I actually am one of those who think this year is going to be a good one. With all that's going on, I do believe in the resiliency of the American people, and I think everyone's pretty much ready to get things back on track. And, IT is going to be exciting this year. Do I say this every year? I sure do, but so many things will continue to mesh this year, especially around the Internet. The cloud, the Web as a platform, always on, always connected. We're halfway through the 2005 prediction: "you won't believe what's going to happen between 2005 and 2015." So far that's included netbooks, iPhones (etc.), multi-core processors, 3G wireless networks, and solid-state storage. And that's just the hardware. Virtualization and the cloud lead the software list as having a major impact, and we also have Web operating systems (Chrome, Android), new databases and types (MapReduce, Drizzle), new communications (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter), new development tools (Flash, Silverlight) , new…
And we'll continue on. New technologies – new opportunities – new products. An exciting New Year is with us.
Here's the schedule or you can view the complete schedule on our Website:
CSTA Web sessions:
January 20, 21
March 3, 4
UITJ (Understanding IT Jobs) Web sessions:
March 4
TR Web sessions:
February 10
Keep in touch - I love hearing from you - and keep up with technology!
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2010 - What We Already Know
Lots of things – just going by 2009. In fact, many people think that 2009 was mostly an introduction to what's going to happen this year.
One big release we know is coming – Office 2010 will be released in June. This product suite contains Web versions of the core components which will run on machines running Linux and Firefox – as well as on Windows/IE systems. Sticking with Microsoft products, Azure will move from Beta to full service release. This cloud operating system could stir things up. SugarCRM will run on Azure, as will MySQL.
OpenOffice 3.3 is also planned for release in 2010, and Google is planning to add over 50 new features to Google Apps. Sooner or later something will be competitive with Microsoft Office.
Oracle will have two operating systems. Its acquisition of Sun will finalize in 2010, so it will have Solaris and Linux to distribute and offer to customers. Will they merge them into a new OS? We'll have to wait and see.
More operating systems will appear. Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx – to be released in April, 2010) will have enterprise cloud functionality and is expected to make inroads in the server world. And, Google's Web OS, Chrome, is expected to be on devices shipped in 2010. This will encourage Web development and the move to the Web as the platform.
SAP has a planned upgrade to its ERP system. Teradata is planning to release a new data warehousing appliance with produce 150 times the performance of conventional systems. ERDAS Imagine 2010 was just released. Visual Studio 2010 is in Beta 2.
That's just the beginning.
Get ready – enroll now.
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1. What is currently the most popular word in English?
2. Do browsers run under operating systems, or do operating systems run under browsers?
3. Does Kindle have any real competition?
4 What's the latest offering in programming languages?
5. What's the latest potential "iPhone killer?"
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Best Products, Services and Technologies of the Decade |
Google Started in 1999, but took off in 2000. Started as a search engine, now includes e-mail, photo-sharing, video, office productivity software, a shopping site, mapping service, a blogging platform, and a Web browser, among others.
-i Phone Transformed our expectations of a cell phone. Making phone calls could be the weakest feature. Use it to browse Web sites, dispatch e-mail, watch and shoot video, take photos, and play games.
- iPod Transformed the way we buy, listen to, and share music. The device makes it possible to carry your entire collection of music in your pocket, buy new tunes on the fly, and play them in any number of ways.
- Facebook Went live in February 2004, and is now the second most-visited Web site in the world. Over 350 million members who share personal trivia, likes and dislikes, videos, virtual gifts, and links to news stories. It's the Web's largest photo-sharing site, with more than 2.5 billion photos uploaded each month. Businesses and organizations now connect with customers and members via Fan pages.
- Wi-Fi The first specs were ratified in December, 1999 and January, 2000. Today, 40 percent of U.S. homes have a wireless network, and it blankets coffee shops, airports, hotels, public parks, universities, and some airplanes.
- Broadband Internet Access Broadband started to gain serious traction early in the decade, according to Nielsen, which proclaimed in March 2002 broadband had "hit mainstream" as high-speed users eclipsed dial-up surfers. Today, Forrester Research says there are 80.9 million broadband homes in the United States.
- TiVo TiVo took control away from the broadcasters and gave it to the viewers. It first shipped in March 1999, and by January 2007 TiVo reported 4.4 million subscribers. Cable companies now integrate TiVo-like DVR capabilities into their set-top cable boxes and more than 38 million U.S. households have a DVR.
- GPS This technology started in 1997 with Hertz rental cars and today, about 31 percent of adults in North America use a mobile navigation system, according to Forrester Research. Now people use geotagging to add precise latitude and longitude information to photos, videos, and maps.
- Windows XP Released in 2001 and is still the most popular operating system in the world. XP commands roughly 62 percent of market share, while newcomer Windows 7 claims about 7 percent market share. Old XP is the operating system typically loaded on netbooks, the newest computer category.
- iMac Introduced in May 1998 and combined the monitor and CPU. Each new model has been a wonder of better, cleaner design. Typically, the front panel lacks speakers, control buttons, or ports. Instead, all the ports are lined up vertically on the back panel.
*According to PCMAG.com. Feel free to disagree. The most common disagreement is that the iMac shouldn't be on the list. At least it's #10, if you disagree.
