my own.]" we can be sure that within Adobe's offices far stronger words were used to describe Apple's attitude towards Flash.

For now, Adobe spokesperson Wiebke Lips maintains that "We are aware of the new SDK language and are looking into it. We continue to develop our Packager for iPhone OS technology, which we plan to debut in Flash CS5." Flash CS5, which is part of Adobe Creative Suite 5, arrived on April 12th, but, at this point, it can't be used to create i-device applications.

Indeed, the net effect of Apple's licensing change, according to John Gruber of Daring Fireball, is to make it impossible to use cross-compilers, such as the Flash-to-iPhone compiler in Adobe's upcoming Flash Professional CS5 release. This also bans apps compiled using MonoTouch -- a tool that compiles C# and .NET apps to the iPhone." In other words, Adobe, Microsoft, not only can you not have Adobe Flash or Microsoft Silverlight running natively on an iPod Touch, iPhone, or iPad, you can also forget about creating an iWhatever program that can get around that requirement.

Adobe, the king of Internet video with 95% Web browser market penetration, is not one bit happy about being locked out of Apple's lucrative mobile device market. Novell's MonoTouch group is "reaching out to Apple for clarification on their intention, and believe there is plenty of room for course-correction prior to the final release of the 4.0 SDK." Adobe, which doesn't want to let go of its hold on Internet-based video, isn't anything like as optimistic.

So, unless things change drastically between Apple and Adobe in the next few weeks, from what I'm hearing you can expect to see Adobe taking Apple to court over the issue. It's not going to be pretty.

source : ITworld.com

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Hacker restores "Other OS" to PS3; has Sony opened Pandora's box?

Last week on April 1st, Sony pushed out a (more or less mandatory) firmware update (version 3.21) that clobbered the "Install Other OS" feature from older PS3s (the feature had already been disabled from the newer PS3 Slim).

When Sony revealed that a firmware update would remove this feature, hacker George "Geohot" Hotz announced that he'd see what he could do about helping people retain this functionality while still being able to use their PS3 on the Playstation Network. His plan was to build a custom version of firmware 3.21 that had all of Sony's content (such that is is; the update didn't seem to do anything but remove the feature) while retaining Other OS.

Yesterday he released video purported to show an early version of his custom firmware in operation (video embedded below). Hotz's blog post offers a few more details, but the one caveat is that your PS3 has to have firmware version 3.15 or earlier in order for this to work. If you've already upgraded to 3.21, you'll be out of luck when Hotz releases his custom version.

What's interesting to me about this story is that Hotz (who, prior to taking on the challenge of the PS3, was big in the iPhone hacking scene) was the first to hack the PS3 back in January. Some suspect that this was the incentive for Sony to go all paranoid and yank the "Install other OS" feature in the first place, so there's some poetic justice in Hotz putting that feature back in.

Now I don't know George Hotz and I'd never heard the name "Geohot" before that news in January, and only recently have I started reading his blogs. From reading him, it sounds like he initially hacked the PS3 just for the challenge of doing so and because he's legitimately interested in seeing how things work. He states more than once that he doesn't condone piracy and for now, let's take that at face value. On the other side of the coin, I can understand how Sony can be so skittish about having their hardware hacked, considering how much rampant piracy (accomplished via custom firmware) impacted the Sony PSP. But I think Hotz makes a really good point in the closing paragraph of his most recent blog post:

"Note to the people who removed OtherOS, you are potentially turning 100000+ legit users into "hackers." There was a huge(20x) traffic spike to this blog after the announcement of 3.21. If I had ads on this site I guess I'd be thanking you."

How many PS3 owners were paying attention to the PS3 hacking scene before Sony yanked this feature on them? It didn't seem like there were that many, but now it's become big news. Is Sony trying to put out a fire with gasoline? Newer PS3s didn't have the "Install Other OS" option. Now Hotz says it's possible that his hack will enable it on those new systems too. If that turns out to be true, Sony has done themselves more harm than good. Accepting that Hotz has no interest in piracy, that certainly isn't true of everyone and it seems logical that his custom firmware will offer a good starting point for those with more nefarious reasons for hacking their PS3. By removing the Install Other OS feature, all Sony has managed to do is garner ill-will and encourage the PS3 hacking scene that it was trying so hard to quash.

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To fight scammers, Russia cracks down on .ru domain

In a bid to cut down on fraud and inappropriate content, the organization responsible for administering Russia's .ru top-level domain names is tightening its procedures.

Starting April 1, anyone who registers a .ru domain will need to provide a copy of their passport or, for businesses, legal registration papers. Right now, domains can be set up with no verification -- a practice that has allowed scammers to quickly set up .ru domains under bogus names.


The changes will help Russia align its rules with international best practices, said Olga Ermakova, informational projects manager with the Coordination Center for the .ru top-level domain, in an e-mail interview. The .ru administrators care about the "cleanness" of the domain, she added. "We don't need negative content, and such content is often [created] by unknown users."

Loopholes in the domain name system help spammers, scammers and operators of pornographic Web sites to avoid detection on the Internet by concealing their identity. Criminals often play a cat-and-mouse game with law enforcement and security experts, popping up on different domains as soon as their malicious servers are identified.

Criminals in eastern Europe have used .ru domains for a while, registering domain names under fake identities and using them to send spam or set up command-and-control servers to send instructions to networks of hacked computers.

With the new domain registration requirements, it will be more difficult for criminals to continue with business as usual. At the very least, the requirement that registrants must submit paper documents will make setting up domains a more costly and time-consuming process.

"It's pushing the malicious activity elsewhere," said Rodney Joffe, chief technologist with Neustar, a DNS service provider. "If it's so much of a hassle, they'll say, 'Screw it. I'm going to register another top-level domain.'"

Russia has been under pressure to clean up the .ru system, which is widely perceived as a safe haven for scammers. China made similar changes last month to the way that its .cn space is administered.

Joffe said it's too early to say how effective the .cn changes have been.

The .ru domain has been a top source of fraud of late, agreed Robert Birkner, chief strategy officer with Hexonet, a domain name service company. But even if it is cleaned up, criminals will have other places to go. Vietnam's .vn domain and Indonesia's .id have also been a problem lately, he said.

Earlier this week, representatives from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.K.'s Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) lobbied the group responsible for coordinating the Internet's domain name system to enforce tighter name recognition policies. Now it is "ridiculously easy" to register a domain name under false details, said Paul Hoare, senior manager and head of e-crime operations with SOCA.

Last month, a study of Internet domain name databases found that only 23 percent of records were accurate.

source: ComputerWorld.com

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Google eyes departure from China on April 10, report says

Beijing newspaper says search giant to reveal plans Monday; Google mum
A report today in the Chinese press says Google will announce on Monday that it plans to pull its business out of China on April 10.

The China Business News, a Beijing-based newspaper, is reporting that Google is just days away from putting a specific deadline on its departure from China. "I have received information saying that Google will leave China on April 10, but this information has not at present been confirmed by Google," the newspaper quoted an unidentified sales associate who works with the company as saying.

In an emailed response to Computerworld, a Google spokesman said, "We have repeatedly made clear that we are not going to comment on our discussions with the Chinese government."

