In theory, everyone wants to climb the corporate ladder. With promotions come steps up that eventually land an employee in the coveted management echelon, with the opportunity to increase both their pay grade and influence.

Yet in practice–as anyone who has ever had a lousy boss or manager can tell you–not everyone is actually cut out to be a manager. Perhaps they’re happiest buried in thick lines of code or have little patience for the schmoozing or interest in the visibility that come with more pivotal roles. Perhaps they’re better suited for other things.

A British computer expert lost his appeal against extradition to the United States where he is accused of "the biggest military hack of all time" and could face up to 70 years in prison.

Gary McKinnon was arrested in 2002 after U.S. prosecutors charged him with illegally accessing computers, including the Pentagon, U.S. Army, Navy and NASA systems, and causing $700,000 worth of damage.

McAfee has acquired data loss prevention company Reconnex, inked distribution pacts with HP and Toshiba and reported better than expected second quarter earnings.

The company said it acquired Reconnex, which makes technology that automates data protection, for $46 million. McAfee said Reconnex will allow it to deploy data loss protection systems faster and offer customers better security bundles. The deal will close in the third quarter.

To make effective decisions, the majority of both mid-sized and large companies use some type of business intelligence solution. While smaller companies may get away with an Excel spreadsheet-based decision support system, functions like reporting, ad hoc queries, graphic dashboards, integration with existing applications, metadata management, workflow and collaboration, sophisticated analysis and predictive modeling and data mining are critical for growing companies.

Sun Microsystems is rolling out the preview release of JavaFX, its rich client platform for building rich Internet applications. Sun made the announcement July 31 and made the JavaFX Preview release available.

The JavaFX Preview release provides Web scripters, designers and Java developers with a preview of the runtime and tools needed to create RIAs on the Java platform. Developers can download the JavaFX Preview release, explore the code samples and tutorials, start writing JavaFX applications and provide their feedback to Sun, said Jacob Lehrbaum, senior product line manager of JavaFX for Sun.

IBM and Rackable Systems have inked a new agreement that will allow Rackable to pack IBM’s BladeCenter systems in its modular data center for the first time.

The agreement, which the two companies are expected to announce July 28, will allow Rackable to offer IBM’s BladeCenter T and HT blade chassis within its own ICE (Integrated Concentro Environment) Cube modular data center, which had previously used only Rackable’s specially designed rack-mount servers.

Hewlett-Packard, Intel and Yahoo have entered into a pact to create new research and development centers that will test the limits of cloud computing.

The three IT giants announced plans July 29 to create what they are calling Cloud Computing Test Beds that will allow enterprises, universities and government entities to test the software, data center management and hardware needed to create large-scale cloud computing infrastructures.

In this entry on his blog, Peter Presnell, offers tips on adding Blackberry support to .Domino Framework.

Jake Howlett is taking a quick survey to ask which OS you are running Domino on.

If you have frequent flier miles on Virgin America, your points could be worth more than you think. The airline is allowing passengers to cash in their miles for the chance to win a seat on a Virgin Galactic space flight.

Is it one chance per point or do you get extra chances for that 3,000 mile flight where you sat next to the screaming baby?