Accessing vCPE Processing Power Is Key to Reliability

Service providers must accurately estimate vCPE processing power if they want to avoid ripping and replacing equipment down the road.

The Harsh Reality Of Audience Supported Podcasting

Every now and then, podcast listeners tell me that they’d gladly donate a few dollars each month, if only the ads would go away. I get that. It’s a nice thought that listeners would support the content they find valuable and subscribe. It’s also a nice thought that the sum total of subscription revenue would pay the bills.

Sadly, neither of those things are true.

In my experience, less than 1% of listeners will financially support a podcast in any way. That might be through affiliate programs such as Amazon’s. That might be through Patreon patronage. That might be through Paypal donations. That might be through a regular subscription. Whatever the way is, it just doesn’t matter. Almost no one that listens to your show is likely to become a direct source of revenue.

How much money needs to come in for your show to do away with advertisements? That depends on your goals, and I’ll assume you’ve got one of two.

Goal 1. The podcast paying for itself.

One goal is for your podcast to simply pay for itself. You’d like the audience to pay for a mic upgrade, hosting services, a mobile recording rig, your move into vlogging, and maybe some coffee now Continue reading

40% off iPazzPort Backlit Wireless Mini Keyboard and Touchpad for PC, Android TV Box, Raspberry Pi 3 – Deal Alert

Wireless long distance control of your PC, Android TV box, or Raspberry Pi 3. The iPazzPort features a 92 key wireless QWERTY keyboard with touchpad supporting multi-touch function, mouse left and right buttons, and easy copy/paste. Backlight can be turned on & off, and its Li-ion battery provides long play and stand-by times in between charges. Its typical list price of $30 has been reduced 40% to just $18. See it on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

German consumer groups sue WhatsApp over privacy policy changes

WhatsApp's privacy policy change allowing Facebook to target advertising at its users has landed the company in a German court.The Federation of German Consumer Organizations (VZBZ) has filed suit against WhatsApp in the Berlin regional court, alleging that the company collects and stores data illegally and passes it on to Facebook, the federation said Monday.Facebook acquired WhatsApp in October 2014, but it wasn't until August 2016 that WhatsApp said it would modify its privacy policy to allow it to share lists of users' contacts with Facebook. The move made it possible to match WhatsApp accounts with Facebook ones where users had registered a phone number, giving the parent company more data with which to make new friend suggestions and another way to target advertising.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

German consumer groups sue WhatsApp over privacy policy changes

WhatsApp's privacy policy change allowing Facebook to target advertising at its users has landed the company in a German court.The Federation of German Consumer Organizations (VZBZ) has filed suit against WhatsApp in the Berlin regional court, alleging that the company collects and stores data illegally and passes it on to Facebook, the federation said Monday.Facebook acquired WhatsApp in October 2014, but it wasn't until August 2016 that WhatsApp said it would modify its privacy policy to allow it to share lists of users' contacts with Facebook. The move made it possible to match WhatsApp accounts with Facebook ones where users had registered a phone number, giving the parent company more data with which to make new friend suggestions and another way to target advertising.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cops use pacemaker data to charge homeowner with arson, insurance fraud

If you are dependent upon an embedded medical device, should the device that helps keep you alive also be allowed to incriminate you in a crime? After all, the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects a person from being forced to incriminate themselves.Nonetheless, that’s what happened after a house fire in Middletown, Ohio.WCPO Cincinnati caught video of the actual fire, as well delivered news that the owner’s cat died in the fire. As a pet owner, it would be hard to believe that a person would set a fire and leave their pet to die in that fire. The fire in question occurred back in September 2016; the fire department was just starting an investigation to determine the cause of the blaze.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cops use pacemaker data to charge homeowner with arson, insurance fraud

If you are dependent upon an embedded medical device, should the device that helps keep you alive also be allowed to incriminate you in a crime? After all, the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects a person from being forced to incriminate themselves.Nonetheless, that’s what happened after a house fire in Middletown, Ohio.WCPO Cincinnati caught video of the actual fire, as well delivered news that the owner’s cat died in the fire. As a pet owner, it would be hard to believe that a person would set a fire and leave their pet to die in that fire. The fire in question occurred back in September 2016; the fire department was just starting an investigation to determine the cause of the blaze.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: HPE acquisitions bring hyperconvergence, hybrid IT into the mainstream

A little over a week ago, HPE announced its agreement to purchase SimpliVity for $650 million in cash. Predictably, tech industry followers erupted into an uproar of opinion about stock price implications and how it would impact support for SimpliVity customers.Less than a week later, HPE announced another purchase: Cloud Cruiser, a 7-year-old startup that provides consumption-based infrastructure analytics. Interestingly, this transaction received much less attention.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: HPE acquisitions bring hyperconvergence, hybrid IT into the mainstream

A little over a week ago, HPE announced its agreement to purchase SimpliVity for $650 million in cash. Predictably, tech industry followers erupted into an uproar of opinion about stock price implications and how it would impact support for SimpliVity customers.Less than a week later, HPE announced another purchase: Cloud Cruiser, a 7-year-old startup that provides consumption-based infrastructure analytics. Interestingly, this transaction received much less attention.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

50% off Fallout 4 – Deal Alert

Bethesda Game Studios, the award-winning creators of Fallout 3 and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, welcome you to the world of Fallout 4 – their most ambitious game ever, and the next generation of open-world gaming.  As the sole survivor of Vault 111, you enter a world destroyed by nuclear war. Every second is a fight for survival, and every choice is yours. Only you can rebuild and determine the fate of the Wasteland.  Currently Amazon has the PC and XBOX ONE versions discounted by 50% and the PS4 is 43% off.  Check out these deals on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

PeeringDB & Internet Exchange peering Part 3: generating router configurations

The post PeeringDB & Internet Exchange peering Part 3: generating router configurations appeared first on Noction.