This latest report comes just days after both Google and the Chinese government appeared to be leaking word that the search firm may soon shutter its operations there as negotiations between the two break down.

The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that the Chinese government had begun informing news Web sites in that country that Google's Chinese site is likely to close soon.

"I think Google is serious about this and I think their reputation would be damaged by capitulation," said Ezra Gottheil, an analyst with Technology Business Research. "I thought this was pretty inevitable from the beginning, considering how both parties have made pretty firm statements. It doesn't mean that a new arrangement cannot be made in a year or two, but it will require at least the appearance of compromise on both sides."

Google first threatened to halt its operations in China after disclosing in January that an attack on its network from inside China was aimed at exposing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. At the time, Google also said it was reconsidering its willingness to censor search results of users in China as required by the government.

Google has since been negotiating with the Chinese government to find a way to continue operating in the country.

Google's continuing stand against China has been met mostly with support from industry watchers, who say it is helping the search company overcome the major hit in good will it's taken in recent years by ceding to China's censorship demands.

source: ComputerWorld.com

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China state media cranks up Google tension amid speculation

State-controlled Chinese media accused Google of political motives in its threat to exit China, suggesting a hostile government stance as speculation grows that Google could act on a plan defying the country's regulations.

Other editorials published in recent days, which appear to mark a coordinated attack on Google in Chinese state media, played down the effects any exit by the company would have in China.

"It is unfair for Google to impose its own value and yardsticks on Internet regulation to China, which has its own time-honored tradition, culture and value," a commentary by writers at the official Xinhua news agency said Sunday. "One company's ambition to change China's Internet rules and legal system will only prove to be ridiculous."

Google said in January that it planned to stop censoring results on its China-based search engine, Google.cn, but that the move might mean having to shut down that Web site or Google's China offices altogether. Google cited reasons including hacking attempts allegedly launched from China and concerns about restrictions on free speech.

The Wall Street Journal on Sunday cited an unnamed person familiar with the matter as saying Google could announce its latest plans for China this week.

Another state-media editorial, run in the China Daily, said Google leaves itself less room for negotiations the more it "politicizes the issue."

Chinese officials have repeatedly warned that Google and other foreign companies must follow China's laws to operate in the country.

"Chinese netizens did not expect the Google issue to snowball into a political minefield and become a tool in the hands of vested interests abroad to attack China under the pretext of Internet freedom," China Daily said in another editorial.

A constant message in the editorials was that a Google exit would have no effect on the growth of the Internet in China. Chinese Internet users will simply move on to other search engines if Google is unavailable, and Google "will be the biggest loser in all of this," China Daily said.

Google did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

source : ComputerWorld.com

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Hands on: Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview shows speed, not much else

For now, the main selling points are increased performance and support for HTML 5
The Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview exhibits to good effect two of what Microsoft says will be the new browser's selling points: speed and HTML 5 support. If the final version is as fast as or faster than the preview, IE will no longer be a laggard in the browser race and will most likely beat out Firefox. HTML 5 support is a nice extra, but it's still too early to tell how important that will be.

At this point, the IE9 Platform Preview is little more than a browser display engine, and it isn't intended for users. Instead, it's Microsoft's attempt to give developers a heads-up about where the browser is headed. There's no address bar, no navigation features or Favorites, no Back or Forward buttons, no multiple tabs, no malware protection or other basic or advanced browser features. To visit a Web site, you have to press Ctrl-O, type in the URL and then press Enter. When you click a hyperlink that would normally open a new window, that page will open in your default browser.

Not surprisingly, the IE9 Platform Preview doesn't replace your existing version of IE. Instead, it runs alongside it. It cannot be set as your default browser. It runs only with Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Vista Service Pack 2 or Windows 7. To run it on Vista SP2 and Windows Server R2, you'll need the Platform Update. It won't run on Windows XP -- now, or when it finally ships, according to Microsoft.
The need for speed

IE8 and previous versions of IE have been criticized for being far slower than competing browsers such as Firefox and Chrome, and tests have proved that out. The IE9 Platform Preview fixes that problem. In my testing on two PCs -- one with Windows Vista and other with Windows 7 -- I found it far speedier than earlier versions of IE, and faster than Firefox.

I ran the SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark on a Dell Dimension 9200 with an Intel Core 2 Quad CPU and 2GB of RAM. I tested the Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview, Internet Explorer 8, and the current versions of Firefox (3.6) and Chrome (4.1). IE9 exhibited a dramatic speed improvement; with an average score of 804ms, it performed more than six times faster than IE8 (5078ms) and nosed out Firefox (914ms) but was beaten by Chrome (489ms).


Microsoft says that one way it sped up the browser was by using a separate processor core to compile JavaScript in the background. JavaScript is only one benchmark for speed, of course. The vendor says it has taken steps to speed up the browser in other ways as well, notably by using a PC's graphics processor to accelerate the rendering of text and graphics.

There's no way to adequately test this, so I can't report on it accurately. But on the IE9 Test Drive site, you can find several impressive demonstrations of interactive HTML 5 graphics powered by your graphics processor. I also tested Chrome and Firefox; both were significantly slower than IE9 and did not display the test graphics properly. However, there's no way to know whether the graphics on the page have been specifically tuned for IE9, so it's hard to know how significant the results are.

Adherence to standards

Microsoft is also touting IE9's adherence to HTML 5 standards, including a variety of features such as the ability to embed video and to interactively change and animate the borders of Web pages. To show them off, the company has created a set of Web pages on its IE9 Test Drive site.

The results are fast and impressive, but again, it's hard to know how well the browser will work in the real world, since the pages may have been tuned for it. And because HTML 5 is not in general use, this may not be a big selling point in the short term, although it could be important in the long term.

Currently, IE9 doesn't play HTML 5 videos using the HTML 5

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Five new technologies for your home

Many new technologies and gadgets have taken a back seat to the news of 3D television. Yes, 3D HDTV is astonishing. However, there are some new products out there that will not only improve your geek lifestyle, but also won't require you to wear hulking glasses. Here are five such items. Enjoy!

Can't find your remote control? No problem.

The Re™ from New Kinetix can turn your iPhone or iPod touch into a universal remote control. Simply snap on the IR attachment, download the software, and you can control your home theater with probably the best illuminated remote you'll ever see. Essentially, this application turns your iPhone/iPod into a learning remote. You hold your antiquated remote face to face with the dongle and the software will copy the infrared signals needed to operate your television, sound system, etc.


Price: Not yet set

RGB and...Y? QuadPixel technology is here!

The combination of the colors red, green and blue produces the millions of colors that you see on your LCD television (or computer monitor). Even the most beautiful of modern televisions are limited to these mere millions of colors your screen can produce. No longer. Sharp is introducing it's new QuadPixel LCD TV which adds in a yellow filter to produce more than a trillion colors.

Price: $3,600

Portable Digital TV and DVD player

Are your kids tired of watching the same ol' DVDs as you travel over the river and through the woods? Philips understands. It has introduced the first portable DVD player that can also pick up digital TV stations. Never miss American Idol again when you're traversing this great nation.

Price: $180

Out of the box thinking

The Armour Group has developed a marvelous little radio called the Q2 Cube that tunes in to your favorite internet radio stations. Change the station by physically flipping the box onto one of it's four sides. Volume control? Tilt the box backwards or forwards.

