Startup IDVector anonymizes like Tor

A pair of former defense industry cyber security contractors is launching IDVector, a service that creates encrypted connections through an anonymizing network to shield users’ locations and to protect their machines from internet-borne attacks.IDVector Network passes customer traffic through a multi-node encrypted path before dropping it onto the open internet at locations removed from customers’ actual geographical locations.That tunneling makes it difficult for eavesdroppers to snoop content and identify where customers are located, making it possible for customers to use public Wi-Fi safely, say the company’s founders, CEO Ben Baumgartner and CTO Andrew Boyce.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

24% off Bose SoundSport in-ear headphones – Apple devices, Power Red – Deal Alert

Bose Sound Sport in-ear headphones deliver deep, clear sound for the music you love, with a durable design that stands up to the rigors of your day. Exclusive TriPort technology provides crisp highs and natural-sounding lows, while acoustic ports are positioned to resist sweat and weather, and hydrophobic cloth keeps moisture out. Proprietary Stay Hear tips conform to your ears' shape, so they stay comfortably in place all day long.  The Bose Soundpsort earbuds  currently averages 4 out of 5 stars on Amazon from 1,200+ people (read reviews) and  the Power Red model is currently discounted on Amazon from its its list price of $129.95 has been reduced to $99.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Simulations you can expect in Cisco’s ICND1 exam

Cisco is pretty clear on what you might need to configure in their new Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices Part 1 (ICND1) exam. When you look at the exam blueprint, they use the language configure, verify and troubleshoot as opposed to just describe.What does this list of possible configuration topics look like? Here you go!  IPv4 addressing IPv6 addressing Pv6 stateless address auto configuration VLANs (normal range) spanning multiple switches Interswitch connectivity Layer 2 protocols (CDP, LLDP) Port security Inter-VLAN routingTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

9 top tools for corporate cloud collaboration

The nature of work has evolved rapidly during the last few years. Modern coworkers often have very different roles and responsibilities, and many work from multiple locations. Email is no longer an efficient tool for many of the tasks today's professionals perform, and face-to-face meetings are increasingly a rarity.Fortunately, a new generation of cloud-based collaboration tools are now available to help tackle some of these challenges. Here's a look at nine of the best options.1. Toggl for time tracking If you've been turned off by the complexity of past time-tracking solutions, Toggl may be a better fit. The great-looking time tracker works in a web browser, and it's an intuitive tool that helps monitor your productivity. Toggl works offline, too, and it automatically syncs time tracked offline the next time it connects to the web.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

What you need to do to stop data from leaving with exiting employees

It may come as a surprise, but more likely than not, when employees leave a company they’re taking company data with them. While it’s not always out of malicious intent, the amount of unprotected company information that walks out the door can result in bigger losses in the future.Biscom’s national study around data in the workplace revealed that more than one in four employees leave their job with company data. The study spotlights employees as a big security vulnerability to business data. To help prevent this, Bill Ho, CEO of Biscom, offers a few tips to minimize this threat.1. Establish clear employee policies on handling company data and informationTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

What you need to do to stop data from leaving with exiting employees

It may come as a surprise, but more likely than not, when employees leave a company they’re taking company data with them. While it’s not always out of malicious intent, the amount of unprotected company information that walks out the door can result in bigger losses in the future.Biscom’s national study around data in the workplace revealed that more than one in four employees leave their job with company data. The study spotlights employees as a big security vulnerability to business data. To help prevent this, Bill Ho, CEO of Biscom, offers a few tips to minimize this threat.1. Establish clear employee policies on handling company data and informationTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Dockerizing of VMworld 2016

Containers have landed…in VMs in the enterprise.

Screen Shot 2016-08-22 at 9.16.50 AM.pngDocker’s adoption continues to grow in the enterprise. There have been over 5 billion images pulls, and 60% of users are running Docker in production environments. Today Docker is run everywhere – from development to production; in the cloud, on virtual machines and bare-metal servers. Enterprise application teams around the world are seeing the value of Docker containers and how they help them containerize their existing applications to save money and better utilize infrastructure resources.

To get the latest with Docker and vms stop by our Docker booth #2362 at VMworld. Containers and vms are different but are complementary when it comes to application deployment. With their ability to optimize infrastructure resources, accelerate deployment and provide additional security, Docker containers bring some serious benefits to virtualized workloads within enterprise environments. Additionally, a Dockerized workload gains portability as containers move from VMs or bare metal systems, on prem or in the cloud. That same platform serves as the foundation for your new microservices applications as well.

 

The Docker booth experience you won’t want to miss:

Live demos – Three live  demos will be featured in the booth, including:

  1. Deploy your very first Docker container with a quick hands Continue reading

IDG Contributor Network: How bad is enterprise software? Really, really bad. But it’s not quite that simple.

