Heading towards 2003, the mood of the industry is slowly shifting towards one of almost reluctant optimism. Job cuts have slowed down, management appears to be ever-so-slightly loosening the IT purse-strings and developers are delving into new applications and technology.
With these trends in mind, security, data management, future technologies and return on investment are now firmly entrenched as the hot issues for IT professionals, as evidenced by the below list of the most popular news stories for November.
Take a look and ensure you are in the know about the technology issues that matter.
1. Java and .Net both a disaster: research
Still trying to decide whether your enterprise development architecture should be based around Sun's Java or Microsoft's .NET? Perhaps you should be more worried about whether either of them is going to work at all.
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2. Linux poised for desktop failure: Gartner
Despite a recent surge in interest in Linux, it will fail to make much of an impression on the desktop, claims a Gartner analyst.
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3. New worm aims to infest Australian systems
An Internet worm, posing as an anti-virus update arriving in an email, is also using peer to peer (P2P) software to spread.
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4. SETI@home yields to pressure to curb cheating
Administrators of the alien-hunting distributed computing experiment SETI@home have announced they will crack down on cheats who rort statistics on computing power lent to the project. The announcement follows a united protest from the chief contributors.
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5. Microsoft poised for Australian XBox Live mod chip crackdown
Microsoft Australia's regional XBox office is issuing strong indications it plans to mimic its United States headquarters' policy of penalising XBox owners that use mod chips in their consoles by refusing them access to XBox Live.
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6. Linux systems are saving more than just money
Charles Hagen saved approximately US$10,000 when he used Linux and Apache to set up his nonprofit Web hosting business, and now he's hoping to save tax dollars using the same formula.
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7. IT contracting: making a comeback?
The demand for IT contractors in Australia is growing, according to one recruiter who credits the resurgence to businesses freezing permanent staff numbers.
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8. Kazaa ups virus protection as Aust users threatened
While its overall impact has been limited to date, the recent outbreak of the Roron virus (aka W32/Oror-B) has served to remind P2P users of the added danger they face when downloading and swapping files.
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9. Alcatel security slip-up threatens customers
The US based Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) has released an advisory strongly urging Alcatel customers using certain types of switches to upgrade the software running them, after a massive security slip-up was discovered.
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10. Linux download site hacked
The download site for two very common Linux based utilities, tcpdump.org, was hacked into on the 11th of this month, and the software available for download was modified to contain Trojan Horse code.
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Have we missed a story that you are interested in? Would you like us to cover a different area of technology? Do you have a news tip or an industry rumour that you would like us to pursue? ZDNet Australia's News & Tech team is committed to providing the technology news that you need, and therefore welcomes your feedback and contribution. Please send through any comments to edit@zdnet.com.au
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