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Linux
Linux has been around for years now, but it's absolutely alive, well, and growing. It's worth taking a look at the various distributions of Linux and its position in the operating system universe.
Linux Operating system developed under GNU GPL (GNU General Public License). Based on Unix and Development was headed by Linus Torvalds and carried on by volunteers over the Internet. Linux server systems provide multi-user, multi-tasking access to the Internet. Desktop Linux is also available, as is embedded Linux. It In fact, Linux is used on the smallest embedded systems, and the largest, fastest supercomputers. Versions of Linux are called distributions, which are available as free downloads or as a commercial purchase. Companies usually purchase commercial distributions to get support and documentation. Pronounced "Lynn-ux." Named after it's developer and Linux actually stands for Linus' Unix. Linux development as a corporate operating system is now spearheaded by OSDL (Open Source Development Labs). Originally released: 1994. The 2.6.32 kernel released: December, 2009.
Linux kernel 2.6 Operating system. The kernel is the heart of the operating system, and release 2.6 is a major upgrade that turns Linux into an enterprise level OS. 2.6 supports 32 processors, 64GB (gigabytes - billions of bytes) of memory with 32-bit processors, and new file systems including JFS (Journaling File System) and XFS (X File System). It supports NUMA (Non-Uniform Memory Access) for multiprocessing systems. Available free for download from linux.org and released in December, 2003. Commercial distributions of Linux are including 2.6 in their next upgrades through 2004 and 2005. Latest version is 2.6.21 released: April, 2007.
GNOME (GNU Network Object Model Environment) Development tools used to build software with a GUI (Graphic User Interface) front-end. Part of the GNU project. Uses GTK+ as a GUI toolkit for all GNOME compliant software. Is the GUI included in many versions of Linux. Current production release is 2.16 which is based on Tango (project working on unifying the visual style of software on Linux and other open-source desktops) and interoperates with KDE. Version 2.16 released: September, 2006.
KDE (K the Desktop Environment) Operating system software. Desktop system which includes a GUI (Graphic User Interface), Web browsing, eMail, and instant messaging software. Includes: KOffice: integrated office suite which includes word processing, spreadsheet, presentation software and other functions; KDE-Pim: integrates e-mail, calendar, and address book functions; Kdevelop: Also known as Gideon, and supports development in multiple languages (C, C++, Java, Python, PHP, etc.). Version 2.1 released: November, 2009.
Red Hat Linux Operating system. Commercial Linux distribution that includes versions that run on systems ranging from embedded devices to secure Web servers. Includes OpenOffice, the Firefox browser and GNOME desktop, and is the most common distribution used in the United States. Enterprise editions are referred to as RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux). Originally released: 1995. Version 5.2 includes enhancements in virtualization capabilities, updates for user desktops, and encryption and security improvements. 5.3 released: January, 2009.
SUSE Linux Operating system: Linux distribution. Commercial versions of Linux for medium and large companies as well as individual PC users. Includes server version SLES (SUSE Linux Enterprise Server) and desktop version SLED (SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop). Desktop version is available commercially with support or as OpenSUSE, an unsupported free download. Version 11 of both systems includes virtualization upgrades (Xen hypervisor). Other inclusions: KDE desktop, Apache, PHP, Python, Gnome, and Samba. SLES 11 supports .NET applications. Both systems released: March, 2009.
Ubuntu Linux Linux distribution based on the Debian GNU/Linux system which runs on desktop and notebook computers. Open source system that includes the latest versions of GNOME (GUI interface) and KDE (K Desktop Environment - an office suite). The Ubuntu project plans to ship a new version of Ubuntu every six months and provide security updates for at least 18 months after each version ships. Current release is Ubuntu 9.10. The version numbers refer to release year and month, so this is the October, 2008 release. This release is also called Karmic Koala, prior releases have also been known as Hardy Heron, Gutsy Gibbon, Feisty Fawn, and Jaunty Jackalope. Next release is 10.4 – Lucid Lynx.
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1. I'm not sure who says this is the most popular word, or what it's based on, but – it's twitter.
2. Mostly browsers run under operating systems. But, with the move to the Web as a platform, we now have Glide – which is an operating system that runs on IE (Internet Explorer - Microsoft), Firefox (Mozilla), Chrome (Google), and Safari (Apple).
3. It's hard to say – but Nook (from Barnes & Noble) is going to try. While Kindle (Amazon's ebook) hasn't really caught on yet, most analysts think ebooks are the future. So, Nook might be an up and comer.
4. Google's Go. It's a new language that combines the development speed of working with an interpretive language (such as Python) with a compiled language (such as C). It's designed for systems programming with support for multi-processing (or parallel computation), and garbage collection. While Google admits they aren't yet using Go for production use, they believe it's worth trying.
5. Everyone keeps trying to knock the iPhone off the mountain top of cell phones, and the latest attempt comes in two models – Motorola's Droid and HTC's Droid Aris. Both use Google's Andriod operating system, and both have gotten really good reviews. Really, really good. Killer? Maybe not. Competition? Looks like it. it stands for Enterprise Single Sign-On, and works with private clouds.
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