Devoted to hardware, software, IT issues, and information technology management

You may think you don't have time to worry about the number of the printers, faxes, copiers and other devices in your company, but managing your output fleet offers more significant money-saving opportunities than you may realize.

Getting the most from your output fleet requires more than basic asset management. Reducing the Cost of Your Output Fleet gives you the information and tools you need to assess your current fleet and make the best purchasing decisions moving forward.

Download Reducing the Cost of Your Output Fleet, and you'll find out how to eliminate unnecessary equipment and recognize immediate savings. You'll walk through cost-cutting steps as you benchmark current usage, determine goals and requirements, and identify purchasing options — all with the help of seven tools designed to help you save time and money.

You'll get decision-making tips on whether to lease or buy and practical advice for negotiating the best deal. The report covers selecting and monitoring SLAs, purchasing supplies, and monitoring usage. What's more, you'll get help with maintaining your fleet and keeping it at optimal performance.

Transmeta Corporation, the leader in efficient computing, designs, develops and sells highly efficient x86-compatible software-based microprocessors is suing Intel. AMD and Via has done it in the past and now Transmeta is suing Intel for violating 10 of its patents related to computer architecture and power efficiency, going all the way back to the Pentium III. Most notably, the complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Delaware asks that Intel stop selling affected equipment, and that monetary damages be awarded to address its woes.

I heard of Transmeta back in 2000 when they launched the Crusoe line of processors. Last year Transmeta pretty much abandoned the manufacturing of any technology, and instead set its sights on becoming a house of IP (intellectual property). It laid off 67 of its staff and focused on making designs, not implementing them.

A test was conducted at University of California, San Diego researchers last week aptly called The Operation College Freedom drill. It involved a coordinated effort by the school and local emergency and law-enforcement officials to respond to a simulated terrorist attack.

The drill involved a system test called the Wireless Internet Information System for Medical Response in Disasters (WIISARD) that's designed for tracking mass casualties, coordinating triage and managing medical data.

"This full-scale exercise is the culmination of a three-year, US$4 million research project carried out by the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology," said Calit2 Associate Director Leslie Lenert, a professor of medicine at UCSD and Director of Health Services Research for the VA San Diego Healthcare System, in a statement.

Some of cool gadgets that were tested are included below :

CalMesh: An ad-hoc network of lightweight Wi-Fi access points.

iTag: A system for tagging patients so that their medical status can be determined locally and tracked centrally.

Antenna Caddy: A sort of mast structure for raising multiple types of antennas at a disaster scene.

RealityFlythrough: A helmet-cam/wireless tablet PC that enables first responders to send real-time video and still images to a central server that can be used to compile a broader picture of a disaster scene.

University of California test terrorist-proof wireless network source

Check out the OpenOffice.org Computer-Based Training by OO.cbt

OO.CBT is an online training portal developed for OpenOffice.org 2.0 users and Resolvo Systems has launched the beta version of this training portal free for all as part of their contribution to the OO community.

Good stuff. Now that Microsoft will now support Open Document Format (ODF), its time to catch up and learn more on OpenDocument Format (ODF) format.

Ever wonder how those whiz kids at Google Inc come up with such good ideas that even rivals like Yahoo! and MSN eat their dust ? Then listen to this insightful podcast from Marissa Mayer, the VP Search Products and User Experience at Google. Its fascinating and it fills up your empty iPod.

Rules that are critical to product development at Google :

# Ideas from everywhere. Encourage and enable idea flow and incubation. Don't assume it will happen naturally.
# Share all info. Provide tools/forums that make it easy to share info freely and widely internally.
# If you're great, we'll hire you.
# Provide a license to pursue dreams. 50% of new products comes from the 20% free time discipline (i.e. 4x more productive than regular time!)
# Don't perfect on the drawing board. Innovate and iterate (quickly).
# Ask users thru playing with real product.
# Data is apolitical. Data creates clarity. Use split tests all the time if you're not sure.
# Creativity loves constraint. Don't start with a white sheet of paper. Set clear goals and objectives from Day 1.
# Users not money. Money follows the users. Always.
# Don't kill products. Morph them into something different and better.

Project Management is a very tough job and I know because I was a Project Manager around June 2004 to June 2005 for a Singapore based Systems Integration company in Malaysia. Here's some free Project Management Tools to look at if you are not going to dish out money for Microsoft Exchange or Microsoft Project.

1. DotProject is a PHP/MySQL Web application that delivers project management, task-tracking and calendaring tools. Straightforward Web-based installation requires only a MySQL database and a user with privileges to create a database.

2. Tutos is similar to dotProject, but a bit more difficult to install, and has a more mature documentation base.

3. Trac is interesting because it is wiki-based, which makes it more flexible for distributed and diverse workgroups.

Open Source Project Management Tools source