process

BMC and BladeLogic: Timing is everything

The technology industry loves to talk about anything that is new. Whether it's IT virtualization, SOA, or Web 2.0, venture capitalists, analysts, and the press team up and transform the latest thing into technonirvana.

OK, maybe this is just human nature, but in our business, it is important to remember that the IT triad consists of people, processes, and technology. In other words, enterprise technology ain't worth squat, unless a bunch of highly skilled nerds can monitor boxes, follow directions, and turn individual piece parts into a cohesive system.

Yup, the "people and process" part … Read more

Innovation 1-on-1: Chris Heatherly of Walt Disney Co.

We asked Chris Heatherly, vice president of technology and innovation, Disney Consumer Products, The Walt Disney Co., to answer a set of questions--and he took the time to dive a little deeper.

How do you define "innovation"? My favorite quote about innovation is one where Steve Jobs was asked how they systematize innovation at Apple and he said "We don't. We hire good people." I think a lot of talk about innovation amounts to a lot of dancing about architecture. People get caught up in trying to have an innovative "process" instead of … Read more

AMD pays for IBM know-how in battle with Intel

AMD is leaning increasingly on IBM as it battles with Intel for next-generation microprocessor manufacturing leadership. And the payout to IBM is significant.

First some background: On Tuesday, AMD announced that IBM had successfully produced a working test chip using next-generation Extreme Ultra-Violet (EUV) lithography for the critical first layer of metal connections across an entire chip. Previous projects utilizing EUV produced working chip components on only a very small portion of the chip.

Why EUV? The size of transistors and the metal lines that connect them is directly related to the wavelength of light that is used to project … Read more

Save $400 on Microsoft Office: Use Lotus Symphony instead

Microsoft Office is not just overpriced--for most users, it's overkill. That's why I've been increasingly recommending IBM Lotus Symphony, a well-rounded office suite that just so happens to be free. It's built on open-source favorite OpenOffice, but sports a sleeker, friendlier interface.

Symphony (available for Windows and Linux) offers word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations. It supports Office 2003 file formats as well as OpenDocument and others. And it relies on an ingenious tabbed interface that keeps all your documents under the same roof--no switching between apps like with most other suites. I particularly like the sidebars, … Read more

Innovation 1-on-1: Manoj Kothari, Onio Design

This is the first in a series of interviews with innovation thought leaders. We've reached out to innovators in marketing, design, strategy, and operations -- from start-ups, small-medium sized business, Fortune 500 companies, academia, to non-profits -- and asked them to answer the same set of questions.

We're kicking the series off with Manoj Kothari, founder and managing director of Onio Design, one of the leading design and innovation consultancies in India. A graduate of IIT Bombay and the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad, Manoj orchestrates trend research, strategic consulting, and design management practice at Onio. Manoj … Read more

Process Explorer, Part 2

This is a continuation of my previous posting (Using Process Explorer to tame svchost.exe - Advanced topics) which introduced the excellent Process Explorer program, a souped up version of Task Manager. According to the author, "Process Explorer works on Windows 9x/Me, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Server 2003, and 64-bit versions of Windows for x64 and IA64 processors, and Windows Vista." And, it's free.

When a computer is running slow, people sometimes guess at the underlying problem. An experienced Process Explorer user doesn't have to guess.

Below is the main Process Explorer … Read more

Using Process Explorer to tame svchost.exe - Advanced topics

On February 5th, Peter Butler of CNET wrote a blog posting about using the free Process Explorer program to prevent an instance of the svchost.exe process from hogging the CPU on his CNET-provided* computer. This is a follow-up, a more advanced look at Process Explorer.

To people unfamiliar with Process Explorer, I usually call it Task Manager on steroids. But comparing Process Explorer to Task Manager is like comparing humans to amoebas. It's that far up the evolutionary scale.

Let me say up front that I am prejudiced. I think Process Explorer is an excellent program. I'd … Read more

Stop svchost.exe from stealing CPU cycles

The situation is familiar to countless Windows users: They're in a groove at work, firing off e-mails, crafting documentation, and even blogging on their personal site during breaktime, when suddenly, something takes over 99 percent of the CPU, slowing it to a virtual standstill. A quick look at the invaluable Process Explorer (or the standard Windows Task Manager) indicates that a process called svchost.exe is using all that CPU. What's more, there's one main CPU offender. Multiple versions of svchost.exe are running in the background and hogging CPU cycles. What is it? Is it spyware? Hackers? Terrorists?

Although there are historical cases of malware using svchost.exe, because of its common presence, it's most likely just Windows being Windows. Svchost.exe is a generic process name for Windows services that run from Microsoft DLLs (dynamically linked libraries). Each of those instances of svchost.exe in the process lists actually represents a group of services that each process is managing. With Process Explorer, it's easy to see which services each process manages, and stop them one by one to see which is the CPU culprit.

In the spring of 2007, a major problem arose with a Windows update that caused svchost.exe to use 100 percent of CPU because of an issue with Automatic Updates. To correct that bug, be sure that Windows is fully patched with the most recent updates.

The first thing to do is to determine which of the active svchost.exe processes is causing the slowdown. Fire up Process Explorer, and click on the CPU column header to sort the list of processes by processor usage. A list of processes, sorted from most processor intensive to least intensive, is displayed. When the computer stalls, switch over to Process Explorer and see which running process is causing the crunch.… Read more

Make sure Word, OpenOffice.org Writer play well together

The first few times I worked on Word files in the OpenOffice.org Writer program, I was satisfied if the documents opened at all. That's a long way from being able to trust the open-source app with a Word file from your boss that you need to work on and return with all functions and formatting intact. These steps won't guarantee trouble-free file transfers between Word and OOo Writer, but they'll help you prevent some of the most common conversion glitches.

Keep it simple: Word files with complex graphics, nested tables, fancy fonts and formatting, and OLE … Read more