Price: Not yet set

6 in 1 television

So the other day I was talking to a friend who is a huge sports fan. This product is for him. Samsung has developed the first multi-screen 60-inch HD monitor. Six separate screens that can work in concert or individually. Just think of the possibilities...!

Source : ITworld.com

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Bill calls for NASA to continue push to Moon

Legislation would halt space shuttle retirement and continue human space flight plan
President Barack Obama's plan to push NASA to scrap the "Obama budget scraps NASA manned moon mission" and contract with commercial companies to build space taxis is meeting with some resistance in Congress.

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) yesterday introduced a bill that would undo NASA's plans to retire its aging space shuttle fleet later this year. The bill would also require that NASA continue on with its Constellation program, which calls for building rockets and spacecraft to carry astronauts to the International Space Station and further into space.

"We must close the gap in U.S. human space flight or face the reality that we will be totally dependent on Russia for access to space until the next generation of space vehicle is developed," said Sen. Hutchison, in a statement. "If the space shuttle program is terminated, Russia and China will be the only nations in the world with the capability to launch humans into space. This is unacceptable."

Hutchison introduced the bill just a little more than a month after the president released his 2011 federal budget proposal, which would eliminate NASA's plan to return humans to the moon by 2020.

The budget plan aims to turn the agency's attention to developing new engines, in-space fuel depots and robots that can venture into space.

NASA administrator Charles Bolden has repeatedly said since the budget plan was proposed that the Constellation program is behind schedule, and projected to ultimately be over budget. He said he feared that NASA's Constellation program would sap funding and attention from developing new technologies.

Sticking with the plan would also drain funds from the space spation program, and would force NASA to withdraw its support from the international effort as early as 2015, he added.

The Obama administration's new plan calls for NASA to work with commercial aeronautics companies to design and build so-called space taxis that could take astronauts to the space station and eventually into outer space.

Obama's plan - and the fact that it could lead to job losses in both Florida and Texas -- got a pretty chilly reception in Congress this week. Bolden faced a vigorous round of questions in front of Congress earlier this week about the space agency's missions and what the new budget plan means for NASA.

he Wall Street Journal reported late yesterday that Bolden has asked senior managers at NASA to draw up an alternate plan in case Congress shoots down Obama's proposal. The alternative would be a compromise that would include ideas from both the administration and Congress, according to the Journal .

Sen. Hutchison's bill is designed to enable NASA to postpone the retirement of the space shuttle fleet until work is complete on a next-generation American spacecraft.

She also wants to push forward with NASA's goal of moving beyond human flights in low-Earth orbit and extend missions out to the moon or Mars.

Hutchison called the administration's plan short-sighted.

"Not only are we turning our backs on 40 years of American space superiority, we are giving up vital national security and economic interests to other nations," she added. "This must not be an 'either-or' proposition where we are forced to choose between continuing to fly the shuttle to service the station and maintain our independence in reaching space, or investing in the next generation of space vehicle. We can and must do both."

Dan Olds, an analyst with The Gabriel Consulting Group, said Hutchison is obviously motivated to keep jobs in her area and boost her public approval. However, that doesn't mean that the legislation won't garner much support across the country. "Some politicians are, of course, concerned about losing major facilities and employers in their districts, but that doesn't necessarily mean that their argument is without merit," said Olds. "If the space shuttle is retired now, we do lose our ability to launch humans into space until the new, privately built space taxis comes on line. I do think that private industry can probably do a better, faster, and less expensive job of it than the government, but they're not going to be able to get these new vehicles off the ground as quickly as hoped." He added that it comes down to how long the U.S. wants to go without being able to launch an astronaut into orbit on its own.

"In fact, I can put together a compelling case for launching politicians into orbit that would be sure to gather broad public support and immediate funding from voluntary contributions," he added.

Source : computerworld.com

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Printers and Scanners of Tomorrow (and Beyond)

Four ultra-futuristic printers and scanners hint of the possibilities of future tech

Affordable 3D Printers
3D printers are nothing new; in fact they've been around for some time. We've had a look at some of the cool things you can do with these types of printers, including creating models, tools and all sorts of wizardry. Unfortunately, the 3D printers of today cost in excess of $100,000 and are largely reserved for large architecture and development firms.

Thankfully, it won't stay that way forever. HP recently announced its interest in 3D printing, with products potentially available for just $15,000. 3D printers might not make it to your desk this year, but at this rate, the possibility of owning a 3D printer for personal or business use is becoming more likely.

3D Critters of the Future
The products of 3D printers, naturally, aren't limited to flat images. Here are some of the cool things 3D printers let you make.

Biological Printers
We are still a little way off re-growing entire limbs, but we are certainly making strides towards it. Invetech and Organovo have created the first 3D bioprinter, which is capable of printing entire cells. According to Organovo CEO Keith Murphy, the potential uses are wide-ranging - from supporting existing kidney cells to forming the foundations of a tooth.
With a printer capable of producing "tissue on demand," researchers and surgeons will apparently be able to easily repair organs without waiting for a lab to catch up; just press the button and go. It's all a bit freaky, but if these end up in every hospital they could literally be a life saver.

Food Printers
To us, this seems even more unlikely than biological printers. Then again, science fiction movies have told us for years that one day we'll have replicators that can reproduce anything on command. This concept from MIT doesn't quite reach those heights, but it sure does get close. By mixing liquid ingredients to suit the user's preferences and then either heating or cooling it, the "Cornucopia" can recreate a meal with any number of textures and tastes.

We're not sure of the final taste, but somehow we don't think these food printers will be making it into five-star restaurants anytime soon.

Food Printer Products
This opens all kinds of possibilities . . . liquid lasagna, anyone?

3D Scanning
We've seen plenty of devices that help you get designs out of a computer, but how about something to get 3D objects back in? Step in Ortery's Photosimile 5000, allegedly the world's first 3D scanner for the office. The Photosimile 5000 is essentially a big box that allows you to attach compatible Canon SLR cameras, and automatically takes a succession of photos. The product lies on a rotating turntable, giving you a full 360 degree view of the product.

The scanner is undoubtedly useful for product manufacturers everywhere (and it could even threaten the jobs of in-house product photographers). It even automatically creates a 3D animation of the product, though this has to be viewed using Ortery's proprietary software.

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USB 3.0 vs. eSATA: Is faster better?

While USB 3.0 is good, it's not as simple as "Whoever's the fastest wins." Let's take a closer look at these new and improved ports on our PCs

Up-to-date computers now include external ports that, in theory, can handle data at rates of up to 5 Gigabits per second. But which is better?

If you've been in the computer business for any length of time you can probably painfully remember when serial RS-232 ports could barely handle 28 Kilobytes per second. And, adding insult to injury, the standard was loose enough that you could have 'compatible' devices that you could never physically connect. How things have changed! Now, eSATA can handle 300 MBps (MegaBytes per second) and USB 3.0 can wheel and deal up to 625 MBps.

So that makes USB 3.0 better right? Well, while USB 3.0 is good, it's not as simple as "Whoever's the fastest wins." Let's take a closer look at these new and improved ports on our PCs.

