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The Tinker and the Geek: Information Technology

Imagine you’ve just woken up and found yourself in a small kingdom someplace in Europe around 1200 AD. You wander outside, interested in your surroundings, and find yourself in the middle of a fair. Taking stock, you see a man standing in a tent across the way who appears to be tapping on something with a small hammer. Working your way to the tent, you find he is actually tapping out intricate patterns on a small silver disc. While you’re not certain what the disc is for, you take a moment to ask — as any geek would — “are you in the information technology business?”

The tinker, living in 1200 AD, probably doesn’t even understand the question. “What’s information technology?,” he might ask. But let’s consider the tinker’s business. What does a tinker really do?

He takes some material, combines it with technical knowhow, including the development and use of tools, to create a product he knows customers will want. He can’t just use any old tool, or any old technique — he must know something about the correct technology to apply to the problem at hand. And he can’t just hammer anything out on the little Continue reading

Skype for Business preview adds support for massive meetings, cloud-based phone administration

Businesses that use Microsoft’s Skype for Business communication product have some new beta features to play with that make the enterprise messaging and calling product more useful.The features, which were first announced earlier this year when Microsoft officially rebranded its Lync service as Skype for Business, allow businesses to create large-scale meetings and better integrate Skype for Business with traditional phone lines. It’s all designed to make the service more appealing for enterprises when those features enter general availability later this year.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to deploy tablets to your mobile workforce

When Wakefield Canada, the exclusive distributor for Castrol in Canada, set out to replace the tablets used by their sales team, it went right to the source to figure out what to buy: The people who would be using them in the field. "A big part of this was really involving our end users in the tool selection," says Kent Mills, Wakefield Canada CTO. MORE: 10 mobile startups to watch The company landed on the Microsoft Surface Pro 3. Here's why – and how they made an easy transition. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Upload: Your tech news briefing for Wednesday, July 1

Court says NSA can keep collecting phone records even after Congress told it to stopThe National Security Agency just doesn’t want to stop collecting records of U.S. telephone calls. Congress told it to stop—but left a loophole in the USA Freedom Act so the courts could let it carry on. Now a U.S. surveillance court has approved a request from the FBI to extend the telephone records dragnet until Nov. 29. As the judge noted in his order: “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”Vandal cuts cable after opening manhole: FBI looks into itTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

China tightens grip over the Internet with new security law

China has adopted a new security law that gives the government control over its Internet infrastructure, along with any critical data.On Wednesday, China’s legislature passed the national security law, which covers a wide range of areas including military defense, food safety, and the technology sector.A full text of the law’s final draft has yet to be released, but it calls for better cybersecurity, according to a report from China’s state-controlled Xinhua News Agency. The country’s key information systems and data will also be made “secure and controllable” under the law.Previous drafts of the legislation don’t state in detail what that control might mean, exactly. But U.S. trade groups have expressed ongoing concern that China’s security policies are going too far, and could push foreign businesses out of the country.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Xiaomi break outs of Asia, introduces phones to Brazil

Chinese smartphone vendor Xiaomi will finally begin selling product in Brazil, marking the first time it has sold handsets outside of Asia.On Tuesday, Xiaomi unveiled its Redmi 2 phone for Brazil, which will cost BRL499 (US$160) when it goes on sale later this month.The company hopes to repeat the success it has had in China selling feature-packed Android handsets at low prices. In just a matter of a few years, Xiaomi has become the country’s largest smartphone vendor. Some in the media have called it “the Apple of China” due to its rising popularity.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The battle for the wireless networking crown is heating up

The IT world has been buzzing recently with partnerships and acquisitions on the wireless networking front. HP announced its decision to acquire Aruba Networks and will reportedly focus its efforts on new software that allows customers to manage entire networks with a single app. We also learned about the newly formed partnership between Juniper Networks and Ruckus Wireless, demonstrating Juniper's continued effort to become a real player in the wireless space. All interesting revelations, but will these changes pose a real threat to Cisco, the reigning networking champ?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Preparing for the CCIE Wireless v3 Diagnostic Section

I had the pleasure of attending the CCIE Wireless tectorial at Cisco Live in San Diego this year. One of the topics discussed was the new diagnostic section of the lab. Jerome Henry gave us insights into what the section would look like as well as some examples of the types of things that we can expect in the section. I wanted to pass on some of that information along with a few insights about how you should prepare for this section since it’s quite different than what we’ve seen before in the lab.

