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Category Archives for "Networking"

Developing Software The Right Way, with Intent and Carefulness

This blog post / write-up is long overdue. I’m the guy that’s gone from electronics and hardware person, to embedded software, software, networking and now back to software with a keen interest in programmable hardware. Whilst I haven’t had to quite start from scratch in software again, it’s been a long journey to get proficient. Therefore, perusing Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, conference notes and videos, occasionally something comes up which is interesting. Psychologically, coding is interesting (note how no-one says programmer any more? Who writes programs?). It gives away something about your personality, current learned/learning state and your happiness levels. It gives away how you view the world and how you handle danger. Seriously. I can hear those thoughts that say “Whatever dude”. Look at how some developers handle failure prone code. Do they check for errors in a shotgun style approach, or with the accuracy of a sniper?

What caught my eye back in January was a Tweet from one of my coding heroes, William Kennedy. The top one started a thought process off that I’ve been chewing on for months.

@goinggodotnet
Thinking about the diff between ignorance vs carelessness as it relates to writing software. These two words Continue reading

Sketchy rumor claims Apple will release two iPhone 8 models this year

Just when we thought we had a grasp on Apple's 2017 iPhone plans, a sketchy rumor has entered the fray and turned everything upside down. According to a recent report from Micgadget, Apple this year will release only two brand new iPhone models. Recall, most other rumors we've seen thus far pointed to Apple releasing three new iPhones this year: an iPhone 7s, an iPhone 7s Plus, and an edgeless iPhone 8 with an OLED display.Micgadget's alleged sources within Foxconn, however, seem to claim otherwise. Some our friends from Foxconn confirmed that Foxconn received an order for two new models. It’s mean that Apple will [release] two, not three models.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Amazon’s ambitious global cloud expansion plans

Public IaaS cloud providers have been on a dizzying streak of announcing and opening new data centers to power their operations, and according to the CEO of Amazon Web Services Andy Jassy, that’s not expected to slow down any time soon.“We are not close to being done expanding geographically,” Jassy said at AWS’s San Francisco Summit last week. “I think virtually every tier one country will have an AWS region over time and I think many of the emergent countries will as well.”+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: A peek inside Amazon’s cloud, from global scale to custom hardware | Deep dive comparison of cloud storage options from Amazon, Microsoft and Google +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Amazon Will Comp You A Dash Button When You Buy 2, and Then $4.99 Once You Use It – Deal Alert

This deal on Amazon will net you 2 Dash Buttons for the price of 0, making this a no-brainer if you've been thinking about trying Dash out. Right now if you buy two Dash Buttons, Amazon will give you one of them for free, and then a $4.99 credit the first time you actually use it (list price on a Dash Button is $4.99). Amazon Dash is a simple Wi-Fi connected gadget that lets you order your favorite things with just the push of a button. Keep it by your washing machine, your pet food, or in the bathroom closet. When you notice you're running low, just press the button and Amazon ships it right out. Each button gets tied to a specific product from Amazon's library of over 300 brands, in categories such as (click each category to see samples) household supplies, beverage & grocery, health & personal care, beauty products, pets, kids & baby, and more. Access this deal on Amazon. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Lessons learned from the failure of Ubuntu Touch

With the death of yet another open source/free software/Linux-based mobile platform, Ubuntu Touch, clearly it is time for us to sit down and have a frank discussion about what we in the free software world can reasonably accomplish in a mobile platform. One of the biggest issues—if not THE biggest issue—with Ubuntu Touch was that it simply had goals that were far too aggressive to reasonably achieve. It suffered from the all-too-common malady known in software development as feature creep. Ubuntu Touch was not simply a project to bring the existing Ubuntu system to mobile hardware and add functionality specific to that hardware (such as phone dialing, cell data, etc.). The project also contained: To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cybersecurity skills shortage impact on technology innovation

The global cybersecurity skills shortage continues to be a critical issue. For example, ESG research found 45% of organizations report a “problematic shortage” of cybersecurity skills today, more than any other area within IT.Want more? Here are a few tidbits from last year’s research project done in conjunction with the Information Systems Security Association (ISSA). In a survey of 437 cybersecurity professionals and ISSA members: 29% of cybersecurity professionals said the global cybersecurity skills shortage has had a significant impact on their organization. Another 40% said the global cybersecurity skills shortage has impacted their organization “somewhat.” When asked to identify the impact of the cybersecurity skills shortage: 54% said it increased the cybersecurity staff’s workload 35% said their organization had to hire and train junior staff rather than hire people with the appropriate level of experience necessary 35% said the cybersecurity skills shortage has created a situation whereby the infosec team hasn’t had time to learn or use its security technologies to their full potential While the cybersecurity skills shortage endures, the industry itself remains white hot. According to a recent Bloomberg business article, the cybersecurity industry is expected to grow about 7% a year through 2019 to Continue reading

Cybersecurity skills shortage impact on technology innovation

The global cybersecurity skills shortage continues to be a critical issue. For example, ESG research found 45% of organizations report a “problematic shortage” of cybersecurity skills today, more than any other area within IT.Want more? Here are a few tidbits from last year’s research project done in conjunction with the Information Systems Security Association (ISSA). In a survey of 437 cybersecurity professionals and ISSA members: 29% of cybersecurity professionals said the global cybersecurity skills shortage has had a significant impact on their organization. Another 40% said the global cybersecurity skills shortage has impacted their organization “somewhat.” When asked to identify the impact of the cybersecurity skills shortage: 54% said it increased the cybersecurity staff’s workload 35% said their organization had to hire and train junior staff rather than hire people with the appropriate level of experience necessary 35% said the cybersecurity skills shortage has created a situation whereby the infosec team hasn’t had time to learn or use its security technologies to their full potential While the cybersecurity skills shortage endures, the industry itself remains white hot. According to a recent Bloomberg business article, the cybersecurity industry is expected to grow about 7% a year through 2019 to Continue reading

