Stories by Dahna McConnachie

Researchers smile on Facebook

While Facebook continues to cop a lot of negative press, a recent study looks at the brighter sides to the social networking site that everyone is talking about.

University students don't question Google

University students may be encouraged to be critical but they don't seem to question Google's ranking system, according to a recent study published in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication.

Maddog on Linux and ruling the world

At the age of four Jon Maddog Hall stuck the wires from a rabbit-ear television antenna into an electric socket which sent him flying across the room. Acknowledging the power of technology, Hall went on to forge a career and life based around it. He has been a software engineer, systems administrator, product manager, marketing manager and professional educator. Hall has been the executive director of Linux International since 1995, the first four years as a volunteer. He has been employed by VA Linux systems, Compaq Computer in the Digital Unix marketing group and Bell Laboratories among other companies.

RedHat sticks Canberra feather in its cap

The Red Hat empire is spreading with Canberra TAFE signing up as the latest academic institution to partner with the Linux vendor to offer training to its students and prepare them for the Red Hat Certified Technician exam (RHCT).

BigAir rises high into city apartments

BigAir has its eye on high rises, taking on an additional 1000 unit-dwelling broadband customers and the promise of more, with its W Home acquisition, announced Wednesday.

ACTU: Call centre staff $80 a week poorer on new contracts

Around 80 staff at a Melbourne call centre operated by Global Tele Sales - a subsidiary of the German airline Lufthansa - have been offered AWA individual contracts that cut their take home pay by up to $80 a week, according to the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU).

Healthcare group heals Fax woes

The fax is far from dead for Melbourne-based Unified Healthcare Group (UHG) which has saved a "bucket load" of administrative and Telco costs by opting for a network and email integrated fax solution.

Software reports on delay points

Australian based network equipment manufacturer, Exinda Networks is aiming to take the mystery out of application acceleration (AA) technology with the release of new software that can measure network performance down to the millisecond.

Debian gives Linux a Bhutanese touch

Bhutan, a country of 700,000 inhabitants that sits between China and India, now has its own Debian-based operating system in the national language, Dzongkha.

Nerds FC Star Trent Apted discusses soccer and coding

Nerds FC star goal keeper, Trent Apted, takes some time out to tell Computerworld about the geekier side of his life. He discusses his PhD project which is exploring the potential of the "tabletop interface" as a platform for formal and informal face-to-face collaboration, multimedia display and exchange, information visualization and entertainment. He also discusses the highs and lows in the life of a programmer and gives his position on the Java versus C++ and open source versus closed source wars.

University's data centre takes a virtual focus

Curtin University turned to virtualization last year to achieve a three-to-one server consolidation, but the technology has quickly become key to the university's strategic direction and it is now looking at an eight-to-one server consolidation ratio.

Body Shop tones up with VPN, broadband

The Body Shop has saved more than a thousand dollars a month and boosted business efficiency by moving to broadband and implementing a fully managed virtual private network.

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