Amazon's new cloud move; Ubuntu vs. Windows 7; Lenovo's dazzling new PCs [TECH UPDATE]

Trouble viewing this mail? Read it online | Manage my newsletters | Previous Edition ZDNet Tech Update Today ZDNet Member | October 27, 2009
Home | News & Blogs | Videos | White Papers | Downloads | Reviews | Photo Galleries | Podcasts | RSS Feeds
Top Editors Picks Amazon launches relational database service: Think MySQL in the cloud Amazon on Tuesday launched a public beta of a service dubbed the Amazon Relational Database Service RDS. The main appeal: Allow customers to operate and scale database clusters while leaving pesky tasks like patching and administration to Amazon Web Services. READ FULL STORY Amazon Web Services rolls out Virtual Private Cloud Hybrid model rules as cloud heats up, SaaS adoption blazing Joe McKendrick: Tech world waking up to cloud Enterprise IT's trust level of Google will increase Google's Schmidt makes enterprise app case as consumer, corporate lines blur Recommended Free IT Salary Report Register on activeTechPros and view the 2009 IT Salary & Skills Report. * * * * * * * * * * * * Business professionals salaries Use our newly launched activeBizPros salary benchmark wizard to compare salaries of business professionals. Register for free access. Yes, Ubuntu can absolutely be the default Windows alternative And I don't just mean for geeks. I mean a real, viable alternative to Windows for many users despite the apparent quality of both Windows 7 and Server 2008. by Christopher Dawson READ FULL STORY Ubuntu celebrates Thursday drop of koala desktop and server Ubuntu, SUSE, Fedora Linux updates prepped as Win7 release nears Hannah Montana's good, but Ubuntu Kidsafe would be better Who's a candidate for Desktop Linux? Your Kids Linux-Windows gap to remain for five years Lenovo reveals dazzling Windows 7 IdeaPad, IdeaCentre lineup Lenovo on Monday officially unveiled its Windows 7-powered lineup of IdeaPad laptops and IdeaCentre desktops, and the company is clearly upping the ante in the visual department. by Andrew Nusca READ FULL STORY Document rental service brings "deep web" content to the mainstream DeepDyve, a search engine that specializes in indexing the contents of documents published deep into a Web site, is announcing a Netflix-like service that allows users to "rent" documents such as medical journal articles on a per-use basis. READ FULL STORY Recommended Free IT Salary Report Register on activeTechPros and view the 2009 IT Salary & Skills Report. * * * * * * * * * * * * Business professionals salaries Use our newly launched activeBizPros salary benchmark wizard to compare salaries of business professionals. Register for free access. Piracy and the Apple App Store There are a lot of myths circulating regarding software piracy. Thanks to an App Store developer, we get the chance to dispel some of these myths. by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes READ FULL STORY Threadsy: personal and social media convergence [invites] Messages are ingested in so many formats on the web today: email, Facebook Inbox, Twitter DM-;even Twitter @reply. Threadsy is bringing it all together better than anyone I've seen to date. READ FULL STORY Amtrak loses $32 per passenger; Do we need the New Orleans to LA route? SmartPlanet: Forty-one of Amtrak's 44 routes lost money in 2008 and on average the railroad lost $32 per passenger, according to Pew's Subsidyscope. Do we really need a route from New Orleans to Los Angeles? READ FULL STORY Flight 188's overshoot and employee morale Barack Obama reframes green as competitive Fearing skin cancer, we give kids rickets Single parents and how they alter your brain Smart idea? Alienating customers with perfect credit Polymer could allow soldiers with artificial limbs to feel heat, cold, touch Featured TalkBack Blog Will a flu pandemic really bring down the Internet? The General Accountability Office has rapped the Department of Homeland Security for failure to plan for Internet congestion in the event of a severe pandemic that could overwhelm networks. The worry: Will the Internet hold up if everyone has to work from home under quarantine? by Larry Dignan READ FULL BLOG What do you think? Post Your Thoughts in TalkBack Active TalkBack Posts SOA Manifesto unveiled Microsoft expanding Office Web Apps test program Elsewhere on ZDNet Photo Gallery Lenovo's Windows 7 lineup of IdeaPad, IdeaCentre PCs dazzle Lenovo has revealed its new Windows 7-powered lineup of IdeaPad laptop computers and IdeaCentre desktop systems, and the consumer lines are positioned to visually thrill. Here's a look. VIEW THE GALLERY Lenovo Y500P Core i7 laptop Lenovo IdeaPad S10-2 (new colors) ZDNet Reviews Dell unveils 12.1" rugged multitouch tablet PC, Latitude XT2 