IDG Contributor Network: Apps be nimble, apps be quick

Application development used to happen inside an IT bubble, the purview of employees of Microsoft, for example, working on the next version of Word or Excel. Applications back in those days were built and deployed by experts onto desktop computers.Those days weren’t so long ago, and we certainly still use applications, but the way apps are developed, deployed and used has changed dramatically. Many of them still accomplish the same goals of workers—Microsoft Word, Office 365 or Google Docs still provide me the blank pages I need to write on—but their features have expanded beyond what we could have imagined to include sharing, instant edits and updates, notifications, and more.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: How a distributed databus enhances industrial IoT systems

A pulse is missing. Is it the patient? Or is the pulse monitor not functioning?Life-and-death IoT systems literally have no margin for error.How are readings from health sensors merged and analyzed immediately?How can single point of failures be eliminated?An IoT backbone to connect sensors, apps and analytics into a responsive system is needed. It has to be secure, flexible and scalable. The challenge of combining data from multiple sources Medical errors are the third leading cause of death.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: The new Oracle? Maybe not, but Neo’s raise shows promise

Databases. Alongside networking, they're arguably one of the less exciting areas of the technology world.But no matter how boring they are, databases are, of course, a critical part of delivering technology. And we live in a changing time for the humble database, with new models challenging incumbent approached. A case in point is graph databases.For a quick primer, per Wikipedia, a graph database is a database that uses graph structures for semantic queries with nodes, edges and properties to represent and store data. A key concept of the system is the graph (or edge or relationship), which directly relates data items in the store. The relationships allow data in the store to be linked together directly and, in most cases, retrieved with a single operation.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: The new Oracle? Maybe not, but Neo’s raise shows promise

Databases. Alongside networking, they're arguably one of the less exciting areas of the technology world.But no matter how boring they are, databases are, of course, a critical part of delivering technology. And we live in a changing time for the humble database, with new models challenging incumbent approached. A case in point is graph databases.For a quick primer, per Wikipedia, a graph database is a database that uses graph structures for semantic queries with nodes, edges and properties to represent and store data. A key concept of the system is the graph (or edge or relationship), which directly relates data items in the store. The relationships allow data in the store to be linked together directly and, in most cases, retrieved with a single operation.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Major cloud is infested with malware, researchers say

Cloud repositories are actively supplying malware, according to computer experts. And problematically, it’s insidious and hard to find.Hundreds of buckets have been undermined, says Xiaojing Liao, a graduate student at Georgia Tech who’s the lead author on a study that’s looking into the problem. Buckets are chunks of storage used in cloud operations.It’s “challenging to find,” Georgia Tech writes in an article on its website. The problem being that the resulting malware is quick to “assemble from stored components that individually may not appear to be malicious.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Major cloud is infested with malware, researchers say

Cloud repositories are actively supplying malware, according to computer experts. And problematically, it’s insidious and hard to find.Hundreds of buckets have been undermined, says Xiaojing Liao, a graduate student at Georgia Tech who’s the lead author on a study that’s looking into the problem. Buckets are chunks of storage used in cloud operations.It’s “challenging to find,” Georgia Tech writes in an article on its website. The problem being that the resulting malware is quick to “assemble from stored components that individually may not appear to be malicious.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Down the rabbit hole, part 5: Secure and private instant messaging

Instant messaging is hard.There are untold numbers of instant messaging networks (not even taking SMS into consideration)—with companies like Google having, all by themselves, created a half dozen competing applications and networks. And, if you want those messages to be secure? Well, things get even more difficult—there simply aren’t many options. In my ongoing quest to make my life as secure and private as possible, I’ve found three instant messaging networks that are worth talking about. They’re not perfect, but they are significant improvements over using the many, astoundingly insecure platforms out there (such as Google’s Hangouts or Apple’s iMessage). Let’s go over those here, with their benefits and pitfalls. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Down the rabbit hole, part 5: Secure and private instant messaging

Instant messaging is hard.There are untold numbers of instant messaging networks (not even taking SMS into consideration)—with companies like Google having, all by themselves, created a half dozen competing applications and networks. And, if you want those messages to be secure? Well, things get even more difficult—there simply aren’t many options. In my ongoing quest to make my life as secure and private as possible, I’ve found three instant messaging networks that are worth talking about. They’re not perfect, but they are significant improvements over using the many, astoundingly insecure platforms out there (such as Google’s Hangouts or Apple’s iMessage). Let’s go over those here, with their benefits and pitfalls. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

RIPE73

RIPE held its 73rd meeting in Madrid in the last week of October. Here are a few of my takeaways from that meeting.

