Friday May 16, 2008
Latest Columns 
Do better business, virtually
Published: Thursday, January 31, 2008 12:00 AM Page B18
You may not have time to play Second Life if you're already busy with your first one, but technology experts suggest the two may eventually blur into the same thing.
Oracle, BEA and middleware's future
Published: Thursday, January 24, 2008 12:00 AM Page B8
Most business people don't even know what middleware is, let alone how often they use it every day.If you're trying to pull information out of a database, for example, you need a software program that allows you to access the database.
Ideas for today, circa 2017
Published: Thursday, January 17, 2008 12:00 AM Page B10
Vaughn Merlyn is a management consultant and researcher who focuses on technology-driven business strategies among Fortune 500 companies.While the name of his blog, IT Organization Circa 2017, may convey the impression he's into prognostication, in fact Mr. Merlyn's ideas are applicable today. Bring back the Info Centre
Get inside your customers' desktops
Published: Thursday, December 20, 2007 12:00 AM Page B7
Some call them widgets. Others call them gadgets. Almost everyone agrees, however, that they'll be the way you access a lot of business-related information on your desktop in the very near future.
Learning the suite language of the programmer
Published: Thursday, December 13, 2007 12:00 AM Page B11
Programmers just don't speak the same language as business people. They know lots of other computer-specific dialects like Cobol, Perl and Javascript, but a big challenge in many corporate environments is developing a common understanding of what coders do and how it affects the bottom line.
Technology's usability conundrum
Published: Thursday, December 6, 2007 12:00 AM Page B13
Believe it or not, the people who make technology are well aware that most of us get fed up trying to use the hardware and software they make. And now some of them are beginning to wonder whether there's any point in even trying to satisfy us.
Head in the clouds? Welcome to the future
Published: Thursday, November 29, 2007 12:00 AM Page B13
When children look up at clouds they imagine all kinds of shapes - animals, people or planets. When computer scientists think of clouds, they conjure up something that may look like the data centre of the future.
Victorian-era vision meets software design
Published: Thursday, November 22, 2007 12:00 AM Page B11
Call Mark Bernstein a romantic, but the man knows how to make technology sound like a higher calling.The long-time software developer recently wrote a series of blog posts under the general heading ''NeoVictorian computing.'' His posts encourage us to reflect on the spirit that guided the great builders and creators of the 19th century.
