Satyam crisis puts CIO eyes on India

Satyam crisis puts CIO eyes on India

The Indian offshore industry faces a new challenge to its pre-eminent position as the IT outsourcing destination as the ramifications of the $1bn fraud at Satyam unfold.

The IT services provider is fighting to restore confidence among users following its chairman's confession that he falsely inflated the firm's revenues. The fall out from the fraud could damage confidence in the Indian outsourcing market as a whole, industry observers fear.

The demise of Satyam is a real possibility. According to its Interim CEO, Ram Mynampati, the firm needs cash to pay the bills. "We need some assistance as far as liquidity is concerned to pay [suppliers]."

Financial stability is an important consideration when choosing an outsourcing partner to control often mission-critical IT.

Satyam has more than 600 customers in 66 countries receiving services such as software development, business process outsourcing, as well...

IT worker jailed for hacking into his former employer's systems

IT worker jailed for hacking into his former employer's systems

An IT worker sacked for lying on his CV hacked into his former company's systems and removed vital information, New Scotland Yard has revealed.

Julius Oladiran, 46, of South Norwood, London, lost his database developer job after employers realised he was not qualified and had lied about having a BSc, an MSc, and working for the Ministry of Defence and the Labour Party.

He installed spyware on the company's network to find out what former colleagues were saying about him. His departure meant that a project had to be cancelled, which led to job losses at the small company.

Oladiran was discovered when a company worker noticed his mouse moving around the screen apparently by itself.

Read the whole article here.

Moral of article: [glow=3]Don't lie...

Pearson Launches Certflashcardsonline.com

Pearson Launches Certflashcardsonline.com

Today Pearson announced the release of its new browser-based electronic flash card engine, www.certflashcardsonline.com, an application that helps users practice for IT certification exams. Launching with multiple products on CompTIA, Microsoft and Cisco certifications, the custom flash card application, loaded with more than 250 questions per exam, tests users’ skills and improves their retention of exam topics. Cert Flash Cards Online also allows users to get all-important information at a glance, helping focus on areas of weakness. Available in both desktop and mobile device format, these fact-filled flash cards allow users to test at home, work, or on the go. This new certification preparation tool, Cert Flash Cards Online, along with Cert Prep Online, is available through InformIT.

Yeah, it's a press release, so it reads like one. My bud Jamie at Pearson sent it to me and I've already...

Grow Your Vista Boot Partition

Grow Your Vista Boot Partition

It's come to this: You fire up Vista's Computer window and see that your boot partition-the hard drive section on which Vista resides-is running out of space. You spend a few hours getting rid of as much fluff as you can, but a week or so later, the free space is disappearing once more and Vista warns you (with a red bar under the drive name) that you have a problem. What to do? If your hard drive has only one partition-meaning that your entire hard drive really is filled up-there's nothing you can do but buy a new drive and transfer files over to it. Of course, you could just reinstall Vista on the new drive and start all over, but that's a huge job. If you have more than one partition on your boot drive, though, you might be able to salvage the situation. And just for fun, let's say you don't have third-party partition management software available and want to avoid spending money if you can. While Vista doesn't...

Where the Tech Jobs Are, Part 1

Where the Tech Jobs Are, Part 1

High-tech job seekers should take heart. Despite the daily onslaught of grim economic news, the need for skilled information technology staff remains stable, according to the Robert Half Technology IT Hiring Index and Skills Report, released earlier this month. Twelve percent of chief information officers polled in the survey said they planned to expand their IT departments in the first quarter of 2009; 4 percent, by contrast, expected to make staff cutbacks. That net 8 percent hiring increase remains unchanged from the fourth quarter. Still, by every measure, the economic landscape is challenging right now -- even for an advanced programmer with 10 years of project management experience in 3G networks. With that in mind, job seekers would do well to focus on the areas that are not just surviving, but thriving.

The full article is at the...

Twitter accounts of Obama, Britney Spears hacked

Twitter accounts of Obama, Britney Spears hacked

The Twitter accounts of President-elect Barack Obama, CNN anchor Rick Sanchez, Britney Spears, Fox News and 29 others were hacked Monday according to the microblog site, leading to false and inappropriate messages being posted on their accounts. First Fox News Twitter followers read a false message about Bill O'Reilly's sexuality Monday morning after hackers launched several attacks. Then came the attack on pop princess Britney Spears private parts. CNN anchor Rick Sanchez, who uses Twitter on his TV show to interact with the audience, also fell victim to the scam, when a hacker posted about drugs on his account.

If you're not famous, your Twitter account is probably safe. To see for sure, read the entire story at CNN.com.

Microsoft laying off jobs? We'll have to see in the next few weeks...

Microsoft getting ready to lay off 17% of staff

Worldwide cutbacks

The rumor that Microsoft was set to lay off people on January 15th, 2009 is no longer a rumor but a fact. Staff at Microsoft have been informed that the company is readying major layoffs to its worldwide operations and it's not a small cut, either.

Currently Microsoft employs about 90,000 people across the world and from what we're hearing, some 15,000 of those are expected to be giving marching orders come January 15th. That's almost 17 percent of Microsoft's total work force, not exactly a small number.

Read the rest of the article here, however according to CNN...

Microsoft Firing 15,000 People On Jan 15? Unlikely

Microsoft (MSFT) is preparing to whack 15,000 people in two weeks, says Fudzilla, 17% of its global work force. A cut of this magnitude seems...

30GB Zunes Failing Everywhere, All At Once

30GB Zunes Failing Everywhere, All At Once

Right, so this is a weird one: we're getting tons of reports-tons-about failing Zune 30s. Apparently, the players began freezing at about midnight last night, becoming totally unresponsive and practically useless. Update: The easy official fix here. The crisis has been dubbed by Zune users 'Z2K9', due to the apparently synchronized faceplantings across the country. According to tipster Michael, the Zune users experienced something like this...

Read more about the "dark day of Zune" at Gizmodo.com.

Experts uncover weakness in Internet security

Experts uncover weakness in Internet security

Independent security researchers in California and researchers at the Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) in the Netherlands, EPFL in Switzerland, and Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) in the Netherlands have found a weakness in the Internet digital certificate infrastructure that allows attackers to forge certificates that are fully trusted by all commonly used web browsers. As a result of this weakness it is possible to impersonate secure websites and email servers and to perform virtually undetectable phishing attacks, implying that visiting secure websites is not as safe as it should be and is believed to be. By presenting their results at the 25C3 security congress in Berlin on the 30th of December, the experts hope to increase the adoption of more secure cryptographic standards on the Internet and therewith increase the safety of the internet.

Read about it...

Database 'could be privately run'

Database 'could be privately run'

A planned communications database containing details of everybody's telephone calls, emails and internet use could be run by a private firm, according to reports.

The option to tender out the management of the controversial database will be included in a consultation paper to be published next month.

The database is designed to help police and the Security Service by ensuring they have access to vital communications information which may not by saved by telephone or internet providers.

Read the whole article here.

-Ken