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Latest News

Developers, busy with Ice Cream Sandwich, not holding back for Android 5

Android developers at this week's AnDevCon developer conference were too busy dealing with current releases like Android 4 "Ice Cream Sandwich" to stall their development efforts for yet another OS upgrade. "You have to deal with what's available now," said Chris Morris, a developer for the Weather Channel
Security services among top employers IT students want to work for

MI5 and GCHQ are among the top 10 employers that IT students would like to work for, although the likes of Google and Apple still lead in the work popularity stakes.
Firefox on Windows RT 'probably not worth it'

Mozilla will "probably not bother" building a version of Firefox for Windows RT if Microsoft does not allow other browser makers to call important APIs for the new operating system, according to a Mozilla product director.
Microsoft battles PC bloat with new Signature tune-up

Microsoft has had the bloatware accusation thrown at it countless times but now the company reportedly wants to make money turning back the tide of PC-slowing software with a little-known service called ?Signature?.
Android, Samsung beat Apple's iPhone to top smartphone sales

Android smartphones made up 56 percent of the global smartphones sold to end users in the first quarter of 2012, giving them a far higher share than the 22.9 percent held by Apple's runner-up iPhone, Gartner said Wednesday.
Ubuntu Business Desktop Remix gets 12.04 'Precise Pangolin' update

Ubuntu Business Desktop Remix, launched by Canonical back in February and based on Ubuntu Linux 11.10 'Oneiric Ocelot', has now received a major update to version 12.04 'Precise Pangolin'.
Windows 8 to offer enhanced multi-screen working

When Microsoft launches Windows 8 Release Preview next month the operating system will have improved navigation features for users who like more than one monitor to display all their applications.
Spiceworks social network for IT pros hits 2m users

Spiceworks, the social business platform for IT professionals, has announced that it now has 2 million users, representing nearly 30 percent of all IT pros at small and medium-sized businesses worldwide.
Google releases Chrome 19 with patches for 20 bugs and new tab sync

Google released Chrome 19, patched 20 vulnerabilities in the browser and doled out $16,500 in bug bounties and rewards to independent researchers.
Avira antivirus upgrade wreaks 'catastrophic' havoc on Windows PCs

Avira has issued a service pack for its antivirus software that crippled an unknown number of Windows machines, with one customer calling the gaffe "catastrophic" to his company.

Latest Features

Computing fossils: Old tech that's still plugging along

Consider the abacus. Developed perhaps as long as 4,500 years ago, this handy gadget served the mathematical needs of merchants and accountants until the development of mechanical calculating machines in the 19th century. But the abacus hasn't been forgotten. Instead it still lives on in niches - for instance teaching preschoolers the basics of counting.
Windows Phone smokes Android and the iPhone - But nobody wants it

During Microsoft's recent Smoked by Windows Phone challenge, Microsoft-based devices were almost always faster at completing everyday tasks compared to Android and iPhone handsets. But even the fastest Windows Phone can't run away from the fact that nobody's buying Microsoft-powered handsets.
Cloud APIs ? Extending SOA and Web 2.0 architectures

Cloud APIs are emerging as a successful means of making cloud-based data centre resources and applications available to an array of web-connected devices in a flexible and cost-effective way.
Top 15 cloud storage tips and tasks

No single cloud service can do everything. Some shine when it comes to streaming a cloud music collection from the Web, but stink at syncing desktop folders. Other cloud services are great for sharing photos, but useless for reviewing a document's revision history.
Crowdfunding - The latest way to get your project funded

Programmers, manufacturers and developers who want to realise their creative vision without signing onerous contracts or relinquishing rights to their intellectual property now have an alternative to venture capitalists. Crowdfunding - the collection of funds directly from a target audience - has taken off. Small donations are adding up to hundreds of millions of dollars, many of them channeled through a service called Kickstarter.
Google Drive vs. Microsoft SkyDrive - 4 reasons Google is better

Google Drive, Google's online storage service is finally available after years of rumors, but with Microsoft's SkyDrive offering more space and better integration with Windows 8, is Drive really worth the wait?
Microsoft System Center 2012 switch simplifies virtual systems management duties

Switching from VMware to Microsoft's Hyper-V virtualisation environment is saving money for two businesses that are also using Microsoft's System Center 2012 to manage and monitor applications and the infrastructure that supports them.
Google Drive means 'personal cloud' will soon overshadow the PC

With the launch of Google Drive, the new cloud storage service unveiled by Google, mainstream tech users will soon find themselves engaging in cloud storage and file synchronisation among mobile, laptop and desktop systems.
SkyDrive improvements make cloud storage tool a threat to Dropbox

Microsoft is shaking things up with SkyDrive. The new features and capabilities move it out of the Microsoft-centric shadows and pit it more directly against Dropbox, and possibly the imminently rumored Google Drive. However, Microsoft also announced a change to SkyDrive that many won't appreciate.
Greenpeace asks Amazon and Microsoft: 'How clean is your cloud?'