Walmart Black Friday 2016 deals on TV, drones, Xbox, iPads & more

Walmart is gearing up for Black Friday 2016 with deals featuring brand names like Apple and HP and products ranging from drones to iPhones to big HDTVs.Black Friday watchers such as BFads and Best Black Friday have been tracking new ads closely and we've been watching them closely.The retailer will open stores on Thanksgiving Day (Nov. 24), with online deals will start just after midnight on Thanksgiving. Sensitive to possible criticism of having people working on the holiday, Walmart points out that store associates will be served dinner and receive a 25% discount on goods.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Target, Kmart & Sears Black Friday 2016 tech deals revealed

The first real slew of Black Friday 2016 Apple product deals has been revealed courtesy of a Target ad leak, while Sears and Kmart will also lure shoppers with some cut-rate electronics prices over the Thanksgiving weekend.  Black Friday watchers such as BFads and Best Black Friday have been tracking new ads closely and we've been watching them closely... Black Friday deals this year are getting more and more complicated as retailers stretch the shopping holiday across November. Target, for example, is offering an early access window that ends Nov. 10 for items such as Apple TV systems at 25% off, with in-store shoppers required to use the company’s Cartwheel app to score deals. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Yahoo investigating if insiders knew of hack

Yahoo said investigators were looking into the possibility that some people within the company knew at the time about the late 2014 theft of information of at least 500 million user accounts.Law enforcement authorities on Monday also “began sharing certain data that they indicated was provided by a hacker who claimed the information was Yahoo user account data,” the company said in a regulatory filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Yahoo said it would “analyze and investigate the hacker’s claim.” It isn't clear if this data is from the 2014 hack or from another breach.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Yahoo investigating if insiders knew of hack

Yahoo said investigators were looking into the possibility that some people within the company knew at the time about the late 2014 theft of information of at least 500 million user accounts.Law enforcement authorities on Monday also “began sharing certain data that they indicated was provided by a hacker who claimed the information was Yahoo user account data,” the company said in a regulatory filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Yahoo said it would “analyze and investigate the hacker’s claim.” It isn't clear if this data is from the 2014 hack or from another breach.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Worries and uncertainty cloud outlook for digital privacy under President Trump

When President-elect Donald Trump officially takes office, he’ll inherit a powerful U.S. surveillance apparatus, including the National Security Agency, that’s already been accused of trampling over privacy rights.This has some legal experts worried, but like almost every other aspect of a Trump presidency, there are more questions than clarity over what exactly he plans to do.Over the course of his presidential campaign, Trump has only offered snapshots on his views about various U.S. privacy matters, but they suggest a pro-government surveillance stance.For instance, Trump showed support for the NSA’s bulk telephone data collection, which ended last year. “I err on the side of security,” he said at the time. And on Apple's refusal to provide the FBI access to an iPhone used by the San Bernardino shooter: the public should boycott the company until it complies, he said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Worries and uncertainty cloud outlook for digital privacy under President Trump

When President-elect Donald Trump officially takes office, he’ll inherit a powerful U.S. surveillance apparatus, including the National Security Agency, that’s already been accused of trampling over privacy rights. This has some legal experts worried, but like almost every other aspect of a Trump presidency, there are more questions than clarity over what exactly he plans to do. Over the course of his presidential campaign, Trump has only offered snapshots on his views about various U.S. privacy matters, but they suggest a pro-government surveillance stance. For instance, Trump showed support for the NSA’s bulk telephone data collection, which ended last year. “I err on the side of security,” he said at the time. And on Apple's refusal to provide the FBI access to an iPhone used by the San Bernardino shooter: the public should boycott the company until it complies, he said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

An Introduction to the VirtualBox CLI

This post provides a basic introduction to the VirtualBox CLI (command-line interface) tool, vboxmanage. This post does not attempt to replace the comprehensive documentation; rather, its purpose is to help users who are new to vboxmanage (such as myself, having recently adopted VirtualBox for my Vagrant environments) get somewhat up to speed as quickly and as painlessly as possible.

Basic Commands

Let’s start with some basic operations. Here are a few to get you started:

  • To list all the registered VMs, simply run vboxmanage list vms. Note that if you are using Vagrant with VirtualBox, this command will also show VirtualBox VMs that have been instantiated by Vagrant. Similarly, if you are using Docker Machine with VirtualBox, this command will show you VMs created by Docker Machine.

  • To list all the running VMs, use vboxmanage list runningvms.

  • To start a VM, run vboxmanage startvm <name or UUID>. You can optionally specify a --type parameter to control how the VM is started. Using --type gui will show it via the host GUI; using --type headless means you’ll need to interact over the network (typically via SSH). To emulate Vagrant/Docker Machine-like behavior, you’d use --type headless.

  • Once a VM is Continue reading

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