This week: Tales of hot memories and Katrina survival

Is memory the new power hog? The genesis my column this week was an offhand comment made by Roger Schmidt at IBM as we chatted for another story: this week's page one feature on energy efficiency trends in data centers.

What a difference a few years makes. When I spoke with the folks at IBM Back in 2003 the focus was still squarely on the CPU. Now it's memory that has server designers' attention. Find out why by reading the column.

Another story that I worked on that ran this week has some fascinating survival stories that didn't make print. The main story is a profile of Northrop's post-Katrina recovery efforts in Pascagoula, Miss., an area that was devastated by the storm. Northrop is a Computerworld P100 award winner and the story offers plenty of "gotchas" and first-hand tips on how to survive such a disaster.

But two other parts of the story didn't make print. I had the opportunity to speak with employee Anita Logan about a harrowing swim to safety after waters partially submerged her home. Imagine being in a house that sits on stilts 10 feet off the ground and having the water rise to chest level inside your home. Anita and her family packed a few things into a cooler and swam out a window at the height of the storm to find shelter. She, her husband and son, did swim to safety. But you'll never guess what she put in that cooler. Yes, it's technology. Read Anita's story to find out.

You have 18,000 employees who need their paychecks, but Hurricane Katrina has wiped out the entire infrastructure. No phones. No banks. No stores open to cash checks. Your employees, many with no homes and nowhere to go, begin arriving at work in a daze. What do you do? Here's how Northrop handled the problem.