Tech U: Tomorrow's IT Challenges Today By Dave Molta
Universities are proving grounds for advanced network technologies that serve a global tech-savvy community. We examine infrastructure, wireless and security projects at several campuses to see what business can learn from higher education.
Tech U: Research on the Rails By Robert J. Kohlhepp
To feed their need for bandwidth, universities and non-profits have formed a consortium to build a high-performance fiber backbone. The result is the National LambdaRail project, which can link two dozen U.S. cities at 10 Gbps.
Tech U: Compressed Air By Frank Bulk
Mandatory college laptop programs have increased demand for untethered access. Many schools have resolved the problem with dense wireless setups.
Tech U: Taming the Masses By Jordan Wiens
Implementing security policies in an unregulated user population poses unique challenges. We look at innovative -- and inexpensive -- technologies some schools have employed.
Tech U: The World Is Our Campus By Derrick L. Cogburn and Divya Kurup
Web conferencing software lets colleagues, students and researchers from all over the globe collaborate. We tested nine products and awarded our Editor's Choice to two: One for its hosted offerings; the other for its in-house applications.
Tech U: Sims on Steroids By Jennifer Zaino
The University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School uses real-world simulations as a teaching tool -- moving beyond the venerable case-based reading tradition and expanding Internet use well beyond distance-learning applications.
Tech U: The Real Big Apple By Beth Bacheldor
Virginia Tech University is home to System X, the 20th most powerful computer system in the world. Discover what makes an educational institution put so many resources into a supercomputer.
Review: Low-Cost NAS By Steven Hill
Most NAS systems with enterprise-class storage and security still hover around the $5k mark, but we found -- and tested -- five solutions with at least 1 terabyte of storage priced as low as $1,299. Our Editor's Choice won for its wide range of integrated features and impressive performance.
Cast Iron Systems' iA3000 By Lori MacVittie
Cast Irons' EAI appliance offers a full palette of activities, including Web services and SAP connectivity -- all at a lower cost.
Dragon NaturallySpeaking 8 Preferred By J. W. Olsen
Speech-recognition software can be useful in many applications, but the dream of conversing with a computer remains unfulfilled.
Gcast Podcasting Service By Ron Miller
Want to be a radio star? This free service isn't flawless, by any means, but it's easy to use and allows anyone with a telephone to try out basic podcasting.
Departments
Last Mile: Slamming Spammers By Andrew Conry-Murray and Tom LaSusa This edition laughs at the Top 11 punishments we'd like to see for spammers. We also face the dark side of the force
with a casemod that's sure to please any Sith.
Quick Takes: Outbound/Inbound E-mail Monitoring By Jennifer Zaino In this edition, InBoxer's Anti-Risk Appliance quickly analyzes e-mail content and finds risky messages with minimal IT involvement. Also, products from NEC, BEA and BlueCat.
Columns
The Art of IT: Get Out of the House By Art Wittmann Insular environments can lead to insular thinking. The only cure is to get out of the glass houses we've built for
ourselves. This is critically important to guiding our organizations.
Reality IT: An Open Letter to Your Users By Hunter Metatek Whether through ignorance, blatant disregard for corporate policy or sheer unwarranted self-confidence, users have a boundless ingenuity for screwing things up.
BuzzCuts
Avaya's Small-Biz Misstep By David Greenfield
Although Quick Edition IP telephony technology fills out a product line for Avaya, it may not make as much sense for its target audience.
Big Blue Thinks Small By Art Wittmann
IBM has demonstrated the first working, integrated circuit formed on a carbon nanotube. But don't put away your Xanax just yet.
Get Your Standards Straight By Lori MacVittie More often than not, vendors seem to struggle to understand the meaning of standards. Take, for example, the controversy surrounding BEA Systems and business process management vendor Fuego.
Come Join the Judges By Ron Anderson
The annual Interop conference in Las Vegas gives us a chance to get an up-close look at new IT products and services. But we do more than just look.
Anti-Phish Posse; Turning Patches Into Pitches By Andrew Conry-Murray
Saddle up with the Phishing Incident Reporting and Termination Squad -- corralling criminal Web sites and protecting the innocent. Plus, hackers weren't the only ones taking advantage of a recent Internet Explorer vulnerability.
REPORTS
Analyize In-Line NAC strategies and products.
ANALYTICS Plan and design your enterprise blade server deployments
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