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- ZDNet Author Biography
Originally a Math/Physics graduate who couldn't cut it in his own field, Paul Murphy a pseudonym became an IT consultant specializing in Unix and related technologies after a stint working for a DARPA contractor programming in Fortran and APL. Since then he's worked in both systems management and...- more about Paul Murphy »
ZDNet Resources
- Educating IT decision makers
- When you tell a user decision maker that thing X will work better for some job than thing Y, are you an educator or an advocate? Think you know? try it with specifics: "Linux is better than Windows for web services." Education or advocacy? that is indeed the question...
- Tags: Information Technology, Linux, Professional Development, Microsoft Windows, Cloud Computing, Web Services, Operating Systems, Software, Career, Enterprise Software, Paul Murphy
- Blog posts 2009-11-21
- An interesting exchange on politics and IT
- A reader's question about how I can recouncile right wing political views with the belief that the market has it generally wrong on technology had me reaching for my tulip (and Enron, and Google, and Bre-X) sales brochures -but then I realized that this was an opportunity to hype the...
- Tags: Information Technology, Sales Strategy, Sales Force Management, Strategy, Sales, Management, Paul Murphy
- Blog posts 2009-11-14
- The real pros and cons of server virtualization
- PC style virtualization, derived from IBM's zVM ideas and now supported in both AMD and Intel hardware, is a revenant of data processing's failure to adapt to the age of digital computing - an expensive, user punishing, detour into 1920s management ideas in pursuit of that period's holy grail: 100%...
- Tags: Server Virtualization, Cloud Computing, Virtualization, Processors, Servers, Hardware, Semiconductors, Components, Paul Murphy
- Blog posts 2009-11-07
- Scaring yourself and others
- Scary Halloween ghostshosts come in many guises -and the scariest ones in IT, at least for for non AIX users where ghost processes are still common, are the OS ghosts invoked through virtualization and the ghostly shadows cast by your boss's belief that he knows something about technology...
- Tags: Operating Systems, Cloud Computing, UNIX, Storage Management, Virtualization, Utility Computing, Software, Storage, Hardware, Paul Murphy
- Blog posts 2009-10-31
- What Windows7 could mean for Linux
- Microsoft visual studio is very nice : slick, easy to use, a good match for Windows7 and Server 2008 - but so completely out of step with the cloud computing and rental applications Microsoft wants to sell that marketing push is already feeling increasing resistance as it approaches the immovable...
- Tags: Client-server, Linux, Servers, UNIX, Operating Systems, Open Source, Software, Hardware, Paul Murphy
- Blog posts 2009-10-24
- Of snow, rocks, a book, and another partisan attack on IBM
- A collection of comments - about early snow, a ridiculously partisan attack on IBM, Sun's TPC/C result, and a new title for an old book. by Paul Murphy
- Tags: IBM Corp., Attack, Security, Paul Murphy
- Blog posts 2009-10-17
- Clouds vs. Appliances
- Although the evolution of cloud computing toward a kind of connective fog for handhelds and smart phones seems to be proceeding apace it's not remotely keeping pace with the rate at which major companies are proving unable to keep the large scale, public access, services needed for for major...
- Tags: Cloud Computing, Handhelds, Virtualization, Smart Phones, Cellular Phones, Enterprise Software, Hardware, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology, Software, Paul Murphy
- Blog posts 2009-10-10
- Net Neutrality vs. "do no evil"
- The company that claims its motto is "do no evil" is the biggest private sector supporter out there for "net neutrality" - the doctrine that will directly empower bureaucrats to control the transmission bandwidth available to selected internet hosts and indirectly restrict American national economic adaptation to the internet age....
- Tags: Net Neutrality, Internet, Paul Murphy
- Blog posts 2009-10-03
- Linux as Wintel parasite
- When Linus Torvalds choose to tie his new kernel to x86 he did so thinking, quite correctly as it turned out, that Microsoft's tendency to software bloat would provide an unending stream of cheep hardware for Linux developers and users. Great! except there's a side effect: Linux is ultimately dependent...
