Has rapidly changed. First there is a rush to the extremes, conspiracy theories and astrology make a comeback. All of the sudden people are conjuring up all sorts of doomsday scenarios. Historic timelines get longer with comparisons going back 100-200 years. A british journalist talks about world wars and reminds us that the last credit crunch gave us nazi germany. The crazy talk is off the charts. Then the finger pointing is thick, kind of disgusting and in my opinion somewhat arbitrary. We need scapegoats. It all smells of panic and reminds me of "when you don't know what to do, blame someone". On the positive side, I believe this crisis to be different than every other by the presence of the internet. The speed and the amount of information is a new variable, does it accelerate the timeline of the crisis? Does it make us stronger by allowing us to figure out what is ... (more)

Virtual R&D: Accelerating VM live migration

Great guest post over at Virtualization.info by Kevin Lawton, Lead developer of Bochs on how to accelerate VMs live migration by 4-10x. In the post he points out that one of the keys to accelerating VM migration time is to make use of duplicate memory throughout the compute fabric. He also says that using relatively slow VM migration as a mechanism for scheduling, has a number of risks and short-comings, which leave its full potential untapped. According to Lawton, "The time within which workloads can ebb and flow (and spike) is much quicker than the response time available to the scheduler to re-schedule VMs on other servers. As a result, the scheduler has to be ultra-conservative, otherwise it may break SLAs and/or create troublesome load-based hot-spots. By contrast, if the scheduler could expect near instantaneous VM migrations, it could perform much higher fideli... (more)

Oracle+MySQL Opponents Take to the Barricades

MySQL Journal on Ulitzer Monty Widenius, the creator of the MySQL open source database – which is apparently all that stands between Oracle and its acquisition of Sun – thinks that Oracle shouldn’t have his baby and that the European Commission – whose investigation into MySQL has put the Oracle-Sun merger in limbo – should force Oracle to spit it out to another company. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, a guy with a collector’s temperament not given to letting things that belong to him go, has said he wants to keep MySQL and has claimed to be watching Sun’s revenue plunge by $100 million a month while he waits for the EC to finish its probe, a exercise that could take well into January. MySQL isn’t supposed to be why Larry shocked everybody and offered $7.4 billion for poor down-on-its-heels Sun back on April 20. Sticking it to IBM was probably something he relished and wi... (more)

Caching: Up and Down the Stack

The other month I presented Caching Up and Down the Stack at the Boston Web Performance meetup. It was great to get the chance to present to the 60+ people who came out for the talk. Unsurprisingly, many of the people there knew a lot about caching in all of the different levels I touched on, and some great conversation developed. I covered six of the major areas of caching available to web devs today. On the HTML / JS / CSS side, you can use client asset caches, full-page HTTP caches (like Varnish) and partial template caches. On the back end, you can use generated code caches, manually cache objects in memory or nearby services or even enable your database’s query cache (though, as the audience reminded me, if you’re using MySQL, just don’t. See below for why). Caching at each layer has advantages and disadvantages, and throughout, you’ll only be effective if you... (more)

Thinking About Enterprise Mobility, Digital Transformation and Doctrine

Last week I was in Europe speaking and teaching enterprise mobility and digital transformation strategies.  I worked with several large multinational companies where I heard the same questions asked, "How do we convince our executives that we must change, and invest in change?  How do we establish a culture of innovation, capable of winning in a world of digital transformation?"  The change they were referring to had to do with the convergence of the physical world with the digital and its impact on markets.  These changes are introducing new ways of selling, marketing, manufacturing and moving products in a digital world that is rapidly being transformed as a result of innovations in social, mobile, analytics and cloud technologies.  We are seeing entire industries and marketplaces turned upside down as a result of these innovations.  How can companies deal with ... (more)

SC Magazine Recognizes Sourcefire for Best Intrusion Prevention System

Open source innovator and Snort® creator, Sourcefire®, Inc. (Nasdaq:FIRE), a leader in Enterprise Threat Management, today announced that Snort was named Best Intrusion Detection/Prevention Solution at the 2009 SC Awards. Sourcefire was presented with this Reader Trust Award during last Tuesday’s SC Awards Gala, held in conjunction with the annual RSA Conference in San Francisco, Calif. “Sourcefire is proud to be recognized by SC Magazine’s readers for delivering the best intrusion detection and prevention system in the industry,” said Michele Perry, Chief Marketing Officer at Sourcefire. “The combination of our continued innovation and the expertise of our Vulnerability Research Team provides our customers with leading protection against today’s dynamic threats, and this award highlights the value that Sourcefire and Snort deliver our worldwide user base.” With m... (more)

