Red Hat Launches Integrated Linux-JBoss Software Stack
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

As it has promised it would do after closing its acquisition of the formerly independent Java middleware supplier, JBoss, commercial Linux distributor Red Hat today announced that it had create a single, integrated stack of its Linux variant and the JBoss middleware. By integrating the software and giving it a slightly discounted price, Red Hat hopes to make it easier for companies that have adopted Java or LAMP to deploy applications on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux platform. READ MORE >

IBM Delivers Promised Linux-Based Cell Blade Server
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

As expected, server maker IBM has launched a blade server for its BladeCenter chassis that employs the Cell variant of the PowerPC processor. The blade, called the QS20, puts two of the Cell chips on a single board and into a blade enclose that eats two slots in the BladeCenter chassis. Because of the eight special processing units in the Cell chip, the QS20 blade has an immense amount of computing capacity that can be brought to bear for media processing or other kinds of number crunching. READ MORE >

The Disk Drive at 50: Still Spinning
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

This month marks the 50th anniversary of the announcement of an innovative storage technology that IBM created and launched for its early computers--a device that predates its vaunted System/360 mainframe by eight and a half years. Back in September 1956, it was just called the IBM 305 RAMAC, and it wasn't a disk drive so much as computing system attached to a giant disk drive. That device, the great-great-granddaddy of the spinning disk in your computer and those in use at your company, is arguably one of the most persistent pieces of technology ever created. READ MORE >

As I See It: The Incredible Shrinking Vacation
by Victor Rozek

For the first time in more than three decades, I went to Yosemite this summer. (An experience, incidentally, I recommend avoiding like a rabid dog because it has been stripped of most of its wilderness value. Huge visitor volumes and ubiquitous commercial interests have transformed Yosemite into something resembling a genteel albeit jam-packed Disney attraction). In any event, there amidst the masses of humanity ogling the masses of granite, I noticed something peculiar. Almost no one spoke English. READ MORE >