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Intel’s revenue soars with help from the PC group

Though Intel’s PC group, data center, and Internet of Things businesses helped drive Intel to record revenue in its third quarter of 2016, all eyes seemed focused on one number: the company’s fourth-quarter forecast, which isn’t great. Intel achieved a 9 percent year-over-year increase in profits, up to $3.4 billion, and a 9 percent increase in revenue as well, to a record high of $15.8 billion.Unfortunately, the company’s projections for fourth-quarter revenues are actually slightly down: $15.7 billion, with some $500 million either way in terms of wiggle room. Traditionally, Intel sees its highest revenue in the fourth quarter, so the numbers provide an indication of how the holiday tech sales season is expected to go.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The march toward exascale computers

It's good to be near the top of the list.As for the embargo's likely effectiveness, #1 on the Top500 list happens to be China's Sunway TaihuLight at the National Supercomputing Center in Wuxi. It sustains a performance of 93 petaflops using 10,649,600 cores, all of them 1.45GHz Sunway (also rendered ShenWay) SW26010 devices, which fit Dongarra's description of "lightweight" processors. And all were made in China.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

The march toward exascale computers

Buyer’s guide explores data analytics software

Big data analytics has gone mainstream in corporate America, with top-down support from the C-suite, according to Randy Bean, CEO of consultancy NewVantage Partners. But down in the trenches someone has to select the right software package to make it happen.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Cisco revs up storage connections for data centers and WANs

Data is piling up, and storage keeps getting faster thanks to flash, so the networks that link it all together need to keep up, too.Both traditional Fibre Channel and more general-use protocols used in storage keep steadily ratcheting up performance. On Wednesday, Cisco Systems is boosting the speed of long-distance storage links for disaster recovery and business continuity. It’s also introducing higher speeds for IP (Internet Protocol) storage networks in data centers and enhancing its software to simplify storage management.Fibre Channel hangs on as the glue that binds together SANs (storage area networks) because it’s dependable and secure, said 451 Research analyst Steven Hill. A majority of large enterprise installations use it even though typically cheaper IP-based systems like iSCSI have been around for years, he said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco revs up storage connections for data centers and WANs

Review: 6 Python IDEs go to the mat

Of all the metrics you could use to gauge the popularity and success of a language, one surefire factor is the number of development environments available for it. Python’s rise in popularity over the last several years has brought with it a strong wave of IDE support, with tools aimed both at the general programmer and those who use Python for tasks like scientific work and analytical programming. LiClipse provides precise controls over the runtime environment for Python projects. When you create a new project, you can choose which Python interpreter to associate with it, and what PYTHONPATH to use with specific launch configurations. This is useful if you have different revisions of Python installed side-by-side, and you want to ensure that a given project runs with a specific Python version. You don’t even have to use a Python interpreter that has been registered with the system; it can be an executable in a folder somewhere. The JVM-based Jython and the .Net CLR-based IronPython (which is back under active development) are also supported, along with the stock CPython interpreter. (PyPy is not explicitly supported, but should work as a drop-in replacement for CPython per its stated goals.) Continue reading

6 tips to handle a sick day at the office

With the start of cold and flu season, it's inevitable that you'll need to take some sick time. But some days, no matter how bad you feel, you just can't stay home -- deadlines, client meetings, software releases just won't wait. Of course, some folks actually want to work through minor illnesses because of their commitment to their job, or a lack of sick time, or because they feel guilty having co-workers pick up their slack.INSIDER 12 habits of successful tech CEO "There are a surprising number of people who don't want to stay home and nurse a cold or a sore throat. They'd rather work through the sniffles or pounding head, and while that's commendable, it can be difficult to work at your usual level of efficiency -- and that can be worse than being missing in action at the office," says Amanda Mitchell, corporate consultant and founder of executive coaching and management consultancy Our Corporate Life.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

CISOs, it’s time to bury the hatchet with your CIO

Historically, the head of security (CISO) reporting into the head of IT (CIO) has made a lot of sense.Both departments are – at their core – technical disciplines, and as such there is a need for the two to be in regular contact. They need to overlap on network infrastructure, information security, and IT compliance, not to mention overseeing the release of safe, bug-free code and the delivery of secure products.Yet this relationship is often lambasted by those working in the InfoSec community. Some describe it as ‘adversarial’ – with two very different people trying to achieve different objectives.CIOs will look to bring new business applications online, to maintain service-level agreements, and ensure that IT services are available for all users. Indeed, a CIO’s bonuses are often tied to KPIs around these very principles.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The best programs to run Android apps on your Windows PC

From time to time you’ll hear about yet another effort to bring Android to the desktop. Yes, there’s an official effort to do this straight from Google by bringing the Play Store to a select number of Chromebooks.But what if you want this now, or don’t want to buy a new computer to experience what it’d be like to use Android apps on your PC? With a little bit of digital elbow grease, it’s possible. You can run some of your favorite apps and engage in Android gaming by trying out one of the many third-party solutions. I looked at several software choices that offer this, and came away with four solid options that will have you up and running with Android on your Windows PC rather painlessly.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Sizzling IT Skills And Salaries

Find out what skills are in demand, average IT salaries, and top-paying IT certifications.

