Sean Michael Kerner

From the “we’re working on it…” files: So Ubuntu is taking a little heat for not being the world’s largest contributor to the Linux kernel.org community. BUT they are about to finally join a major effort to improve Linux kernel quality for all. Ubuntu is on the verge of fully participating in the Kernel Oops […]

Applications begin with developers, so it makes sense that security should start with them as well. At least, that’s the thinking at IBM, which is taking the wraps off its new AppScan Developer Edition security, built on technology that IBM acquired when it bought application security vendor Watchfire last year. Many security tools, including those […]

From the “speak with action not words” files: Leading kernel developer (and Novell employee) Greg Kroah-Hartman is not a particularly big fan of Ubuntu and its lead commercial sponsor Canonical. In fact Kroah-Hartman recently delivered a stinging keynote address (which he has now posted online) in which he layed out the contributions that Canonical has […]

From the “how fast can you go?” files: Google Chrome who??? Apple is upping the ante in the race for the fastest JavaScript engine with its new SquirrelFish Extreme engine. The new engine according to specs published by Apple WebKit developers show at least 2x faster than SquirrelFish (which already was lighting fast). The new […]

NEW YORK — The need for regulatory compliance is driving spending on security. Yet is it actually improving security overall? It really depends on who you ask, according to industry experts from RSA, MasterCard Worldwide, Forrester Research and Depository Trust Clearing Corporation. Representatives from these companies debated the merits of PCI compliance as well as […]

From the “AYBABTU” files: Cisco is buying Jabber, the lead commercial vendor behind the popular open source XMPP (aka Jabber) protocol. Jabber is used by millions worldwide (including me) and XMPP is the basis of Google’s Chat as well.�� Financial terms of the deal have not yet been publicly disclosed. “Enterprise organizations want an extensible […]

From the “use common sense” files: So as we all know Alaska Gov and VP candidate Sarah Palin’s Yahoo! email was hacked. The attack vector used by the hacker (allegedly the son of a Tennessee state rep) was the password reset feature on Yahoo. It could have happened to any Yahoo user – or could […]

NEW YORK — According to Phillippe Winthrop, research director at Strategy Analytics, there are 172 million smart phones in use today, and that number will grow to 462 million by 2012. All of those users are going to want Web browsing capabilities, but what are browser vendors doing to support that demand? In a session […]

NEW YORK. In a session on compliance at Interop i just heard something that really resonated with me – CEOs should be more like hackers (in terms of security awareness). In a session on security compliance software Jim Routh, Chief Information Security Officer, Depository Trust Clearing Corporation noted that CEO’s and hackers have a lot […]

NEW YORK — Network access control, commonly referred to by its acronym NAC, has been one of the big buzzwords of the networking space for the last few years. At Interop, a panel of vendors argued that NAC has now reached a point of maturation, though audience members disagreed with the assertion claiming that interoperability […]

NEW YORK — Datacenters. Every big enterprise has them, but how many actually have solid metrics to determine the value of their datacenter? In a session at Interop, Andreas Antonopoulos, senior vice president and founding partner at Nemertes Research, asked participants how they measure their datacenters metrics. He noted that the metrics people use tell […]

NEW YORK — Wake up network administrators! Those networks you manage aren’t just about moving simple data around any more. That’s the message that leading executives from IBM, Cisco and Novell delivered at the Interop trade show today during the morning keynote sessions. Keywords in their talking points: social networking tools, virtualization, cloud computing and […]