Amazon Web Services personalizes CloudFront Web hosting service
By Peter Sayer | IDG News Service Amazon Web Services has extended its CloudFront Web hosting service to include dynamic content that can be personalized for each visitor. Websites already using CloudFront to host or cache static page elements can now also use it to serve up dynamic elements that are personalized for each user from servers within AWS’s EC2 calculate cloud, the company stated Monday. Pricing is the same as for static data, starting at $0.12/GB (or $0.02/GB after ...
From IT to ET: The next wave of IT transformation
That’s hardly a new observation. It was most notably made in 2003, in a now-famous Harvard Business Review article by pundit Nicholas Carr called “IT Doesn’t Matter.” The gist of Carr’s argument: IT has become a commodity, like electricity. It’s no longer a sustainable differentiator (when was the last time you heard a company brag that it did a better job than a competitor because it had “better electricity”?). [ Keep up on the day's tech news headlines with InfoWorld's ...
Lenovo debuts Android tablet App Shop for bigger businesses
Lenovo announced an enterprise-focused app storefront for tablets running Android 3.1 or higher. The Lenovo Enterprise App Shop offers bigger businesses the capability to buy third-party apps for employees in volume at lower cost. It also is a site where workers can find company-approved apps to download, Lenovo said. [ Understand how to both manage and benefit from the consumerization of IT trend with InfoWorld’s “Consumerization Digital Spotlight” PDF special report.
Have any of your corporate accounts been compromised?
Last November I wrote about PwnedList, the website that makes it simple to check your email address and user ID to see if they have been compromised. (If you have not checked your email address lately, head over to PwnedList and run their free check. With more than 12 million compromised addresses and log-on IDs collected since July 2011, it’s the ultimate checkpoint to see if you have been pwned.) Now PwnedList is breaking into the corporate market.
Outlook 2010 cheat sheet
If you have just upgraded to Outlook 2010 from an earlier version, anticipate to see some very huge changes, most notably the ubiquity of the Ribbon interface. The Ribbon first made its appearance in Outlook 2007, but in a relatively minor way — on the main Outlook screen there is no Ribbon, but when you open or compose an email, the Ribbon appears. Now it’s everywhere. There are other significant changes in Outlook 2010 compared to earlier versions, including integration ...
APT in action: The Heartland breach
In late 2008, a group of hackers succesfully broke into the network of Princeton, N.J.-based payment processing giant Heartland Payment Systems. The hackers stole data from more than 100 million credit and debit cards on the company’s network that serves the card-processing needs of restaurants, retailers and other merchants. The hackers spent weeks gathering intelligence on Heartland’s networks, systems, corporate structure and employee roles, according to Kris Herrin, the company’s chief technology officer.
FinancialForce.com rolls out enhanced accounting, services apps
By Chris Kanaracus | IDG News Service FinancialForce.com announced a string of enhancements to its cloud-based applications for accounting and professional services automation on Wednesday, heating up its rivalry with the likes of NetSuite and its OpenAir division. A joint venture of Salesforce.com and Unit4 formed in September 2009, FinancialForce.com now has a more than $9 million annual revenue run rate, according to Unit4′s recently released 2011 results.
Internet Explorer users: Don’t call them dumb
Regular readers will remember that last August I wrote a post titled “Just how stupid are Internet Explorer users?” In it I quoted from a survey conducted by an obscure Canadian research firm called AptiQuant that “proved” people who use Internet Explorer are less intellectually endowed than people who use any other browser on the planet, and IE6 users in particular are a half step above paramecia on the evolutionary scale. Anyone who’s been in this business for as long ...
Microsoft releases Windows Server 8 beta
By Joab Jackson | IDG News Service Closely following the company’s public preview of Windows 8, Microsoft has released a beta version of its Windows Server 8 operating system. Announced last September, Windows Server 8 updates the code base for Microsoft’s flagship server OS, the current version of which is Windows Server 2008. The beta version will grant administrators to test the OS and offer feedback to Microsoft as it finalizes the software for commercial release.
Microsoft takes a leap of faith with Windows 8
Just when you thought it was safe to return to your desktop, Microsoft spoils it all by introducing another version of Windows. Today, on leap day, Microsoft takes a leap by unleashing the Windows 8 Consumer Preview edition on an unsuspecting public. Whether it’s a leap forward, backward, or straight into a bottomless pit is the question everyone is now asking. You can download your very own copy. Good luck. [ InfoWorld's Woody Leonhard reveals potential gotchas for business users ...
