Unhappy developers lead to bad code and bad processes

Since Epicurus wrote in the third century BC about pain and pleasure, happiness and unhappiness has been a constant subject of conversation. Recently researchers from the University of Stuttgart studied the effects of software developers’ state of happiness on performance and found unhappy developers negatively affect the development process and software products.This might explain why some software companies treat their development teams to pingpong tables, foosball, cappuccino machines and other perks.A clearer understanding could lead to successful intervention, more effective than those perks, and (depending upon the costs) astonishing productivity benefits.Though not mentioned by the researchers, it sounds very similar to the work of author and TED Talk speaker Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and his ideas about creating conditions that lead to a flow state, also called the zone of deep concentration, and undistracted, peak performance.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Trump’s federal hiring freeze won’t kill government IT hiring

If you are planning to apply for a federal IT job, President Donald Trump's federal hiring freeze makes it harder, but not impossible, to land a position with the U.S. government.On Monday, Trump signed an executive order preventing the filling of vacant positions or creating new jobs "except when necessary to meet national or public security responsibilities," said Trump Administration Press Secretary Sean Spicer at a briefing today.[To comment on this story, visit Computerworld's Facebook page.]Defense agencies are big users of IT and appear to be unaffected by the freeze. Cybersecurity hiring is a major impetus at civilian agencies and, depending on how broadly the government defines IT jobs related to "public security," there could still be quite a bit of hiring.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Trump names net neutrality foe Ajit Pai to lead the FCC

President Donald Trump has named Commissioner Ajit Pai, an outspoken opponent of the FCC’s net neutrality rules, as the next head of the agency.The choice was widely expected after Trump’s election last November. Pai is the senior Republican on the commission, having served since 2012. He doesn’t need to be confirmed by the Senate because he is already on the Commission.Pai attacked the reclassification of broadband as a utility in 2015, saying it would place excessive burdens on service providers, other internet players and consumers. The expansion of broadband service through a competitive marketplace has been one of Pai’s themes as a commissioner.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Trump names net neutrality foe Ajit Pai to lead the FCC

President Donald Trump has named Commissioner Ajit Pai, an outspoken opponent of the FCC’s net neutrality rules, as the next head of the agency.The choice was widely expected after Trump’s election last November. Pai is the senior Republican on the commission, having served since 2012. He doesn’t need to be confirmed by the Senate because he is already on the Commission.Pai attacked the reclassification of broadband as a utility in 2015, saying it would place excessive burdens on service providers, other internet players and consumers. The expansion of broadband service through a competitive marketplace has been one of Pai’s themes as a commissioner.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

6 new 2-in-1 devices to watch for in 2017

One trend at CES 2017 came in the form of 2-in-1 devices. These hybrid tablet-notebooks were everywhere -- Dell alone announced three hybrid devices, and companies like HP, Toshiba and ASUS also unveiled new tablet hardware.MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: 7 reasons to deploy Wi-Fi security in Enterprise mode Hybrids offer the flexibility of a tablet, with the functionality and performance of a notebook. After an initial lukewarm reception, they're finally taking off. These six devices unveiled at CES 2017 will lead the pack in the continuing shift to hybrid devices for both consumers and the enterprise.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Review: The HP Elite Slice for Meeting Rooms

Videoconferences can reduce an organization's travel expenses and make people more productive by virtually bringing far-flung employees together, but -- as we all know -- they can be frustrating to set up and conduct.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Why Google’s Sergey Brin changed his tune on AI

Google co-founder Sergey Brin acknowledges that he was caught off-guard by the phenomenon of artificial intelligence, which he notes now permeates key Google properties.Speaking at the recent World Economic Forum Meeting in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, Brin, a trained computer scientist, said he didn't pay attention to AI in the 1990s because "everyone knew [AI] didn't work," he said.[ The InfoWorld deep learning reviews: Spark lights up machine learning. | TensorFlow shines a light on deep learning. | Microsoft takes on TensorFlow. | MXNet: Amazon's scalable deep learning. | Caffe deep learning conquers image classification. | Get a digest of the day's top tech stories in the InfoWorld Daily newsletter. ] Brin was head of the Google X research group, which featured Google Brain, a project centered on machine intelligence, he recalled. "Fast-forward a few years, and now Brain probably touches every single one of our main projects, ranging from search to photos to ads to everything we do."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Galaxy Note7’s battery fiasco won’t soon be forgotten

Victims who were burned by Samsung Galaxy Note7 devices that overheated or exploded won't soon forget, but Samsung clearly wants to move beyond the disaster and the recall of all 3 million of its Note7 smartphones.After months of investigations, the South Korean company on Monday formally blamed short-circuiting in batteries by two battery manufacturers as the cause for overheating.In some cases, batteries were missing insulating tape around battery components or electrodes were damaged and bent. Some welding defects in some of the second wave of batteries by a different battery maker also caused short-circuiting.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

6 tips to protect your home network

Best practicesImage by ThinkstockThe rise of malware targeting unsecured IoT endpoints, like the Mirai strain used as part of October’s DDoS attack on Dyn, mean it’s more important than ever to make security a priority. Remote workers who use their home office as their primary office are arguably at even more of a risk since they may be exposing corporate assets as well as personal assets. Untangle recommends the following best practices to secure your home network.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

6 tips to protect your home network

Best practicesImage by ThinkstockThe rise of malware targeting unsecured IoT endpoints, like the Mirai strain used as part of October’s DDoS attack on Dyn, mean it’s more important than ever to make security a priority. Remote workers who use their home office as their primary office are arguably at even more of a risk since they may be exposing corporate assets as well as personal assets. Untangle recommends the following best practices to secure your home network.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Essential Android business apps

Despite the tendency to feel that getting work done from your smartphone means you’re “always working,” there are still those moments when it’s liberating to be able to finish off a quick task or respond to a company message without opening your computer.I find that the real key is knowing the type of work you want to do and getting your setup right. This is especially important when you head off on a trip or you’re at a conference where you’re more likely to have access to your phone when you’re crammed in a presentation or running from one room to another.MORE: 10 mobile startups to watch If you’re looking for a guide on what you need, or just some ideas for getting started, let us offer you a helping hand. There are plenty of good apps and services that you may not have heard of, or maybe you just need a tip about how to make them work best for you.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

If we show you how to back up your PC for free, will you finally do it?