- Tags: Wintel, Microsoft Corp., Linux, UNIX, Operating Systems, Open Source, Software, Paul Murphy
- Blog posts 2009-09-26
- Rocky dreams
- Everyone knows that Sun's ultraSPARC RT is dead. Right? Wrong - the strategic reason for not releasing it disappeared with the Oracle deal. by Paul Murphy
- Tags: Paul Murphy, Sun UltraSPARC, Processors, Semiconductors, Hardware, Components
- Blog posts 2009-09-19
- Pano, Sun Ray, and the Wintel gestalt
- The Pano is popular with the PC press, Sun Ray untouchable - and yet, what's a Pano that isn't 15 years behind? by Paul Murphy
- Tags: Wintel, Sun Microsystems Inc., Sun Ray, Pano, Paul Murphy
- Blog posts 2009-09-12
- For your safety and convenience
- Somewhere deep in Shaw's vault there's a tape of me screaming at a customer "support" representative that I didn't (and still don't) give a star blank star about his script, booting and cabling have nothing to do with the issue because I don't have wintel, and to get his supervisor...
- Tags: Tape, Paul Murphy
- Blog posts 2009-09-05
- Vindications: ah, the week that was
- I've been having a wonderful week: no IT, no hassles - just unco-operative rocks that eventually find a way to contribute to the wall I'm building. Great, and meanwhile back in IT a lot of the folks who send me off topic hate mail or make vindicative personal attacks in...
- Tags: Information Technology, Construction, Strategy, Management, Paul Murphy
- Blog posts 2009-08-29
- Save money: buy from the enemy
- People keep joyfully telling me that real men buy wintel or lintel, never SPARC/Solaris - and the numbers on this are compelling: if the rate of increase in x86 price/performance falls by only 18% per year over the first five years after SPARC/Solaris (hypothetically!) disappears, the total cost increase...
- Tags: Intel X86, Sun Sparc, Sun Solaris, Processors, UNIX, Operating Systems, Servers, Software, Semiconductors, Hardware, Components, Paul Murphy
- Blog posts 2009-08-22
- A day in the life
- There are similarities between working in IT and building drystack stone walls that you just don't think about until you get a sore back, heavy feet, and callused hands trying it. Very therapeutic, but take some very IT-ish advice: think twice - then go have a few drinks and...
- Tags: Paul Murphy, Food & Beverage, Construction, Manufacturing
- Blog posts 2009-08-15
- The! meaning! of! bing!
- On the surface the Microsoft - Yahoo deal on bing signals that the people who demand structured search have finally been pushed aside but the deeper meaning may be financial: because Microsoft got what it wanted from Yahoo, and kept most of its cash for another, more strategic, acquisition. by...
- Tags: Yahoo! Inc., Microsoft Corp., Mergers & Acquisitions, Corporate Law, Financial Accounting, Investment, Finance, Business Operations, Paul Murphy
- Blog posts 2009-08-08
- Reformulating Murphy's law
- Murphy's law is really an observation: phrase it as a law and what it says is that real actions align with the real world, not the beliefs on which the actions were taken - so if your beliefs don't match reality and you take action on those beliefs, the consequences...
- Tags: Belief, Action, Murphy, Paul Murphy
- Blog posts 2009-08-01
- Thinking about ROCK
- A technology is only as good as what you can achieve with it - and in thinking about some unique Sun technologies - CMT, HTM, Dtrace, and the CMT package management hardware - it occurs to me that that these can be combined to beat some very serious infrastructure security...
- Tags: Technology, Security, Paul Murphy
- Blog posts 2009-07-25
- Managing IT in desperate times
- If you're working on the fiscal 2009/10 budget right now and in the United States - expect the economy to take a few more double whammies, focus on keeping your staff together, and plan on doing absolutely nothing you can avoid, except migrating your wintel machines to Windows...
- Tags: Wintel, Information Technology, Microsoft Windows 7, Paul Murphy
- Blog posts 2009-07-18
- Pigeons roosting and doing what pigeons do
- Is there anything more depressing than being forced to consider just how uselessly some professional lives have been spent? I just heard from an old acquaintance and his problems today, and his ideal solutions, really haven't changed in 15 years. Sysiphus had nothing on this guy: he keeps pushing...
- Tags: Rock, Paul Murphy
- Blog posts 2009-07-11
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