We’re learning the wrong lessons from airline IT outages

This summer, multiple high-profile organizations have experienced embarrassing and financially costly business disruptions. The explanations and excuses for these service interruptions—delivered by company executives and Monday Morning Quarterbacks alike—fail to address the underlying cause of these issues: lack of rigorous senior management oversight. Southwest Airlines and Delta both experienced widespread consumer dissatisfaction and business outages over the last month due to what executives have blamed on equipment failures. Pundits blame the meltdowns on cobbled-together legacy infrastructure. Both miss the point. On July 20, 2016, Southwest Airlines IT systems went haywire due to a malfunctioning router, cancelling 700 flights and stranding thousands of passengers. Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly characterized the outage as a “once-in-a-thousand-year flood.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Saving stuff: Your VHS tapes, your data, your car battery, your wrists

Every so often, I find myself with a collection of gadgets that are seemingly unrelated, until I can come up with an overarching theme worthy enough to include them all in the same roundup. Sometimes it’s the “I gotta clean up my desk” theme, sometimes it’s “the vendors are bothering me about where that writeup is.”In this case, it’s a little bit of both, but with a very thinly veiled theme - saving stuff. The following gadgets all aim to save something when you use it. It even works as a “Keith has been saving this stuff in his office until he finally figured out a theme to tie them all together” approach.Explain more, Keith!To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Up to 22% off Various Microsoft Surface Pro 4 Models – Deal Alert

Surface Pro 4 powers through everything you need to do, while being lighter than ever before. Go from ultraportable tablet to a complete laptop in a snap wherever you are.  The Pro 4 has the Windows you know plus lots of new features you'll love. Various models are now discounted on Amazon: 22% off Microsoft Surface Pro 4 (128 GB, 4 GB RAM, Intel Core M) 17% off Microsoft Surface Pro 4 (256 GB, 8 GB RAM, Intel Core i7e) 16% off Microsoft Surface Pro 4 (256 GB, 8 GB RAM, Intel Core i5) 10% off Microsoft Surface Pro 4 (256 GB, 16 GB RAM, Intel Core i7e) 9% off Microsoft Surface Pro 4 (512 GB, 16 GB RAM, Intel Core i7e) No matter what you're doing, feel like an expert from the get-go.  Use the included Surface Pen to mark-up presentations, sign documents, take notes and much more.  Performance and versatility for professionals, creatives, and more.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco buys into containers with Container X acquisition

Cisco today turned its attention and checkbook onto another hot enterprise market by announcing it intends to buy Container X a nearly 2-year-old startup specializing in virtual container technology.ContainerX describes its technology as a turnkey container platform “designed for enterprise IT to administer as easily as they’ve administered VMware vSphere or Microsoft HyperV over the years, with dev and ops self service. Enterprise IT can set up the platform in under 60 minutes, integrate with various enterprise infrastructure aspects including storage, network, orchestration, LDAP etc, create pools with resource limits, for various dev/ops teams to self service.” the company wrote on its website.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Intel’s new Kaby Lake chips for PC: Here’s the company’s vision

New chips can be a reason to upgrade PCs. But does Intel's latest 7th Generation Core chip, code-named Kaby Lake, have enough bite to trigger replacements of old PCs?Intel hopes so. The company is framing Kaby Lake PCs as go-to devices for productivity, virtual reality, and 4K gaming and video.So far, Kaby Lake is off to a good start. About 100 laptops, 2-in-1s, and tablets with Kaby Lake installed will be available from PC makers by the end of this year.On paper, Kaby Lake's launch comes at an inopportune time. PC shipments are slumping, the replacement cycle has slowed to six years, and consumers are instead using smartphones and phablets for computing. Many older PCs are powerful enough to run Windows 10.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

New ransomware threat deletes files from Linux web servers

A destructive ransomware program deletes files from web servers and asks administrators for money to return them, though it's not clear if attackers can actually deliver on this promise.Dubbed FairWare, the malicious program is not the first ransomware threat to target Linux-based web servers but is the first to delete files. Another program called Linux.Encoder first appeared in November and encrypted files, but did so poorly, allowing researchers to create recovery tools.After attackers hack a web server and deploy FairWare, the ransomware deletes the entire web folder and then asks for two bitcoins (around US$1,150) to restore them, Lawrence Abrams, the founder of tech support forum BleepingComputer.com, said in a blog post.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

New ransomware threat deletes files from Linux web servers

A destructive ransomware program deletes files from web servers and asks administrators for money to return them, though it's not clear if attackers can actually deliver on this promise.Dubbed FairWare, the malicious program is not the first ransomware threat to target Linux-based web servers but is the first to delete files. Another program called Linux.Encoder first appeared in November and encrypted files, but did so poorly, allowing researchers to create recovery tools.After attackers hack a web server and deploy FairWare, the ransomware deletes the entire web folder and then asks for two bitcoins (around US$1,150) to restore them, Lawrence Abrams, the founder of tech support forum BleepingComputer.com, said in a blog post.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