HF Financial Corp. Quarterly Earnings Per Share Increase 12.5 Percent; Announces Quarterly Dividend

SIOUX FALLS, S.D., April 27 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- HF Financial Corp. (Nasdaq: HFFC), reported earnings for the fiscal third quarter ended March 31, 2009 of $1.8 million, or $0.45 in diluted earnings per share, versus $1.6 million, or $0.40 in diluted earnings per common share in the comparable period in fiscal 2008, a 12.5 percent increase in diluted earnings per share. Revenue inclusive of net interest income and non-interest income totaled $12.2 million for the quarter, an increase of $1.7 million or 15.7 percent over the comparable period last year. Net interest income totaled $9.2 million for the quarter, an increase of $1.5 million or 18.9 percent over the same period last year. Net interest margin expressed on a fully taxable equivalent basis for the three month period was 3.55 percent, compared to 3.32 percent in the comparable period last year. Net inter... (more)

Lucky 7's: PROXY Pro 7 Remote Desktop Software Supports Windows 7

BOSTON, Oct. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Proxy Networks, Inc., a leading provider of remote desktop software for Windows since Windows 3.11, announced today the general availability of PROXY Pro 7.0, the newest version of its flagship product featuring remote PC access software for 32- and 64-bit versions of Windows 7, as well as 64-bit Windows Server 2008 R2. "Our customers and partners around the world told us they were excited about Windows 7. We worked hard to deliver PROXY Pro 7 so that they would have a reliable remote desktop solution, with full remote control and remote management capabilities, when Windows 7 was released," said Andy Kim, CEO of Proxy Networks, Inc. Mac & Linux, Too For the first time, PROXY Pro 7.0 introduces peer-to-peer remote access and remote control of Macintosh and Linux computers. The target machines must be configured to run a stand... (more)

A primeira impressora matricial de PostScript e PDF®, está agora disponível com a tecnologia OpenPrint™ da Printronix

A Printronix, Inc., líder mundial em soluções de negócios de impressão crítica, lançou hoje a primeira impressora matricial de PostScript e PDF®, com a introdução de sua nova tecnologia OpenPrint™. Compatível com os ambientes de planejamento de recursos empresariais (ERP), incluindo Oracle®, SAP®, Linux® e Windows®, a OpenPrint está agora disponível na série de impressoras matricial linear de cartuchos (HD) de alta definição P7000 da Printronix. Isto marca a primeira vez que uma tecnologia de impressão crítica de alto volume para negócios essenciais foi trazida para o mercado combinando a flexibilidade e o desempenho gráfico melhorado de PostScript e PDF com a confiabilidade incomparável, o menor custo de impressão e vantagens ambientais únicas das impressoras matriciais lineares. A Printronix, Inc., líder mundial em soluções de negócios de impressão crítica, lanço... (more)

TabTimes, the First Tablet Magazine about Tablets, Launches Today as a Web App

TabTimes, a news magazine devoted to tablet uses for business, work and productivity, launches today as an HTML5 web app for tablets. It is available now, free, at t.TabTimes.com. Produced by a team of seasoned and passionate journalists recruited for their experience at major tech publications, TabTimes reports on the tablet revolution in real-time with a mix of news, features, reviews, how-to stories and analyses. “In addition to covering the tablet industry,” offers George Jones, Editor of TabTimes, "we will showcase the many ways tablets are changing how people communicate, work, shop, play, learn and organize their lives." TabTimes’ mission is to show managers, professionals and business people how to unleash tablets to do more, work smarter, further their career and better their businesses. A core component of TabTimes’ content consists of interviews with and ... (more)

Turn Expands Video Advertising Capabilities, Updates Product Names

REDWOOD CITY, CA -- (Marketwire) -- 05/16/12 -- Turn today expanded its cross-channel campaign management capabilities with the introduction of advanced video advertising features: video engagement optimization and video companion ads. In conjunction with the release of these new features, the company also renamed its cloud applications to Turn Audience Suite and Turn Campaign Suite, better reflecting the breadth of services offered by those products. New Video Advertising Features Turn's new video engagement optimization capabilities help marketers maximize the impact of their online branding campaigns. This feature will predict users who are most likely to view video ads to completion and also predicts users most likely to take action on ads. In a May 2012 survey of Turn customers, more than 96 percent indicated they planned on increasing their online video adve... (more)