Cool ways to celebrate Star Wars Day

May the Fourth be with youImage by Flickr/Josh HallettMay 4 is International Star Wars Day, the unofficial holiday where we celebrate the Force, X-wings, Ewoks and women wearing their hair in the shape of their favorite breakfast pastries.  But how do you give your week that particular galaxy-far-far-away flavor? Some suggestions follow.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Is Interop Dead?

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I’m at Interop this week talking all things networking with a great group of people. There are quite a few members of the community here presenting, listening and discussing. There’s a great exchange of ideas flowing back and forth. Yet one thing I keep hearing in quiet corners of the room is a hushed discussion of the continued viability of Interop as a conference. Is it time to write the Interop obituary?

Only Mostly Dead

Some of the arguments are as old as tech itself. People claim that getting vendors to interoperate today is an afterthought thanks to protocols like OSPF. All of the important bits in a network are standardized now. Use of APIs and other open technologies are driving vendors to play nice with each other. The need to show up in a faraway place and do the work has long passed.

There’s also the discussion around the bigger conferences out in the world. Vendor conferences like Cisco Live and VMworld draw tens of thousands. New product announcements are dropping left and right during these events. People also want to fracture into tool-specific events like OpenStack Summit or DockerCon. Or the various analyst events or company days that Continue reading

Mothers Day Miracle: How 1800Flowers uses the cloud to handle the holiday rush

For most retailers, the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is the holiday rush. For 1800Flowers, it’s Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day.Complicating efforts in recent years has been the venerable online flower shop’s extended reach: The parent company acquired the Harry & David brand 18 months ago, which 1800Flowers CIO Arne Leap called a “watershed moment.”“We had a real need to change our order management to support omni-channel, and tie together our commerce platforms,” Leap said of the new combined companies.Through a partnership with IBM, 1800Flowers went to the cloud.+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: 25 Mother's Day gifts with geek appeal +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

NVLink Takes GPU Acceleration To The Next Level

One of the breakthrough moments in computing, which was compelled by necessity, was the advent of symmetric multiprocessor, or SMP, clustering to make two or more processors look and act, as far as the operating system and applications were concerned, as a single, more capacious processor. With NVLink clustering for GPUs and for lashing GPUs to CPUs, Nvidia is bringing something as transformative as SMP was for CPUs to GPU accelerators.

The NVLink interconnect has been in development for years, and is one of the “five miracles” that Nvidia CEO and co-founder Jen-Hsun Huang said at the GPU Technology Conference …

NVLink Takes GPU Acceleration To The Next Level was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

Worth Reading: Silicon Photonics

Although photons of light dominate the long-distance information superhighways of the Internet, electrons remain the workhorses that move and process information at the local level. Visionaries have imagined for decades that power-efficient light-based communication would migrate to ever-shorter distances and eventually move onto silicon chips alongside transistors at the centimeter scale. -via the ACM

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Google turns on HTTPS for all blogspot blogs

All blogs hosted on Google's blogspot.com domain can now be accessed over an encrypted HTTPS connection. This puts more control into the hands of blog readers who value privacy.Google started offering users of its Blogger service the option to switch their blogspot.com sites to HTTPS in September, but now that setting was removed and all blogs received an HTTPS version that users can access.Instead of the "HTTPS Availability" option, blog owners can now use a setting called "HTTPS Redirect," which will redirect all visitors to the HTTPS version of their blogs automatically. If the setting is not used, users will still be able to access the non-encrypted HTTP version.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Interop: 12 killer (and free) tools for network engineers

LAS VEGAS -- Visibility is key to troubleshooting network woes, but getting such access can be expensive. To help out, a veteran networking pro shared with attendees of the Interop conference in Las Vegas his list of a dozen mostly free “killer” tools. Network Protocol Specialists owner Mike Pennacchi: Free tools can be customized to fit your needs “There are commercial tools that do most of these functions,” says Mike Pennacchi, owner and lead network analyst at Network Protocol Specialists. “If you don’t have any budget, this gives you the tools without spending a lot of money.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Interop: 12 killer (and free) tools for network engineers

LAS VEGAS -- Visibility is key to troubleshooting network woes, but getting such access can be expensive. To help out, a veteran networking pro shared with attendees of the Interop conference in Las Vegas his list of a dozen mostly free “killer” tools. Network Protocol Specialists owner Mike Pennacchi: Free tools can be customized to fit your needs “There are commercial tools that do most of these functions,” says Mike Pennacchi, owner and lead network analyst at Network Protocol Specialists. “If you don’t have any budget, this gives you the tools without spending a lot of money.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google turns on HTTPS for all blogspot blogs

