Hardware-assisted virtualization, now available from both AMD and Intel, is not a breakthrough but the beginning of one. AMD's SVM (Secure Virtual Machine) and Intel's VT (Virtualization Technology) signal a sea change in CPU design assumptions and t...
An ugly truth about the IT job market is that opportunists too often dominate it. Honest employers and job candidates suffer because they're forced to compete with cutthroats. Black hat employers see workers through the lens of the recession -- as pr...
I admit to frequently harboring unrealistic expectations. With that in mind, here's my early take on why hiring managers are having a hard time finding good tech workers in the United States.
Apple Computer extended the courtesy of meeting with me one day after my column on the <a href="http://www.linuxworld.com.au/index.php/id;880512017;fp;16;fpid;0">closing of the OS X x86 kernel source code</a> was published online.
The popular new PPW (performance per watt) measure of value for CPUs is snake oil, no matter which vendor's brochures and billboards hawk it. At least IT has the convenience of a two-variable formula to determine where your hardware dollars should be...
Intel's present drumbeat around the upcoming Core Microarchitecture, multicore technology, and low power utilization is intended to give Intel a major PR boost in the CPU battle with AMD. A fresh coat of paint on a retreat to a mobile architecture mu...
If you view system virtualisation as an escalating priority, this is a good time to stop and think about client systems and applications before dipping your brush and drawing that first block in a grand virtualisation architecture.
The news of counterfeit Intel-based Macs surfacing in Asia shocked me into seeing the magnitude of the piracy/counterfeiting threat. Counterfeit or cloned Macs (I don't know if thieves are bothering to mimic the chassis designs) create the frightenin...
Mac developers and power users no longer have the freedom to alter, rebuild, and replace the OS X kernel from source code. Stripped of openness, it no longer possesses the quality that elevated Linux to its status as the second most popular commercia...
I saw Jonathan Schwartz, Sun's new CEO, speak at a pre-recession trade conference. It wasn't a conference to announce the recession, although Sun would have been the outfit to sponsor that shindig. Schwartz uttered three words that stuck in my head a...
There are only a few markets ideally suited for virtualization. One of them is software development. As the scene is usually painted, the developer sits at his or her desk, compiles new software, and launches it in a virtual machine so that when it c...
If you view system virtualization as an escalating priority, this is a good time to stop and think about client systems and applications before dipping your brush and drawing that first block in your grand virtualization architecture.
This week's spike in my job-satisfaction index is sponsored by that least likely of catalysts, Dell Computer. Dell's acquisition of the low-volume, high-end PC maker Alienware is so strategically brilliant that I may have to find a new exemplar for t...
A new alliance headed by EMC's VMware division hopes to make it easier to deploy virtualised desktops in the enterprise and make bulky, unmanageable standalone PCs a thing of the past.
On April 4, a date chosen because April Fools' Day fell on a Saturday, Apple released a freely downloadable beta utility called <a href="http://www.apple.com/bootcamp">Boot Camp</a>. Boot Camp has one astonishing, if not bizarre, purpose: To give Int...