What is the Diagnostic section?

Starting in v3 of the wireless lab, each lab will begin with a 1-hour diagnostic section. This section has no configuration task associated with it. Instead, you will be playing the role of TAC, or a senior level engineer. Your job is to look at information gathered from a client by a first-level engineer and analyze it so that you can answer questions related to troubleshooting an issue.

It sounds like you can expect maybe 3-4 separate troubleshooting scenarios with approximately 10 questions to answer across those 3-4 scenarios. So that means there will probably be 2-4 questions per scenario. All Continue reading

16 facts about our slowly mutating energy consumption

Electricity consumption has slowed while the use of natural gas, wind, and solar have become larger portions-- with coal and nuclear becoming less -- of the nation's electricity generation between 2001-2013.That was one observation of an interesting  report issued by the Government Accountability Office this week that looked at the changing ways in which the US generates and uses electricity.+More on Network World: World’s hot alternative energy projects+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Surveillance court extends NSA’s phone records collection

A U.S. surveillance court has extended a controversial telephone records dragnet while the National Security Agency works to wind down the program on orders from Congress.Congress voted in June to rein in the NSA’s mass collection of U.S. telephone records, but the USA Freedom Act allowed for a six-month transition away from the program. On Monday, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court approved an FBI application to continue the records collection program until December.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Surveillance court extends NSA’s phone records collection

A U.S. surveillance court has extended a controversial telephone records dragnet while the National Security Agency works to wind down the program on orders from Congress.Congress voted in June to rein in the NSA’s mass collection of U.S. telephone records, but the USA Freedom Act allowed for a six-month transition away from the program. On Monday, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court approved an FBI application to continue the records collection program until December.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

HP enterprise chief Bill Veghte to depart before company split

The head of Hewlett-Packard’s enterprise division will leave the company ahead of HP’s planned split later this year.Bill Veghte, a former Microsoft executive who joined HP five years ago, will leave the company later this summer to “pursue a new opportunity,” HP said in a statement on Tuesday. It’s not clear what he’ll do next and Veghte couldn’t be reached for comment.Veghte is executive vice president of the HP Enterprise Group, a $28 billion division that sells the company’s servers, network and storage gear. He’s been leading the effort to separate the group into a new company.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apple loses e-book antitrust appeal

An appeals court ruled against Apple’s challenge of a lower court’s decision which found the company liable for illegally conspiring with ebook publishers to jack up prices.A 3-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit voted 2 to 1 against Apple. Writing for the majority, Judge Debra Ann Livingston said that Apple illegally orchestrated a conspiracy between book publishers, upholding a district court ruling from 2013. The lawsuit was filed by the U.S. Department of Justice.Additionally, she said that the injunction imposed by District Court Judge Denise Cote was appropriate and left it in place. It’s the latest strike against Apple in this long-running case, which stems from agreements the company set up with publishers around the launch of its online ebook marketplace.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Failing to the Cloud – and Back!

I attended Virtualization Field Day 5 last week! The usual Field Day disclaimers apply.

This network guy found himself way outside his comfort zone at a Virtualization event, but I had a fantastic time, and I learned a lot.

One of the things that really struck me was just how much virtualization platforms depend on mucking around with block storage in use by VMs. Half or more of the presentations hinged on it. Frankly, this notion terrifies the UNIX admin in me. I realize that we're not talking about UFS filesystems on SunOS4, but it seems those fragile old systems have really imprinted on me!

One of the VFD presenters was OneCloud Software, which presented a DR-via-Public-Cloud offering. The following bullets describing their solution came from here:

  • Auto discovers your on-premise assets; data and applications
  • Provides you with a simple policy engine to set RPO and RTO
  • Automatically provisions a fully functioning virtual data center in the cloud that mirrors your on-premise data center
  • Optimizes the economics of your data center in the cloud by eliminating unneeded compute costs and using the most cost-effective storage
  • Executes on-going data replication to keep the virtual data center in sync with the Continue reading
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