Review: Microsoft Teams almost as bad as its beta

For months now, we’ve been hearing about Microsoft Teams, Microsoft’s much-heralded Slack killer for corporate chat. It’s now in official release (what Microsoft calls “general availability”) as part of Microsoft’s Office 365 enterprise plans. Sadly, Teams is underwhelming in its formal debut and definitely not a match for the hype Microsoft has been providing since October 2016. For a product so late to market, Microsoft should have delivered much more.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Taking A Stand Against Corruption

Over the last few months, I’ve noticed that some pages on this site have been returning what appear to be corrupted pages, looking something like this:

Or like this:

Pretty, aren’t they? Typically if the user hits refresh the page will come back as it should have done first time. I’ve been working for many weeks now to track down why this was happening. One thing I noted is that the corrupted files were smaller than the non-corrupted equivalent, suggesting that the file was either truncated or, more likely, compressed. Opening a downloaded file in a text editor showed that the header of these corrupted pages begins like this:

Some of you are probably feeling smug right now because you know that the first three bytes of a gzip file are 1F 8B 08. The ASCII code for 0x1F is Ctrl-_; there’s no code for 0x8B; ASCII 0x08 is the same as Ctrl-H (i.e. backspace). This should look familiar in the image above:  ^_ <8B> ^H. In other words, the client is receiving a GZIPped version of the page but presumably was told that the mime type was text/html. The end result is the garbled mess we saw above. So now Continue reading

Open-source BeagleBone Blue board aims for robots, drones

Before Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone was the go-to low-cost developer board for enthusiasts. It's still used by many, and a new BeagleBone board is now being targeted at robots.The US $79.95 BeagleBone Blue from BeagleBoard.org is a credit-card sized board with all the components needed to operate a robot or even a drone. It is open source, as its schematics have been published, and developers can replicate the board.Robots have unique requirements, and some computer boards specialize in specific features. For example, Nvidia's Jetson TX2 and Intel's Joule excel at computer vision and can give robots digital eyes to steer past obstacles. These boards also have powerful graphics processors and 64-bit CPUs.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cloud price wars are back on

At the Google NEXT cloud conference last week the company announced new Committed Use Discounts (CUDs) in which customers receive a reduced rate on virtual machine rentals in exchange for signing a one or three year contract.+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: 10 Ways Google improved its cloud at its big NEXT conference +It’s not a completely novel concept because Microsoft offers enterprise agreements and Amazon Web Services has Reserved Instances, which are a similar concept.One of the main arguments Google made was that its CUDs are more flexible than competitors though. Users don’t have to commit to a specific virtual machine instance type for three years, the company said. Instead, they just estimate how much aggregate virtual compute and/or memory they will use over the life of the contract. CUDs are in beta in Google’s cloud, you can read more about them here.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Datadog reduces the alert noise for IT support workers

The move to more complex and distributed applications has done wonders for organizational agility and the ability to innovate, but it has also had some flow-on effects for those poor people responsible for managing application uptime on a day to day basis.Lots of disparate application components means lots of new potential sources of error, and people who carry a pager to be alerted of any issues suffer an increasing number of ill-timed calls.+ Also on Network World: Application monitoring becomes table stakes in the digital age + A new offering from application monitoring vendor Datadog seeks to change this paradigm by offering a far more flexible alerting approach. Datadog’s new composite alert feature is intended to reduce alert noise for DevOps and operations teams. The idea being that these practitioners will have less call to spend time on insignificant alerts and will be alerted of orly major issues. In a kind of “boy who cried wolf” metaphor, this should result in better response to issues that matter.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Another 911 outage. Does any accountability exist?

AT&T Wireless customers who tried to reach 911 in the evening hours of Wednesday, March 8, were left stranded in more than a dozen major cities. Based on unconfirmed, but widespread reports, the problem may have affected callers nationwide, with AT&T only sending out tweets again and again, stating: [AT&T is aware] of issue affecting some calls to 911 for wireless customers. Working to resolve ASAP. We apologize to those affected.  With no root cause offered, several public safety agencies and citizens were left confused on what to do. In what has become a natural reaction to any traumatic event, both the general public and several agencies took to Twitter, Facebook and other social media outlets on the web as the go-to place for help, as well as an outlet for frustration—with many announcing their intentions to switch carriers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

48% off ZeroLemon ToughJuice USB-C 30000mAh Power Bank Charger for Apple MacBook, iPhone, Google Pixel XL, Samsung & More – Deal Alert

ZeroLemon describes their ToughJuice power bank as the world's toughest external battery pack, with 30000mAh capacity and a rugged anti-shock exterior. With enough juice to get you up and running again and again on a single charge, ToughJuice provides up to ten charges to a smartphone, two charges to a tablet or multiple charges to nearly any other device. It features four USB ports (1 QuickCharge 2.0 port, with legacy 5V/2A support and 3 Ports for 1A charging) but more importantly it features USB-C/Type-C Compatibility: the USB-C/Type-C port makes the battery pack compatible with the new MacBook, charging at 5V/2.5A and other USB-C powered devices. The device averages 4.5 out of 5 stars on Amazon from over 250 people (read reviews), and its list price is currently discounted to $67.99. See the discounted ZeroLemon ToughJuice power bank now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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Who's Hiring?

