Sean Michael Kerner

The open source PostgreSQL database is out with a new release today that introduces new administration and database features for users. In total, PostgreSQL 8.4 includes 293 enhancements from the previous 8.3 release, an update that was primarily centered around performance. “There is no performance change [that] affects all users equally across the board,” PostgreSQL […]

VoIP is often thought of as technology that runs on top of routing equipment as a means for converging voice traffic onto IP networks. A new approach from Juniper Networks (NASDAQ:JNPR) is taking VoIP convergence a layer deeper, rolling VoIP and its associated security needs directly into routing gear. Juniper’s approach could potentially have a […]

Commercial buildings use a lot of power, not all of it wisely. It’s an area that Cisco sees as being ripe with opportunity to help energy producers, building managers and the cities in which they exist all manage power more efficiently. Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) today announced a new initiative — dubbed Smart Connected Buildings — […]

From the ‘some point releases are bigger than others‘ files: Red Hat today officially announced the beta availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4 (RHEL), which in my view is a lot more than a typical point release. Sure we’re all waiting for the big RHEL 6 release, but there are some major changes in […]

From the ‘public disclosure‘ files: Security research Aviv Raff has followed through on his promise of starting the Month of Twitter Bugs (MoTB). His first target? The popular bit.ly URL shortening service. Finding flaws in URL shortening services is not an entirely new phenomenon, just two weeks ago Cligs disclosed that upward of two million […]

From the ‘Black Hat mythos grows‘ files The Black Hat security conference is one that has a certain mystique surrounding it – which has been fuelled in recent years by controversial talks that get pulled. This year will be no different.  A presentation on how to hack ATMs, titled, ‘Jackpotting Automated Teller Machines’ has been […]

The open source PHP language is seeing its first major update in two years courtesy of today’s release of PHP 5.3, along with a long list of new features designed to expand its capabilities and accelerate performance. The PHP 5.3 release is a bigger release than developers first intended, and takes on some features that […]

The cloud represents a significant opportunity for many vendors across the IT landscape. And yet, while enterprise networking giant Cisco is actively pursuing several different avenues for its cloud business strategy, it’s not aiming to displace existing cloud service providers like Amazon. Instead, Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO) has a vision that entails playing in several other core […]

From the “GPLv2 and later‘ files: It was two years ago on June 29, 2007 that the GPL version 3 was finalized. The GPL is the cornerstone free/open source license in use, and at the time of the version 3 update there were many questions raised about how widely the new license would be adopted. […]

After a year of development, the browser that originally began life as Firefox 3.1 and codenamed “Shiretoki” is being released today by Mozilla. Firefox 3.5 includes the new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine, which accelerates the open source browser’s performance to be as much as three time faster than the prior Firefox 3.0 release. Mozilla has also […]

From the ‘sun spider says what?‘ files: A key feature of Google’s Chrome browser is its V8 JavaScript engine. But is it actually faster than other JavaScript engines? How do you measure that and is V8 compliant with all of the JavaScript specifications? For the most part, developers have used the standard SunSpider test that […]