HP is taking legal action against Oracle for allegedly breaching its 2010 partnership agreement of porting HP’s core software products with the latest versions of Itanium. In March, Oracle announced it would not be developing any new versions for products designed for the Itanium processor. Itanium has the ability to power the so-called Business Critical Systems hardware for extremely demanding enterprise applications. However, Oracle said the chip line is about to die.

The companies’ lawyer met in the Santa Clara County Superior Court with Judge James Kleinberg presiding to discuss their side of the event. Others in the courtroom included Ann Livermore, HP board member and former enterprise business chief, and Oracle’s co-President Safra Catz. Catz and Livermore were the two key negotiators for the agreement. Livermore was to testify later in the day. Kleinberg is set to rule if the companies had a legally binding contract.

Jeff Thomas, HP’s lawyer, focused on the so-called Hurd Agreement wording, where the companies reiterated their partnership after Oracle hired Mark Hurd, former CEO for HP. HP also sued Hurd for breaking the confidentiality agreement.

Thomas and the lead lawyer for Oracle focused on one paragraph of the agreement, which read Oracle would continue to provide its product suite on the HP platform in a way that’s consistent with the existing partnership before Hurd’s hiring.

In most business circles, the question of whether or not a website truly helps a company's business has become somewhat moot. Simply put, a website is a necessary evil, like it or not. The question is no longer, should a company have a website, but rather, is the website optimized to ensure the best potential results. Of course, it is important to understand what is meant by "helping a company."

Many businesses are under the assumption that a website is going to turn into cold hard cash for the company. Well, that could be the case if the organization is using a type of e-commerce platform to buy and sell goods. Many businesses are service oriented and as such, the website serves an entirely different purpose.

Recently, the new iOS update had added Reminders to the iPhone. If you ever found yourself setting notes on your iPhone to remember to do things, such as buying milk while at the grocery store, this process has become leagues upon leagues simpler, and faster. On your iPhone is an application named “Reminders”. Tap on this application and experience the new world of To-Do lists.

Right away, you are greeted by a screen that looks similar to a notepad, where you would be scribbling down reminders for this, and for that. To start off, tap on the plus button, and you are able to input the reminder you want. Say you want to be reminded to “Buy Milk.” Just type that into the application and you’re good to go.

But wait, there’s more. What this new application brings to the table that is extremely useful is the fact that your iPhone can remind you to do that task at a certain location, which, in this case, is buying milk. If you had saved your regular grocery store in your Maps application as a favorite location, you are able to do so. (To save a favorite location, go into your Maps application, search for your nearest grocery store that you regularly shop at, tap on the pin, tap on the blue arrow to get more information, and “Add to Bookmarks.”) In order to remind you to buy milk at your favorite grocery store, slide the “Off” to “On” and you are now able to set where you would like to be reminded at, and at what point in time. Now, you will never leave the grocery store without buying milk!

Straight up and full disclosure. I'm prejudiced. As a research assignment, the heading is a joke. I'll give you the answer in two words, and then tell you why.

How does HTML 5 compare with flash? Answer: it doesn't.

Lest you think I dislike Adobe's Flash, let's put the cards on the table. I loved Flash. Long before Adobe was Adobe, they had a competitor called Macromedia. Adobe bought that firm. That made my life simpler. I only had to work with one vendor.

Flash was a pretty compelling solution. I used it to mimic operations in Windows to prepare people for the CompTIA exams. The only bugaboo was that dang right-click stuff. A little bit of code from the Microsoft Visual Studio .Net let me flip the left and right mouse buttons so that the right mouse button instead of controlling the Flash player, emulated doing a right-click in the Windows operating system.