Programmers have pride with good reason. No one else has the power to reach into a database and change reality. The more the world relies on computers to define how the world works, the more powerful coders become.Alas, pride goeth before the fall. The power we share is very real, but it’s far from absolute and it’s often hollow. In fact, it may always be hollow because there is no perfect piece of code. Sometimes we cross our fingers and set limits because computers make mistakes. Computers too can be fallible, which we all know from too much firsthand experience.[ Find out how to get ahead with our career development guide for developers. | The art of programming is changing rapidly. We help you navigate what’s hot in programming and what’s going cold. | Keep up with hot topics in programming with InfoWorld’s App Dev Report newsletter. ]
Of course, many problems stem from assumptions we programmers make that simply aren’t correct. They’re usually sort of true some of the time, but that’s not the same as being true all of the time. As Mark Twain supposedly said, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into Continue reading
Forget experience and hard skills -- tomorrow's best talent will need soft skills, and it's fact that sourcing and recruiting pros need to be prepared to address."From our own LinkedIn research last May, we know that, of 291 hiring managers we surveyed, their employers struggle to find candidates with the right soft skills for 59 percent of their open jobs, and 58 percent said the lack of soft skills among candidates was 'limiting their company's productivity,'" says Jennifer Shappley, senior director of talent acquisition at LinkedIn at a presentation at SourceCon, held earlier this month in Anaheim, Calif.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
As the digital enterprise struggles to find the best security solutions to defend their ever-expanding networks, many are looking to next generation tools that offer interoperability capabilities.Software defined networking (SDN) holds lots of promises. By consolidating the control planes of multiple devices into a single controller, that controller becomes the omnipotent decision maker over the entire network.That's a lot of power, yet developers still don't have security at the forefront of their minds when building SDN products, which is why there are weaknesses in SDN that can compromise enterprise security.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Lines of business demand agility, and IT teams that utilize legacy infrastructure and operations face hard limits on how agile they can be. Automating and integrating networking tasks streamlines operations and makes the network much easier to manage, minimizing downtime caused by human error while increasing organizational agility and efficiency. But implementing network-wide automation that also integrates with cross-domain technologies presents three primary challenges.Challenge 1: Vendor Lock-in. Vendor-specific network automation solutions may not completely address your organization’s unique automation needs and they lock you into the vendor's strategy and goals rather than your own. The result is often a flawed approach that doesn’t align and support your organization’s business and technical objectives.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Netscape provides an excellent illustration as to how tech darlings come and go.Netscape created and sold Navigator, the browser that essentially invented the World Wide Web. Prior to Netscape, the internet was mostly benefiting geeks and nerds. Netscape changed the world by transforming the internet into the mass-market, browser-powered online world we know and love today.Netscape’s original business model was to sell licenses for its Navigator browser. It was just over a year old when it had its IPO on Aug. 9, 1995. And in its first day of trading, the stock went from $28 to as high as $74.75, giving the company a value in the billions.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
There is reality in the hype that moving to a converged storage environment can produce major cost savings while paving the path to advanced virtualization technologies. Part of the appeal comes from the ability to use commodity servers and storage to build a shared storage pool vs. relying on a dedicated appliance that typically comes at a pretty substantial premium. Increased flexibility is another reason for moving in this direction. IT teams gain greater options in how they configure server and storage nodes to meet workload and application demands. Adjusting configurations is straightforward, so adding more disks to nodes is a pretty easy task. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A senior U.K. official is asking that law enforcement should be given access to encrypted messages on WhatsApp and similar services, a demand that is likely to fuel an ongoing debate over whether companies should create backdoors into their encryption technologies for investigators.Khalid Masood, the terrorist who killed four people outside Parliament on Wednesday, had sent a message on WhatsApp a little before the attack, according to reports.“We need to make sure that organizations like WhatsApp, and there are plenty of others like that, don't provide a secret place for terrorists to communicate with each other,” Home Secretary Amber Rudd said on BBC One's Andrew Marr Show on Sunday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
TurboTax coaches you every step of the way and double checks your return as you go to handle even the toughest tax situations, so you can be confident you’re getting every dollar you deserve. Its typical list price of $59.99 has been reduced a generous 40% to $35.79, a deal that is exclusive to Amazon. Learn more, or take advantage of the deal now, on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In this issue of the Gearhead Toolbox I’m covering dashboards and visualizations. There are an incredible number of products and services in this domain and today I've chosen three particularly interesting projects ... Mark Gibbs
Cachet: A Status Page SystemTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
As enterprises move their applications and data to the cloud, executives increasingly face the task of balancing the benefits of productivity gains against significant concerns about compliance and security.Security in the cloud is not the same as security in the corporate data center. Different rules and thinking apply when securing an infrastructure over which one has no real physical control.+ Also on Network World: The tricky, personal politics of cloud security +
When leveraging cloud services, enterprises need to evaluate several key factors, including:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft has delayed the release of its tools for connecting other services to the Cortana virtual assistant, a decision that could cause it to lose ground in a crowded industry.The tech titan announced the Cortana Skills Kit in December of last year, saying at the time that it would be released to the public in February. As Microsoft watcher Brad Sams noted on Twitter, Microsoft missed that deadline, and the Skills Kit remains locked in a private beta with a select group of partners. Microsoft didn’t offer an explanation for the delay, saying in a statement that the kit will be coming soon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