If we show you how to back up your PC for free, will you finally do it? Beyond simple hard drive failure, your PC could fall prey to user error, thieves, and all sorts of nefarious malware. The only way to ensure that none of your personal files or programs are lost in a catastrophe is to back up everything regularly.While backing up your data can be as simple as dumping critical files on an external hard drive every now and again, you’ll ideally want backups that let you recover not just yesterday’s version of a lost file, but last Tuesday’s as well. Backups should be easy to do, or they won’t get done. And ideally, you should have more than one backup in more than one location.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

16 top HR software suites compared — an essential buyer’s guide

Seven out of 10 companies say that “employee engagement” is critical to their organization’s success, according to an oft-cited Gallup poll. Now those companies are counting on HR software to help them get a clearer picture of their workforce and encourage greater engagement.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Why you need a data protection officer

With enforcement of the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) set to begin on May 25, 2018, organizations that handle any personal data relating to EU residents must begin preparing now, if they haven't already.Most organizations will need to designate a data protection officer (DPO), says Steve Durbin, managing director of the Information Security Forum (ISF), a global, independent information security body that focuses on cyber security and information risk management."The GDPR is putting data protection practices at the forefront of business agendas worldwide," Durbin said in a statement earlier this month. "Its scope is unmatched by any other international law, and we estimate that more than 98 percent of ISF members will be affected by its requirements because they process the personal data of EU residents, or are based in the EU. For most organizations, the next 18 months will be a critical time for their data protection regimes as they determine the applicability of the GDPR and the controls and capabilities they will need to manage their compliance and risk obligations."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Why you need a data protection officer

With enforcement of the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) set to begin on May 25, 2018, organizations that handle any personal data relating to EU residents must begin preparing now, if they haven't already.Most organizations will need to designate a data protection officer (DPO), says Steve Durbin, managing director of the Information Security Forum (ISF), a global, independent information security body that focuses on cyber security and information risk management."The GDPR is putting data protection practices at the forefront of business agendas worldwide," Durbin said in a statement earlier this month. "Its scope is unmatched by any other international law, and we estimate that more than 98 percent of ISF members will be affected by its requirements because they process the personal data of EU residents, or are based in the EU. For most organizations, the next 18 months will be a critical time for their data protection regimes as they determine the applicability of the GDPR and the controls and capabilities they will need to manage their compliance and risk obligations."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Study: 62% of security pros don’t know where their sensitive data is

Ask organizations today about the value of data and you’re likely to hear it measured in terms of competitive advantage, customer experience and revenue generation. As Dante Disparte and Daniel Wagner put it in a December 2016 HBR article, data is “becoming a centerpiece of corporate value creation.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Study: 62% of security pros don’t know where their sensitive data is

Ask organizations today about the value of data and you’re likely to hear it measured in terms of competitive advantage, customer experience and revenue generation. As Dante Disparte and Daniel Wagner put it in a December 2016 HBR article, data is “becoming a centerpiece of corporate value creation.”“Today most organizations are data-driven to one degree or another. Data contributes not only to brand equity, but to what constitutes product and service delivery in globally connected and hyper-competitive markets,” the pair wrote.But the value of data security is still largely defined “in terms of risk, cost, and regulatory compliance,” notes Forrester Research in the executive summary of a new report commissioned by data protection software provider Varonis Systems.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Cisco Data Center Network Manager (DCNM) – Initial Feedback

Recently I had a chance to try using Cisco’s Data Center Network Manager (DCNM) software in anger. I must confess that sometimes anger was the right word, but at other times it definitely made me smile. Based on the state of the documentation it’s clear that there are a couple of areas where very few people have spent time digging in (if they had, the same errors wouldn’t be in the documentation for at least 5 releases of DCNM), so on that basis I’m using this post—and more to follow—to document some of the fun things I have discovered along the way. For reference, I am running DCNM version 10, so there have been nine previous versions of DCNM in which the behavior can be perfected, and I gather that version 10 is a big step up from version 9.

To put my testing in context, I have a specific FabricPath Leaf-Spine topology already designed, and I am only using the aspects of DCNM pertinent to my particular needs for an Ethernet LAN fabric. I say this up front because I know that I am not using all of DCNM’s functionality, and perhaps I’m missing out on some of the fabric automation Continue reading

D-Wave’s $15 million quantum computer runs a staggering 2,000 qubits

For D-Wave, the path to quantum computers being widely accepted is similar to the history of today's computers. The first chips came more than 30 years ago, and Microsoft's Basic expanded the software infrastructure around PCs. Quantum computers are a new type of computer that can be significantly faster than today's PCs. They are still decades away from replacing PCs and going mainstream, but more advanced hardware and use models are still emerging. "A lot of that is unfolding and will have a similar dramatic change in the computing landscape," Vern Brownell, D-Wave's CEO, said in an interview. D-Wave is the only company selling a quantum computer. It sold its first system in 2011 and is now pushing the speed limits with a new quantum computer called the D-Wave 2000Q, which has 2,000 qubits.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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