This Amazon #1 best selling solar security light is super bright and easy to install wherever you need it. It features 3 modes: (1) Always on, (2) Dim until motion is detected, and (3) Off until motion is detected. It's designed with a large sensor that will detect motion over a larger distance, and 20 LED lights that the company claims are larger and more powerful than the competition offers. Being weatherproof, this is a light you can mount anywhere you need it outdoors. The Liton outdoor motion sensing light averages 4 out of 5 stars from over 1,100 people (see reviews), and a 2-pack is currently being offered at $35.29, a 29% discount over its typical list price of $50. See it now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
What happens when you stop giving away an OS for free in a weak PC market? Growth flattens. Imagine that.New data from NetMarketShare, from the analytics firm Net Applications, shows no growth in use for Windows 10 between August and October, the period after Microsoft ended its free offer for the operating system. In Q3, Gartner reported a 5.7 percent decline in PC sales vs. the same period the year before. So, with no giveaway and poor PC sales, this is hardly a surprise. + Also on Network World: Microsoft confirms Windows 10 adoption slowdown +
It has to be remembered that Net Applications measures usage and not actual market share. It has sensors all over the internet that detect the OS and browser of users it encounters. So, if a lot of people using Windows XP machines are active while Windows 10 machines are not, it looks like XP is doing better. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
October was a big month for Microsoft with lots of exciting updates to software and hardware, but today brings the official announcement of Microsoft Teams – the much anticipated group chat workspace for Office 365 users. Microsoft Teams is a new experience that brings together people, conversations, and content in Office 365. Microsoft Teams is (are?) Microsoft’s answer to Slack. The cool thing about Microsoft Teams, however, is that while Microsoft may be a little late to the group chat party, it’s got all the elements needed to deliver a best-in-class solution – and these tools are the ones we already use every day.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft on Tuesday said it would patch a Windows vulnerability next week that Google publicly revealed just 10 days after notifying Microsoft.Microsoft also identified the attackers, asserting that they were the same who had been accused by authorities of hacking the Democratic National Committee (DNC)."All versions of Windows are now being tested ... and we plan to release [the patches] publicly on the next Update Tuesday, Nov. 8," wrote Terry Myerson, the head of the Windows and devices group, in a post to a company blog.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Data and analytics are increasingly becoming central to business decision-making, especially in areas such as driving customer growth, improving productivity and managing risk. But even as organizations push to make their decision-making more data-driven, business leaders accustomed to making decisions based on gut-instincts and experience are having trouble trusting insights from data and analytics (D&A).Forrester Consulting, commissioned by the Data and Analytics Global team at professional services firm KPMG, recently surveyed 2,165 data and analytics decision-makers from a range of industries in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, the U.K. and the U.S.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The best defense against ransomware has been comprehensive backup, but ExtraHop is introducing a way to capture files just before ransomware encrypts them, making it possible to restore them but without relying on the backups.+More on Network World: Cisco: Potent ransomware is targeting the enterprise at a scary rate+A software upgrade to ExtraHop’s Ransomware Detection bundle picks up on precursors to ransomware encrypting files and captures them before the malware has the chance to encrypt.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
If you're looking for dirt-cheap Windows 10 laptops, many will be available this holiday season, but don't expect superior hardware.Dell appears to be the first major PC maker making a move in the holiday price wars. In the U.S., the company will sell its Inspiron 11 3000 for $99.99, starting at 6:00 p.m. ET on Nov. 24. It'll be available in limited quantities, and the price will go back up to $199.99 after the sale period ends.The Inspiron 11 3000 has an Intel Celeron processor, Windows 10 Home, 2GB memory and 32GB storage. It also has an 11.6-inch 720p display, which is being phased out of laptops.The Dell laptop won't be able to store many large data or video files, so it could be used for basic computing and web-based tasks. It is configured much like a Chromebook, which is targeted for people who surf the internet, use online services and store files online.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Remember the Prince song Let’s Go Crazy? “Are we gonna let de-elevator bring us down? Oh, no let’s go! Let’s go crazy, let’s get nuts.” The famed singer and poet sang about not letting others bring you down. Instead, go crazy and get yourself out that downward spiral—at least that’s my interpretation.+ Also on Network World: Cisco CEO Robbins: Wait til you see what’s in our innovation pipeline +
Cisco collaboration has gone through a similar trend. A few years ago the Cisco Collaboration Business Unit was in a free fall, and people were pointing to Microsoft, Google and startups such as Slack as being Cisco killers. Since then, the company has punched back and completely turned the business around to the point where it has now seen something like 12 consecutive quarters of growth. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Chip maker Broadcom wants to buy storage vendor Brocade Communications Systems, stripping out its Fibre Channel business and selling the rest.
Broadcom has agreed to pay around US$5.5 billion for Brocade, it said Wednesday.
But it doesn't want all of it: After the deal closes -- between May and October 2017, Broadcom hopes -- it plans to sell off Brocade's IP-based wireless and campus networking, data center switching and routing, and software networking products.
