Stories by Robert L. Scheier

Safer than you think?

Security is the No. 1 factor keeping many IT managers from deploying Web services. But don't tell that to Matt Hird, director of IT at Superior Information Services.

You want to change what?

Steve Etzell saw for himself how quickly a minor unauthorized change can foul up a Web site. Etzell, director of Web technology at Select Comfort Corp. in Minneapolis, was on vacation when he got a call telling him the bed maker and retailer's Web site performance had gone "into the tank." The reason: A developer had let a business group user "twist his arm" into dynamically generating user-specific price quotes on a Web page that showed an entire category of Select Comfort's products. The site had previously sent users to a cached page that showed the same prices to everyone.

Averting disaster

So your organization has gone global, with mission-critical applications spanning time zones and national borders. You're more extended - and more vulnerable, relying on not only the glass house down the hall but also on an Internet service provider in Guatemala or a telecommunications company in Kazakhstan to get your fancy Web-enabled applications to customers and suppliers.

Startup Wants to Be Security Central

Information security architect Joe Judge faced a security challenge. But he didn't want to have to become an expert in Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) to solve it.

Middleware Meddling

Until now, if you're like most IT professionals, watching the feds battle Microsoft Corp. has been a spectator sport. If you love Microsoft, you've gnashed your teeth as Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ordered it broken in two as a lawless monopoly. If you hate Microsoft, you've cheered as an industry bully was finally brought to heel. But as a Computerworld survey in May showed, fewer than one in four of you said the case would affect your IT planning in the next two years.

Point-and-Click Passwords

Passlogix offers software that allows users to easily create passwords consisting of a series of mouse clicks.

Talk About Laptops...

FRAMINGHAM (06/29/2000) - Tired of balancing your notebook PC on the passenger
seat while you're stuck in traffic? Do you want to really impress clients when
you take them to lunch? Q-PC Real Car Computing, which has provided ruggedized
gear for missiles and the U.S. Army, is offering what it claims is the world's
first Windows 98-compatible PC available for cars. The base PC - with a 450-MHz
processor, 64MB of RAM and a 10GB hard drive - costs $2,895, not including
installation. The Huntsville, Alabama-based company can be reached at
www.Q-PC.com.

Guest column: Sex and the SAN

There. I've done it; shamelessly used sex to get you to read a column about storage. And I'm not proud of myself. But I'm not the only one who feels a need to make this subject more, um, exciting. While at Computerworld's Storage Networking World earlier this month, I was struck by how dowdy and unattractive storage networking seems at first blush - and by how exciting it really might be.

Sex and the SAN

There. I've done it; shamelessly used sex to get you to read a column about storage. And I'm not proud of myself. But I'm not the only one who feels a need to make this subject more, um, exciting. While at Computerworld's Storage Networking World earlier this month, I was struck by how dowdy and unattractive storage networking seems at first blush - and by how exciting it really might be.

Microsoft: Private Cases Consolidated

While Microsoft Corp. battles its antitrust case, it will also fight a slew of private cases - but at least it won't send its lawyers all over the country to do so. A panel of federal judges last week consolidated 27 private antitrust suits pending against the software giant in a single court in Baltimore.

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