ESATA (External Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) is the external version of the technology, SATA, that your computer is likely already using for its hard drive. While SATA and eSATA are both older than USB 3.0, its proponents would still claim that it's better than USB 3.0.

They can make this argument because the most common use for eSATA is for external hard drives. Internally, these drives are still using SATA even if you're connecting to these devices with USB or FireWire on the outside. Thus, the argument goes, these devices must use a bridge chip to translate from the ATA protocol to USB or the FireWire IEEE 1394 protocol.

There are two ways to do this. The first is to encapsulate the SATA protocol-borne data into USB or FireWire. The other is to actually convert the data into one of the external data transmission protocols. In either case, this requires extra steps and processing, which slows down the effective throughput.

Various benchmarking tests support this claim. In particular, eSATA has clearly been shown to be faster than USB 2.0.

Today, USB 3.0's SuperSpeed 5 Gbps (Gigabits per second) is more than ten times faster than USB 2.0's top theoretical speed of 480 Mbps (Megabits per second). In addition, USB 3.0 supports asynchronous data transfers, which means that, unlike USB 2.0, it doesn't need to wait to poll a USB device every time it wants to start shipping data one way or the other.

In addition, USB 3.0 includes a new transfer method called Bulk Streams. With Bulk Streams, USB now supports multiple data stream transfers. The net effect of this is that the protocol will do much better with huge data transfers such as those required by viewing an HD movie that's residing on an external hard drive.

Still, on those same external drives, USB 3.0 must deal with the SATA to USB protocol conversion slowdown. So, who wins when it comes to raw read and write speeds? We still don't know.

I did, however, run some rough benchmarks to get an idea of what we're dealing with. For my devices I used a Western Digital My Book Studio Edition II 1TB 7,200 RPM external hard drive with its eSATA port and ran it against a Western Digital My Book 3.0 with a similar drive inside. I attached these to a Gateway SX2802 PC with a 2.5GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Q8300 CPU and 6GBs of DDR2 memory. On this system I was running Windows 7 Ultimate. To enable it to handle USB 3.0, I installed a StarTech 2 Port PCI Express SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Card Adapter.

With this setup, USB tends to be about 20% faster than eSATA at reads, while eSATA was about 20% faster at writing data to the disk. While I make no claims for these to be definitive benchmarks (I used the freeware Crystal DiskMark 3.0 program for my tests), I do think the results indicate what you can expect to see from today's eSATA and USB 3.0 drives.

In both cases the real world results were quite a bit slower than their theoretical bests. With reads, my USB drive averaged 90 MBps, while the eSATA drive came in at 75 MBps. When it came to writing to the disk eSATA still processed data at 75 MBps while the USB drive dropped to 62 MBps.

This kind of difference between real world and theoretical results is quite common. Nothing in your office or home, or even the test bench, will ever run as fast as its design specifications call for.

That said, I was surprised to see USB 3.0 do as poorly as it did. Mind you, it's still much faster than USB 2.0 and somewhat faster than eSATA in data reads. I had expected better from it. I strongly suspect that as USB 3.0 devices and drivers mature, it's speed will significantly improve.

USB 3.0 does have some other advantages over eSATA. For example, like USB 2.0, you can power devices through a USB 3.0 connection, while you'll need another power connection for external eSATA devices.

In addition, USB 3.0, which can handle up to 50% more power than USB 2.0, should be thriftier with energy than 2.0. Alas, it's not. As Brian Nadel reported in ITworld's sister publication Computerworld, current USB 3.0 implementations will drain your laptop's battery faster than their equivalent USB 2.0 devices. Again, the next generation of devices and drivers should handle this better.

Another noteworthy point is that while USB 3.0 is backwards compatible with USB 2.0 cables and devices, you can't use a USB 3.0 cable with a USB 2.0 or earlier device. In addition, you can't use any USB 3.0 device with a USB 2.0 cable. That's because while the flat USB Type A plug, the one that goes into your PC, is compatible with USB 2.0 ports even though it has an extra pair of connectors, the other end is a different story entirely. The Type B plug, which is the one that you use to connect devices to the computer, comes in two different varieties. Neither of these will fit into a USB 2.0 B port.

So, what should you do? If I were you, I'd stand pat for now. USB 3.0 is the wave of the future. Later this year, as the technology matures, USB 3.0 devices should be consistently faster than today's eSATA devices, but we're not there yet.

In addition, for now, you'll still pay a premium for USB 3.0 devices, boards with USB 3.0 ports, and even PCs with USB 3.0 built-in. Towards the year's end though USB 3.0 will become the default on almost all PCS and peripherals. Much as I like USB 3.0, I don't see any reason to hurry up and adopt it today. I'd advise you to wait too

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N. Korea develops operating system with Windows-like GUI, Linux guts

Bundle includes thinly disguised versions of Firefox, OpenOffice.org

The North Korean government appears to have developed its own graphical Linux-based "Red Star" operating system, though its people still prefer that symbol of Yankee high-tech imperialism, Microsoft Windows.

That's according to the blog of a Russian college student, 'Mikhail,' studying at a university in North Korea's capital city, Pyongyang.


According to translations of the blog by Russian satellite news channel, Russia Today, as well as Google's Translate tool, installation DVDs of Red Star can be freely purchased in Pyongyang for $5 and come in both client and server versions.

Red Star requires, at minimum, a Pentium III 800 MHz CPU (state-of-the-art in developed countries about ten years ago), 256MB of RAM and 3GB of hard disk space.

Installation takes 15 minutes, and users may only choose to run it in the Korean language. A more serious quirk: The clock on the bottom right shows the year in both the standard international Gregorian calendar, and the North Korean "Juche Idea," in which 2010 is the year 99.

Local North Koreans told Mikhail that Red Star is not stable, and that they still prefer Windows XP, Vista or 7.

Mikhail did not comment on what version of Linux that Red Star may be built upon. Cuba released its own version of Linux last year called Nova that is based on Gentoo, a Linux variant that is run by a foundation based in New Mexico.

Red Star includes applications such as a thinly disguised version of the Mozilla Firefox browser, an OpenOffice.org-like productivity suite, an e-mail client called 'Pigeon,' and a number of other utilities.

Two programs that were apparently developed by North Korea include a firewall program called "Pyongyang Fortress," and an antivirus application called "Woodpecker."

The browser's search engine defaults to the North Korean government's official Web site, Naenara.

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Internet freedom and security

It's already been a busy year in the area of Internet freedom and security.

10 of the Worst Moments in Network Security History

First, Google reported that it, along with a bunch of other major companies, had been hacked, and pointed the finger at China.

Then Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton gave a few "Remarks on Internet Freedom" in which she pushed for one Internet, without barriers.

Separately, the Federal Trade Commission notified about 100 companies that some of their secrets had been exposed by employees who were running peer-to-peer software.

Finally the Internet security firm NetWitness said that it had figured out that 75,000 computers at 2,500 companies had been compromised with the ZeuS Trojan starting in 2008.

Nope - not a good start to 2010. I would like to think that things will quiet down some for the rest of the year but it does not look like that will happen.

In early January, Google announced that it had been hacked from China, that the hackers seemed to be after the gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists and that Google was going to review "feasibility of our business operations in China."

