With the rise of new, ultra-small netbook computers, Linux has a chance to make its case to consumers. Windows Vista usually won't fit on netbooks, XP already has one foot in the grave, and many netbook buyers may give Linux serious consideration when choosing what OS they want pre-installed. Microsoft says Windows 7 will target netbooks, but until that OS is released, the ball's in Linux's court.

Microsoft learned valuable lessons from the Windows Vista experience, even though the company spent much of 2008 pretending that nothing was wrong with it and that the market hadn't given it a fair shake.

Code maintenance is an important aspect of application development, one that is often ignored in favour of a faster time-to-market. For some applications, this may not pose a significant problem, since the life span of those applications is short or the application is deployed and never touched again. However, embedded systems applications may have life spans that are measured in decades, which means some early mistakes can result in significant costs later.

Microsoft showed off new Windows 7 innovations at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference this week. The focus was how the upcoming version of Microsoft's flagship product will make it easier for hardware partners to create new experiences for Windows PC customers.

Windows senior vice presidents Steven Sinofsky and Jon DeVaan rallied hardware partners, encouraging them to begin testing their current products and building new products on the application programming interface (API).

continue reading

IBM today is making available a new social networking tool called Pass It Along to help organizations take a more user-friendly, collaborative approach to knowledge sharing. The new technology expands the notion of social networking for employees and learners -- and includes advanced features such as learning paths, visual mapping and expertise profiling.
continue reading

I'm glad to say that web design in 2007 is better than ever. And it's not just because there are more web sites out there, so more good stuff to look at. There's still an awful lot of crud too. I just think that more web designers know more about how to design than ever before.

The examples below (which I'll roll over time) show excellent modern graphic design technique. They all look good, and are clear and easy to use.

Read the Entire Article

We aren’t going to discuss the implementation details (e.g. where the search box should be placed) as it has already been done in a number of articles; instead we focus on the main principles, heuristics and approaches for effective web design — approaches which, used properly, can lead to more sophisticated design decisions and simplify the process of perceiving presented information.

The release features a "role tailored" design that fine-tunes the system for a given employee's needs and job responsibilities. NAV 2009 also includes a range of business intelligence features employees can use to analyze data as well as .Net Web Services, for connecting Dynamics with other applications and functionality, such as a credit check system.

Don’t miss SQL Server Magazine Connections Conference, the premier event for Microsoft developers and DBAs, in Las Vegas, November 10-13. Every attendee will receive a copy of SQL Server 2008 Standard Edition with one CAL.

Virtualization.info, the most popular and trusted news source about virtualization technologies since 2003, invites you to attend its premiere conference: the Virtualization Congress. On a truly independent stage, you’ll see the top technical speakers from the biggest industry players presenting real products, side by side with newest startups, who will be announcing for the first time breakthrough technologies. Join the entire virtualization ecosystem for three days and meet the people that are changing forever the way we deliver IT infrastructures.

View this web seminar to see how you can virtualize the connections between servers and storage creating a shared pool of resources, and is a flexible and highly available platform for consolidating SQL Server infrastructure. Thus seeing no degradation in performance and management is streamlined making this an ideal solution for mission-critical SQL Server databases running SAP applications.

Join Microsoft for the 2nd Annual Microsoft BI Conference from October 6-8th in Seattle, Washington. You’ll gain insight from industry thought leaders; learn about how other Microsoft BI customers are having success; discover best practices and gain product insight from Microsoft’s product experts. Visit www.msbiconference.com for more information.

IndyTechFest is the premier Developer/DBA conference in Indianapolis. Hosted by IndyPASS and IndyNDA, this years' conference includes over 30 sessions to fill your day with training from product experts and Microsoft MVPs. Admission is free!

This two-day course will be most valuable to medical device software engineers, engineering managers, scientists, and quality engineers (particularly in product development). This course will also be beneficial to quality assurance and regulatory affairs personnel who are new to the industry or their current position and do not have an in-depth knowledge of Medical Device Software requirements.
continue reading

Dr Dave Chaffey, author of E-consultancy's Best Practice Guides, offers useful web design tips and discusses some common pitfalls to avoid.