ZDNet UK After hours Toolkit

Dialogue Box 7.5: Showtime for storage

editorial@zdnet.co.uk (Charles McLellan and Rupert Goodwins) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:14:01 +0000

Computers of all kinds, from client to cloud, need access to stored data. Rupert and Charles head to Olympia to find out what's hot at Storage Expo

Nasa motion tech simulates lunar landings

editorial@zdnet.co.uk (James Martin) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:26:01 +0000

Inside the massive Vertical Motion Simulator at Nasa Ames Research Center in California, engineers test designs for next-generation lunar landers

Delete

editorial@zdnet.co.uk (Wendy M Grossman) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 09:40:02 +0000

This book considers the social implications of data that never expire, and suggests a solution that seems only partially workable.

Dialogue Box 7.7: A first look at USB 3.0

editorial@zdnet.co.uk (Charles McLellan and Rupert Goodwins) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:42:01 +0000

Rupert and Charles get their hands on the first shipping USB 3.0 product, a 1TB external drive from Buffalo Technology

Dialogue Box 7.6: Inside the ultimate desktop PC

editorial@zdnet.co.uk (Charles McLellan and Rupert Goodwins) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:36:02 +0000

Who says desktops are dull? Rupert and Charles poke and prod one of the most powerful consumer PCs around, and draw some lessons for enterprise IT

ZDNet UK launches its Service and Reliability survey

editorial@zdnet.co.uk (Staff) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:27:02 +0100

Want to know which vendors provide good products and good service, and which fall short? Take part in our survey, and find out

Windows 7 and 1,080 missing trees

editorial@zdnet.co.uk — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 12:07:50 +0100

Windows 7 launches officially next week (22 October), and to mark the upcoming event, three bulky packages arrive from publisher Wiley. Yes, Windows 7's assault on the world's forests is underway....

The Real Business of IT

editorial@zdnet.co.uk (Wendy M Grossman) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 10:44:01 +0100

We'd recommend this book to any under-appreciated CIO seeking self-improvement, and to executives trying to extract greater value from their IT spend.

Dialogue Box 7.4: The expanding digital universe

editorial@zdnet.co.uk (Charles McLellan and Rupert Goodwins) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 14:44:02 +0100

How much data will be created and stored in 50 years' time? Rupert and Charles make some extrapolations and come to a startling conclusion

Dialogue Box 7.3: Data, data, everywhere

editorial@zdnet.co.uk (Charles McLellan and Rupert Goodwins) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 12:04:01 +0100

How big is the 'digital universe', and where does all that data come from? Rupert and Charles talk petabytes, exabytes and zettabytes

Dialogue Box 7.1: How information changed the world

editorial@zdnet.co.uk (Charles McLellan and Rupert Goodwins) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 18:14:01 +0100

Charles and Rupert look at the three data explosions that shaped history, and set the scene for todays IT revolution

Geekender Gallery: Top 10 usability greats

editorial@zdnet.co.uk (Joanna Bawa) — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 19:08:02 +0100

The road to usability is paved with groundbreaking innovations. Here are 10 of the most significant, stretching from primitive tools to today's computers

The Geek Atlas

editorial@zdnet.co.uk (Rupert Goodwins) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 08:55:02 +0100

This book is entirely splendid in fulfilling its own ambitions and should be deployed widely where it can do the most good: among the young, the eager, the curious and the adventurous.

British Steam Car team beats 103-year-old record

editorial@zdnet.co.uk (Jonathan Skillings) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 08:54:02 +0100

The British Steam Car project says its namesake vehicle averaged nearly 140mph in two runs over a measured mile, beating the 127mph record set in 1906

Tetraktys

editorial@zdnet.co.uk (Wendy M Grossman) — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 15:18:02 +0100

This cryptographic thriller novel has the advantage of being written by the chief scientist at RSA Laboratories, and shows that popular fiction doesn't have to make nonsense of science.

The Future of the Internet - and How to Stop It

editorial@zdnet.co.uk (Wendy M Grossman) — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 17:08:02 +0100

If we want the internet to stay open and free, we need users to be as active and engaged as in the early days, rather than passive consumers, says Jonathan Zittrain.

Geekender Gallery: Mutant Clones from China

editorial@zdnet.co.uk (Rupert Goodwins) — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 16:01:01 +0100

Here are some of the bizarre and thought-provoking consumer phones that have emerged from the Shenzhen workshops of the shanzhai.

A gift from Korea

editorial@zdnet.co.uk — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 10:55:01 +0100

It's not big and it's not clever, but we couldn't help snickering over the web site from Korean manufacturer Mintpass, whose Mintpad mobile internet device plus associated accessories and services...

Trade show freebies: a user guide

editorial@zdnet.co.uk — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 13:14:37 +0100

Having been lucky enough to attend countless trade shows, symposia, developer conferences and exhibitions over the last decade, the allure of a free T-shirt has long since worn off. Somehow though...

