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As children head back to classrooms, after what I hope were memorable vacations, I wonder if we as IT professionals are setting appropriately inspiring examples of the need for lifelong […]

When I left you all in charge of our infrastructure for three weeks, while I took one group of Boy Scouts on a 36-mile mountain backpack trip and took another […]

Software installation is what most defines a computer, but it's become one of the worst parts of enterprise computing. Complexity, inconsistency and risk of collateral damage entail substantial costs to […]

With 67 Java specification requests at the stage of final release and 31 more in earlier stages of review, the Java platform is still very much a work in progress--mostly […]

I suspect that the human brain is wired, at its lowest level, to take more notice of speed than of size. This makes sense as a matter of survival: A […]

Real-time information systems are seductive because they offer so many ways to quantify what they can do. This creates a powerful temptation to focus on technical comparisons among competing offerings. […]

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY JBuilder 9 JBuilder 9 is a surprisingly significant upgrade to Borland's exemplary Java development environment, incorporating project life-cycle management technologies acquired by the company since the last release […]

Microsoft Corp.'s Visual Studio .Net 2003, released the same week as Windows Server 2003, walks hand-in-hand with that platform to help buyers discover its benefits for distributed service deployment. eWEEK […]

It's not an easy time to be Intel Corp. or Advanced Micro Devices Inc. The launch of AMD's Opteron emphasizes the difference between their technology strategies, but the companies are […]

To users and operators of information systems, the plummeting costs of digital storage and processing power are becoming as much a threat as a blessing when it comes to protecting […]

When something that might be a useful tool appears at the edge of your vision, your brain gets ready to grab it--before you've consciously noticed it's there. When tools are […]

When CNN Headline News reporters asked me for comments on the Ptech incident, I'll bet they were anticipating a reassuring reality check. I'd guess, based on the way they framed […]

Readers of my weekly newsletter know that I see e-mail as a mixed blessing. Yes, it's a new and improved nervous system for our business and personal lives, but it's […]

Like the cobbler's children who go without shoes, an IT department may be fully engaged in equipping enterprise profit centers with the latest management tools and yet find itself without […]

I've never understood the reluctance of top-tier PC builders to incorporate AMD chips in their enterprise-oriented machines. When Hewlett-Packard announced last week that it's putting AMD Athlon processors in its […]

I've heard from dozens of readers in response to my July 1 column, describing my search for a complete disk defragmentation solution for my Windows NT and Windows 2000 machines. […]

It's bad enough that 'the new HP' is going against my judgment, but when it defies Consumer Reports--well, that may be an even worse sign. I'm talking about the first […]

Even after 30 years of using tiny computers, I can still be impressed by the work that they make possible for tiny teams with tiny budgets. When university students enter […]

When management wants to measure something now or predict something yet to occur, a software developer will probably have to come up with the final form of the algorithm that […]

As we head this week for San Francisco and the seventh annual JavaOne conference, I can tell you that one of the things most worth seeing will be M7 Web […]

The Bernard M. Gordon Prize, presented last month for the first time by the National Academy of Engineering (www.nae.edu), recognizes the need to build bridges between engineers and the disciplines […]

'Information consumes attention,' as Nobel economist Herbert Simon famously observed. 'A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.' The Web, by this measure, makes all of us paupers: It […]

An aggrieved eWeek reader wants to know why hardware vendors waste their money--not to mention their customers' time--by merely going through the motions of trying to solve a product problem. […]

When I posted my review of Microsoft's Visual Studio .Net on our Web site, I included an interactive poll to learn more about your interests and concerns. (You can review […]

Microsoft Corp.'s Visual Studio .Net, making its formal debut this week, is a good news/bad news proposition for app developers. The good news, as we'll discuss in a review next […]

Sybase Inc.'s Sybase Power-Designer 9.0, released last month, does more than any other tool set eWeek Labs has seen to coordinate the definition of business goals, the specification of enterprise […]

Do you remember the 'magic slate' devices that you probably used as a child? A translucent sheet, attached to a black, waxy background, with a stylus that made lines by […]

I've often predicted that Amazon.com would never turn a profit. I'll continue to say that the company will never yield a competitive return, but I'm not going to hedge: I […]

Prepare for a year in which application development tools demand your most careful attention. The opportunities and challenges of building and buying Web services are nearing the tip-over point: Anything […]

Developers will find Microsoft Corp.'s Office XP Web Services Tool kit a mixed offering: It eases the initial shock of confronting a new application model, but it also highlights the […]

In 1989, I reviewed Proware's $50 PC-MIX (Multitasking Interactive Executive), which brought astonishing concurrent capability to 8088- based DOS PCs. It created virtual machines that provided even more usable memory […]

As the business motivation for new IT projects rises higher on the radar of enterprise developers, System Architect, from Popkin Software and Systems Inc., can help managers ask and answer […]

If there's one thing that a Java development platform should be able to produce and host, it's a first-rate integrated Java development environment. Many candidates for that title have come […]

I can't carry a penknife on a flight from Los Angeles to San Francisco, but I can sell a supercomputer to Pakistan or the Ukraine. Welcome to 2002.In March 1999, […]

Experienced aviators warn novice pilots, 'the problem with a multiengine airplane is that sometimes you need them all.' During takeoff, for example, failure of even a single engine is a […]

During my years with EXXON, I developed an almost reverent awareness of the difference between 'capital' and 'expense.' The only good thing you could say about expense was that you […]

In his keynote speech this month at the internet world exhibition in New York, Compaq Chairman and CEO Michael Capellas proposed a dangerously self-serving view of the mission of IT […]

If your only tool is a hammer, it's often said, all prob lems look like nails. What, then, does the world look like to someone who owns a hammer factory?Oracle's […]

A former U.S. president may someday live down the quotation "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is." His sympathizers might include those who devise natural language […]

Internet attacks are a form of a public health problem, and this month's Top 20 list of Internet security risks offers tactics to contain this costly and potentially contagious nuisance. […]

When I've taught mba classes in quantitative methods, I've always had a hidden agenda. Yes, the syllabus has always included linear programming, forecasting and other number-crunching techniques. But I've always […]

Software quality assurance can be applied at any point in the pipeline that connects a user's need with a deployed solution. The choice of where to put that pressure must […]

Some experts on human behavior say it takes about 21 days to establish a habit. Others say it takes only three to 10 days to start a habit but 30 […]

Why do people call computer experts 'wizards'? or 'gurus'? Or other names suggesting magical powers? What happens when the magic runs out? n In his 1992 novel, 'Snow Crash,' Neal […]

It's easy to list the tools that were used in horrific acts and to argue that depriving ourselves of those tools will prevent future similar incidents. It's easy, but it's […]

Ask Motorola's engineers what they did on their summer vacation. The day after Labor Day, the company announced it had succeeded in growing layers of high- performance gallium arsenide on […]

The most appropriate icon for the proposed combination of Hewlett- Packard and Compaq might well be the Hindu god Shiva, multiarmed symbol of destruction and rebirth. With nearly parallel product […]

Have you ever bought a car because it had an 8,000-rpm engine? No, you haven't. So why would you ever buy a PC because it has a 2GHz CPU? n […]

With hyperthreading, Intel Corp. offers the cost-effective performance of multithreaded execution without the infrastructure costs of multiprocessor systems. At the same time, by opening formerly internal hardware to use by […]

Among california-based, high-tech companies, the strongest brand belongs to-may I have the envelope, please-Hewlett-Packard.nAccording to Connecticut-based Corporate Branding, HP is outranked only by Honda, Toyota and (in first place) Disney. […]