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New tech advice: don't learn to code

flickr/D.Begley

Jeff Atwood says "Please Don't Learn to Code," for a variety of reasons. Angry commentary erupted immediately.

BitTorrent not always piracy, says Wil Wheaton

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Geek TV star uses Ubuntu 12.04 download as example of legal BitTorrent use.

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Refer.ly: recommending products for personal profit
- Posted May 16, 2012 - 11:13 am
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Startup redirects affiliate payments to those who recommend products, gives them slice of $3 billion in affiliate commerce.
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Lenovo working with Intel on ThinkPad Windows 8 tablet
- Posted May 15, 2012 - 12:06 am
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Lenovo is working with chip maker Intel on a future ThinkPad tablet based on Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system, a Lenovo executive said.
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Why even the least geeky are hot for solid-state drives
- Posted May 15, 2012 - 2:46 pm
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High cost and a reputation for flakiness limited sales of SSD flash drives as alternatives to hard drives. Cost and flakiness are still a little high, but both are dropping, making SSDs waaaay sexier to consumers than cloud or virtual storage, no matter what geeks think about it.
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Windows Phone smokes Android, iPhone, but no one wants it
- Posted May 15, 2012 - 7:35 am
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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.
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New DDR4 memory to boost tablet, server performance
- Posted May 15, 2012 - 9:39 pm
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Although the standard for DDR4 memory won't be finalized until summer, several companies are already preparing to ship modules that will boost performance in data centers and on consumer devices
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Moving from CouchDB to MySQL, or vice versa
- Posted May 14, 2012 - 10:40 am
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Sauce Labs decided they needed to dump CouchDB and move to MySQL. Two years ago, a different blog detailed how and why to move from MySQL to CouchDB.
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Startup uses DDOS to confuse BitTorrent sites
- Posted May 14, 2012 - 10:51 am
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New "Pirate Pay" Russian-based startup, partially funded by Microsoft, monitors illegal files and stops the download process.
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Use the Facebook privacy controls you have
- Posted May 14, 2012 - 1:44 pm
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One of the biggest issues people have with social networks is how or where their personal information is being shared. Updates to the Facebook privacy policy have some privacy advocates up in arms--perhaps for good reason. But, the irony is that many people who claim to be concerned about personal privacy don’t even use the controls at their disposal.
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Adobe backpedals, will now patch software for free
- Posted May 13, 2012 - 8:35 pm
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Changes tune after customers, security pros condemned Adobe's advice to spend hundreds on upgrades to get fixes.
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Facebook proposes more changes to privacy policy
- Posted May 13, 2012 - 8:58 pm
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Critics are skeptical about the move's timing just before the company's IPO.
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The Big Deal About Big Data

by Irfan Khan

Taking the measure of big data: More is more

Posted May 15, 2012 - 08:00 am

Some believe that 99.9% of big data is worthless, but I disagree. What you might discard as worthless today, may be useful to another analyst tomorrow. It depends on the questions you ask the data, how you ask them, and when.
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The TechnoFile

by Peter Smith

Nvidia shaking up cloud-based gaming

Posted May 16, 2012 - 08:30 am

Nvidia claims they can eliminate lag from cloud-based gaming while reducing costs for the game providers.
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Open for Discussion

by Brian Proffitt

Mozilla retreating on Linux?

Posted May 16, 2012 - 12:19 pm

Mozilla is resisting app marketplace support on Linux. Is this the beginning of a trend that will see Firefox knocked off the Linux hill?
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Thank You For Not Sharing

by Dan Tynan

This is the golden age of Facebook privacy

Posted May 15, 2012 - 12:19 pm

After Facebook's IPO, the only way the company can boost revenues is by sharing more and more of your data. So enjoy what little privacy you have left before it's gone.
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Unix as a Second Language

by Sandra Henry-Stocker

How to enforce password complexity on Solaris

Posted May 12, 2012 - 07:44 pm

Solaris 10 is the first version of Solaris to provide a complex set of variables for controlling password strength. The /etc/default/passwd file contains a series of parameters -- most commented out when a system is first installed -- that allow you to exercise some fairly rigorous constraints on the passwords your users may select.
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Tech Business Today

by Chris Nerney

Facebook IPO sucker scheme task list almost complete

Posted May 15, 2012 - 11:00 am

Facebook's long campaign to set up suckers for its IPO is nearly complete. Suckers, please report to the starting gate.
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CoreIT

by Kevin Fogarty

Courts quash copyright trolls; recognize IP address is not a person

Posted May 16, 2012 - 02:35 pm

A little technical understanding works wonders in court; even a <em>little</em> bit, like knowing the difference between an IP address and a person, or that WLANs, poaching, wardriving and bad geolocation make accusations based on IP more random than righteous
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ITworld.TV

by Keith Shaw

Game of Thrones theme song performed by floppy disk drives

Posted May 16, 2012 - 02:21 pm

If something succeeds on YouTube, just try, try again and keep succeeding.
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Sounding Board

by CIO Executive Council

Business leaders spearhead BI decisions

Posted Mar 25, 2012 - 03:35 pm

Members from the CIO Executive Council weigh in on why they are putting IT in the background on business intelligence. Add your opinion and advice.
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Your IT Career

by Eric Bloom

You know you’re talking too technically to your business users when...

Posted May 15, 2012 - 05:57 pm

As much as we love the technologies we use and how they work, most of our business users don’t. Business users are looking for solutions to their problems and not necessarily the behind-the-scenes technologies that make it work.
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Mobilize!

by Kevin Purdy

An epic battle of good and bad (rumor sources)!

Posted May 16, 2012 - 01:57 pm

Your dad’s Wall Street Journal was the sheet that aimed to tell you everything you needed to know that morning to face the many-headed, irrational beast known as The Market. Your Wall Street Journal? It wants to have the very best sourcing on what your next iPhone is going to look like, and it usually succeeds.
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Data Center Diaries

by Beth Bacheldor

Greenpeace questions the green in clouds

Posted Apr 30, 2012 - 11:45 pm

That apple ain’t green.
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