How to make singing tree faces for holiday light show

Last year I tried out my first holiday light display using a Light-O-Rama controller. I was sure a person could have a holiday light show that delights people of all ages and still keep their privacy intact since people wouldn’t be peering into their houses. That part was true; it’s a different story when two different TV crews show up in vans a couple different times and want interviews. Fortunately, declining is an option that doesn’t seem to impact traffic backing up to watch the lights dance to music they can hear via FM from the warmth of their vehicles.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to make singing tree faces for holiday light show

Last year I tried out my first holiday light display using a Light-O-Rama controller. I was sure a person could have a holiday light show that delights people of all ages and still keep their privacy intact since people wouldn’t be peering into their houses. That part was true; it’s a different story when two different TV crews show up in vans a couple different times and want interviews. Fortunately, declining is an option that doesn’t seem to impact traffic backing up to watch the lights dance to music they can hear via FM from the warmth of their vehicles.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

38% off X Rocker 51259 Pro H3 4.1 Audio Gaming Chair, Wireless – Deal Alert

With the X Rocker Pro H3 4.1 Wireless Audio Gaming Chair you can not only hear your music but actually feel it. It features four speakers, sub-woofers with Audio Force Modulation Technology, vibration motors that sync to the bass and intensify the full-body sensation, and a wireless audio transmitter/receiver combo. It currently averages 4 out of 5 stars from nearly 550 reviewers (see reviews). Its list price of $250 has been reduced 38% to $155. See it now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Book Review :: Juniper QFX5100 Series: A Comprehensive Guide to Building Next-Generation Networks

Juniper QFX5100 Series: A Comprehensive Guide to Building Next-Generation Networks
by Douglas Richard Hanks, Jr.
Paperback: 3 pages10
Publisher: O’Reilly Media
ISBN-13: 978-1491949573

5stars

Much more than just a book about the QFX5100

This was an easy weekend read, and quite honestly I’d never thought I’d say this about a technical book but I literally could not put the book down. Doug has amassed a wealth of great information, approaching the subject matter from a standpoint of brevity, applying the Goldilocks principle — not too much and not too little — but rather just the right amount of information.

Do not be confused by the title — this is not JUST a book about the QFX5100 series. As the subtitle might indicate, it’s more of a book on building next-gen networks, specifically Data Center networks, and serves as a fantastic primer on the various protocols and technologies that are becoming the mainstay of this world.

As the networking world works overtime to catch up to the virtualization offered by storage and compute resources, the reader tasked with creating the network of tomorrow will appreciate the coverage of building various types of fabrics of varying dimensions — whether it’s coverage of Juniper’s Virtual Chassis Fabric for building small to Continue reading

Security and Delegation with Ansible Tower, Part 2

Tower-Security-Series-part-2.png

When we talk about Ansible Tower, we talk about control, knowledge and delegation. But what does that mean?

In previous posts in this series, we've talked about the concept of 'control' for your automation and your inventory, and about the basics of security and delegation. Today we're going to show how Tower's security and delegation allows for simple self-service deployments for your users.

THE PROBLEM - SERVICE REQUESTS

If you've ever run a service desk, you've probably dealt with repetitive ticket requests. There's not a lot of thought involved - taking customer and user requests, then punching those values into commands or random scripts. You need a solution that lets you automate the boring work and get you back to the important work.

You need Ansible and Ansible Tower.

THE SOLUTION - ANSIBLE, TOWER AND TOWER SURVEYS

One of Tower's key features is survey support. Tower surveys allow you to configure how a job runs via a series of questions, making it simple to customize your jobs in a user-friendly way.

Say you have a team of developers. What they need is the ability to get their dev environments set up in the cloud quickly, easily and properly. What you Continue reading

Review: Skybuds offer truly wireless earbuds for workouts, iPhone 7 users

Wireless headphones and earbuds have gotten a higher profile after Apple announced the removal of the headphone jack for its new iPhone 7 and 7 Plus smartphones. Owners of the new device get to make a decision – either buy an adapter to use with their wired headphones or move to wireless. Apple hopes that you buy its own earbuds (Air Pods), but delays in shipping have left people looking for other options.One such device aiming to fill that gap is Skybuds ($250, available in three color options) – these are individual earbuds (one for each ear) that provide Bluetooth wireless connectivity for your devices. While other earphone systems have a connected strap that usually goes behind the head, the Skybuds are free of such a cable (just like the Air Pods).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How Google overtook Apple in education

Apple's Mac and Apple II computers have been used in classrooms for more than 30 years, but cheaper hardware from rival Google is putting the squeeze on Apple's dominant position in education. The two companies target education from very different perspectives that play to their respective strengths. Google's objective is also slightly different than Apple's, because it primarily focuses on selling hardware for students that promotes its software services, while Apple pursues a more hardware-specific approach along with tools for teachers, according to a set of analysts who follow the education tech market."The momentum is definitely swinging in Google's favor," says Van Baker, research vice president, Gartner. "Chromebooks are doing quite well in the education sector." To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Gamification can improve employee engagement

Engagement isn't something you only need to worry about during an employee's onboarding process, says Tom Gimbel, founder and CEO of LaSalle Network, a professional staffing and recruiting firm. Instead, he says that engagement is a metric you need to track and measure throughout an employee's career.He says that during an employee's first year with a company, they're typically performing at their highest levels -- they're excited about the opportunity and constantly learning new things. It's the "sophomore slump" stage that employers need to worry about the most. After an employee, has been with the company for a year or two, "it's lost its glamour and that excitement fades," he says.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