All blogs hosted on Google's blogspot.com domain can now be accessed over an encrypted HTTPS connection. This puts more control into the hands of blog readers who value privacy.Google started offering users of its Blogger service the option to switch their blogspot.com sites to HTTPS in September, but now that setting was removed and all blogs received an HTTPS version that users can access.Instead of the "HTTPS Availability" option, blog owners can now use a setting called "HTTPS Redirect," which will redirect all visitors to the HTTPS version of their blogs automatically. If the setting is not used, users will still be able to access the non-encrypted HTTP version.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

25% off Nextbit Robin Unlocked Android Phone – Deal Alert

Currently averaging 5 out of 5 stars on Amazon (read reviews), Robin has been discounted through May 10th by 25%. With a list price of $399, this item is discounted by $100 and can be purchased via Amazon right now for $299. Robin was born from a Kickstarter campaign (over $1.3M raised from 3,611 backers), and a desire to create something that uniquely stands out. This very well designed smartphone merges 32GB of onboard storage with 100GB of cloud storage, seamlessly backing up your apps and photos into intelligent archives that can be restored instantly and effortlessly. It features a 5.2" 1080p LCD with Gorilla glass 4, 13 MP rear Camera with phase detection Autofocus and Dual tone flash, and Dual Front facing speakers with Dual amplifiers. Learn more about the discounted Nextbit Robin unlocked smartphone and explore buying options on Amazon now.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IBM’s quantum processor comes out of hiding

A quantum computer for the people isn't just a theoretical dream; IBM is trying to make it a reality.IBM has built a quantum processor with five qubits, or quantum bits. Even better, IBM isn't hiding the quantum processor in its labs -- it will be accessible through the cloud for the public to run experiments and test applications.The goal is to unwrap decades-old mysteries around quantum computers and let people play with the hardware, said Jay Gambetta, manager of quantum computing theory and information at IBM.IBM's qubit processor is significant because it'll be the first quantum hardware accessible to the public, even if only through the cloud. Users will be able to work with qubits, study tutorials, and run simulations, Gambetta said. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Review: HPE’s machine learning cloud overpromises, underdelivers

Developers longing to build more intelligent, more proactive, more personalized apps seem to gain more options with every passing day. With Haven OnDemand, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) has joined the applied machine learning fray, competing directly with IBM Watson Services, Microsoft Cortana Analytics Suite, and several Google ML-based APIs.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

5 secure habits of the paranoid PC user

We know how it goes: You mean to practice safe computing habits, really you do. But when you fire up your computer, you just want to get stuff done -- and that's when even savvy users begin to cut security corners.We'd all do well to take a lesson from truly paranoid PC users, who don't let impatience or laziness stand in the way of protecting their data. Let's take a look at some of their security habits that you may want to practice regularly.After all, staying safe online doesn't have to be onerous or time-consuming. Invest an hour or two this weekend to put a few safeguards in place, consciously start to practice a few good habits -- and before you know it, your good intentions will become a daily reality.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

5 secure habits of the paranoid PC user

We know how it goes: You mean to practice safe computing habits, really you do. But when you fire up your computer, you just want to get stuff done -- and that's when even savvy users begin to cut security corners.We'd all do well to take a lesson from truly paranoid PC users, who don't let impatience or laziness stand in the way of protecting their data. Let's take a look at some of their security habits that you may want to practice regularly.After all, staying safe online doesn't have to be onerous or time-consuming. Invest an hour or two this weekend to put a few safeguards in place, consciously start to practice a few good habits -- and before you know it, your good intentions will become a daily reality.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Ads mislead over broadband Internet access pricing, regulator warns

Pricing in ads for broadband Internet access is too often misleading and needs tighter regulation.That's the verdict of the U.K.'s Advertising Standards Authority, which on Wednesday gave ISPs six months to clean up their act before it introduces new rules on how they can promote their services.The monthly cost of broadband Internet access bundled with fixed-line telephone service ought to be simple enough to determine.INSIDER: 5 tricks to improve poor TCP performance However, after viewing a typical ad, only 23 percent of people could correctly identify the cost in a study by the ASA and the U.K.'s communications regulator, Ofcom.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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