Mammoth growth in storage volumes is a fact of life, but even so it's helpful to pause occasionally and try and work out whether our information strategies have fallen hopelessly out of step with the pace of technological growth and changes in costs.
Everything from cleaning to IT development work is outsourced by governments these days, but should security clearance processes, which dictate what access a person has to government information systems, be included in that bundle?
There's an argument against the usage of USB sticks which has been discussed many times in this column: they're a potentially massive security risk. But there's another case you could make against having your business life stored in 4GB or so of flash memory it's a total support nightmare.
If you're heading to the Beijing Olympics to cut deals, schmooze and booze, don't leave your laptop and mobile with your hosts for a second and watch your gadgets very, very carefully. Of course, it might cost you a deal because you're acting weird, but your data will be safe.
Being able to build a data warehouse right from the beginning of a company's life can eliminate some of the pitfalls typically associated with the project, but doesn't necessarily eliminate the most obvious one: uncontrolled data from multiple sources.
During a trip to the US four years ago, I rented a car fitted with an XM satellite radio which gave me well over 100 radio stations, each carrying a continuous stream of crystal-clear talk radio or music in a surprising array of genres.
New storage technology can be frankly pornographic: it's big, it's sexy and you want it slammed into your rack right now but is a long term relationship more satisfying?
Banks obviously have an interest in making consumers feel safe. They are there to protect the customers' money. They want customers to use their online services, too, because the channel offers a lower cost per transaction than a branch. But giving away free security software to make customers feel safe is probably doing more harm than good.
While there's not much that's more fun than stirring up Linux and Windows zealots into a frenzy of spite against each other, we thankfully finally seem to be approaching a more measured universe in which technology choices can be made based on suitability rather than preconception.
And the Guinness World Record for the largest data warehouse goes to...
E-mail is frequently blamed for creating storage bloat, but is the most effective means of dealing with the problem increasing storage capacity, imposing quotas, enforcing archive rules, or just driving the help desk nuts with questions?
You've only got to hang around a datacentre for about 30 seconds before someone starts raving on about virtualisation. While the cost benefits of virtualisation are obvious, the management challenges often get swept under the carpet.
Qualcomm has poured money into its broadcast mobile television system, MediaFLO. Now US carrier AT&T is hoping that consumers will do the same, following the launch of a consumer mobile TV offering based on the Qualcomm tech. Good luck with that.
It's just two months until Microsoft plans to pull the plug on Windows XP arguably its best operating system to date.
With the OPEL bid cancelled and procedural questions dogging the FTTN bid, Australia is currently in something of a technological limbo.
Microsoft slams Google on privacy
Google's approach to privacy is a decade behind Microsoft, the Redmond software giant's chief privacy strategi… Watch it now
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