IDG Contributor Network: Red Hat and Ericsson sign open source deal

Red Hat is well known as probably the most successful company built entirely on open-source software. Building a business on top of open source is a hard thing, especially so back in the early days of open source when no one had any real idea how the economics of a product that was free would translate into commercial success.But succeed it did, and Red Hat has created a huge business built entirely on offering services on top of open-source products.+ Also on Network World: Red Hat CEO: Open-source innovation is always user-led +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IoT botnets powered by Mirai continue to grow

Level 3 Threat Research has noted an uptick in activity by new IoT botnets that are backed by the Mirai malware, with some attacks enlisting 100,000 individual hijacked devices.A significant number of these zombie devices are enslaved by more than one botnet, according to the research described in the Level 3 Beyond Bandwidth blog, and some of these botnets use overlapping infrastructure.Source code for Mirai was released Sept. 30, “which has inspired a significant number of new bad actors, all working to exploit similar pools of vulnerable devices,” the Level 3 researchers write.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IoT botnets powered by Mirai continue to grow

Murphy’s Law: The security version

Since the first of the month, I’ve heard colleagues and others report each of the 10 security variants to Murphy’s Law listed below. Murphy is not only alive but has been reincarnated. It’s worth reminding the gentle reader of various famous last words:1. All documents will be out of date or simply missing Documents will not be maintained. Documents will have pages missing. And authors shall be unavailable for any reason (deployed to Mt. Everest is preferred). No documents shall be in an understandable language, be edited, collated, or have referring URLs that do not 404, 401 or 5XX. Any good documentation shall be the only copy on a laptop that was stolen whilst unencrypted. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

6 industries that will be affected by virtual reality

VR going mainstream2016 has been a defining moment for virtual and augmented reality. From Pokemon GO to Facebook’s newly announced standalone VR headset, the virtual reality market has taken off and we’ve just scratched the surface in terms of innovation. Previously, virtual reality seemed to be a technology that was reserved only for tech enthusiasts and extreme gamers. However, we are now starting to see its mainstream application. As virtual reality becomes more common in business and personal settings, less expensive equipment is becoming available, providing an opportunity for organizations to adopt the technology at a wider scale.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Why cybersecurity certifications suck

Here's a sample question from a GIAC certification test. It demonstrates why such tests suck.

The important deep knowledge you should know about traceroute how it send packets with increasing TTLs to trace the route.

But that's not what the question is asking. Instead, it's asking superfluous information about the default behavior, namely about Linux defaults. It's a trivia test, not a knowledge test. If you've recently studied the subject, your course book probably tells you that Linux traceroute defaults to UDP packets on transmit. So, those who study for the test will do well on the question.

But those with either a lot of deep knowledge or practical experience will find this question harder. Windows and Linux use different defaults (Windows uses ICMP ECHOs, Linux uses UDP). Personally, I'm not sure which is which (well, I am now, 'cause I looked it up, but I'm likely to forget it again soon, because it's a relatively unimportant detail).

Those with deep learning have another problem with the word "protocol". This question uses "protocol" in one sense, where only UDP, TCP, and ICMP are valid "protocols".

But the word can be used in another sense, where "Echo" and "TTL" are also Continue reading

Samsung faces lawsuit from Note7 owners who couldn’t use their phones

Samsung’s problems with lawsuits from alleged victims of overheating batteries in the Galaxy Note7 smartphone could get compounded by consumers suing for compensation of carrier charges.The three plaintiffs in a proposed class action lawsuit in a New Jersey federal court are not suing for compensation for personal or property damage from the at times overheating and even exploding Note7 smartphones.Instead, they are asking the South Korean phone maker to compensate users for the time it took Samsung to replace and eventually discontinue the Note7s, which resulted in users having to pay for device and plan charges to cellular operators “for phones they could not safely use.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Do Enterprises Need VRFs?

One of my readers sent me a long of questions titled “Do enterprise customers REALLY need VRFs?”

The only answer I could give is “it depends” (it’s like asking “Do animals need wings?”), and here’s my attempt at building a decision tree:

You can use the decision tree to figure out whether you need VRFs in your data center or in your enterprise WAN.