The 12 days of tech-mas

On the 12th day of Christmas the tech world gave to me ...

12 Patch Tuesdays
It seems that all that work shoring up security started to pay off for Microsoft this year. In July, the company was able to release a monthly update with no critical patches, its first such release in years. January and November were also quiet months, each bringing just two bulletins.

On the 11th day of Christmas the tech world gave to me ...

11 browser plug-ins
This year more than ever the line between browser and operating system was blurred. From Microsoft's Silverlight to Sun's JavaFX, the power of the web-based app grew exponentially.

On the 10th day of Christmas the tech world gave to me ...

10 shares a-falling
The days of tech shares hitting the roof are sadly over. Lots of tech staff have been left with stocks they can't sell for love nor money. Don't expect things to get better any time soon.

On the 9th day of Christmas the tech world gave to me ...

9 Nehalems churning
Intel's Nehalem processor looks like the bees knees of power processing. It's got the grunt to do large processing jobs, good software support and looks to be the greenest Intel processor yet. All in all Nehalem is going to be the processor to buy next year, unless AMD's Shanghai proves better.

On the 8th day of Christmas the tech world gave to me ...

8 cores a-waiting
2009 should bring the release of the first eight-core chips from Intel and AMD. Combined with the ever-shrinking fabrication systems, the new year shapes up to be as busy as any in terms of new processor designs.

On the 7th day of Christmas the tech world gave to me ...

7 brand new Windows
Windows 7 is where it's at these days. Vista is dead in the water and most companies are happy with XP in the meantime. Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference was all about Windows 7, and there are precious few developers concentrating serious time on Vista. Expect Windows 7 to launch with lots of software and support. It's been promised for 2010, and that date looks firm.

On the 6th day of Christmas the tech world gave to me ...

6 scammers scamming
Unfortunately the next year will see increasing numbers of fraudsters going online, and they'll be trying to scam us for some time yet. 2009 will see more of these low-lifes online and the only way to beat them is to be smart.

On the 5th day of Christmas the tech world gave to me ...

5 iPhone 3Gs
Roughly one year after the iPhone made its grand debut in the US, Apple's star attraction jumped from fashionable gadget to practical handheld smartphone. The 3G connection, combined with the opening of the App Store, greatly expanded the pool of iPhone software and made the handset a practical enterprise tool for the first time.

On the 4th day of Christmas the tech world gave to me ...

4 AMD cores
2008 was the year that AMD fleshed out its quad-core strategy. At the CeBit show in Germany, the company unveiled its 45nm quad-core offerings. Late in the year, the Shanghai series of chips made their debut as a server processor.

On the 3rd day of Christmas the tech world gave to me ...

3 server chips
AMD, Intel and Sun have all brought out new server systems this year and they look very good. Big iron prices are going to carry on dropping for a while, and you'll get great bang for your buck.

On the 2nd day of Christmas the tech world gave to me ...

2 deals for Yahoo
In 2008 no story was bigger than the saga of Yahoo. The headlines started in February when Microsoft made a public offer for the embattled internet giant. Yahoo's board resisted the attempts, prompting a shareholder rebellion lead by Carl Icahn. Eventually, that feud was settled, but the damage was already done. The failure of the Microsoft deal, combined with an ill-fated search partnership with Google, eventually forced the resignation of Yahoo chief Jerry Yang.

On the 1st day of Christmas the tech world gave to me ...

1 notice of my redundancy
OK, fingers crossed but we have to face up to the fact that there are going to be some redundancies this year. Money is tight across the board and, with the economic downturn biting around the world, outsourcing contracts will get cheaper and companies will try to cut costs.

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