The NSA’s foreign surveillance: 5 things to know

A contentious piece of U.S. law giving the National Security Agency broad authority to spy on people overseas expires at the end of the year. Expect heated debate about the scope of U.S. surveillance law leading up to Dec. 31.One major issue to watch involves the way the surveillance treats communications from U.S. residents. Critics say U.S. emails, texts, and chat logs -- potentially millions of them -- are caught up in surveillance authorized by Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).U.S. residents who communicate with foreign targets of the NSA surveillance have their data swept up in what the NSA calls "incidental" collection. The FBI can then search those communications, but it's unclear how often that happens.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The NSA’s foreign surveillance: 5 things to know

A contentious piece of U.S. law giving the National Security Agency broad authority to spy on people overseas expires at the end of the year. Expect heated debate about the scope of U.S. surveillance law leading up to Dec. 31.One major issue to watch involves the way the surveillance treats communications from U.S. residents. Critics say U.S. emails, texts, and chat logs -- potentially millions of them -- are caught up in surveillance authorized by Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).U.S. residents who communicate with foreign targets of the NSA surveillance have their data swept up in what the NSA calls "incidental" collection. The FBI can then search those communications, but it's unclear how often that happens.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

CBRS: Your ticket for building a private enterprise LTE wireless network

If you can get past that unappealing acronym, you just might find that CBRS (Citizens Broadband Radio Service) is worth paying attention to as a serious wireless network alternative for enterprises in the not-too-distant future.It’s been hard to ignore the so-called CBRS "innovation band" of late, as everyone from Google to the big carriers to GE has been touting the potential benefits of indoor and outdoor LTE services within shared 3.5 GHz spectrum opened up by the FCC for commercial use. We’re talking carrier-based cellular service extensions, cable companies looking to get into wireless as well as private LTE networks within enterprises, sports stadiums and conference centers. Such services promise to complement -- and in some cases replace -- Wi-Fi, as well as pave the way for 5G wireless services. (See also: "FAQ: What in the wireless world is CBRS?")To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

CBRS: Your ticket for building a private enterprise LTE wireless network

If you can get past that unappealing acronym, you just might find that CBRS (Citizens Broadband Radio Service) is worth paying attention to as a serious wireless network alternative for enterprises in the not-too-distant future. It’s been hard to ignore the so-called CBRS "innovation band" of late, as everyone from Google to the big carriers to GE has been touting the potential benefits of indoor and outdoor LTE services within shared 3.5 GHz spectrum opened up by the FCC for commercial use. We’re talking carrier-based cellular service extensions, cable companies looking to get into wireless as well as private LTE networks within enterprises, sports stadiums and conference centers. Such services promise to complement -- and in some cases replace -- Wi-Fi, as well as pave the way for 5G wireless services. (See also: "FAQ: What in the wireless world is CBRS?")To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The big CBRS promise: private enterprise LTE wireless networks

If you can get past that unappealing acronym, you just might find that CBRS (Citizens Broadband Radio Service) is worth paying attention to as a serious wireless network alternative for enterprises in the not-too-distant future. It’s been hard to ignore CBRS of late, as everyone from Google to the big carriers to GE has been touting the potential benefits of indoor and outdoor LTE services within shared 3.5 GHz spectrum opened up by the FCC for commercial use. We’re talking carrier-based cellular service extensions, cable companies looking to get into wireless as well as private LTE networks within enterprises, sports stadiums and conference centers. Such services promise to complement -- and in some cases replace -- Wi-Fi, as well as pave the way for 5G wireless servicesTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

10 tips to get started with Microsoft Teams

In November 2011, I wrote a blog post called SharePoint User Adoption Strategy: Team Member “Service Level Agreement.” In that post, I talked about how important it is to start off any project with a shared agreement about how the team is going to work together, including how to organize, tag, and name files in the SharePoint team site. With today’s exciting announcement of the general availability of Microsoft Teams, I offer some updates to that post to ensure that your organization gets the most value out of Microsoft Teams.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft ratchets up group chat competition with Teams launch

Microsoft’s work chat app Teams hit general availability on Tuesday, as part of the company’s push to compete with Slack, HipChat, Google and other players in the group chat market.Teams is designed to help groups of people collaborate at work by letting them communicate in real time. Users can take part in multiple Teams, which provide space for group conversations in a series of channels.Each channel can include integrations of third-party developer content, so users can do things like manage Asana tasks, edit OneNote notebooks and view HootSuite social feeds without leaving Teams. In addition, teams can use the app for group audio and video meetings.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Worth Reading: Fat Finger Folly

You see, many newly created production systems, when they first come online, focus more on functionality and less on supportability. They are built to provide a specific capability. Of course, the services must be maintained, but maintaining these services often involve manual tasks by operations individuals, tasks such as logging on to servers and rebooting them, or terminating processes, or updating a configuration file. For many production systems, this is how they are maintained. Individuals login to the production servers and high privileged or “superusers” and manually perform necessary actions. This is, unfortunately, a very common process in the industry. —The New Stack

The post Worth Reading: Fat Finger Folly appeared first on 'net work.

My Data. Your Business.

Head-scratching ways companies screw up Wi-Fi

Network World has been covering network technologies for 30+ years now, and sometimes we assume that everyone knows what they’re doing when it comes to installing, configuring and using this stuff. But then we run across some examples where consumers and businesses are still not completely familiar with the gear.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

VMware’s Gabriele Di Piazza Talks Hot Trends at MWC

In this interview, Gabriele Di Piazza, vice president of solutions, Telco NFV Group at VMware, shares his insights on the biggest trends that he saw at MWC 2017.

IBM’s position on Security Analytics and Operations (SOAPA), part 2

Last week, I wrote about my interview with IBM security general manager Marc van Zadelhoff, where we talked about his perspective about the transition from security analytics and operations point tools to an integrated event-based security analytics and operations platform architecture (SOAPA). In part 2 of the interview, we talked about SOAPA requirements, intelligence and the need for SOAPA to scale. You can view the interview here. Some of the highlights include:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here