IN THE CARDS New IT VP's lackey frets to e-mail sysadmin pilot fish that the veep put the wrong e-mail address on his new business cards. Fish investigates: "The address is formatted in a way that couldn't possibly be used as an e-mail address. Has he ever even used e-mail?" the fish wonders. The lackey hits on a solution: "Can we change the Internet addressing rules so the new VP doesn't have to order new cards?"
Doc Management Firm Forms Online Business
XMLSolutions Corp.
FOR OLD TIMES' SAKE Manufacturing company cans its CEO. Six months later, he lands a job elsewhere and calls our pilot fish, a system administrator at the manufacturer. "I check my voice mail," the fish says, "to hear our ex-CEO say: Hey, I tried dialing into the network over the weekend, but every time it wouldn't let me in. Can you give me a call and let me know when you have it fixed?'"
DecisionOne Corp. announced last week its Broadband Deployment Services to help large companies install and maintain Digital Subscriber Line, cable modem and other high-speed connections. The Fraser, Pennsylvania-based company said its new services cover customers' on-premise equipment, central office and cable head-end installation, line provisioning, fulfillment, technical support and other operations.
The SANS Institute released a list of the 10 most critical Internet security threats to information technology workers. They include vulnerable Common Gateway Interface programs, application extensions installed on Web servers and overflow weakness in sendmail.
McData Corp., an EMC Corp. subsidiary, filed for an initial public offering (IPO)of up to $100 million in Class B common stock with the Securities and Exchange Commission. McData intends to list with New York-based Nasdaq Stock Market Inc. under the ticker MCDT. EMC plans to distribute all of its shares of McData Class A common stock to its shareholders six to 12 months after the offering. Broomfield, Colorado-based McData develops computer network switches and software.
Nasdaq has been working to lure new customers by cutting the fees for its services as much as 80 percent.
The U.S. House of Representatives voted 420-2 last week to phase out the 3% federal excise tax on communications services. The elimination of the tax, which was adopted to pay for the Spanish-American War, was recommended in the majority report of the Advisory Commission on Electronic Commerce, the congressional body that recently concluded its work on Internet tax issues. The Senate must also act on the measure.
Copper Mountain Networks Inc. in Palo Alto, California, has developed new technology called Adaptive Fragmentation to improve efficiency and reduce jitter and latency in voice service over Integrated Services Digital Network, Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) and Symmetric DSL networks. The technology, which will be available in July, can increase the number of voice and data services a carrier provides over a given link, with Copper Mountain's hardware used in the carriers' networks and at customer locations. Pricing wasn't announced.
Webmaster pilot fist at a hot dot-com has full access to the servers - he can shut the company down with a keystroke. "What I can't do is use the bathroom after hours," he grumbles. Since he's a contractor, after 7:30 p.m., his ID card won't unlock the doors between him and the men's room. The boss won't make an exception - policy is policy. Workaround: The fish wedges one of those annoying magazine insert cards in each lock so it won't click shut. He also has to do that if he needs food - except then it's the front door that's open to the world.
The first voice and video application service provider (ASP) will debut on Monday when CUseeMe Networks Inc. in Nashua, New Hampshire, launches its V2 ASP-hosted application. The company said it will target organizations seeking online voice and video services for online training and professional services, as well as business-to-consumer operations.
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Spiked Consultant pilot fish is sysadmin at a regional military site. Brass throws an educational conference for the region's sysadmins. But after five requests, fish can't get an OK, so he doesn't go. Flash forward to annual-review time: The fish learns his raise is spiked because, according to his on-site supervisor, he "lacks the knowledge necessary to complete [his] tasks effortlessly" - the knowledge he would have gained at the conference. Oh, and he also got dinged for not going to enough conferences.
Motorola Inc. in Schaumburg, Illinois, announced it has begun shipping an Internet security application that works with its 32-bit M-Smart Jupiter multiapplication smart card based on Java Card 2.1 technology and Visa Open Platform 2.0 standards.