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Today (Aug 28, 2009) is the big day for Mac OS X lovers. Snow Leopard has finally been released. If you were smart enough to pre-order it on Amazon then you'll be getting it soon. Not only that, but you saved \$4 off the list price!

On a related note …

A week after the official deadline for electronic submission of applications for the Broadband Initiatives Program (BIP) and the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP), the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) revealed today that nearly 2,200 applicants have requested \$28 billion in funding. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act …

In the field of information technology, there are two kinds of professionals. Those that seek to make information more accessible through applications and services, and those that strive to protect that same information. Information security professionals protect information by first striving to identify the individuals access the system and then …

I was involved in a project to apply a maintenance release to an existing Lotus Domino installation running on Windows Server 2003. The goal was to upgrade the server from version 6.5.5 to 6.5.6. During the upgrade process, the installer checks the version of Domino that …

It can be said that security policies are living documents that must be frequently reviewed and revised. As organizations evolve, their security needs evolve as well. Policies written before the evolution of the organization may not adequately reflect newly developed needs. Therefore, it should be considered standard procedure to review …

No matter how small, all network installations go through an initial planning phase before implementation. The new network administrator must take many factors into consideration when planning a network. Most importantly, the administrator must understand the required capacity, compatibility, and flexibility of the new network. Gathering this information requires a …

In most VPN setups, each VPN user is given unique login credentials. Very rarely, you might run into a situation where a group of individuals is going to be sharing a set of credentials. For example, you might assign VPN credentials to another company for temporary access to part of …

For the last couple of years, I've used the Tag Suggest Thing WordPress plugin to recommend tags for my posts based on the post content. Beginning with WordPress 2.5, that plugin started to have problems interacting with the WordPress administration pages. In August 2009, Yahoo! announced that they would …

There are a few network devices out there that allow you to connect, but don't give you an option to disconnect. For example, you might be stuck at a password prompt, but have no authentication details. Most telnet clients allow you to break these connections with the ^] (control-]) command. <acronym …

Good news today for service providers planning to file an electronic application for either the Broadband Initiatives Program (BIP) or Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP). The deadline for electronic applications has been extended from 5 p.m. ET on August 14, 2009 to 5 p.m. Eastern Time (ET) on …

The following resources were used in the writing of the Introduction to Database Systems article series:

• Bluttman, K. & Freeze, W. S. (2007). Access data analysis cookbook. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly.
• Churcher, C. (2007). Beginning database design: From novice to professional. Berkeley, CA: Apress.
• Farrell, J. (2008). Programming logic and design …

The following resources were used in the writing of the Introduction to Programming Concepts article series:

• Amma, P. (2005). Geo::PostalAddress - Country specific postal address parsing / formatting. Retrieved August 6, 2009.
• Farrell, J. (2008). Programming logic and design, comprehensive (5th ed.). Boston: Thomson Course Technology.
• Hotch, R. (1995). Accounting programs …

In the early stages of an organization, it is common for most data to be stored in spreadsheets. Spreadsheet applications are common and easily understood by most small business people. Unfortunately, spreadsheets become burdensome when tasks move beyond calculations and into querying (Churcher, 2007). Fortunately, databases are designed with querying …

Having built an entire application, the time has come to consider the possibility of redistributing the application for a wider audience. Since the original application was designed to meet the needs of a specific business, one of the primary considerations will be how the application must be modified to meet …

The widespread use of computers has made database interaction a daily occurrence. Although databases can be large and complex, they are generally defined by basic terms that come together to create the larger system. Understanding these database basics helps users understand the underlying structure of the system and how they …