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The theory of outsourcing and offshoring IT as it is practiced in the second decade of the 21st century comes down to combining two fundamental ideas: 1) that specialist firms, whether here or overseas, can provide quality IT services at lower cost by leveraging economies of scale, and; 2) that offshore labor markets can multiply that price advantage through labor arbitrage using cheaper yet just as talented foreign labor to supplant more expensive domestic workers who are in extremely short supply. While this may be true in the odd case, for the most part I believe it is a lie.

This lie is hurting both American workers and the ability of American enterprise to compete in global markets.

Ever since the release of the Nexus 7, analysts have wondered what impact, if any, it would have on Android tablets' market share battle with the iPad. The possible release of the iPad Mini, later this year, could throw another wrench into the works. Fortunately, we have already seen an Android vs. Apple battle in the smartphone market. Let's take a look at the parallels we can draw between the smartphone and tablet market and project the possible market share trends in the tablet market.

Before we begin, we need to understand the global smartphone market share trends over the past couple of years. It is important to understand that ever since the iPhone and Android were launched, the market segmented into legacy smartphone platforms (BlackBerry, Symbian & Windows Mobile) and modern smartphone platforms (iOS, Android & Windows Phone).

Nir Sofer has released his latest creation, MultiMonitorTool, and the name tells you everything: it’s a one-stop tool to handle all your multiple monitor needs. As usual with NirSoft utilities, there’s no installation required, no adware, no unwanted extras at all. Just download and unzip the implausibly small MultiMonitorTool file (under 200KB) and you’re ready to go.

On launch the program displays a two-paned interface. All the monitors it recognises are at the top, and if you click on any one of these then you’ll see the application windows it contains in the lower pane.

Whenever I think about tablets v. PCs, I remember a bold prediction of old: “Son, 10 years from now everyone will drive an electric car!” When was that, 20 years ago? We’ve all read something like that from someone believing to be clairvoyant.

I read similar articles almost every day where the writer plays the same old broken record: tablets are the death of PCs, or some other flamboyant thing that’s bound to get interest -- with the hope that the reader will agree with the author. It's like almost everyone is set on sending the PC down to the gates of Hell. But why should I agree with their assertions when I actually need a PC?

On the same day as reporting strong second-quarter results, virtualization software developer VMware said Monday that it has entered into an agreement to purchase network software Nicira for $1.05 billion. The company's software is used to manage network deployments and create virtualized network infrastructure. VMware expects the deal to close in the second half of the year.

"The acquisition of Nicira adds to our portfolio of networking assets and positions VMware to be the industry leader in software-defined networking", VMware CEO Paul Maritz says. Others called it a major move which positions VMware well in the fast-growing cloud computing sector.

For just about three years, we've had Microsoft's browser-based suite of free Office tools alongside the desktop Office software. In that time, we've composed and edited loads of Word documents, created Powerpoint presentations, and manipulated Excel spreadsheets. But when these types of Web apps debuted, there were three great islands: the standalone desktop software, the Web-based service, and the mobile application. Each was meant to be used in a different context, and each was equipped with different capabilities to suit those contexts.

For Microsoft in 2010, the PC was still the reigning king, so the Office Web apps were meant to get Office documents off the hard drive and out where they could be easily shared and passed between PCs.

EDF Energy, the official electricity supplier of the London 2012 Olympics, will be using tweets sent during the games to gage the “Energy of the Nation”.

The power company will scour the raw Twitter feed looking for content, hash tags and links that relate to the Olympics (and which originate from within the United Kingdom), which it will then analyze using an algorithm designed by Professor Mike Thelwall, from the University of Wolverhampton, and Sosolimited a team of linguistic and data visualization experts from MIT. This algorithm will extract positive and negative words, phrases and emoticons from the tweets and generate an hourly percentage showing how positive (or otherwise) British people are feeling about the games.

Demand ahead of the launch of Apple's iPhone 5 is "unprecedented", with a third of all potential smartphone buyers planning to purchase the device. The data comes courtesy of a new survey of 4,000 consumers carried out by research firm ChangeWave.