Well, that caused quite a splash. Google's accusation fit so well with the general public perception of China's approach to the Internet that it was easy to assume that the hacking was directed by the Chinese government.

Clinton did not go quite so far as to accuse the Chinese government of complicity during her speech on Internet freedom,but she did call upon it to "conduct a thorough review" of the Google hacks and that the results of the review be transparent. Clinton's speech was quite a good one from the point of view of those of us who value the positive impact of the communication enabled by the Internet.

Properly, she did not hide the fact that communication over the Internet can be used for good (human rights activists) and evil (terrorists).

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India adds IT jobs despite recession

The largest addition of jobs in the country came in the IT services and BPO industries

India added 487,000 jobs in its IT and BPO (business process outsourcing) export industries in the quarter ended Dec. 31, despite the global recession, according to a Quarterly Quick Employment Survey by the country's labor bureau.

The survey was conducted to assess the impact of the economic slowdown on employment in India.

The results, released Thursday, found that of a total of 638,000 jobs added across the economy, 580,000 were in the exports sector. IT services and BPO exporters led the pack.

Besides Indian service providers, a large number of multinational companies like IBM and Accenture have set up IT services and BPO operations in the country, that service both the Indian market and markets abroad. Most of India's IT and BPO exports go to the U.S. and the U.K.

In January this year, a large number of Indian outsourcers, including the largest, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), and the second largest, Infosys Technologies, reported plans to increase hiring in anticipation of improved business conditions.

TCS, for example, added 7,692 positions in last quarter of 2009, taking the total staff at the end of the quarter to 149,654. The company plans to hire about 8,000 trainees and about 3,000 experienced staff in the current quarter, it said.

India's software and services exports are expected to grow at 5.5 percent to US$49.7 billion in the Indian fiscal year to March 31, 2010, Minister for Communications and IT Sachin Pilot told Parliament on Thursday.

That growth rate for software and services exports is well behind the 16.5 percent rate in the year to March 31, 2009, and 29.5 percent in the previous year.

However an expected uptick in business later this year is driving new hiring by the IT and BPO sector. The National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom) said in February that India's exports of software services and BPO are likely to increase by 13 to 15 percent in the fiscal year to March 31, 2011.

Some companies have also indicated that they will increase staff salaries soon. Raises were cut down or held back last year after the recession hit the industry.

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IT management: Zero in on business impact

Push users to think past the idea that technology will be a cure-all
CIO Executive Council - Within five years of moving into IT management, Jay Kerley found his purpose: working with the business to affect business outcomes and results. And he set his sights on the CIO role when it became clear that the best way to create change and effect a business impact on as wide a scale as possible is to have that executive-level, strategic role. "With a CIO's cross-division view of processes, you are in the position to shift and turn the company," says Kerley, who was promoted to the position of deputy CIO at Applied Materials in 2009.

Kerley, a winner of CIO magazine's and the CIO Executive Council's 2009 CIO Ones to Watch Award, identifies three milestones in his path to the c-suite: building business outcome-focused IT leadership teams, taking on risky challenges with big payoffs for the company, and cultivating a portfolio perspective.

Kerley's first taste of driving business results came in his first leadership position, where he discovered that he had a knack for rallying and motivating teams to tackle complex, business-oriented challenges. What motivated him -- and his team, in turn -- was the chance to create and enable business improvements. He built a close-knit team of people during his time in that position -- many of whom have stayed with him as he moved to new companies and new locations -- that led projects with far-reaching impact on the company, including globalization of processes for more efficient and consistent operations, and merging acquired business units without disrupting service to the customers.

Kerley realized that a willingness to face new challenges would bring greater benefits to the business, and he had this in mind when he joined Applied Materials, the world's largest supplier of manufacturing equipment to the semiconductor, display and solar photovoltaic industries. There he took a risk by evaluating applications that hadn't been meeting the engineering users' needs for years, pushing people to think past the idea that technology would be a cure-all, and examining the underlying processes as the source point for potential improvements. He then partnered with business leads to develop new processes and a technology solution to enable them. In the end, the engineering team not only had a better user experience, but was able to use the system in ways it hadn't before, including collaborating across the globe.

Much of this came together because Kerley found a strong CIO mentor early on, who complemented weaknesses -- while Kerley came up in IT via infrastructure and applications development, this mentor came from a leadership development and project and portfolio management background. Being exposed to that side of the IT world was a revelation, Kerley says. Having a portfolio perspective enables IT leaders to serve as a bridge into the business and to see the potential for cross-functional improvements, a skill-set necessary to being a results-oriented CIO.

Jay Kerley is deputy CIO at Applied Materials and a member of the CIO Executive Council. The Council's Pathways Program was created by CIOs to build business and IT leadership skills in senior IT leaders through group mentoring with CIOs, 360-degree competencies assessment, targeted seminars and community forums. To learn more, visit council.cio.com/pathways.html.

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Microsoft's Charney suggests 'Net tax to clean computers

The company recently used the U.S. court system to shut down the Waledac botnet

How will we ever get a leg up on hackers who are infecting computers worldwide? Microsoft's security chief laid out several suggestions Tuesday, including a possible Internet usage tax to pay for the inspection and quarantine of machines.

Today most hacked PCs run Microsoft's Windows operating system, and the company has invested millions in trying to fight the problem.


Microsoft recently used the U.S. court system to shut down the Waledac botnet, introducing a new tactic in the battle against hackers. Speaking at the RSA security conference in San Francisco, Microsoft Corporate Vice President for Trustworthy Computing Scott Charney said that the technology industry needs to think about more "social solutions."

That means fighting the bad guys at several levels, he said. "Just like we do defense in depth in IT, we have to do defense in depth in [hacking] response."

"I actually think the health care model ... might be an interesting way to think about the problem," Charney said. With medical diseases, there are education programs, but there are also social programs to inspect people and quarantine the sick.

This model could work to fight computer viruses too, he said. When a computer user allows malware to run on his computer, "you're not just accepting it for yourself, you're contaminating everyone around you," he said.

The idea that Internet service providers might somehow step up in the fight against malware is not new. The problem, however, is cost.

Customer calls already eat into service provider profits. Adding quarantine and malware-fixing costs to that would be prohibitive, said Danny McPherson, chief research officer with Arbor Networks, via instant message. "They have no incentive to do anything today."

So who would foot the bill? "Maybe markets will make it work," Charney said. But an Internet usage tax might be the way to go. "You could say it's a public safety issue and do it with general taxation," he said.

According to Microsoft, there are 3.8 million infected botnet computers worldwide, 1 million of which are in the U.S. They are used to steal sensitive information and send spam, and were a launching point for 190,000 distributed denial-of-service attacks in 2008.

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Facebook Tips and Tweaks

Add-ons, plug-ins, and services to streamline and simplify your Facebook experience.
by Rick Broida, PCWorld - I like using Facebook to keep tabs on my friends, but I don't like the endless stream of "so-and-so took this quiz" and "Joe became friends with Jane" messages. I just became a fan of Facebook Purity, an add-on that removes those notifications from your Facebook home page. Facebook Purity is a script that requires Greasemonkey. Once you've installed that and restarted Firefox, just install the FP script, start up Firefox again, and fire up Facebook.


