CIOs say AppleCare for Enterprise is lacking

Apple's budding partnership with IBM culminated in the release of AppleCare for Enterprise, the company's business-specific support service, but for the vast majority of organizations that use Apple products the initiative is nothing more than a glorified Genius Bar. CIOs and IT professionals welcome Apple's recent interest in the enterprise, but many are still unclear on the levels of support and services the consumer giant offers — and few are satisfied with Apple's commitment. AppleCare for Enterprise, which is roughly 8-months-old, includes 24/7 phone and email support for all Apple hardware and software, on-site service from IBM, next-day device replacement, a designated account manager and one-hour response times for urgent issues. These services are virtually unattainable for most business customers because many don't have relationships with both Apple and IBM, a requirement for the support services.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco quits set-top box market, sells business to Technicolor

After ten years of making networked set-top boxes, Cisco Systems plans to quit the business, selling its Connected Devices division to French firm Technicolor, the companies said Thursday.Although Cisco will stop making video customer premises equipment for service providers, it will continue to develop software and cloud services to help telcos deliver IPTV and other video services to their customers, Cisco’s business development director Hilton Romanski wrote in a blog post.The companies plan to collaborate on developing video products for service providers, he wrote, and that collaboration will include Romanski taking a seat on Technicolor’s board.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Upload: Your tech news briefing for Thursday, July 23

Qualcomm plans cuts, may spin off assetsQualcomm will lay off about 15 percent of its workforce and may separate its chip and patent businesses in a major realignment of the company that is designed to cut annual costs by about $1.4 billion. The company, a major player in technology that’s used in mobile phones, will cut back the range of its investments in new product areas to focus those efforts on data centers, small cells and the Internet of Things.If Apple Music isn’t already under federal scrutiny, pressure demanding a probe growsTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

golang up and running on CentOS7

I’ve decided recently to get serious about learning golang.  I’ve had a great time playing around with other peoples code (Docker and Kubernetes namely) and it’s time for me to learn the language so I can contribute more than bash scripts.  For better of for worse, I’ve decided to start coding on a CentOS box.  I have a couple of reasons for doing this…

-Its the Linux distro I’m most familiar with currently
-I need to get better at working in Linux.  More stick time on straight CLI can’t hurt.  I feel like jumping into a full blown IDE might be a bit premature for me and possibly allow me to miss some of the basics as well.
-I plan to run the code on Linux servers (I think…?)

Disclaimer: Im just getting started in golang.  If something I suggest below is wrong, please tell me!  Still learning here

Note: I really struggle with the language called ‘go’.  So Im trying to call it golang everywhere I can.  It can seem like a bit much at times…

So let’s get started.  The goal of this post is to end Continue reading

Cell service at US airports varies from first class to middle-seat coach

Need something to watch on a flight? You can download an episode of your favorite show in less than a minute and a half on Verizon Wireless at Atlanta’s airport—or spend 13 hours doing the same over T-Mobile USA at Los Angeles International.The comparison of 45-minute HD video downloads illustrates the wide variation in cellular service at U.S. airports, which RootMetrics laid out in a report for the first half of 2015 that’s being issued Thursday. Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson is the best place to go mobile and Verizon covers airports best overall, but just like security lines and de-icing delays, it all depends.RootMetrics tested mobile data connections using all four major carriers at the 50 busiest airports in the country, checking not just for speed but for how long it took to get on and how well the connection stayed up. The tests took place in well-used places like ticketing, baggage claim and terminal gates. RootMetrics didn’t test voice service or Wi-Fi networks.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cell service at US airports varies from first class to middle-seat coach

Need something to watch on a flight? You can download an episode of your favorite show in less than a minute and a half on Verizon Wireless at Atlanta’s airport—or spend 13 hours doing the same over T-Mobile USA at Los Angeles International.The comparison of 45-minute HD video downloads illustrates the wide variation in cellular service at U.S. airports, which RootMetrics laid out in a report for the first half of 2015 that’s being issued Thursday. Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson is the best place to go mobile and Verizon covers airports best overall, but just like security lines and de-icing delays, it all depends.MORE: Hottest network & computing startups of 2015 To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

GNS3 Version 1.3: What’s new for Open-Source Routers

In 2014, the GNS3 development team launched a successful Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign to support development of a major new release, version 1.0, which was released in October that same year. I was happy to support the Kickstarter campaign and now I am finally getting around to taking a look at the new version of GNS3.

GNS3-v1x-064

The last time I used the GNS3 network simulator, it was at version 0.8.7. After producing version GNS3 1.0, the GNS3 development team has been updating it frequently. GNS3 is now at version 1.3.7.