Nasa's fresh hopes for moon mission

editorial@zdnet.co.uk (Stephen Shankland) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 12:00:00 +0100

The space agency thinks ice on the moon could be the key to an outpost that smoothes the path to Mars. But funding could be a bigger barrier than physics

Images: The Apollo 11 moon landing

editorial@zdnet.co.uk (Jonathan Skillings) — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:40:01 +0100

The first ever visit by humankind to another celestial body, Nasa's Apollo 11 mission, marks its 40th anniversary today

Apollo's lunar lessons for IT

editorial@zdnet.co.uk (Leader) — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 15:15:02 +0100

The 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing has concentrated on heroics, politics and mechanics. Apollo 11's computer has its own secrets

Geekender Gallery: Top 10 Tech Tunes

editorial@zdnet.co.uk (Rupert Goodwins) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 16:42:02 +0100

For your weekend listening pleasure: ten songs about technology. Enjoy!

McCartney on Broadway!

editorial@zdnet.co.uk — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:42:37 +0100

Our parent company CBS has put out some web video of Paul McCartney's post-Letterman Show gig outside the Broadway theatre where the Beatles first performed back in 1964. Of course, Macca is no...

Spotify: let the music begin

editorial@zdnet.co.uk — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 14:26:36 +0100

Much of what gets blogged here at ZDNet.co.uk is primarily of relevance to the business community. But I make no apology for the fact that this post is primarily about entertainment. If youve...

Dialogue Box 6.8: Top tech trumps

editorial@zdnet.co.uk (Charles McLellan and Rupert Goodwins) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 08:20:02 +0100

What are likely to be the most important tech stories over the next few months? Rupert and Charles discuss the contenders over a game of (special) cards

Don't know your dongle from your cookie?

editorial@zdnet.co.uk — Fri, 01 May 2009 08:26:17 +0100

You are not alone. A company called the Gadget Helpline has done a survey of more than 5,000 people and found that many of us find tech words confusing. Of course I don't mean us. Clearly...

Linux TV adverts FAIL

editorial@zdnet.co.uk — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 17:16:49 +0100

Oh dear. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and when the Linux Foundation announced a contest to produce a TV advert for Linux they meant well. It's just a shame the results don't end...

Extreme OpenStreetMap

editorial@zdnet.co.uk — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 14:10:30 +0100

Contributors to the OpenStreetMap project use GPS receivers to log their travels along highways, byways and any tracks they can find. However, one contributor from Japan decided to take things one...

Hungarian Microsoft Billionaire Space Tourist Lands Safely

editorial@zdnet.co.uk — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 08:28:02 +0100

Second time is lucky too it seems. Hungarian ex-Microsoft Billionaire Charles Simonyi has landed safely after his second space-tourist mission. I am living in Budapest for a while and so taking...

Jaunty Jackalope's April First jape

editorial@zdnet.co.uk — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 00:10:30 +0100

What a great day for a calendar bug! Testers of Jaunty Jackalope, the 9.04 'netbook friendly' version of Ubuntu, have found a problem that puts all users of the popular open source operating...

Digital personality types - what's yours?

editorial@zdnet.co.uk — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 08:16:39 +0000

Ive got a lot of time for psychologists. And so do PR and marketing types. But for different reasons. I like them because at their best they can fix broken people very well. PRs and marketeers...

Lucky Jim

editorial@zdnet.co.uk — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 11:47:42 +0000

We were diverted yesterday by Gizmodo's report (via TechFlash) on ex-Vista-honcho Jim Allchin's solo album, Enigma. Of course it's all too easy to scoff at the former Microsoftie's AOR...

At last - Antikythera reborn!

editorial@zdnet.co.uk — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 16:02:13 +0000

Even though we're fans of the 2000-year old precision astronomical device known as the Antikythera mechanism, reports that it had been rebuilt slipped past us earlier in December. The mechanism...

Are you staying cyber-dependent this yuletide?

editorial@zdnet.co.uk — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 13:56:50 +0000

Just imagine it three whole days and nights without email, phone, SMS, Twitter, Instant Messenger, BlackBerry or even TV coverage. It was back in May of this year that I first blogged on the...

Festive nuclear bunker news...

editorial@zdnet.co.uk — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 15:20:47 +0000

What's so Christmassy about a nuclear bunker? Ask the Richter Scales, or BastionHost of Canada... It could be I'm developing the bunker mentality, but nuclear bunkers are everywhere. Even a...

Get ready for a transparent future

editorial@zdnet.co.uk — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 08:04:25 +0000

The dust is settling on the affair of the leaked BNP membership list. For those of us of a more liberal persuasion by my calculations, roughly 60,764,238 UK citizens and who feel that the best...

Marillion sought for McKinnon concert

editorial@zdnet.co.uk — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:40:10 +0000

A rock concert to benefit self-confessed hacker, Gary McKinnon, is being pitched by the man who runs Glastonbury Radio, who is hoping to recruit bands like Marillion. Ross Hemsworth is putting...

Hello, hello, hello

editorial@zdnet.co.uk — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 12:15:21 +0100

This press release just in: "Lincolnshire Police gets a brid's eye view with GeoPerspectives aerial imagery Leicestershire, UK, 14 August 2008 - The latest high-resolution aerial photography...