There is a bit of a standing joke in the technology industry that revolves around enterprise software, the software that the largest organizations in the world use to run their core processes. While these solutions are robust and secure, the joke tends to be it's at the expense of the users, who often complain about poor user experience, inflexibility and essentially having to change the way they work within the business to suit the software. While user-centric design might be a huge buzzword in management circles, for those poor users of enterprise software, it seems to be a foreign concept.

+ Also on Network World: Where do mobile apps fit in the world of enterprise software? +

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: How bad is enterprise software? Really, really bad. But it’s not quite that simple.

There is a bit of a standing joke in the technology industry that revolves around enterprise software, the software that the largest organizations in the world use to run their core processes. While these solutions are robust and secure, the joke tends to be it's at the expense of the users, who often complain about poor user experience, inflexibility and essentially having to change the way they work within the business to suit the software. While user-centric design might be a huge buzzword in management circles, for those poor users of enterprise software, it seems to be a foreign concept.+ Also on Network World: Where do mobile apps fit in the world of enterprise software? +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Baidu Takes FPGA Approach to Accelerating SQL at Scale

While much of the work at Baidu we have focused on this year has centered on the Chinese search giant’s deep learning initiatives, many other critical, albeit less bleeding edge applications present true big data challenges.

As Baidu’s Jian Ouyang detailed this week at the Hot Chips conference, Baidu sits on over an exabyte of data, processes around 100 petabytes per day, updates 10 billion webpages daily, and handles over a petabyte of log updates every 24 hours. These numbers are on par with Google and as one might imagine, it takes a Google-like approach to problem solving at

Baidu Takes FPGA Approach to Accelerating SQL at Scale was written by Nicole Hemsoth at The Next Platform.

33% off ThermoPro TP07 Remote Wireless Digital Cooking Thermometer – Deal Alert

The TP-07 Digital Wireless Thermometer is a perfect choice to accurately monitor your meat remotely. Stop going back and forth from indoors to outdoors to check up on your meat, and instead monitor it from 300 feet away! Does your recipe call for your meat to be at a specific temperature? Not to worry, this unit allows you to set your desired temperature, so you're enjoying the meat the way you prefer. If you're new to cooking or unsure of meat temperatures, don't worry our system includes programmed USDA approved temperatures for all kinds of meats at different doneness levels.  This device averages 4.5 out of 5 stars (read reviews). Its typical list price of $45.99 has been reduced by 33% to $30.59.  See the discounted ThermoPro Digital Wireless Thermometer now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

VIRL on Packet Cloud—Some thoughts

For the last couple of days I’ve been messing with Cisco’s VIRL on Packet’s bare metal service. I don’t do enough labbing now to spend multiple thousands of dollars building a lab in my house, and I want something that I can use from anywhere without opening a lot of holes in my home network when I’m on the road, so the Packet service seems like something useful to get running.

Forthwith, some observations and hints for those who might be thinking about doing this. Some of this might be obvious to other folks, I know, but—maybe me writing them down here will be somehow helpful, and save other folks some time.

An observation—this all feels a little (okay, maybe a lot) clunky’ish. There’s a lot of steps, it takes a long time to set up, etc. There are a lot of moving parts, and they interconnect in interesting ways. Maybe this will all get better over time, but for now, if you’re going to do this, plan on spending at least a half a day, probably more, just getting all the pieces to work.

Some places I ran into trouble, and things I needed to configure that I had Continue reading

Chicagoans: TECHunplugged Is Coming October 27, 2016

TECHunplugged is a one-day event where end users, influencers and vendors come together to talk shop. At the Chicago event on October 27, 2016, I’ll be speaking on the following big idea.

How The Network Automation War Might Soon Be Won

Here’s the abstract I proposed to the TECHunplugged team.

Automation in the virtualization world is a long-established feature. A plethora of excellent tools exist to help stand up server infrastructure, operating systems, and applications. This has helped bring much of the IT stack together in a way that makes system deployment a repeatable, predictable task. By contrast, network automation is a struggling, emergent technology. Why is it that the automation of network provisioning has proven so challenging?

Ethan Banks, 20 year IT veteran and co-host of the Packet Pushers podcasts, will explain the network automation challenge from a practitioner’s point of view. He’ll also discuss recent advances in network automation tooling from both the open source and commercial software worlds. Network automation might feel rather behind other IT silos, but there’s significant progress that will change network operations sooner rather than later.

To set context, I’ll explain why automating the network is so hard.

IDG Contributor Network: IoT early warning system helps save people from mudslides

Necessity is the mother of invention.So, it’s no surprise that the best solutions are designed close to where they’re most needed. How do you empower people in remote parts of the world to develop their own solutions? How can their best solution be shared globally with others to maximize the benefit?Responding to disasters in El Salvador Floods and mudslides regularly devastate El Salvador. Villagers can identify impending floods and mudslides, but they are unable to warn others in time. Rugged terrain, lack of power and cellular networks present a formidable communication challenge. Reacción, a team of El Salvadorian experts in electronics, community development and disaster relief, decided to do something about it. Working with local villagers and global experts, they developed an IoT-based early warning system for disasters that’s now shared globally.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here