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Ah, yes, the wonderful Christmas tradition of watching Santa's travels around the world using a missile defense system. It's actually a very sweet story. "The tradition began in 1955 after a Colorado Springs-based Sears Roebuck & Co. advertisement for children to call Santa misprinted the telephone number," explains the NORAD …

I wrote a [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry3687.html"]post[/URL] the other day criticizing the RIAA for failing to understand 21st marketing techniques. The night I wrote the RIAA post, I listened to an interview on [URL="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98591002"]Fresh Air [/URL]with author and Stanford Law professor Lawrence Lessig, who recently published a book called [URL="http://remix.lessig.org/"]Remix[/URL], and he articulated …

Quick, what segment of your IT setup uses the most electricity: your servers and network technology or the assorted PCs scattered around the cube farm? If you said the stuff in the server room, you're wrong. According to recent [URL="http://blogs.zdnet.com/green/?p=1599"]data released by Forrester Research[/URL], desktop computers, printers, and monitors account …

For many people, the first they heard of Saturday's plane crash at Denver International Airport was via a Twitter message from someone who'd been on the plane, which quickly made its way through the Internet: "Holy ****ing s*** I wasbjust in a plane crash!" (Despite what some overly dramatic news …

An IT expert within the Bush administration was killed in a plane crash over the weekend when his single-engine airplane went down just short of the Akron, Ohio, airport where he was trying to land. Michael Connell has made headlines recently for his alleged part in the rigging of both …

The time has come to drag the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) kicking and screaming into the 21st century because it clearly has a lot to learn about marketing on the internet. The RIAA had a [URL="http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal_tech/music/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212501507&subSection=Management"]good news/bad news announcement[/URL] on Friday. The good news was that it would …

I've been noticing a trend in recent weeks among large companies, small businesses, and consulting firms and I must say, it warms my heart. It seems that people are more interested in giving to the less fortunate this year than exchanging wacky Secret Santa gifts or having indulgent holiday parties. …

If you ever wondered just what it takes to look for aliens, then prepare to get informed. Sure, you might imagine it doesn't take much more than hooking up a load of computers to form a gigantic zombie network which, for a change, does not use spare CPU cycles to …

Perhaps Idaho politicians and government workers just shouldn't be allowed near the Internet. Steve Rule, commissioner for Canyon County, was [URL="http://www.newwest.net/city/article/commissioner_sends_racist_email_using_official_account/C108/L108/#comments"]criticized[/URL] earlier this month for forwarding an email message, comparing Michelle Obama to a black widow spider, to 26 people, many of them at Canyon County government email accounts. To …

If you're a tech worker that's been recently laid-off, [URL="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/12/seeking-laid-off-tech-workers"]Silicon Alley Insider wants to talk to you[/URL]. Beware, though, what they're asking isn't for the faint of heart. The Web site is planning to chronicle the follies and foibles of five people searching for new jobs in the tech sector. …

A newly elected Idaho state legislator is considering drafting a bill to make anonymous blogging illegal. Ironically, the legislator in question is a retired newspaper editor. (Idaho has a "citizens legislature" that meets only three months a year; few of them are professional politicians.) Steve Hartgen, R-Twin Falls, was quoted …

The stock market held its gains of earlier today, although doubts about how financial companies are going to raise capital when their balance sheets are in complete disarray are prevalent on the street. The Dow was up 70 points and the Nasdaq up 18 points - thus providing some relative …

No matter which political camp in which you choose to pitch your tent, it's hard to deny that technology is at the heart of President-Elect Barack Obama new plans for the United States. As we learn more about what ideas he has in mind to strengthen the economy and gird …

Investors were banking on a lousy jobs number, and the last two days of trading have reflected that point That’s what I’m hearing from the traders I know – shrewd peope I shared trading pits with back in the day – almost to a man (and woman) saying that next …

Proving that no holiday is sacred, The Register is reporting today on not one but two scams involving fake products to be on the lookout for this shopping season. Graphics card vendor HIS sent out an alert that, despite [URL="http://news.softpedia.com/news/Graphics-Card-Maker-HIS-Joins-Netbook-Market-98967.shtml"]reports[/URL] to the contrary, the company has [URL="http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/12/05/his_fake_netbook_warning/"]not ventured into the …

It almost seems out of place – like a spritz of a lilly inching up through the crusted snow after a long winter – to report some good economic news these days. But there it is, in the form of an investment forecast by the investment bank UBS that says …