Bad PR mojo

editorial@zdnet.co.uk — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:12:50 +0100

I'm a hack. I get lots of press releases. Many are cheeky. That can usually be blamed on the PR's client being cheeky in its claims, or something to that effect. As opposed to this unctuous...

Two takes on reality

editorial@zdnet.co.uk — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 01:47:17 +0100

Today was my first one on the job, and enormous fun. I can recommend being editor as a way to stimulate the little grey cells - I blinked at around five o'clock and realised that the day had passed...

I for one welcome our new overlor... oh, hold on, that's me

editorial@zdnet.co.uk — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:31:23 +0100

Bit of a change of plan here at Goodwins Central. After getting on for more than a decade and a half doing basically the same job of technology editor albeit for four different publications and...

And the winner is Tim Berners-Lee

editorial@zdnet.co.uk — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 08:52:05 +0100

The best clerihew celebrates, not Bill Gates, but a paragon whose contribution to IT has empowered all of us to create great and worthwhile things. Over at Miss Conduct, the winner is...

SFF PCs

editorial@zdnet.co.uk — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 21:55:14 +0100

The audio system that Im building requires 2 low-power computers: 1 for the touchscreen controller (not using an iPod Touch for the moment) and 1 to act as a webserver and serial-console...

Coming Soon: Dialogue Box Series 4

editorial@zdnet.co.uk — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:34:14 +0100

Believe it or not (and we have trouble believing it ourselves) Dialogue Box has been recommissioned for a fourth series and we didn't have to resort to Alan Partridge-style babbling about 'Monkey...

Almost there with the audio system

editorial@zdnet.co.uk — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 20:54:24 +0100

Yesterday I completed and successfully tested the control software for the audio system. The software works with the matrix switcher and the APC MasterSwitch remote control PDU to allow the...

Switch consolidation

editorial@zdnet.co.uk — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 20:44:20 +0100

We recently had our latest electricity bill in, and it was pretty huge. To try to reduce the next bill, reduce the heat output of the cabinet and speed up the network I decided to combine 5...

Digital Dinosaurs.

editorial@zdnet.co.uk — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 09:30:24 +0100

There is a cartoon series that has gone from the funny pages here in the US a number of years ago named Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson. Calvin was a boy that had an incredible imagination...

What exactly that egg thrower said to Ballmer

editorial@zdnet.co.uk — Thu, 22 May 2008 17:33:26 +0100

You have probably already seen the video of Steve Ballmer getting egged in Budapest - but trying to work out what the egger was saying to the eggee isn't too easy - especially if you don't speak...

Hitch with the audio system

editorial@zdnet.co.uk — Sat, 10 May 2008 20:38:32 +0100

Today I started development of the software to control the whole-house audio system. Its written in C# and based on the MiniHttpd project - a small but powerful implementation of a web server in...

Successful test of audio over CAT5

editorial@zdnet.co.uk — Sat, 10 May 2008 20:37:23 +0100

I have just successfuly tested transmission of near-line-level audio over the cat5 cables Ive recently finished installing. The amplifiers and matrix switcher have been installed for a while,...

Completing the data wiring

editorial@zdnet.co.uk — Tue, 06 May 2008 21:28:01 +0100

Today I added the final 4 network points - there are now a total of 24 around the house. The wiring project started about 14 months ago, with the plan to have at least 2 network points in all...

Coming soon - open source movies?

editorial@zdnet.co.uk — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 22:14:54 +0100

We all know by now that the open source model doesn't just apply to software - but can it make movies? Wreck A Movie thinks so. The group, based in Finland, but open to all over the web, is...

We return to our regular transmission

editorial@zdnet.co.uk — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 14:13:52 +0100

Did you see the traffic cones on the site last night? Apologies to anyone who tried to post a comment or find an article ZDNet UK had some downtime so that the Ops team could move our co-location...

Who's your IT Community Hero?

editorial@zdnet.co.uk — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 15:20:02 +0000

Tis the season for us at ZDNet Towers to start thinking about planning the CNET Networks UK Business Technology Awards, which celebrate the past year's tech successes (and are an excuse for a great...

When does a feature become standard?

editorial@zdnet.co.uk — Thu, 03 May 2007 17:40:08 +0100

Our feature over in Reviews on how to put together an alternative to Adobe Systems' Creative Suite 3 has spurred IT executive manager putt1ck to ask: "When does a feature become essential? And an...

Calling Adobe refuseniks

editorial@zdnet.co.uk — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 13:29:45 +0100

Our colleague Seth Rosenblatt over at Downloads.com in the US has put together a useful guide to open-source and free software that mirrors what Adobe offers in its Creative Suite applications. You...

A Futurology Timeline Translator

editorial@zdnet.co.uk — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 01:21:18 +0000

If you're up early tomorrow and watching BBC Breakfast, there's a good chance you'll catch Diary pal Adrian on there, dissecting a report from South Korea on what technology does next. ...

A tip on how to win one of our fantastic Christmas competiti...

editorial@zdnet.co.uk — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 11:11:51 +0000

Regular readers will be familiar with our annual Christmas giveaway. This year we think we have the best collection of prizes yet. And why not? - after all we know many of you will be working...