More than half the world’s people still off the internet

Less than half of the world's population still isn't using the Internet, although the numbers are improving, according to a United Nations report.A report released this week by the United Nation's International Telecommunication Union (ITU) found that 47.1% of the population is online, an increase from 2015's figure of 43%.The spread of mobile networks around the globe has played an important role in increasing Internet connectivity, the report said. Mobile-broadband networks cover 84% of the world's population this year, but the number of users, at 47.1%, is well below those who have access.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

More than half the world’s people still off the internet

Less than half of the world's population still isn't using the Internet, although the numbers are improving, according to a United Nations report.A report released this week by the United Nation's International Telecommunication Union (ITU) found that 47.1% of the population is online, an increase from 2015's figure of 43%.The spread of mobile networks around the globe has played an important role in increasing Internet connectivity, the report said. Mobile-broadband networks cover 84% of the world's population this year, but the number of users, at 47.1%, is well below those who have access.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Facebook said to create censorship tool to enter China again

Facebook has reportedly developed a software tool that will help keep certain content away from users’ news feeds in certain geographies, reflecting the company’s apparent willingness to meet Chinese government censorship demands part of the way.The social networking site has been banned in China since 2009 because of the government’s censorship rules and like many other U.S. technology companies would like to reenter the market with nearly 1.4 billion people.CEO Mark Zuckerberg has learned Mandarin, visited the country often and cultivated the local leadership including President Xi Jinping.The new tool suppresses posts from appearing to people in certain geographies but will not be used directly by Facebook, reported The New York Times on Tuesday, citing three current and former Facebook employees, who spoke on condition of anonymity as the tool is confidential.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Disney’s best releases may be its open source tools

While most people associate Disney with Mickey Mouse, animation, and amusement parks, the company is forging a path in the open source software realm, encouraging contributions from its developers and releasing software of its own.Not surprising, several projects involve images, such as the OpenEXR high-dynamic-range image file format developed by Disney subsidiary Industrial Light and Magic. Others are less image-focused, including Munki, a set of tools to help MacOS X admins manage software installs and removals.[ Get the most out of collaborative programming with InfoWorld’s 20 essential pointers for Git and GitHub. | Keep up with hot topics in programming with InfoWorld’s Application Development newsletter. ] The company’s GitHub repo highlights its Open Source Program, through which it encourages Disney developers to tap open source software, contribute to open source projects, and release what they create to the open source community at large. Disney’s GitHub repo “features” a few homegrown open source projects in particular, including Universal Scene Description (USD), which Disney notes as being the core of Pixar’s 3D graphics pipeline.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

First look: Visual Studio for Mac is here at last, almost

Visual Studio for Mac is something that many Microsoft developers have sought for more than a decade. As Mac OS X became interesting in the early 2000s, coders who spent most of their days working in Visual Studio on Windows wondered why they couldn’t use the same languages, frameworks, and tools for the Mac, rather than needing to learn Objective-C, Cocoa, and Xcode, all of which were substantially different from the languages and tools for Windows development.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

U.S. says cybersecurity skills shortage is a myth

The U.S. government has released what it claims is myth-busting data about the shortage of cybersecurity professionals. The data points to its own hiring experience.In October 2015, the U.S. launched a plan to hire 6,500 people with cybersecurity skills by January 2017, according to White House officials. It had hired 3,000 by the first half of this year. As part the ongoing hiring effort, it held a job fair in July.At the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), "We set out to dispel certain myths regarding cybersecurity hiring," wrote Angela Bailey, chief human capital officer at DHS in a blog post Monday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

U.S. says cybersecurity skills shortage is a myth

The U.S. government has released what it claims is myth-busting data about the shortage of cybersecurity professionals. The data points to its own hiring experience.In October 2015, the U.S. launched a plan to hire 6,500 people with cybersecurity skills by January 2017, according to White House officials. It had hired 3,000 by the first half of this year. As part the ongoing hiring effort, it held a job fair in July.At the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), "We set out to dispel certain myths regarding cybersecurity hiring," wrote Angela Bailey, chief human capital officer at DHS in a blog post Monday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cyber Monday 2016 tech deals sampler features Dell, Walmart

The line between what constitutes a Black Friday 2016 deal and a Cyber Monday one has pretty much disappeared, but what we have here are a handful of tech deals specifically available for Cyber Monday, which is Nov. 28.Cyber Monday got its start as an online-only alternative to once in-store focused Black Friday, but of course Black Friday, Black November, etc., is now a mishmash of online and in-store action. Nevertheless, some retailers still trot out the Cyber Monday marketing term, and we'll accommodate them briefly here by highlighting a few of their deals.(Black Friday & Cyber Monday watchers such as BFads and Best Black Friday have been a big help in keeping tabs on deals.)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Make companies pay full cost of breaches to restore trust in the internet, says ISOC

Fake news, online banking thefts and data breaches: It's no wonder that trust in the internet is at an all-time low. But don't worry: The Internet Society has a five-step plan for restoring faith in the network of networks.The first step is to put users first, according to ISOC, which published its 2016 Global Internet Report on Thursday. That involves being more transparent (step two) about risk and the incidence of data breaches and prioritizing data security (step three) to ensure breaches don't happen.ISOC isn't just a talking shop, it is also the organizational home of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), source of many of the protocols and standards on which the internet relies. That adds weight to the more detailed recommendations on how to prioritize security contained in the ISOC report.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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