Both the Dow and the Nasdaq are flirting with positive territory today, thanks in part to one biotechnology stalwart, Amgen, which is up three points in trading. Why? Well, the Street is getting excited about life sciences stocks again, as several research reports hit the street suggesting that the biopharm …

An new [URL="http://www.deloitte.com/dtt/press_release/0,1014,sid%253D2834%2526cid%253D237066,00.html"]study[/URL] by London-based Deloitte and the Cranfield School of Management validates what CIOs have known all along: "You're out of the loop, and when we want your opinion we'll tell you what it is." CIOs are caught in a tough situation right now. Technology is emerging at a …

As if tech workers didn't have enough to worry about, now there's a [URL="http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2008/11/29/2003429804"]study[/URL] claiming people who work in high-tech industries are 50% more likely to develop heart disease than those working in other sectors. The research, conducted by the Taiwan Society of Lipids and Atherosclerosis, cites stress and long …

'Internet for Everyone' sounds like a laudable goal. Very Mom and apple pie. Who could be against that? The problem is that the name of an organization doesn't necessarily accurately depict what it's trying to do, and what Internet for Everyone is actually trying to do is far from clear …

Today is Black Friday and people are going a bit insane standing on sidewalks overnight waiting for the the big deal on their desired electronics. Everyone from WalMart to Target to Best Buy to the Apple Store is getting involved. And so are online retailers like Amazon. And to be …

There's the start of a cult of the personality thing going on in the UK technology sphere. Traditionally people have done their research on a gadget before buying it by remarkably old-fashioned means; they look in a magazine, they check online, they ask friends and get a consensus. It's a …

These days, lots of things happen online in a New York minute. [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry3557.html"]Motrin launches a new ad campaign[/URL] and moms jump on it instantly. An earthquake hits China and [URL="http://saunderslog.com/2008/05/12/it-takes-an-earthquake-twitter-going-mainstream/"]Twitter knows about it[/URL] before CNN. It's no surprise, then, that an entire online business can go from concept to live …

John Tu is the President and Co-founder of Kingston Technology which just happens to be one of the biggest providers of memory products on the planet, so when he talks about trends and developments in the memory market a lot of people start listening. Especially when he does so against …

Rory Cellan-Jones, the BBC technology Correspondent, is apparently the most visible person online in the UK according to the latest MostPublic Index due to be published tomorrow. The NowPublic network, which acts as a detailed barometer of whose voices are the most heard in the digital landscape, reveals that Cellan-Jones …

It seemed too good to be true: A Britax Marathon child car seat, the top rated seat from Consumer Reports, usually with a price tag of nearly $300, on sale at Target for $43, with free shipping. It was. The news spread like wildfire between members of the wired mommy …

Has your IT budget just taken a big hit for 2009? Many have. These desperate times call for desperate measures but don't worry these measures aren't nearly so desperate and they just might help you fix that ailing IT budget. All you need is a little creative thinking and some …

It's happened at last. Someone has come unstuck because of the contents of their blog. And, relief of reliefs, it's not me. I should explain. Among my activities as a journalist I offer media training - coaching for people who're about to talk to the press. Not how to spin …

Barrons has a great article today on how tech industry chief information officers and chief financial officers can't keep up with the free-fall in consumer spending. That's why we're seeing so many downward adjustments in industry revenue estimates that, right now, seem to be spread way out into 2009. The …

The news that a couple has split up because the man was having an affair with someone else playing Second Life - not that they'd met, you understand, they were having this online thing - and the wife wants a real-life divorce is no great surprise. They first met online, …

Stem cell stocks have been trading higher this week on reports President-elect Barack Obama will allow federal funding of stem-cell research. According to reports from the Wall Street Journal, "Mr. Obama could also lift restrictions placed by President George W. Bush on the type of stem-cell research that can be funded …

Open source software is being taken seriously as a viable alternative to expensive proprietary applications but it's important to realize that, like its commercial brethren, it comes with a license for use. It's also important to remember that all open source licensing is not created equal. Free software licensing is …

With all the focus on the imminent Obama presidency, the actual health of the economy has taken a bit of a back seat. That changed somewhat after President-elect Obama’s high level economic summit on Friday. In a press conference after the meeting, Obama called the economic data “sobering” and warned …

Obama or McCain? The people speak today, but no matter who wins, Wall Street likes the fact that a regime change is underway, and change, by and of itself, is a ray of sunshine on the investment community. That's why the stock market is up over 200 points and let's …

[URL="http://www.salesforce.com"]Salesforce.com[/URL], best known for its cloud-based CRM package, announced on Monday that it would be providing web hosting services for web sites, intranets and web-based applications. The announcement comes on the heels of Microsoft's coming out party for its [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry3431.html"]cloud computing services platform called Azure[/URL] last week at the Professional …