U.S. developers have the numbers, but China and Russia have the skills

While the United States and India may have lots of programmers, China and Russia have the most talented developers according to a study by HackerRank, which administers coding tests to developers worldwide.The study looked at the results of 1.4 million of HackerRank's coding test submissions, called "challenges," during the last few years. "According to our data, China and Russia score as the most talented developers. Chinese programmers outscore all other countries in mathematics, functional programming, and data structures challenges, while Russians dominate in algorithms, the most popular and most competitive arena," said Ritika Trikha, a blogger at HackerRank.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Laptops are about to get a whole lot faster

SSD prices have dropped so precipitously that as many as half of all laptops sold worldwide in 2018 are expected to have the non-volatile memory in them, according to a new report.DRAMeXchange, a division of TrendForce, said today that prices stabilized for the first time in a year for mainstream client-grade SSDs in the PC-maker market during the current third quarter.Though there are signs of tightening inventories in the SSD supply chain during the second half of this year, DRAMeXchange maintained that the adoption rate in the notebook market will exceed 30% in 2016 and may reach 50% in 2018.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

9 things to check after installing wireless access points

After all the work of performing a Wi-Fi site survey, running cable to key locations in the building and hooking up your access points, you might be eager to quickly fill the airwaves. However, there are some things you should check just after powering on those new or upgraded APs and before letting users connect to them.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

9 things to check after installing wireless access points

After all the work of performing a Wi-Fi site survey, running cable to key locations in the building and hooking up your access points, you might be eager to quickly fill the airwaves. However, there are some things you should check just after powering on those new or upgraded APs and before letting users connect to them.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Silicon Valley rains money on Clinton

People living in Silicon Valley, including San Francisco and Oakland, have contributed some $31.2 million to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. Donald Trump, in contrast, is getting pocket change.Trump has raised just over $3 million from all of California, according to campaign finance data analyzed by the Center for Responsive Politics. The totals are based on contributions of more than $200 from individuals.Trump's lag in California is striking in comparison to the 2012 presidential contest. Then the Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, raised $41.3 million overall in California, versus President Barack Obama's $62.8 million. Clinton has raised $76.4 million so far in California.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

What to look for in endpoint detection and response tools and services

What you need to knowOrganizations are quickly learning that keeping the bad guys out of an enterprise environment isn’t as simple as deploying firewalls and antivirus. As cybercriminals utilize customized malware and bypass traditional antivirus solutions, it’s become necessary to take a broader and more proactive approach to protect the endpoint. This means real-time monitoring, detection and advanced threat analysis coupled with response technology.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

What to look for in endpoint detection and response tools and services

What you need to knowOrganizations are quickly learning that keeping the bad guys out of an enterprise environment isn’t as simple as deploying firewalls and antivirus. As cybercriminals utilize customized malware and bypass traditional antivirus solutions, it’s become necessary to take a broader and more proactive approach to protect the endpoint. This means real-time monitoring, detection and advanced threat analysis coupled with response technology.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apple must repay $14.5 billion in underpaid taxes in Ireland

Apple's tax benefits in Ireland are illegal, and the company will have to pay up to €13 billion (US$14.5 billion) in back taxes, plus interest.That's the verdict European Commissioner Margrethe Vestager delivered Tuesday, wrapping up a two-year investigation of the company's tax affairs stretching back to 2003.The investigation found that Apple's effective tax rate on profit reported in Ireland was just €500 per million euros in profit, falling to €50 per million in 2014."I would have a feeling if my effective tax rate were 0.05 percent, falling to 0.005 percent. I would feel that maybe I should have another look at my tax bill," she said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

HPE is betting big on AI to fuel your apps and analytics

Hewlett Packard Enterprise has made no secret of its desire to push further into big data, and on Tuesday it announced two key new offerings: HPE Haven OnDemand Combinations, an extension of the "machine learning as a service" platform it released earlier this year, and Vertica 8, a major new update to its analytics software.Launched in March, HPE's Haven OnDemand cloud platform offers machine learning APIs (application programming interfaces) and services designed to help developers and businesses build data-rich applications. The platform now has 70 artificial intelligence APIs and more than 18,000 users, and HPE is extending it to make development easier.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Privacy groups complain to FTC about WhatsApp policy changes

Privacy groups in the U.S. have complained to the Federal Trade Commission that changes last week in WhatsApp’s terms and privacy policy breaks its previous promise that user data collected would not be used or disclosed for marketing purposes.The Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Center for Digital Democracy have described the changes as unfair and deceptive trade practice, subject to an investigation and injunction by the FTC, in their complaint Monday.WhatsApp said last week it will be sharing some account information of users with Facebook and its companies, including the mobile phone numbers they verified when they registered with WhatsApp. The sharing of information will enable users to see better friend suggestions and more relevant ads on Facebook, it added.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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