Stories about: Wikipedia

"As an IT manager, are you going to put your reputation on the line that five guys from a small startup in Vancouver are to deliver for your organization," asked Jevon MacDonald, blogger and co-founder at StartupNorth.ca.

At first blush it seems like a typical 419 (or Nigerian letter) scam - the standard e-mail directing the intended victim to do certain things that supposedly result in a huge payoff to the latter.

Looking over his glasses with a librarian's stare, an executive recently told me, "You IT people love the word 'governance' but it just seems too..." His voice trailed off as he searched for a way to tactfully convey his sense that "information governance" was a linguistic wedge designed to throw open the doors of board-level access for unkempt geeks and helpdesk managers. Instead of "governance," more comfortable phrases were suggested: "information policy board," "data management" or perhaps "IT steering committee."

The deluge of false traffic triggered by the LinkScanner Search-Shield component of AVG anti-virus will dry up after the company axed its Web trawling function.

A concise history of silly Internet traditions

Normally, in a time of crisis, an "amateur" is not the first person you might call. But when communications networks go down, amateur radio operators -- or hams -- and their gear can get communities connected to the outside world via the radio waves.

Computerworld is undertaking a series of investigations into the most widely-used programming languages. Previously we have spoken to Alfred v. Aho of AWK fame, S. Tucker Taft on the Ada 1995 and 2005 revisions, Microsoft about its server-side script engine ASP, Chet Ramey about his experience maintaining Bash, Bjarne Stroustrup of C++ fame, and to Charles H. Moore about the design and development of Forth. In this interview, Computerworld ventures down a less series path and chats to Don Woods about the development and uses of INTERCAL

Facebook said late Tuesday that it was not aware of any blocking of its sites in China, despite reports of outages from cities around China.

Sun Microsystems is sponsoring a collaborative environment for building and hosting social applications that would run on environments like Facebook and OpenSocial.

Business consultants and analysts use a range of models and analogies to explain and describe complex concepts in a manner that is understandable by their audience. Sometimes they fail, quite spectacularly, and sometimes there comes along a new way of encapsulating difficult concepts. One such approach is Bruce Webster's "Thermocline of Truth".

Computerworld is undertaking a series of investigations into the most widely-used programming languages. Previously we have spoken to Alfred v. Aho of AWK fame, S. Tucker Taft on the Ada 1995 and 2005 revisions, Microsoft about its server-side script engine ASP, and Chet Ramey about his experience maintaining Bash.