Sean Michael Kerner

Windows security researchers now don’t necessarily need to move to Linux to take full advantage of Metasploit 3.1. Metasploit, a framework for developing, testing, and using exploit code, received its first major update since version 3 debuted in March 2007. (Allegedly, Metasploit has also been used in the past to help expedite Windows zero-day vulnerabilities.) […]

PHP 4, deployed on tens of millions of servers globally, is among the most successful languages of all time. But its run is coming to an end. Active development for the scripting language has been discontinued and security updates will conclude in August. And for some developers, PHP 4 will be history before Valentine’s Day. […]

Like two heavyweight prizefighters slugging it out in a title match, networking colossus Cisco and challenger Juniper Networks traded monumental announcements this week in their battle for the multibillion-dollar switch market. Make no mistake about it, the new product announcements from Cisco (for its NX-7000) and from Juniper (for its EX-series switches) are big news […]

While the name “Netscape” is now mostly dead, its progeny continue to survive and develop. Many are familiar with Mozilla’s efforts on the browser side, but Netscape also had another business — a directory server business now run and expanded upon by Linux vendor Red Hat. Red Hat has been busily building out a major […]

Where is the best time and place to find bugs in an application? According to code analysis vendor Klocwork, the best place is the source: the developer that writes the code. The best time is before they actually check the code in. IDE plugins have been helping developers find bugs for many years. But Klocwork […]

For the last 12 years, Juniper Networks has been edging its way toward becoming a leader in the enterprise networking space. Yet it has also been missing a key element offered by its primary competitor, Cisco Systems — namely, a switch portfolio. That changed today. In a launch event Webcast on Juniper.net, the company’s founder […]

Tracking which software licenses are being used as part of an application development lifecycle is an important activity. Developers need to know where code is being used and whether or not it has been approved for use. Software licensing vendor Black Duck now claims to have both parts of the software licensing issue conundrum in […]

For more than 20 years, Cisco’s Catalyst switching platform has been the cornerstone of the company’s networking dominance. Now, it’s unveiling a new switching platform, the Nexus 7000, that will serve the next generation of data center needs. The Nexus 7000 offers massive scalability, a new operating system, a new management interface and the first […]

It looks like it’s going to be a banner year for the acquisition of open source vendors by larger corporations. Finnish mobile phone giant Nokia announced today that it is acquiring Norwegian open source software vendor Trolltech in a deal valued at $150 million. Trolltech trades on the Oslo Stock Exchange, where Nokia will tender […]

The W3C released the first public working draft of the HTML 5 specification this week, continuing the slow march toward a final specification expected by 2010. This new HTML specification, when completed, will mark the first major revision to the HTML specification since 1999. Work has been ongoing to develop an HTML 5 specification since […]

The first new Linux kernel of 2008 is now out, showcasing improvements that run the gambit of bug fixes to new performance and feature enhancements. One addition found in the new 2.6.24 Linux kernel is the new ability for write-throttling code. “This prevents one heavily-used block device from starving the other devices. so it’s great […]

Some pieces of software seem to jump version numbers with every minor revision, while others seem to never change. In the case of HP’s flagship Unix offering HP-UX 11i, HP is in no rush to move to version 12. That doesn’t mean that the company isn’t continuing to improve its Unix offering, however. Yet while […]