New Architect/Web Techniques Articles by Neil McAllister

The following articles were written for New Architect and/or Web Techniques, the CMP Media magazines where I served as senior technology editor. Unfortunately, both have now ceased publication. These articles are fairly technical, so if you're not familiar with Internet technologies, you might want to browse through of my SFGate material instead.

Note: These articles are all hosted off-site, on CMP's servers. If the links are broken, that might be out of my control, but I'd appreciate it if you'd let me know. Also, these are just the major articles I wrote for each magazine. If you dig around, you can also find a number of shorter pieces, book reviews, and Q&A type interviews I contributed over the years.

The Great Migration (March 2003)

Microsoft's .Net framework and Sun's Java 2 Enterprise Edition offer developers unprecedented capabilities, but excitement over these new platforms often overshadows the risks. In this article, I investigate how developers can avoid hidden pitfalls when migrating their apps.

Offshore Outsourcing (February 2003)

Given today's tight budgets, low-cost overseas engagements are looking more and more attractive to American developers and IT departments. But despite the rewards, offshore development isn't without its pitfalls. I interview the experts to find the risks and rewards of this hotly-debated topic.

Free Enterprise (December 2002)

By now, everyone recognizes Linux as one of the open source movement's great success stories. Open source databases could be next, if they manage to capture the attention of enterprise IT managers. Can free software really take the place of big-name RDBMS systems like Oracle, IBM DB2, and Sybase?

Content 2.0 (October 2002)

HTML has been with us for a while now, long enough for many online applications developers to have grown well familiar with its limitations. Now, companies like Macromedia and Curl Corporation are rolling out new plug-ins that claim they can revolutionize Web interface development. Do enterprise developers finally have cause to shelve their musty old markup languages?

Rethinking the Macintosh (September 2002)

I've been a dedicated Macintosh user for several years now. But until recently, very few professional Web developers took the Mac OS seriously as a server platform. In this article, I take a hard look at today's Apple, and whether the introduction of Mac OS X and new server hardware means it's time for developers to take a fresh look at the Macintosh.

Database Clustering (April 2002)

Major database vendors like Oracle and IBM are beginning to push clustering as a low-cost alternative to expensive mainframes and big single servers. But is database clustering really a viable answer to the big-budget blues, or are you better off waiting for this technology to mature?

Freedom of Expression (March 2002)

As individuals, it's easy to think of digital rights management (DRM) as the enemy. But for many companies, it remains the best hope for protecting digital content from copyright infringement. The problem is that nobody's come up with a working system—yet. In this article I look at a number of emerging XML standards that promise to help lay the foundation for tomorrow's DRM, and the companies behind them.

Getting Personal (November 2001)

For any company, the business of acquiring new customers is expensive. But it's harder for online companies to retain those customers than for any other kind of business, since the competition is never more than a few mouse clicks away. Personalization technologies may be the secret weapon online marketers have been looking for. (This article was written when my magazine went by the name Web Techniques.)