Fourteen percent of those polled say they are "very likely" to purchase an iPhone 5, with an additional 17 percent saying they are "somewhat likely" to do the same. Combined, that represents the highest number for those planning to purchase a new iPhone model.

When all is said and done, Apple’s pretty restrictive when it comes to playing media on your iOS device. Out of the box, only Apple’s own formats are supported, which is fine if you’re wedded to iTunes, but not so great if you have media in a variety of different formats.

You could manfully try converting them all using a tool like Handbrake, but if you want a quicker, fuss-free solution, then check out VLC Streamer Free instead.

Over the weekend, Google pulled one of two Nexus 7 models from the Play store, presumably because of demand. The tablet is sold out pretty much everywhere, and had long wait times (3 to 5 weeks) for delivery, so that's not unreasonable supposition. However, a groundswell of user complaints also burst forth over the weekend, and largely directed at the 16GB tablet -- the one Google suddenly stopped selling.

I honed in on the 16GB model after receiving email complaints, seeing others online but having absolutely no problems with the two Nexus 7s in my household. Both are 8GB models, which Google still sells and isn't the brunt-taker of end-user complaints. I got to wondering: Is it coincidence that Google stopped selling the model for which there are end-user complaints?

Going online means having to decide which web browser you’re going to use to find your way around the Internet. If security is your primary concern, a new browser just entered the arena and vies for attention. If Comodo IceDragon sounds familiar, you’ve probably been put in mind of Comodo Dragon, the security focused web browser based on Chromium. IceDragon is very much the same idea but this time around there is a Mozilla core.

Comodo have recognized that not everyone wants to use the same web browser just to get the benefits of added security, and Chrome is not a browser that suits everyone. The unveiling of a Mozilla based version of the same tool opens up a world of more secure web browsing to a wider audience. If you are already a Firefox user, you’ll be pleased to find that your bookmarks history, passwords and more can be imported into IceDragon.

Pundits can't seem to glow enough about Yahoo's new CEO, who has been on the job for less than a week. Marissa Mayer is a Google darling flown the coop and swooped in just as Yahoo shocked shareholders with another quarter of disappointing performance.

It's get to work time, and we've got a to-do list for Mayer -- eight things she should do as soon as humanly possible.

Samsung and Apple are two of the most popular smartphone and tablet manufacturers in the world right now and those top spots don’t come without responsibilities. But there's a disconnection somewhere in the corporate brains, with the companies seeing these responsibilities as green lights to be at each other’s throat in every major market over patents -- all that the cost of customer choice and satisfaction.

The latest round in the never-ending patent war between Samsung and Apple began today in Australia, where a local Judge started hearing evidence on their latest legal dispute. Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple claims patent infringement. The two companies dispute whether the touchscreen technology used by Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 violates Apple owned patents. The South Korean manufacturer's counter-claim: Apple uses 3G patents without a license, which is supposed to be available on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms.

Paragon Software Group has released Partition Manager 12, the latest edition of its flagship partitioning tool. The program didn’t get much of a fanfare, perhaps because it’s mostly a maintenance release. Still, there are some worthwhile improvements, particularly if you have one of the commercial builds.

A new Split Partition Wizard allows you to split a single partition into two partitions of the same type, for instance, and choose exactly which files and folders you’d like on each. Which could be ideal if, say, you want to place your operating system and data on different partitions.

When it comes to subtly, Mission Control / Expose Clone will win no prizes for its name -- however, it may well impress in its ability to bring a great feature of OS X to Windows users. Ordinarily, Windows allows you to navigate between open windows and program using the task bar or by pressing the Win + Tab or Alt + Tab keyboard shortcuts. With Mission Control / Expose Clone installed, you can add Ctrl + Tab to your shortcut collection to access this great utility.

The program brings you some of the features of Exposé and Mission Control, enabling you to quickly access and overview of all running programs and open windows on a single desktop. Just as well your Alt + Tab between programs you can see a live preview of open windows, but things are kept beautifully neat thanks to the way the screen is arranged. Just like Mission Control, the program will automatically create stacks of windows from the same program -- so all of your Word documents are grouped together.