Activists at Greenpeace intensified their environmental criticism of Amazon and Microsoft today by posting signage near the Seattle offices of both companies questioning the cleanliness of the companies' clouds.

How-tos

How to partition your hard drive and optimise performance

How to actually make money from mobile apps

How to migrate from Windows XP to 7, Windows Server 2003 to 2008 R2

How to keep your virtual machine estate under control

How to choose a server for your small business

Five reasons why you should host your own email

How to set up Linux on your computer

How to work faster in Microsoft Excel

Slideshows

Also in slideshows:

The ten most ridiculous tech lawsuits of the 21st century

Seven high profile execs who left Microsoft

Eight exciting commercial space projects

Featured White Papers

Migrating your applications to the cloud

Technologies are now available for both desktop virtualisation and application virtualisation. Many applications are already available in the cloud, including Salesforce, Google Docs and Microsoft?s Office 365. These cloud-based applications employ a web front end, with all the processing completed on databases hosted on public or private cloud storage.
Download whitepaper

Making desktop virtualisation part of your Windows 7 migration

Organisations are working to migrate their desktops to Windows 7 before Microsoft's 2013 deadline for withdrawal of Windows XP support. This paper explains how adopting desktop virtualization can simplify the Windows 7 migration, and additionally reduce costs, improve efficiency and enhance security around the desktop infrastructure. It?s like "killing two birds with one stone".
Download whitepaper

Securing Microsoft Exchange 2010 with VeriSign Authentication Services

This guide from VeriSign Authentication Services will help you take the guesswork out of implementing SSL for Exchange 2010, making it easier than ever to get the SSL certificate you need for a successful and secure Exchange implementation, and to take advantage of powerful capabilities such as Subject Alternative Names (SANs).
Download whitepaper

Extending SharePoint

This white paper examines five common and important business use cases that require collaborative functionality not available or practical using SharePoint or Office 365 alone, but are easily supported with the addition of SkyDox.
Download whitepaper

The Five Essential Elements of Application Performance Monitoring

Businesses are driving their IT operations managers to improve performance and boost productivity by becoming increasingly application-centric, a radical change of the infrastructure-centric approach that IT has had for years. At the same time, however, applications themselves are becoming increasingly difficult to manage as they move toward highly-distributed, multi-tier, multi-element constructs that in many cases rely on application development frameworks such as Microsoft .NET or Java.
Download whitepaper

Recommended in SME

Question of the day!

Are your management tools adequate for a hybrid cloud?

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Question of the day!

Are your management tools adequate for a hybrid cloud?

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Featured Reviews

Intel Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition review

Intel's Sandy Bridge architecture stole the limelight this year, summarily trouncing its predecessors, and the best that AMD had to offer, with considerable performance boosts and power savings. Today, Intel is announcing the Sandy Bridge Extreme Edition, an £800 CPU that distills the lessons the company has learned over the past year into a single piece of premium silicon. read more...

VMWare Fusion 4 review

Fusion 4 is the newest version of VMware's virtualisation solution for the Mac, which allows you to run multiple operating systems within Mac OS X. Since we reviewed Fusion 3, VMWare has added support for Lion and the ability to create OS X Lion virtual machines, reduced the consumption of system resources to zero when you aren't running a virtual machine, redesigned the settings window, and much more. read more...

Dell PowerEdge R715 review

New 16-core AMD Opteron 6200-series CPUs in the Dell R715 bring huge bang for the buck to wide virtualization workloads, but not until your OS supports it read more...

RescueTime review

Here's a question most of us can probably answer, at least approximately: How many hours do you spend in front of your computer every week? But here's a trickier one: How much of that time do you spend doing productive work, and how much of it do you spend watching cat videos? RescueTime ($9 per month) is an online service that tries to answer this question, and sometimes even succeeds. read more...

CrashPlan+ review

With the demise of MobileMe upon us, you’ll need to come up with a new backup solution if this Apple service is your current backup method of choice. If you’re a fan of online, cloud-based backups, then CrashPlan is one to consider. read more...