Information Technology

November 8, 2007

Review: Five Security Suites You May Not Know About

It seems everywhere we turn when it comes to information technology the topic sooner or later always turns to computer security. As mentioned below in this Review published on November 7, 2007 by InformationWeek, Norton and McAfee still dominate this field. The Review as posted consists of a major part of a piece writen by Serdar Yegulap. It does not however include many useful graphics included with the original piece. To see the entire article, including graphics, you will need to click on the URL listed below:

“While big-name security suites such as Norton and McAfee dominate the market, there are others out there that may be just as good — or better. We look at five alternative security suites.”

By Serdar Yegulalp, InformationWeek

October 22, 2007

Information Retrieval and Records Management: The 2007 Sedona Conference

by David Badertscher

Best Practices in Information Retrieval and Records Management: Analysis and Recommendations from the 2007 Sedona Conference

By Steven Essig

The Sedona Conference Journal, Volume 8, Fall 2007, includes much relevant commentary on possible best practices and other important concerns on effective information retrieval of legal documents. Issues raised range from effective precision and recall searching, appropriate sorts of indexing strategies, word choice, email retention policies for courts and other legal organizations among other major concerns. Of particular interest to librarians should be the section of the issue entitled “ESI Symposium”, which contains a report from “The Sedona Conference ® Working Group on Best Practices for Document Retention and Production (WG1), Search & Retrieval Sciences Special Project Team” (the August 2007 Public Comment Version).

October 15, 2007

Internet Inventor Says It Works Like a Charm

by David Badertscher

Recently a number of articles devoted to the history of technology and the internet have been published. Given the significant developments in these areas over the past 20+ years and the societal demands which continue to drive further research and development it is certainly appropriate to take some time to reflect on both the history and possible future directions of information technology–including the internet.

The following is a question, answer interview with Robert Kahn one of the pioneers in the creation and development of the internet and who continues to actively work on techniques related to information technology. The interview was published in the October 7, 2007 issue of The Star Ledger and is being reproduced here for the benefit of our readers:

Sunday, October 07, 2007

October 15, 2007

Internet Evolution: Don’t Fight the New Wave of Digital Content

by David Badertscher

Does access to social networking, video sharing, and other new media online capabilities mean wasted time, lost productivity, and possibly security concerns or are there legitimate business reasons to include them on organization web sites? Many of us are encountering these and related issues in our own organizations. Stacey Peterson, the editor of Information Week Daily Newsletter, raises these questions in the following excerpt to the October 15, 2007 issue. Also included is a link to a related but more extensive article by Aditya Kishre;

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“The U.S. Department of Defense earlier this year banned access to YouTube, MySpace, Photobucket, StupidVideos, MTV, and a bunch of other Web sites by soldiers stationed abroad. It makes sense. We’re at war, and soldiers shouldn’t be playing around on the Internet, sucking up bandwidth, and opening up the military network to security compromises.”

October 11, 2007

Researchers: Hackers Could Affect Presidential Election

by David Badertscher

Source: Washkuch, Frank Jr., “Researchers: Hackers Could Affect Presidential Election”, SC Magazine Newswire. October 9, 2007.

BY Frank Washkuch Jr.

Hackers could affect next year’s presidential election by using keyloggers, phishing messages or hacking, researchers said this week.

September 25, 2007

Expanding Digital Universe: A Forecast of Worldwide Information Growth Through 2010

by David Badertscher

EMC Corporation has sponsored a very ambitious, groundbreaking study that attempts for the first time to measure and forecast the amounts and types of digital information created and copied throughout the world, and whether it is generated by indivuals or buisnesses. The findings of this study could have significant implications for individuals, businesses, information professionals and society as a whole and thereby provide useful insights to librarians and other information professionals.

The basic findings of this Study have been summarized as follows:

The 2006 digital universe was 161 billion gigabytes (161 exabytes) in size.