The effects are subtle--don't expect a major makeover--but definitely worthwhile. You may not notice any immediate changes, but you should see a "FB Purity hid" header like the one highlighted in this screen shot. The tally refers to the number of Facebook apps and "extras" hidden from your home page. If you're curious to see what they are, just click Show for either category.

If you want to edit the list of apps and extras Facebook Purity blocks, see the developer's FAQ page. Speaking of which, the script doesn't cost anything, but the developer sure would appreciate a few bucks if you find it useful. (Click the Donate button on his page to make a contribution via PayPal.)

By the way, Facebook Purity is compatible with Google Chrome, Opera, and Safari, but using Greasemonkey scripts with those browsers is a bit more complicated. Again, see the FAQ page for details.

Download Photo Albums in a Flash

For a service as photo-oriented as Facebook, the simple act of downloading photos is annoyingly complicated. In fact, there is no download option; you have to view each photo in turn, right-click it, and choose Save Image As or Save Picture As (depending on your browser).

So what happens if a friend posts a bunch of pictures you want to download? Are you really supposed to go through and save them one by one? Not if you install the FacePAD plug-in for Firefox. Short for Facebook Photo Album Downloader, it does exactly what its name implies: downloads entire albums at a time.

After loading the plug-in and restarting Firefox, select Tools, Add-ons, find FacePAD, click Options, and choose your language. Click OK and you're good to go.

To use FacePAD, just navigate your way into a friend's photo library, right-click an album link, and choose Download Album with FacePAD. In a matter of minutes the plug-in will plunk every photo into your default Firefox Downloads folder.

It's too bad you can't specify a folder or do any batch-renaming; all the photos end up with cryptic numerical file names. Still, FacePAD works as advertised, and it's a damn sight easier than retrieving each photo manually.

Add Facebook Chat to Your Firefox Sidebar

Let's solve another Facebook hassle: When you leave the site, your chat sessions get left behind. Wouldn't it be nice if you could keep a Facebook chat going regardless of what site you're viewing?

If you use Firefox as your Web browser, you can add Facebook chat to the Sidebar, thus keeping it alive and active even while you browse elsewhere. (I also find it a more convenient location than the bottom-right corner of the screen, which is where Facebook shoehorns it.) Here's how to make it happen:

In Firefox, press Ctrl-B to open the Sidebar in Bookmarks view. Right-click the bookmark folder where you want to add Facebook chat, then choose New Bookmark. Name the new bookmark "Facebook Chat," then paste this URL into the Location field: http://www.facebook.com/presence/popout.php Check "Load this bookmark in the sidebar," then click OK.

Now just click your new bookmark and presto: Facebook chat in the sidebar. Not too shabby, eh?

Simplify Your Facebook Experience with Brizzly

Brizzly provides a clean, simple, ad-free interface for Facebook (Twitter, too).

Getting started with this free Web service is a snap. Sign up for an account, then supply your user name and password for Facebook and/or Twitter. You'll have to click through a couple "approval" pop-ups, which is normal for any outside service seeking access to your account.

Now you've got a simple front end for your Facebook news feed. You can update your status, comment on friends' posts, watch posted videos, write on walls, and so on. You don't get every single Facebook feature--you can't "hide" a friend or play any games--but you do get a refreshingly streamlined interface.

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update status facebook via kantor pos, kalkulator, telepon umum, blueberry, kaskus

Trik update status facebok via kalkulator, blackberry, blueberry, telepon umum, wartel, kaskus, hati sampai update fb via hp pinjaman.

kemarin wall FB gw di posting something ama kwn gw, tapi yg bikin gw ngakak ntu.. tu posting statusx via telepon umum.. gimana ga bikin ngakak coba.. wkwkwkwkwkwk. Namun yang dimaksud update dari telepon umum bukan langsung menggunakan telepon umum yang ada dijalan-jalan itu hehe(yg seperti gw ama loh2 pikirin). akan tetapi cuman statusnya saja via telepon umum namun updatena tetap menggunakan komputer.

Disini saya kasih contoh update status facebook via blueberry, caranya sama dengan update menggunakan blackberry kita tinggal pasang app-facebook sajah.

1. login Facebook anda di www.facebook.com
2. pasang applikasi apps-blue-berry klik disini
3. ikutin langkah selanjutnya atau lihat gambar dibawah ini

Nb : lihat gambar no 4, disitu ada berbagai tipe update status facebook via blueberry, wartel, kalkulator, sampai dengan kaskus dan hati

update status facebook via (Kumpulan applikasi update status fb):

• Update status facebook via telepon umum klik disini
• Facebook st via kalkulator klik disini
• Facebook status update via Blackberry klik disini
• Update status facebook via blueberry klik disini
• Update status facebook via kaskus klik disini
• Update status facebook dari hari klik disini
• Update status facebook dari warnet klik disini
• Update status facebook dari Hp pinjaman klik disini
• facebook status update via Android Klik disini
• Updates status fb via laptop kreditan
• Updates status fb via satelit click here
• Updates status fb via Nokia 3315 (Hape jadul)
• facebook status update via I-phone
• Updates status fb via bluetooth
• Update status facebook melalui kantor Kantor pos
• Facebook status update via samsung corby

caranya sama tinggal pasang applikasinya nanti status facebook update via…? bagaimana anda suka mana update fb via laptop kredit atau via nokia 3315 yang jadul....... hihihihihi

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And the best Linux desktop distro of all is...

When it comes to Linux, there is no one size fits all answer. But, unlike other desktop operating systems, Linux doesn't try to squeeze you into a system's that's too large or too small. Instead, Linux offers a wide variety of distributions and one of them is likely be the right one for you.

Linux, you see, is a family of operating systems. They share the same father, but each distribution has its own personality and its own audience. For example, if you really wanted to, you can have a Linux distribution that looks and act like Windows XP, but which underneath its Microsoft-like surface is actually running Ubuntu Linux. Or, if that doesn't strike your fancy, you can always make the popular Ubuntu distribution into a Mac OS X look-alike.

[ How to give Linux a try ]

Better still, you can find a Linux that will do what you want it to do. After all, despite silly tales of how you have to be some kind of technical wizard who chants "awk, grep, sed" at a shell command prompt to use Linux, anyone can run Linux these days. The default Linux desktop KDE or GNOME graphical interfaces may not look quite like the ones you're used to but they're every bit as easy to use and as powerful. Yes, once in a blue moon you may need to modify a configuration file by hand, but you'll need to do it no more often than a Windows user has to do the exact same kind of thing with the regedit command.

The real question isn't, "Can I run Linux?" It's "which Linux is best for me?" Here's my guide to help you find the right one for you.

I just want to play with it and see what Linux is like

No problem. There's a variety of ways to tinker with Linux and never have to buy or install anything permanently. For that matter, you may already have Linux on your present PC and never have realized it. Many laptops come with an instant-on setting that lets you browse the Web and check e-mail without ever booting up. If your notebook does that, chances are you're already running an instant-on Linux like DeviceVM's SplashTop.

If not, there are many other ways to give Linux a try without any trouble. For more on these check out my earlier feature, How to give Linux a try.

I just want it to run. Period.