XFR; withstands drops, spills, sand, children Andrew Nusca : Dell on Tuesday unveiled a 12.1-inch rugged convertible tablet PC, the Latitude XT2 XFR, the first multitouch tablet PC that can withstand ballistic shock, extreme temperatures, dust, sand and moisture. READ THE REVIEW TP-Link TL-WR741ND Wireless Lite N Router Razer Orochi More ZDNet Reviews Sign up for ZDNet's Product Watch Newsletter for the latest product reviews, news, and expert analysis	News & Blogs SharePoint: The team that makes the donut(s) Microsoft drops 'Family Guy' special Open source nanotech project launched US Defense Department to partially lift flash drive ban Xerox prints computer smarts on fabric, plastic Will OpenSolaris survive Oracle? Roku adds 2 new players, including the HD-XR with 802.11n support Black Duck finds its business makes sense Examining datacenter operations with Akorri BalancePoint Intuit enhances Quickbooks by bringing cloud apps to desktop software Latest SmartPlanet If Google does not hear you did you make a sound? Sustainability management: Take human bites Amtrak loses $32 per passenger; Do we need the New Orleans to LA route? Smart idea? Alienating customers with perfect credit Single parents and how they alter your brain Today's Product Highlight Antec Sonata III 500 Mini III The third chapter in the Quiet Computing story written by Antec - it's everything you've come to ... Buy Now » $149.99 merchant rating ★★★★☆ Most Rated Posts Answers to Windows 7 upgrade questions Planning to install Windows 7 on your netbook, here's a couple tips Net pioneer GeoCities finally laid to rest Can open source software stop IT failure? Mac ZFS is dead: RIP Videos and Podcasts Facebook COO sees economic models changing on the Web At the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg talks about the how the Web usage patterns are shifting from an information model to a more social model, which benefits Facebook rather than Google. In the future, she adds, more Web users will glean referral information from f... PLAY VIDEO U.S. CTO: Health care needs better billing systems At the Web 2.0 Summit in San Franicsco, U.S. CTO Aneesh Chopra talks about IT changes that need to be made to the current health care system. He believes one of the biggest areas of waste is the money spent on billing within the system, with 17 cents of every dollar going towards medical billing.... PLAY VIDEO HP CEO: The challenges of cloud computing At the Gartner Symposium in Orlando, Fla., HP CEO Mark Hurd talks about how the company plans to layer cloud services on its infrastructure in the future. However, with more than 1,000 hacks a day, security creates an important need on differentiating what they put in public versus private cloud... PLAY VIDEO Microsoft demos Twitter feeds in Bing At the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, Yusuf Mehdi, a senior vice president at Microsoft, previews Twitter integration with Bing search results. One of the interesting features he introduces is "hottest topics." He explains that the Bing-Twitter search will aggregate information around the most... PLAY VIDEO Play more video and audio Recommended Downloads Free IT Salary Report Register on activeTechPros and view the 2009 IT Salary & Skills Report. * * * * * * * * * * * * Business professionals salaries Use our newly launched activeBizPros salary benchmark wizard to compare salaries of business professionals. Register for free access. Live Webcast: Saving Money with Software as a Service (SaaS) Gain a better understanding of the market conditions driving the need for SaaS and find out how you can use it to save money and grow your business. Free White Papers: Clearing The Way For Faster, Smarter Business Decisions Find out how other business leaders are making IT work for themselves and their organizations with this foursome of insightful white papers. Live Webcast: Simplified IT Support for Customized Mobility Solutions Explore the most promising ways to keep your increasingly diverse mobile workforce connected and protected, while also improving your bottom line. Free! Ensuring Web Service Quality for Service-Oriented Architectures Moving to a services-oriented architecture and deploying Web services? Learn best practices for ensuring the quality of mission-critical applications. More white papers: Most popular papers Recently added papers Most popular papers by industry
Send us your feedback here. Sign up for more free newsletters from ZDNet! | To manage your account settings or to remove yourself from all ZDNet communications, please visit our Subscription Center. Copyright CBS Interactive, Inc. All rights reserved. ZDNet is a registered service mark of CBS Interactive, Inc. ZDNet 235 Second Street San Francisco, CA 94105 U.S.A.