Hands down, April Fool's Day is an IT worker's favorite "holiday" because there are so many [URL="http://www.aprilfoolzone.com/computer.htm"]ways to mess with an unsuspecting computer[/URL] user. Halloween runs a close second, though, because its the one day out of the year when we can fly our geek flag with pride. For instance: …

From the "some-studies-will-grasp-at-any-straw" department comes word that female tech workers are more likely than their male counterparts to get hurt in the workplace. If that's the case, I'll bet it's because men are more likely to "rub some dirt on it and shake it off," rather than report tripping over …

The fact that Hewlett-Packard is taking its netbooks more seriously is to be welcomed. A while ago I was going away and my laptop broke down; armed with my existing 3G dongle and an Asus eeePC I was able to use Google Docs to keep all my work up to …

At mid-afternoon trading today the Dow was up 339 points and the NASDAQ is up 47 points. I’m a bit surprised because most of the economic news coming out today was negative. Housing prices are down, foreclosures are up, consumer confidence is at its lowest point in 35 years, and …

I'm sure this will come as a total shock to you, but a [URL="http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2008/10/20/daily54.html"]recent survey[/URL] by IT consulting firm Robert Half Technology has identified what causes CIOs the most stress. Too much work. Really? To discover this fun fact, researchers interviewed the CIOs of over 1,400 medium- to large businesses …

[URL="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,444089,00.html"]Fox News[/URL] is ominously warning about the potential of Twittering terrorists. The U.S. Army's 304th Military Intelligence Battalion released in mid-October [URL="http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/mobile.pdf"]a report [/URL]describing how a number of social media and other technologies, including Twitter, could be used by terrorists. After all, “Twitter has also become a social activism tool …

How many times have you bought something on eBay and the sale didn't go quite according to plan? What did you do, just bite your lip and say nothing or make use of that eBay tool called the feedback system to leave a negative for the seller so that other …

This is possibly going to be very badly timed. A lot of users are going to get very confused. Essentially in the UK we have a lot of free or very cheap Internet services. We also have a lot of people - Apple, the BBC, many media providers - offering …

Just months after [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry3136.html"]Google purchased [/URL]the entire online rights to a new satellite's imagery, the U.S. government, citing budget concerns, has [URL="http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-10-21-cognress-satellites_N.htm"]canceled plans[/URL] to launch two more commercial satellites. According to the Associated Press, the House and Senate intelligence appropriations committees cut approximately $1.7 billion in funding for 2008 and …

Are we near a market bottom? That's the question on every investor's mind this week, even as the stock market falls another 500+ points in Wednesday trading. Lord knows we're on uncharted terrain here, and that we've experienced enough false bottoms to last us a lifetime. But increasingly, more and …

Transparency. We all talk about how companies, politicians, journalists, and even bloggers should strive for it. As a strangely intriguing way to maintain transparent business practices at marketing and PR firm [URL="http://www.lisapmaxwell.com/"]lisapmaxwell.com[/URL], staff members go about their workday in front of a live Internet webcam. Can you picture (so to …

You have to give Japan-based IT company [URL="http://www.kayac.com/"]KAYAC Co., Ltd.[/URL] points for creativity. Many IT-centric businesses have a tech worker bee or marketing guru maintain the company blog, but [URL="http://www.pinktentacle.com/2008/10/midori-san-the-blogging-houseplant/"]KAYAC handed the keyboard over to a Sweetheart Hoya[/URL]. In case you're not a botanist, that's a rare and beautiful succulent …

Sex on the Internet is nothing new, in fact it has been one of the great unspoken drivers of ecommerce and ecommerce technology over the years. Selling stuff on the Internet is nothing new, it too has been pivotal in driving online development. In particular, when you think of eBay …

The quick answer is no, at least according to well respected security guru and Chief Research Officer at F-Secure, Mikko Hypponen. The slightly longer answer is that dealing with organised crime on the Internet is not as easy as you might imagine, and bringing cyber criminals to justice can be …

In recent weeks, both [URL="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/08/technology/internet/08air.html?_r=1&ref=business&oref=slogin"]American Airlines[/URL] and Delta Airlines have announced that their in-flight wireless Internet services will include a filtering service to keep passengers from viewing porn on their laptops. I admit it, I'm torn. Porn proponents such as Violet Blue, in the [URL="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/10/16/violetblue.DTL""]San Francisco Chronicle[/URL], make all the …