The bit Broadcom wants to keep, Brocade's Fibre Channel SAN business, is in for a challenging time as enterprises turn to cloud storage and hyperconverged infrastructures. Fibre Channel doesn't play well in the virtualized SANs that hyperconvergence entails.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Robotically grabbing hunks of asteroid in deep space is no trivial task so it would be nice to practice the mission beforehand.That’s the goal with a mock-up asteroid NASA and the University of West Virginia recently built from rock, styrofoam, plywood and an aluminum endoskeleton. The mock-up is in preparation for NASA’s Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) which will send a spacecraft to rendezvous with a target asteroid, land a robotic spacecraft on the surface, grab a 4 meter or so sized boulder and begin a six-year journey to redirect the boulder into orbit around the moon for exploration by astronauts.+More on network World: How to protect Earth from asteroid destruction; Quick look: NASA’s ambitious asteroid grabbing mission+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
As the holiday season approaches (OK, it may already be here), workers in your company will likely be acquiring new smartphones. In fact, a recent survey by Blancco Technology Group says a whopping 68 percent of mobile users plan to purchase a new smartphone for the holidays. That number seems high to me, but come January, you can be pretty sure there will be a lot of shiny new iPhones, Galaxies and Pixels connecting to your corporate network. But that’s not what this post is about. No, this post is about what happens to all those no-longer-shiny BYOD smartphones that used to connect to your corporate network and work with your corporate data, but have now been replaced with something new. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Cloud computing has helped many enterprises transform themselves over the last five years, but experts agree that the market is entering something of a second wave, both for public cloud and private cloud services built and hosted in corporate data centers. The cloud market will accelerate faster in 2017 as enterprises seek to gain efficiencies as they scale their compute resources to better serve customers, says Forrester Research in a new report.“The No. 1 trend is here come the enterprises,” says Forrester analyst Dave Bartoletti, primary author of the research. “Enterprises with big budgets, data centers and complex applications are now looking at cloud as a viable place to run core business applications.” Forrester says the first wave of cloud computing was created by Amazon Web Services, which launched with a few simple compute and storage services in 2006. A decade later, AWS is operating at an $11 billion run rate.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
IT workers in the infrastructure team at Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC) were notified recently of their layoff. They expect to be training replacements from India-based contractor HCL. The layoff affects more than 500 IT workers, according to the insurance firm.This familiar IT story began a little differently. A few days before employees were notified in mid-October of their layoff, HCSC CEO Paula Steiner talked about future goals in an internal, company-wide video.Steiner's comments weren't IT-department-specific, but the takeaway quote by one IT employee was this: "As full-time retiring baby boomers move on to their next chapter, the makeup of our organization will consist more of young and non-traditional workers, such as part-time workers or contractors," said Steiner in the video.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A team made of former Cisco and Nuage Networks veterans has developed an open source project it released this week named Trireme that takes an application-centric approach to securing code written in containers.+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: Peek inside Microsoft Azure's open source rack and server designs + Aporeto
Trireme was developed by a startup named Aporeto, whose co-founders include the former co-founder and CTO of software-defined networking company Nuage Networks Dimitri Stiliadis; former distinguished engineer at Cisco’s Insieme Business Unit Satyam Sinha; and Amir Sharif, who previously worked at VMware. The first launch of the company is the free release of its Trireme open source code.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Cybersecurity getting little attentionImage by REUTERS/Jim YoungThis election has been more about style than substance, more about the candidates’ pasts than their plans, more personal attacks than policy proposals. Even the debates, where the moderators attempt to discuss issues in need of decisions and actions, have been more notable for the ferocity of attacks than the shrewdness of the strategies.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In the months before an unexpected crisis, IT security requests specific tools, training, and additional staff to keep enterprise data safe, but does not substantiate the need in terms the business can understand. The c-suite denies the requests, pointing to the investments they have already made in security technologies. Suddenly, hackers strike with a massive cyber attack.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Does your home office Wi-Fi router's lackluster performance hamper your productivity? Do you constantly deal with wireless connectivity issues that drive you crazy? And do the problems get worse as you add more wireless devices to the network? If you answered yes to any of these questions, an upgrade of your aging, overloaded Wi-Fi router may be the only guaranteed solution.Before you buy that bargain basement router or even splurge on the most expensive model, it's wise to make sure you understand the technologies behind your in-home wireless so you can pick the best router for your workspace or small office.Making sense of Wi-Fi standards and technologies
Mobile devices that support Wi-Fi today conform to the 802.11 family of protocols for wireless communication. That family includes the trusted 802.11a, 802.11b and 802.11g standards, and newer Wi-Fi devices support the much faster 802.11n and 802.11ac, as well.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A hyperscale cloud data center looks different from an enterprise data center, or even a large hosting provider. The problems they face are different from the problems you face. And your approach to everything from how you choose a site to how you manage power to how long you keep servers is not their approach.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Microsoft issued a warning about the APT group most commonly known as “Fancy Bear,” or APT 28, and how it is exploiting the zero-day disclosed by Google on Halloween.Microsoft agreed that the zero-day is being actively exploited and pointed a finger of blame at a hacking group that is believed to be tied to the Russian government; the same group is believed to be responsible for hacks which resulted in data breaches at the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign.Microsoft does not call the APT group “Fancy Bear” as its codename for the threat group is STRONTIUM. Terry Myerson, executive VP of Microsoft’s Windows and Devices Group, wrote:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Discussing salaries at work can be tricky. LinkedIn is trying to take the guesswork out of calculating fair compensation by giving users the ability to view aggregate data about salary trends by profession.
The new LinkedIn Salary service will show users of the enterprise social network a graph of the total compensation for a particular title in a particular location. For example, they could look up how much a software engineer makes in New York City. (Spoiler alert: it's a lot of money.) After that, it's possible to further slice and dice the data, to see differences in pay between different industries, levels of education, and even degree field.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here