Questions to ask your recovery vendor before you buy

At ShmooCon 2017, CSO's Steve Ragan chats with Marc Langer, president of Recovery Point, about the questions that many companies often miss when choosing a data recovery system or process.

How most hackers get into systems

In part two of CSO's interview with Gabe Bassett from Verizon Enterprise Solutions at ShmooCon 2017, Steve Ragan and Bassett discuss why vulnerabilities are not the major vectors that hackers use to get into a company's infrastructure.

Managing risk by understanding attack surfaces

At ShmooCon 2017, CSO's Steve Ragan sits down with Gabe Bassett, senior information security data Scientist at Verizon Enterprise Solutions. The two discuss how attack surfaces work within the Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) and how companies can use those to assess their risk profiles.

IT service providers prepare for potential H-1B visa changes

While new U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent proclamations related to immigration have centered on his plans for a Mexican border wall and bans on Syrian refugees, the IT outsourcing industry is anticipating details on his strategy for reforming the H-1B visa program.Trump railed against the shifting of U.S. jobs overseas during his campaign and called for raising the minimum salary for H-1B holders to $100,000 per year, from the current threshold of $60,000 per year.ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: 8 ways to jumpstart your career A purported draft of an executive order recently published called for an investigation into the impact of such nonimmigrant visa programs on American workers and directed the Department of Homeland Security to "consider ways to make the process for allocating H-1B visas more efficient and ensure that beneficiaries of the program are the best and the brightest.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Booted up in 1993, this server still runs — but not for much longer

In 1993, President Bill Clinton was in the first year of his presidency, Windows NT 3.1 and Jurassic Park were both released, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed, and Phil Hogan, an IT application architect, booted up a brand-new Stratus Technologies fault tolerant server.A lot has changed in 24 years, but one thing hasn't: The Stratus server is still in operation and Hogan -- who works at steel products maker Great Lakes Works EGL in Dearborn Mich. -- continues to keep it that way.This is a fault tolerant server, which means that hardware components are redundant. Over the years, disk drives, power supplies and some other components have been replaced but Hogan estimates that close to 80% of the system is original.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Booted up in 1993, this server still runs — but not for much longer

In 1993, President Bill Clinton was in the first year of his presidency, Windows NT 3.1 and Jurassic Park were both released, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed, and Phil Hogan, an IT application architect, booted up a brand-new Stratus Technologies fault tolerant server.A lot has changed in 24 years, but one thing hasn't: The Stratus server is still in operation and Hogan -- who works at steel products maker Great Lakes Works EGL in Dearborn Mich. -- continues to keep it that way.This is a fault tolerant server, which means that hardware components are redundant. Over the years, disk drives, power supplies and some other components have been replaced but Hogan estimates that close to 80% of the system is original.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Booted up in 1993, this system still runs — but not for much longer

In 1993, President Bill Clinton was in the first year of his presidency, Windows NT 3.1 and Jurassic Park were both released, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed, and Phil Hogan, an IT application architect, booted up a brand-new Stratus Technologies fault tolerant server. A lot has changed in 24 years, but one thing hasn't: The Stratus server is still in operation and Hogan -- who works at steel products maker Great Lakes Works EGL in Dearborn Mich. -- continues to keep it that way. This is a fault tolerant server, which means that hardware components are redundant. Over the years, disk drives, power supplies and some other components have been replaced but Hogan estimates that close to 80% of the system is original.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

US tech industry says immigration order affects their operations

The U.S. tech industry has warned that a temporary entry suspension on certain foreign nationals introduced on Friday by the administration of President Donald Trump will impact these companies' operations that are dependent on foreign workers.The Internet Association, which has a number of tech companies including Google, Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft as its members, said that Trump’s executive order limiting immigration and movement into the U.S. has troubling implications as its member companies and firms in many other industries include legal immigrant employees who are covered by the orders and will not be able to return back to their jobs and families in the U.S.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

New Office 365 subscriptions for consumers plunged 62% in 2016

Four years after the introduction of Office 365 for consumers, Microsoft last week said subscriptions to the productivity software had reached nearly 25 million.Subscribers, however, were harder to find last year than in 2015, according to the numbers Microsoft reported: Additions to Office 365's rolls were down 62% in 2016 compared to the year before.During an earnings call with Wall Street analysts last week, CEO Satya Nadella touted revenue increases for the Office products aimed at consumers -- which include Office 365 -- and of the latter said that the company had, "continued to see an increase in ... subscriber base."That it did.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here