Microsoft: We won't update others' Windows apps

The new operating system will not update non-Microsoft software, said Farzana Rahman, the group program manager for Windows Update, in a blog post.

HP unveils its first business 'Ultrabook' laptop

"Hewlett-Packard introduced today its first business "Ultrabook," offering nine hours of battery life, a solid-state drive, and a security chip that protects data in email and information on the hard drive. (The Ultrabook term refers to thin, stylish Windows laptops mimicking Apple's MacBook Air.)"

"The new Ultrabook laptop, called the HP Folio, will also go on sale Dec. 7 at a starting price of $900. It has a 13.3-inch diagonal high-definition display, weighs 3.3 pounds, and is 0.7 inches thick. HP said the Folio is powered by the latest Intel Core processors without providing details, and can be configured with a range of Microsoft Windows 7 operating systems, including Windows 7 Professional. It also includes a solid-state drive (SSD) with 128GB of storage."

10 Things I Wish I'd Known Before Starting My IT Career

Written by Troy Tate :

IT is a demanding, ever-evolving field. In my more than 20 years of experience in IT I have learned many things. Here -- in reverse order -- are the 10 things I wish I'd known before I started an IT career:

10. Learn good troubleshooting techniques. Be prepared to troubleshoot -- in toolset and in attitude. Have the right tools in your toolkit and be sure of how to use them. And don’t cause more damage in the process. Get detailed information about the symptoms. Try to reproduce the problem, and isolate and attack one issue at a time. Repair or replace the defective system, test to ensure the fix works, and try to prevent future occurrences.

9. Not all users are created equal. In business, some employees expect a higher level of support due to their position in the organization. This can give rise to resource scheduling conflicts. For example, what should you do if the CEO calls with an issue at the same time you are working on the manufacturing line, restoring services to get a product out the door? This is where you have to weigh the needs of the one (the CEO) versus the needs of the many (customers).

8. Decide whether your skills will be broad and shallow or narrow and deep. There are many career paths in information technology. You can specialize in a specific technology or language or be a jack of all trades (JOAT in Internet-speak). Whatever you do, make sure you get the education and the support you need to be effective.

7. Communicate to those above, below, and beside you, and to those outside of IT. In other words, be prepared to communicate at the right level and understand the requirements of that communication.

6. Be a sponge. With information technology changing at such a fast pace, constant learning is crucial to remaining relevant and valued as an IT professional. Read all you can and understand what is relevant to your career and company (see No. 8).

5. Training does not make users -- or IT professionals -- smart. Users will always depend on IT to help them, even when they have been shown 20 times how to do the same task. On the other side of the fence, how many IT professionals do you know who have gone through training and certification programs and still cannot deliver expected levels of support?

4. Home technology is not equal to enterprise technology. Every IT professional’s nightmare is hearing, “Hey, I bought this cool thing last week and tried it at home and now I want to use it on the office network/PC/server.” Yes, there really is a difference between Windows 7 Home and Windows 7 Enterprise.

3. Vendors stretch the truth. You don’t have to buy top-dollar gear every time you buy something. I like this statement from Professor Ravi Sandhu of George Mason University, from a 2003 IEEE Internet Computing article: “1. Good enough is good enough. 2. Good enough always beats perfect. 3. The really hard part is determining what is good enough.” You will know you have a good vendor when they tell you, "This product performs as documented and may not be suitable for your purpose."

2. Get HELP! Learn when you have reached the limits of your capabilities. Many IT folks are driven to be the final problem solvers, but sometimes you can be a better troubleshooter when you know when and where to go for help.

1. Have FUN! Hey, geeks rule the Internet, right? Who else understands ID10T or PEBCAK errors?

[Editor's note: ID10T is a geek way of writing "idiot"; PEBCAK stands for “Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard” -- in other words, the user is an ID10T.]

— Troy Tate is IT Manager at CTS Corp. His IT certifications include CNE, CNA, Security+, and CEH.

Oracle® Database 11g Running on Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 Server Sets World Record TPC-H Three Terabyte Non-Clustered Benchmark Result

Benchmark Details

• Running on a Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 server, equipped with 32 SPARC64 VII 2.88 GHz processors, and Sun Storage 6180 arrays, Oracle Database 11g with Oracle Solaris achieved a world record TPC-H 3 TB non-clustered performance result of 198,907.5 QphH@3000GB with a price of $16.58/QphH@3000GB.

• Additionally, Oracle Database 11g running on the Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 server loaded the entire database 2.7 times faster than the IBM Power 595 system(3) while maintaining the highest level of storage redundancy.

big-endian and little-endian

"Big-endian and little-endian are terms that describe the order in which a sequence of bytes are stored in computer memory. Big-endian is an order in which the "big end" (most significant value in the sequence) is stored first (at the lowest storage address). Little-endian is an order in which the "little end" (least significant value in the sequence) is stored first. For example, in a big-endian computer, the two bytes required for thehexadecimal number 4F52 would be stored as 4F52 in storage (if 4F is stored at storage address 1000, for example, 52 will be at address 1001). In a little-endian system, it would be stored as 524F (52 at address 1000, 4F at 1001)."

techtarget.com

Exadata Samrt Flash Cache Changes the world of DB machines

Cloud Computing and Enterprise 2.0—Gain a Competitive Advantage

This presentation will begin on May 27, 2010 at 11:00 AM Pacific Daylight Time.


Audience members may arrive 15 minutes in advance of this time.

Event Date: Thursday, May 27, 2010
Time: 11 a.m. PT/2 p.m. ET
Duration: 60 minutes

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