Respond to ransomware in three steps: secure, assess, recover

This vendor-written tech primer has been edited by Network World to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note it will likely favor the submitter’s approach.Your help desk email and phones start lighting up. Your CIO is in your office looking stressed and staring at you. Quickly, you learn your company is the latest target of a ransomware attack.Logically, you shouldn’t be in this position. The latest detection software and data protection tactics are commonplace at your organization, intending to keep you out of this mess. Also, you have followed all best practices to ensure maximum data availability, so it’s likely your backups and disaster recovery sites were impacted as well. At this point, all that matters is that your data has been kidnapped, and you need to restore operations as soon as possible.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Respond to ransomware in three steps: secure, assess, recover

This vendor-written tech primer has been edited by Network World to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note it will likely favor the submitter’s approach.

Your help desk email and phones start lighting up. Your CIO is in your office looking stressed and staring at you. Quickly, you learn your company is the latest target of a ransomware attack.

Logically, you shouldn’t be in this position. The latest detection software and data protection tactics are commonplace at your organization, intending to keep you out of this mess. Also, you have followed all best practices to ensure maximum data availability, so it’s likely your backups and disaster recovery sites were impacted as well. At this point, all that matters is that your data has been kidnapped, and you need to restore operations as soon as possible.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Respond to ransomware in three steps: secure, assess, recover

This vendor-written tech primer has been edited by Network World to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note it will likely favor the submitter’s approach.Your help desk email and phones start lighting up. Your CIO is in your office looking stressed and staring at you. Quickly, you learn your company is the latest target of a ransomware attack.Logically, you shouldn’t be in this position. The latest detection software and data protection tactics are commonplace at your organization, intending to keep you out of this mess. Also, you have followed all best practices to ensure maximum data availability, so it’s likely your backups and disaster recovery sites were impacted as well. At this point, all that matters is that your data has been kidnapped, and you need to restore operations as soon as possible.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Get 42% off The Grillbot Automatic Grill Cleaning Robot – Deal Alert

If you're running out of ideas for Father's Day gifts, then consider this: The Grillbot. Grillbot is the first automated grill cleaning robot. Focus on your prep-work while it scrubs away in 10, 20 or 30-minute cleaning cycles. Grillbot has a rechargeable Lithium-ion battery, removable dishwasher-safe brushes, and works with virtually all grill types. Grillbot averages 4 out of 5 stars from over 145 people on Amazon, and its list price of $129.95 is reduced right now 42% to $75.28 in red (other colors are available and discounted as well) -- see the deal now on Amazon. If you need to dive a bit deeper before making the decision, read TechHive's review of the Grillbot here.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Why we need the FTC to police ISP privacy practices

Critics of the recently scrapped federal privacy regulation for internet service providers (ISPs) argued that the rules were overreaching, and that broadband providers should be held to the same privacy framework as application and content providers.The only catch is, they can't.Terrell McSweeny, a commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), laments that her agency lacks the same oversight authority over ISPs that it exerts in the general consumer internet space, where it has brought privacy cases against the likes of Google and Facebook.Then, when Congress moved last month to nullify a privacy rule for ISPs advanced by the FCC, it effectively stripped the market of federal oversight, McSweeny argued at a recent event on privacy policy.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Webroot deletes Windows files and causes serious problems for users

Users of Webroot's endpoint security product, consumers and businesses alike, had a nasty surprise Monday when the program started flagging Windows files as malicious.The reports quickly popped up on Twitter and continued on the Webroot community forum -- 14 pages and counting. The company came up with a manual fix to address the issue, but many users still had problems recovering their affected systems.The problem is what's known in the antivirus industry as a "false positive" -- a case where a clean file is flagged as malicious and is blocked or deleted. False positive incidents can range in impact from merely annoying -- for example, when a program cannot run anymore -- to crippling, where the OS itself is affected and no longer boots.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Webroot deletes Windows files and causes serious problems for users

Users of Webroot's endpoint security product, consumers and businesses alike, had a nasty surprise Monday when the program started flagging Windows files as malicious.The reports quickly popped up on Twitter and continued on the Webroot community forum -- 14 pages and counting. The company came up with a manual fix to address the issue, but many users still had problems recovering their affected systems.The problem is what's known in the antivirus industry as a "false positive" -- a case where a clean file is flagged as malicious and is blocked or deleted. False positive incidents can range in impact from merely annoying -- for example, when a program cannot run anymore -- to crippling, where the OS itself is affected and no longer boots.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Chaos for customers: Webroot flags Windows as malware and Facebook as phishing site

A Webroot antivirus signature update, which was supposedly live for only 13 minutes yesterday afternoon, flagged crucial Windows system files as malicious, causing chaos and 15 pages of customer complaints so far.The havoc began after Webroot flagged some Windows system files as the malware Win32.Trojan.Gen and moved key system files to quarantine. As legit files were shuffled around, thousands upon thousands of Webroot customers experienced OS errors or crashed Windows systems.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Chaos for customers: Webroot flags Windows as malware and Facebook as phishing site

A Webroot antivirus signature update, which was supposedly live for only 13 minutes yesterday afternoon, flagged crucial Windows system files as malicious, causing chaos and 15 pages of customer complaints so far.The havoc began after Webroot flagged some Windows system files as the malware Win32.Trojan.Gen and moved key system files to quarantine. As legit files were shuffled around, thousands upon thousands of Webroot customers experienced OS errors or crashed Windows systems.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here