First look at Office 2010

Posted on July 13, 2009 by Neil McAllister

As a writer, I spend most of my life in Microsoft Office. Love it or hate it, Office has become the gold standard for business productivity software. So when the good folks at InfoWorld gave me the opportunity to take the upcoming version for a test drive, I jumped at the chance. My first impressions are largely favorable. Microsoft keeps making steady improvements here and there, and the suite is more polished and consistent than ever. On the downside, each new release seems to tie Office ever closer to back-office products like SharePoint and Exchange, which means customers will be locked in to Microsoft software more than ever. Click on over to InfoWorld for the rest of my thoughts.

Review: “Beat the Reaper”

Posted on June 12, 2009 by Neil McAllister

First-timer Josh Bazell’s novel Beat the Reaper is an unusual medical crime thriller — which is to say its protagonist, Dr. Peter Brown, is not just a doctor. He’s also a notorious criminal.

The novel opens with Brown, an overworked, sleep-deprived intern at “Manhattan’s worst hospital,” being mugged by a lone gunman. The mugger starts having second thoughts right away. Probably he should have known better than to try to rob someone with a bad attitude and a thorough knowledge of human anatomy. What he couldn’t possibly have known, however, is that Dr. Peter Brown is actually Pietro “Bearclaw” Brnwa, former mob assassin, recently having completed medical school while enrolled in the federal witness protection program. As it turns out, what this mugger really needs isn’t money. He needs to go to the emergency room — he just doesn’t know it yet. » More... » →

JavaOne 2009

Posted on May 19, 2009 by Neil McAllister

This year’s annual JavaOne conference will be taking place at San Francisco’s Moscone Center, June 2-5. It will be particularly interesting to see what direction Java will take now that Oracle figures so prominently in its future.

What’s next for netbooks?

Posted on May 11, 2009 by Neil McAllister

I have a new article up at InfoWorld this week, and this one is a little bit of a departure from my usual beats of software development and open source. This time, I’m talking about the ever-popular netbooks, and what directions these mini-laptops might take in the near future.

My conclusions? For starters, they might not even look like mini-laptops for much longer.

Hardware vendors are naturally concerned that these low-margin devices could cut into the sales of their higher-end products, so they’re looking for ways to spin them as secondary systems and “companion devices.” Look for new chips under the hood, new form factors, and even new pricing models that could send the cost of netbooks down to nothing. Click over to InfoWorld to see what I mean, and be sure to leave feedback in the comments and forums.

Microsoft Tech-Ed 2009

Posted on May 5, 2009 by Neil McAllister

Microsoft’s annual technical conference for developers and IT professionals kicks off this week. I won’t be in attendance in Orlando, but I’ll be monitoring the proceedings through Microsoft’s extensive virtual feeds.

Tough challenges ahead for desktop Linux

Posted on May 1, 2009 by Neil McAllister

My latest feature for InfoWorld is sure to raise some folks’ hackles, but that’s OK by me. For years now, pundits have been predicting that Linux would take the desktop by storm, becoming a true rival to Windows. I suspect that won’t happen anytime soon. The inertia working against it is too strong. In this article, I examine some of the reasons why enterprise customers have been slow to adopt Linux for their desktop workstations — and why they probably always will be.

Do you disagree? By all means, dive into the discussion by posting comments or striking up a conversation on InfoWorld’s new forums.

Artwork in progress

Posted on May 1, 2009 by Neil McAllister

It’s been a long time since I added anything to the “Artwork” section of this site, so an update is long overdue. Recently, a friend asked me to illustrate the invitation to her son’s birthday party. He’s a big Marvel Comics fan, so she wanted something superhero-themed. As I was working on the project, I took scans of the artwork in various stages of completion, both on paper and in the computer. I post them here for anyone who might get a kick out of that sort of thing.

Review: “Daemon”

Posted on April 30, 2009 by Neil McAllister

If there’s one thing that annoys computer geeks, it’s the portrayal of technology in the entertainment media. Hollywood writers seem determined to throw references to computers and the Internet into their stories, but their ignorance invariably leads to asinine plot twists, with Our Hero “hacking the enemy mainframe” using nothing but his IM client and a spool of copper wire.

You’ll find none of that in Daemon, the first novel by network security consultant Daniel Suarez. Daemon may be a genuine first: a techno-thriller firmly grounded in real-world technology. There’s no jabber about “mainframes” here, no “hacking systems” with pocket calculators. Suarez’ use of jargon, his understanding of the way computer systems operate, and his familiarity with information security practices are all pitch-perfect. If you thought we needed such a book, here it is. But did we? » More... » →

Oracle buys Sun: I was right!

Posted on April 20, 2009 by Neil McAllister

Imagine my surprise when I woke up this morning to learn that Sun Microsystems had accepted a $7.4 billion purchase offer from Oracle. Not least of all because I actually predicted the sale more than a week ago!

Click on the above link to read my InfoWorld editorial speculating on the deal before it happened, and learn what I think the two companies have in common and what each stands to gain. If nothing else, it’s going to be a very interesting year for users of Java, MySQL, and other Sun products.

For full details on Oracle’s purchase of Sun, check out InfoWorld’s news story here.

InfoWorld launches bold new site design

Posted on April 6, 2009 by Neil McAllister

If you’ve followed my work for InfoWorld, you may have already seen the site’s brand-new design, which launched over the weekend. (If you haven’t seen my work, you can see an RSS feed in the right-hand column of this blog.) Personally, I couldn’t be happier with the relaunch.

The new version of the site brings more than just a sleek, modern new look. Beneath the hood it’s a complete rebuild. Out went the earlier, proprietary content-management system, replaced by Drupal, an open source CMS platform. The Online Publishing Group at IDG, in tandem with an outside Web development firm, created a fully customized Drupal installation that — for once — means InfoWorld has a technology platform that matches its content. Better yet, while the competition is still nervously worrying about the future of the publishing industry, InfoWorld is moving forward, better than ever.

I encourage everybody to check out the new site — and, especially, to jump in and participate. There are dozens of online discussion forums just waiting for your input, questions, feedback, and casual chat. This is a great opportunity to build an unprecedented online community focused on enterprise IT. Do me a favor, register on the site, and kick off new discussion topics of your own. I and the other InfoWorld editors and contributors will be checking in and joining the discussion as often as we’re able.

Congratulations to everyone at InfoWorld on a successful relaunch, and I’m looking forward to all our collaborations in the new era.

NEIL
MCALLISTER

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