Articles about Information Technology

With many businesses still focused on the "end of XP", an important milestone in the story of software integration will slip by largely unnoticed this year, but it should be celebrated by anyone involved in end user computing.

2014 is the time to appreciate that Windows Installer (MSI) technology is 15 years old and still going strong. That is a very long time for a technology to be as relevant and as useful in today's enterprise environments as it was when it was first released in 1999. Originally developed to facilitate the installation of Microsoft Office 2000, there remains a surprising multitude of reasons it's stuck around for so long.

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A new piece of research has found that while IT budgets may have grown over the last year, companies are still holding back from making changes in IT policy due to a lack of resources, and a fear of possible downtime.

Software testing and quality experts SQS conducted said research at the World Congress for Software Quality last month, and found that fear was the biggest barrier to change for IT departments.

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Faith in the IT contractors job market has returned to pre-recession levels according to research by Giant Group, a cross sector employment agency.

At the beginning of 2007, 6.02 percent of the agency's contractor database expected rates to drop, but now only 5.5 percent expect a decline.

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Time consuming data retrieval requests are putting a big strain on IT teams, at least according to a new piece of research.

Iron Mountain (a storage and data management outfit) conducted the study, and spoke to a number of senior IT bods across Europe (including the UK) to get their opinions on exactly what weight big data was putting on their shoulders these days.

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On this site we often take a look at how the Internet and related technologies have changed our world and how we live our lives.

It's been a long time since I had to endure the process of "pounding the pavement" to look for a job, but it's a task many people face every day. Back in the olden days, finding a new job meant typing, retyping and re-retyping your résumé until it was perfect, mailing it out in response to ads and other leads, making lots of phone calls to your contacts within your field of expertise, and hitting the streets for interviews.

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For many organizations under 100 users or so, there has been a trend on the rise that is either decimating formal IT departments entirely, or trimming them down to bare minimum levels. Many in the IT industry wouldn't notice it, because, of course, they may likely be working for such a department themselves. It's hard to have an objective viewpoint when you're part of the status quo.

As an outside consultant, who works with a variety of organizations small and large, I see my clients and their support structures from a different lens. Being an outsider here has its advantages, namely in being able to see many of these IT departments for what they are.

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Any job a man can do, so can a woman. Sure, there are physical differences between the sexes, but that does not have to impede success. One industry that has primarily been a men's club is IT. Historically, being a computer nerd has been a guy thing. However, over the years, women have been embracing video games, computers and comic book conventions. An explanation of why could be due to an increased acceptance of nerd and geek activity in the media. TV shows like Big Bang Theory make it cool to be what was once deemed uncool.

Unfortunately, there is currently a shortage in the IT security sector. This is particularly troubling as there have been many breaches lately, most notably Target. With a need to fill vacant positions, HP wisely looks to women -- a group that is underrepresented in the field. The company announces that it is donating a quarter of a million dollars to a scholarship for women studying IT Security.

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Throughout the year, I work pretty darn hard -- I wear multiple hats. Because of this, I decided to spend the holidays in sunny Florida as a working vacation. Sadly, the airfare was a bit too expensive, so I decided to drive there from New York.

Unfortunately, the place at which I am staying does not have WiFi or Television -- a nerd's worst nightmare. As a tech-writer, I was going to have to think smart about which devices I would bring and which would stay home. You may be surprised by my choices.

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The Information Technology (IT) department is the oxygen of the business world. It’s crucial, but, many times, invisible. In fact, many of the complex processes that IT supports are most successful when nobody notices them at all. They just happen, and all is well. When something goes wrong, IT goes into fire-fighting mode and people start scrutinizing, asking questions and second-guessing.

The problem takes center stage and pushes all other IT priorities aside. It costs time, money and focus. Problems can cost reputations and customers, too.

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