OK, what you need to do then is to buy a netbook, laptop, or PC that already has Linux installed on it. Once upon a time that was hard to do. These days it's no trouble at all to find vendors that offer Linux already installed and ready to go.

The best known major vendor that wants to sell you a computer with desktop Linux ready to go is Dell. Dell usually offers three to four systems with Ubuntu already installed. The mix always includes at least one netbook and one laptop. At the moment, my favorites of their selection is the Mini 10v, a nice little netbook, and the Studio XPS 13, a powerhouse laptop.

These are easy-to-use, handy systems for both individuals and SOHO (Small Office/Home Office) users. But, say you're an engineer and you want a heavy-duty system with a business class operating system, what then? Dell has you covered again with its Dell Precision Workstations with Red Hat's RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) WS 5.3.

You don't have to go with Dell though. Other major hardware vendors like HP and Lenovo also offer pre-installed Linux on desktop systems. I'm loath to recommend them though because, frankly, they make it very hard to find their Linux-powered systems. Your better choice is to go with a smaller company that stands behind its Linux PCs like Los Alamos Computers, system76, or ZaReason. For a more comprehensive list of companies that sell computers with Linux ready to go see LXer's Pre-Installed Linux Database.

I want an easy to use Linux

Ubuntu is the default answer for anyone looking just for an easy-to-use desktop Linux with a huge, friendly user community who are ready to help. It has that reputation for a reason: Ubuntu really is easy.

What Ubuntu doesn't come with, by design, is some popular proprietary programs such as Adobe Flash or Reader. If you want those programs, but you don't want to bother tracking them down and installing them with the Ubuntu Software Center, what you want is a Linux distribution that comes with these programs either already installed or makes it really easy to install them.

If that's you, what you want is Mint or Novell's openSUSE. Mint is based on Ubuntu but includes most of the more popular proprietary goodies. I've used Mint a lot and I've grown quite fond of it. Indeed, for users who just want something that's simple to use and comes ready to work with Flash, PDFs, and the like, it's probably your best choice.

OpenSUSE is also an old favorite of mine, but it's more of a business desktop distribution, which reminds me...

I want a Linux desktop for my business.

Red Hat has a business desktop, but Novell puts more effort behind making their Linux desktops work and play well in corporate offices. If you want an official, fully-supported business Linux desktop then Novell's SLED (SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop) is the one for you.

I've been using SLED for years and, as far as I'm concerned, it, not Windows, is my business desktop of choice. It's easy to manage, simple to upgrade, and far more secure than Windows will ever be. Besides, it also fits in nicely with Windows Server-based networks so you can slowly migrate your way from Windows to SLED while keeping your existing AD (Active Directory) network infrastructure.

Another plus in SLED's favor is that you can always try its community-based little brother, openSUSE first. I use openSUSE myself both on desktops and servers and I've always liked it. If it works for you too, you can then move up to full corporate support with SLED.

I hate, hate, proprietary software.

If you spit when you hear Bill Gates on TV and think Novell is a traitor to Linux for partnering with Microsoft, then there are several Linux distributions just for you. The one I've used the most is gNewSense. A variation of gNewSense is also RMS' (Richard M. Stallman), free software's founder, preferred Linux distribution.

I'm not crazy about proprietary software, but what I really want is cutting edge Linux.

Sound like you? Then, chances are you're already using Fedora. This, Red Hat's community distribution, is both an outstanding Linux in its own right and takes Linux about as far as you can go without being a Linux kernel developer.

What's that? You want to be a Linux kernel developer? Well, the other distribution you might want to look at is Gentoo. This source-code based distribution lets you gets your hands dirty with every aspect of the Linux experience. It is, in no way, shape, or form, a distribution for beginners. But, if you really want to know Linux from the inside out, it's the operating system for you. You'll also want to check out the Linux Foundation's free training Webinars to see how the real pros of Linux go about building Linux.

I've got computer troubles and I've heard Linux can help.

You've heard right. There are several Linux distributions that are designed to help you bring dead PCs back to life no matter what operating system they're running. I have two favorites in this line: Damned Small Linux, which will run on almost any 486 or newer PC, and SystemRescueCD. With both, I've brought PCs back from fried hard drives, corrupt memory, and innumerable cases of Windows malware crud. If you ever do computer repair, you must have at least one of these in your repair kit. They're incredibly powerful and useful.

OK, so what do you use?

Who? Me? After more than a decade in Linux, I use several Linux distributions on a daily basis. These include Fedora 12, openSUSE 11.2, and Ubuntu 9.10. For work-a-day desktop work I tend to stick with openSUSE and one distribution I haven't mentioned yet: MEPIS.

MEPIS is relatively unknown and that's a pity. What I like about it is that it combines ease of use and great stability. Linux systems are known for running for weeks and months without problems, but MEPIS is exceptional even by those exacting standards. I'm sure I rebooted my main desktop sometime last fall, just don't ask me which month!

In addition to those virtues, this Debian-based distribution provides a nice blend of cutting edge software with old favorites and it also includes access to the most important proprietary programs. If it wasn't such a small operation—it has only one developer—I'd recommend without reservation as a business desktop. Some day, I hope some venture capitalist will realize what a diamond in the rough MEPIS is, and give it the kind of support it needs to become a major Linux player. In the meantime, if you know some Linux and you want an outstanding distribution with a KDE interface, may I recommend you give MEPIS a try. You'll like it.

So, did I miss your situation? Drop me a note here in the comments and I'll see if I can find just the right distribution. In the meantime, I'd also like to know what distributions you've found to be your perfect fit and why.

Now, with all that being said, get on and give Linux a try. You'll be glad you did.

Read more about operating systems in ITworld's Operating systems section

source : ITworld.com

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Forecast 2010: 6 hottest skills for 2010

Pent-up demand for new projects. Veteran employees leaving the company. Who could complain about such pressures in the waning months of 2009, when the year was spent under a cloud of economic misery?

Certainly not Shane Kilgore, IT director at Randall-Reilly Publishing Co. in Tuscaloosa, Ala. He was dismayed to see two talented software developers give notice recently. One had five years under his belt and the other had 10, but Kilgore took their departures as a sign that the economy is taking its first steps toward recovery. He plans to hire a few new developers this year, not only to replace the ones who left, but also to work on new products that will be in demand when -- as many economists predict -- the recovery gains headwind this year. (Read more about the outlook for IT compensation and hiring inComputerworld's Salary Survey.)

"Things have been frozen because of the economy," Kilgore says. "But if we don't get new products out there, we won't have enough places for customers to put their money."

Still, with signs pointing to recovery and even job growth in 2010, companies such as Randall-Reilly are planning to hire only in key areas, and even then, they will favor people with skills that span multiple disciplines. In many cases, companies will still resist bringing on full-time employees, says Tom Silver, senior vice president for North America at Dice Holdings Inc., which operates Dice.com and other careers Web sites. "One thing we see companies do is bring people in on a project basis, and then as business comes back, they hire them full time," Silver says.

According to Computerworld's 2010 Forecast survey, this year's hiring plans certainly aren't at 2009 levels. Less than 20% of the 312 IT executives polled said they plan to increase IT head count in the next 12 months, compared with 26% in the previous year. And nearly 20% said they plan to decrease their IT head count.

