IBM beat analyst expectations for the first quarter and the company pointed to its global reach in helping to drive growth despite a challenging market.

First quarter revenue was US$24.5 billion, up 11 percent compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts expected quarterly revenue of $23.7 billion, based on a consensus collected by Thomson Financial.

There are numerous IT references out there, and system administrators seem to have bookshelves full of technical books and manuals. Yet there are many resources that sys admins are not consulting, but should. There are many topics a system administrator should read about, but probably hasn’t. None of these areas are particularly technical–which is partially the point.

Security vendor PC Tools has questioned the usefulness of the threat lists used by many security companies to warn of current malware attacks.

The problem, according to the Australian company, is that the lists–which are now regularly issued by almost every security software company–measure volumes rather than the underlying danger of a particular type of malware.

Does the IT workplace suffer from a Dead Sea effect? Bruce Webster, an IT analyst, says yes, and this is the reason large organizations struggle to hold onto their best IT engineers.

Located below sea level, water only leaves the Dead Sea by evaporation and what is left is generally unable to support life. This, in short, is the predicament of large IT departments, which work in a similar way. The most talented and effective engineers are the ones most likely to leave or "evaporate," argues Webster, fed up with the "stupidities" that can plague large organizations and with other opportunities that they can readily move to.

ActiveX controls made up most of all browser plug-in vulnerabilities in the second half of 2007, according to Symantec.

The company has just released its semi-annual Web security report and in it said that Microsoft’s technology, primarily used to create add-ins for Internet Explorer, accounted for 79 percent of the 239 plug-in bugs discovered between July and December 2007. The plug-in with the next-highest number of flaws was Apple’s QuickTime, which had just 8 percent of the six-month’s total.

Only one vulnerability in a plug-in for Mozilla’s Firefox browser was detected in the same period, meaning Firefox’s extensions–the moniker Mozilla uses for plug-ins–accounted for only 0.4 percent of all found flaws.

This article shows how to build IBM Lotus Notes components, providing some tips and techniques for using your existing Lotus Notes applications in composite applications. Learn how to use the power of composite applications to provide a context that combines information from multiple components and leverages that context when performing tasks.

Learn the steps involved in migrating your environment to that of a Linux client, including organizational planning and user segmentation. Based on customer experiences, this article offers a comprehensive guide to planning and executing your migration while minimizing disruption to your users.

Panos Anastassiadis didn’t click on the fake subpoena that popped into his inbox on Monday morning, but he runs a computer security company. Others were not so lucky.

In fact, security researchers say that thousands have fallen victim to an email scam in which senior managers such as Anastassiadis are told that they have been sued in federal court and must click on a Web link to download court documents. Victims of the crime are taken to a phony Web site where they are told they need to install browser plug-in software to view the documents. That software gives the criminals access to the victim’s computer.

Thistype of targeted email attack, called "spear-phishing," is a variation on the more common "phishing" attack. Both attacks use fake email messages to try to lure victims to malicious Web sites, but with spear-phishing the attackers try to make their messages more believable by including information tailored to the victim.

Web designers making very old mistakes are letting malicious hackers hijack visitors to their sites, say experts. Many of the loopholes left in the code created for Web sites have been known about for almost a decade say the security researchers.

The poor practices are proving very attractive to hi-tech criminals looking for a ready source of victims. According to Symantec the number of sites vulnerable in this way almost doubled during the last half of 2007.

The IT Hiring Kit for IT Managers will help you interview, evaluate, and select suitable candidates for a new IT Manager position. This kit comes with a detailed job description, interview questions, a candidate assessment spreadsheet, classified ad text, and offer and rejection letters. Each document is customizable so you can add your company’s logo. Plus, you will receive practical advice on what to look for in a candidate.