Top 10 IT priorities for 2010

In January 2010, CIO Magazine has conducted a survey among CIO.com visitors to gauge which technology areas IT professionals plan to focus on, and received respond from 405 IT decision makers involved in buying technology products and services for their organizations.

The 6 pages exclusive research report reveals the top 10 areas of interest that IT decision makers care about in 2010 are:

• Cloud computing
• Business process management
• Web 2.0 / social networking technologies
• Desktop/client virtualization
• Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)
• Analytics
• Storage virtualization
• Enterprise data management
• Software as a Service (SaaS) and Web services
• Collaboration technologies

Beside that, it is found that mobile and wireless applications are the most frequently cited technologies currently in production either enterprise-wide or on a division or business unit scale.

Click here to report the report of CIO Technology Priorities Survey (January 2010) for more detail.

Opera Mini 5 and Opera Mobile 10 stable version released

After quite a long beta period, finally the stable version of Opera Mini 5 and Opera Mobile 10 is now officially released.

For those who haven't tried the Opera web browser for mobile devices, you should test it out. It is free, and most of the time it provides much better browsing experience as well as surfing speed than the original web browser that comes with your handphone.

To download Opera Mini 5 or Opera Mobile 10 to your handphone, simply make a visit to http://m.opera.com/ with your handphone, and the automated download and installation process should be initiated.

Opera Mini 5 is available on all Java-based handphones. Opera Mobile 10 is available on Windows Mobile and Symbian S60-based smartphones.

Here is how the new Opera Mini 5 screen looks like in my Sony Ericsson P1i.

And here is how this blog looks like when browsed with Opera Mini 5 (landscape mode).

When you tab on any area, it will enlarge that region, then the text and pictures will be readable.

Air fresheners might contain toxic substances

Do you use air freshner in your office? living room? bedroom? toilet? car?

A report from the Women in Europe for a Common Future (WECF) organization titled "Foul-smelling whiff from air fresheners!" alerted that air fresheners do not "purify" the ambient air, but on the contrary pollute it by releasing well-known toxic substances.

The European Consumers' Organisation (BEUC) and 5 of its member organisations had tested on 76 air fresheners products, and found out many contain:

• Formaldehyde and benzene - which could cause cancer in humans
• Acetaldehyde or styrene - that irritates the respiratory tract, allergens and potential carcinogens
• Toluene, chlorbenzene, glycol ethers, phthalates and artificial musk - all known to be dangerous to health

Not to mention all the other chemicals not assessed in this test and about which we know nothing.

These products represent a real risk to health not only of allergy sufferers, asthmatics, pregnant or nursing women and children, but also to anyone using them continuously.

As a result, it is advisable not to use air fresheners to avoid exposure to those toxic substances. Perhaps air ionizer is a better alternative.