Sean Michael Kerner

Just because a developer can produce code quickly doesn’t necessarily make the code run fast. That’s where new tools from vendors FiveRuns and New Relic come in. They ensure rapid delivery through its Ruby on Rails (RoR) performance profiling tools. Ruby on Rails (RoR) is a popular open source development framework because it enables rapid […]

Which U.S. state has the most high-speed Internet users? According to Akamai’s new State of the Internet report, it’s tiny Delaware that ranks first in the nation, with over 60 percent of its connections to Akamai’s content delivery network coming in at 5 megabits per second (Mbps) or faster. “The fact that Delaware was the […]

The Linux business is going well for Novell (NASDAQ: NOVL). In its second-quarter report for fiscal 2008 the company reported increased Linux business revenues that helped it post a profit for its overall business. Novell’s CEO Ron Hovsepian used the investor call with analysts as an opportunity to land a low blow against Linux rival […]

From the ‘it’s what all the cool kids use‘ files: Like everyone else, I’ve been a fan of Twitter (but don’t call me a Twit) since it debuted over a year ago. In the last week or so Twitter has had a bunch of problems with service disruption and the like – in response Twitter […]

[cob:In_Focus]The Semantic Web is a lofty idea intended to help connect sources of information and make sense of them. But how do you actually access the Semantic Web? If the Semantic Web turns out to be anything like the Web we all know and use today, then the gateway to the Semantic Web will be […]

Apple’s Mac OS X 10.5 ‘Leopard’ users should download the latest update to their OS, version 10.5.3 as soon as they can. The latest update includes a long list of updates (addressing no less than 35 security issues). Apple patching OS X 10.4 “Tiger” as well. Some of the high-level fixes in 10.5.3 include updated […]

Open source and higher education have a long and storied history. After all, BSD Unix originally came from the University of California at Berkeley, and Linux itself was created while Linus Torvalds was a student at the University of Helsinki. Yet new research from Gartner indicates that open source is taking hold in universities in […]

The hype machine is certainly in full gear at Mozilla with the launch of its next generation Firefox 3 browser just a few weeks away. The latest ‘stunt’ that Mozilla is building to generate hype and interest is nothing short of breaking a world record. Literally. That’s right, the Mozilla people want to set an […]

From the ‘not far now‘ files: As I had predicted when Mozilla Firefox 3 Release Candidate 1 (RC1) came out,  RC2 is now officially in the works. Considering that code quality and stability should always be Job #1 this is the right decision – no need to rush and then upset users with a sub-optimal […]

Red Hat (NYSE: RHT) is jumping into the open source security game with a effort known as the Open Source Software Security community, or simply OSS-security. The new effort is a mailing list–based approach, in which security issues can be discussed openly. The new effort comes on the heels of Google, Novell and others supporting […]

From the ‘be afraid be very afraid‘ files: *UPDATED** There is a security exploit in the wild for Adobe’s Flash player for which there is currently no patch – yes folks it’s a bona fide zero day exploit. (*see update at end of post – this report has now been revoked by the security reporting […]

If the open source Ruby on Rails (RoR) development framework is to gain adoption in the enterprise, it’s going to need a few vendors behind it. Among those supporters are RoR application-hosting provider Engine Yard and RoR performance management vendor New Relic. The two RoR vendors are now partners with New Relic offering performance-management tools […]