What’s the best way to avoid Android malware? Downloading all your apps from the Google Play store -- where software is vetted – is perhaps the best advice. But that doesn’t mean Google Play is perfect.Security researchers do find new Android malware lurking on Google’s official app store. That’s because hackers are coming up with sneaky ways to infiltrate the platform, despite the vetting processes that protect it."Eventually, every wall can be breached," said Daniel Padon, a researcher at mobile security provider Check Point.To be sure, most Android users will probably never encounter malware on the Google Play store. Last year, the amount of malicious software that reached the platform amounted to only 0.16 percent of all apps, according to a new report from Google.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
If you aren’t using two-factor authentication to protect your Apple ID and iCloud account, you really should do it today. Hackers who claim to have millions of stolen iCloud credentials are demanding Apple pay a ransom or they’ll release them—and ZDNet obtained a sample set of credentials and determined they’re real.But guess what? Using two-factor authentication should protect you completely. It’s easy to set up, so take a minute and do it now.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Google is considering a harsh punishment for repeated incidents in which Symantec or its certificate resellers improperly issued SSL certificates. A proposed plan is to force the company to replace all of its customers’ certificates and to stop recognizing the extended validation (EV) status of those that have it.According to a Netcraft survey from 2015, Symantec is responsible for about one in every three SSL certificates used on the web, making it the largest commercial certificate issuer in the world. As a result of acquisitions over the years the company now controls the root certificates of several formerly standalone certificate authorities including VeriSign, GeoTrust, Thawte and RapidSSL.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In my last post, “#WirelessSucks: Where do we go from here?” I talked about the need for better insight into the root cause of network problems. All too often, the Wi-Fi infrastructure is blamed for bad network connectivity when, in fact, the wired network (e.g. DNS, DHCP, etc.) and/or the mobile devices may be equally at fault.
I identified four components that are required to accurately and easily address this problem:
Monitoring networks at a service level
Real-time visibility into the state of every wireless user
A cloud infrastructure to store and analyze real-time state information and aggregate it to the highest level of commonality
Machine learning to automate key operational tasks, such as event correlation and packet captures
Let’s go into more detail on the first of these requirements: service-level monitoring and enforcement.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
With this cable, Anker boasts reinforced stress points with a 10000+ bend lifespan, double-braided nylon exterior and toughened aramid fiber core, laser-welded connectors and a worry-free 18-month warranty. The micro-USB cord is a generous 6 feet in length. Its list price on Amazon is currently discounted to just $10.99. See this deal now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Hands-on testing of Motorola's Moto G5 Plus drives home the point that Apple’s next-generation iPhone better have augmented reality (AR) to retain loyal customers willing to pay three times the cost of the G5 Plus.The next iPhone has to do something significantly different to maintain its premium brand position. AR and perhaps virtual reality (VR) are the only two features on the horizon that will meaningfully differentiate the iPhone 8 from the Moto G5 Plus.Moto G5 Plus features
Sometimes smartphone reviews read like an oenophile waxing on about the subtleties of a fine wine. This review will not because the Moto G5 Plus designers deliver on four characteristics consumers want.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
I started my career as an analyst in 2001, and one of the first reports I wrote was on the topic of “unified communications,” or UC as it’s more commonly called today. The concept is pretty simple: Workers use lots of communications tools, so why not bring them together into a single, easy-to-use tool? Makes sense, doesn’t it? However, a funny thing has happened over the past 15 years. In an effort to give workers more functionality, many specialty UC vendors popped up. I understand the term “specialty UC” is somewhat of an oxymoron, but this is the state of the industry because we now have UC vendors for video, web conferencing, chat, audio conferencing, VoIP, document sharing, file storage and the list goes on. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Canary’s initial foray into the networked home security camera space was very impressive – my colleague David Newman touted its high security settings in the wake of revelations about the general insecurity of these types of devices. The Canary camera was also somewhat large – a cylindrical tower that took up some significant space on your desk, cabinet or shelf.The latest camera the company sent me is the Canary Flex, a much smaller unit meant to be more flexible (hence the name) in terms of placement, but also in power options. Like the Arlo Pro camera, the Canary Flex is powered by an internal battery (it’s charged via USB cable and power adapter). This means you can move the Flex to a location inside or outside your home where there’s no power outlet. The Flex comes with wall mounting screws and a 360-degree magnetic stand so you can position the camera in different spots. Additional accessories, such as a plant mount or twist mount (pictured below), offer even more location choices.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
BOSTON -- Blockchain can help secure medical devices and improve patient privacy, but the key is proper implementation, according to a top security pro at Partners Healthcare.The downsides would include mistrust of the technology because of blockchain’s potential performance problems, and its association with ransomware and use as payment for illegal items on the Dark Web, Partners’ Deputy CISO Esmond Kane told the SecureWorld audience this week in Boston.On the other hand, the decentralized, encrypted public ledger could have a wealth of applications in healthcare, Kane says. These include streamlining the resolution of insurance claims, management of internet of things medical devices and providing granular privacy settings for personal medical data.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here