For IT professionals who are either looking to get back into the workforce or mulling moves to greener pastures, here are the six types of skills most in demand among survey respondents who said they expect to hire IT workers in 2010.

1. Programming/Application Development

Among companies that plan to hire, the top reason for doing so is to meet demand for new systems and projects. That could be why programming/application development is the skill set that's most in demand, by far, according to Computerworld's survey.
"We're actually seeing new projects get the green light," says Dave Willmer, executive director of IT staffing firm Robert Half Technology. Quite possibly, he says, these were projects that were canceled at the end of 2008, only to be revived for 2010. The wave of new projects is also leading to demand for application developers who can double as business analysts and project managers, Willmer says. (Read Willmer's recent column, "IT hiring poised for skills-driven rebound.")

Specifically, companies will look for developers with knowledge of .Net, Java, Web development, open source and portal technologies such as Microsoft Corp.'s Sharepoint, says Willmer, who is a Computerworld columnist.

Demand is growing for people who know specialized programming languages like Ruby on Rails and AJAX, Silver notes. There aren't many jobs that require those skills, he says, but the number of openings has increased since January 2009.

Kilgore says he would like to find a "hybrid" software developer who can also serve as a business analyst. "We need someone who can talk to the business and be a requirements gatherer, project manager and software developer, all rolled into one," he says. He also needs developers with open-source expertise -- a rare talent, he says -- as well as professionals familiar with Microsoft tools for the ERP and marketing intelligence sides of the business.

Willmer says it makes sense that companies are looking for developers with skills in other areas, such as business analysis or even quality assurance, since employers are concerned about the cost of talent. "They're making sure they get the most out of their resources," he says.

Computerworld's Forecast survey respondents said they also need developers to build homegrown applications in an effort to save money. That's the case for James Sullivan, manager of information services at Covidien, a global health-care company in Mansfield, Mass.

Sullivan soon hopes to add three or four business-savvy programmer/analysts with Java or .Net backgrounds and an understanding of SQL databases. That represents a 25% increase in his usual hiring levels, he says, and it's a departure from previous years when he looked for programming skills alone.

One of Covidien's 2010 projects is to migrate from third-party custom-built applications to commercial off-the-shelf applications or bring them in-house. This, Sullivan says, would reduce spending on vendors and consultants, as well as enable his group to provide the support and turn around business-driven changes more quickly. This dovetails with a growing trend at Covidien to better leverage existing resources. "If something takes 10 hours today, we're asking how we can make it take one-tenth of that," Sullivan says.

At Scottrade Inc., the recession didn't affect hiring, according to Ian Patterson,CIO at the online financial services company. He hired more than 150 IT professionals in 2009 and plans to hire up to 200 this year to meet demand for new internal and customer-facing applications, and to keep up with changes and expansions. He says he's mainly looking for people with C++, Java and C# skills and notes that the company is also implementing a Siebel CRM system for the call center.

Energy Northwest, a power supplier in Richland, Wash., also saw continued growth in 2009. CIO Keith Cooke is looking for computer and electrical engineers with Java, Web and .Net skills to help fully Web-enable an internal system that is partially Web-based but still uses a terminal-based interface. Initially, he didn't want to retrain staff to use a browser-based interface. Now, however, "we're bringing on people who can help us adapt our legacy system to the new workforces coming in," Cooke says.

2. Help Desk/Technical Support

It's no surprise that there will be strong demand for the people who make the help desk hum in 2010, Silver says. The need for support technicians tends to reflect general business conditions, he says. "As the business starts to improve, companies hire more people, which increases demand for help desk staff," Silver explains.

Willmer says he's already seeing a rise in demand for help desk and support skills, especially among companies that cut too deeply in this area in 2009. "They can get away with it for a certain time period, but it eventually catches up and affects revenue," he says. Instead of offering full-time positions, however, some companies are hiring on a project basis, he adds.

3. Networking

The demand for networking professionals, Willmer says, is likely connected to the growing complexity of networks and to the stresses placed on them by virtualization and newly popular approaches to application delivery, such as cloud computing and software as a service.

Cooke says the network will be a big area of focus in the coming year. Energy Northwest is making increasing use of video and voice over its IP network, so it will need network, voice and radio engineers to handle upgrades and ensure compliance with new federal mandates. One of those mandates requires the company to move from wideband to narrowband radio frequencies.

Patterson sees Scottrade dabbling with a converged infrastructure in the next 12 months, driving a need for people with a mix of server, software and networking skills to support networked storage and server devices contained in a single chassis. "This will change the market for the type of people we need," he says. "It won't be just a guy who knows EMC and Hitachi storage, but [one] who knows server, storage and networking all in one device. We'll need a guy who says, 'The network has a problem here,' but when he traces it down, the problem is due to a lock on a table in the storage device."

4. Project Management

Silver sees project management as an area that is growing in importance and a good avenue for technology professionals interested in building up their careers. "Professionals who understand technology and how it fits in the overall business strategy are the ones who add the most value, get paid more and have the most fulfilling careers," he says.

5. Security

Willmer sees a relationship between demand for security skills and the still-shaky economy. "The biggest threat to companies is breaches by their own staff," he says. "When you throw in changes to the staff and disgruntled employees losing their benefits or facing the threat of being laid off, you increase the chances of network fraud or security infringement."

Meanwhile, Cooke is concentrating on hiring people with cybersecurity skills. "Ten years ago, we didn't worry -- as leaders in our companies -- about things like passwords," he says. "Now we're making sure we support complex passwords. That's just a new reality."

Energy Northwest is looking for recent graduates who studied computer engineering and digital controls to help upgrade its manufacturing systems from analog to digital. "They need to understand how those systems should be protected, given the security world we're operating in," Cooke says, citing new federal regulations and threat warnings emanating from the Department of Homeland Security.

Patterson thinks the trend toward including security features in network and storage devices will also affect the skills professionals need in this realm. "I can't believe in the long term that you won't see companies like EMC or Cisco not embedding security into their devices," he says. "We're going to need people who understand not just how to run things from a server or storage or network perspective, but also the security implications."

Security is an evergreen skill, according to Silver. "If you know how to help keep your company's information secure, there will be a home for you forever," he says.

6. Business Intelligence

Computerworld's survey respondents ranked business intelligence skills as No. 6 in importance; for Kilgore, however, BI is a higher priority. "Being a smaller midsize organization, we're late to the game in BI," he says. "We don't have the budget to do a year's worth of R&D; we have to be effective with it out of the gate."

Sullivan would like to find a data architect to help with Covidien's conversion from a nonstandard business intelligence system and miscellaneous reporting tools to an enterprise standard. More important than a BI expert, though, are programmer/analysts who can relate the nitty-gritty of data tables, database joins and data structure to business requirements. "That's what I'm finding is more valuable to us at this stage in getting BI established and used by the business," Sullivan says.

Meanwhile, at Scottrade, Patterson sees BI intertwined with Web 2.0. Whereas BI has traditionally been understood as a system that collects historical data and provides tools to analyze it, he says, he's now more interested in real-time BI that relies, for instance, on people entering competitive data into a wiki and providing that information almost instantaneously via a portal.

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