Well one year into the iPhone era. Millions have been sold and now the next generation is cheaper and better. The issues that enterprises were unhappy about seem to have evaporated in this new version of the phone. Software developers finally have an API that can be used to write more than a simple widget and a store to sell and download their applications into people's phones. GPS has been added. All that seems to be missing is a video camera function and voice dialing.

What does today's big announcement by Apple of software that will dual boot an Intel Macintosh mean? After all if I buy a Mac I want to run Mac OS X all the time. I regularly use Windows XP from my Macintosh and I do it using a program from Microsoft called Remote Desktop Connection. About the only thing I might prefer over having the ability to remotely access a Windows XP machine and its screen, would be to run Windows virtually. By Virtually I mean to run Windows software from within Mac OS X. Nonetheless this announcement is important for two big reasons.

Recently there has been a lot of news about the security of Mac OS X. A lot of the press would like to sell the idea that the Mac isn't fundamentally any more secure than any other operating system (read Windows). The reasoning is based upon popularity. Surely the less popular operating system has fewer problems because it naturally has fewer attackers.

Does Microsoft Deliberately Crash On Macs?

I remember back in the days of the Mac Plus. It was during a snack break at one of the very first MacApp courses offered by Apple. An Apple engineer (who I won't name here) explained something to us then that has always stuck in my mind. Before the days of protected memory ordinary users (not us tech types) saw crashes as a problem with "the computer". Most people don't know where to assign the blame when things go wrong. So the blame would lie with Apple.

Howard Schmidt, former White House cybersecurity advisor is quoted in an article suggesting just this. Like many politicians his comprehension of the real issues borders on ignorance.

By now you've probably heard about it. Agile Software Development is the rage. It is said to bring to software development benefits that are usually attributed to Just In Time inventory management. It is a development strategy that deals with change easily and produces results. The Agile Manifesto and its Principles lay the groundwork. It combines the best of traditional engineering wisdom with the best of a late night self-help guru.