In this post, I will look at the new version 1.3.7 of GNS3 and evaluate how it works with emulated routers and hosts running open-source software.

What’s new in GNS3 1.x

Below, I describe the new GNS3 1.x features in two sections. The first section summarizes new GNS3 features that are relevant to all users of GNS3, including those who will use GNS3 to emulate networks consisting of routers and hosts running open-source software. The second section summarizes new features relevant only those who are running commercial router images in GNS3.

New features relevant to open-source routers

The following list Continue reading

Nigerian scammers buy exploit kits to defraud Asian businesses

A small group of Nigerian scammers is using more sophisticated methods to defraud mostly Asian businesses, including buying exploit kits and malware from experienced coders, according to a new report from FireEye.The security company said the group performs deep reconnaissance of its potential victims, jumping inside financial transactions in order to try to divert payments to their own accounts.The schemes are much more complex than so-called 419 or advance fee fraud scams, where random victims are induced to send funds in order to get a non-existent but much larger payoff.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

New Apt and Yum Repos

written by Jessie Frazelle, Core Maintainer at Docker, Inc. TLDR; UPDATE your Docker apt repo source list if you want to be able to get the latest Docker We have a yum repo FINALLY for rpms EVERYONE GETS A DYNAMIC … Continued

Microsoft follows Google to crack down on revenge porn

Microsoft will make it easier for people to request the removal of links to intimate images or videos from the company's Bing search engine if such content was posted online without their consent. This move comes in response to an increasingly prevalent phenomenon dubbed "revenge porn," where jilted former partners or extortionists upload sexually explicit content depicting the victims in an embarrassing light. "Unfortunately, revenge porn is on the rise across the globe," said Jacqueline Beauchere, Microsoft's chief online safety officer, in a blog post. "It can damage nearly every aspect of a victim's life: relationships, career, social activities. In the most severe and tragic cases, it has even led to suicide."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Startup launches big data-as-a-service

For many enterprises, big data is hard and slow. Procurement and deployment of data infrastructure can be both expensive and difficult to scale at the pace that data volumes can grow. A startup founded by former Netezza executives says that the answer to these data engineering woes is the cloud. The startup, Cazena, came out of stealth today after two years of development with an enterprise big data-as-a-service offering intended to simplify and automate securely moving and optimizing big data processing in the cloud. It's a managed service platform that founder and CEO Prat Moghe — who served as senior vice president of strategy, products and marketing at Netezza — says addresses the security and complexity challenges that have kept many enterprises from migrating their big data workloads to the cloud.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IBM woos cloud developers

IBM is stepping up its efforts to atract cloud developers. Big Blue today announced a three-pronged approach that includes a new collaborative platform to help developers stay on top of open source technologies, the release of 50 tools and services to the open source community and partnerships with 200 academic institutions across 36 countries. The new platform, developerWorks Open, is a cloud-based environment through which developers can download code and access blogs, videos, tools and techniques. The goal is to accelerate their ability to build and deploy open source apps.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to check if you’ve been attacked by Hacking Team intrusion malware

Hacking Team malware has been attacking computers and smartphones --- and you may be infected without knowing it. Here's how to find out if you're infected. Hacking Team is an Italian-based company that sells surveillance and intrusion software to government agencies and law enforcement groups across the world. Earlier this month its systems were broken into and the Hacking Team's intrusion software was released to the world. That means that hackers could grab hold of it for their own purposes and attack computers and smartphone. Since then, Microsoft has released a patch for Windows designed to close a security hole that could be exploited by Hacking Team Software. Adobe has released a patch for Flash Player, which is vulnerable as well.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

US court says ‘pocket-dialed’ calls are not private

A federal appeals court in Ohio has ruled that a person who accidentally “pocket dials” someone shouldn’t expect any overheard conversation to be considered private.The case involves the chairman of the Airport Board in Kenton, Kentucky, which oversees the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport. The chairman, James Huff, was on a business trip in Italy with his wife and a colleague when he accidentally pocket-dialed the secretary of the airport’s CEO back in the U.S.The secretary, Carol Spaw, said “hello” a few times and soon figured out the call wasn’t meant for her. But she overheard Huff and his colleague talking about personnel matters, including the possibility that the airport’s CEO—Spaw’s boss—might be replaced. The inadvertent call continued after Huff got back to his hotel room with his wife.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Qualcomm plans cuts, may spin off assets

Qualcomm will cut costs by about $1.4 billion per year and study the possible sale of assets as part of a company realignment.The mobile technology juggernaut is also shaking up its board of directors as part of an agreement with investment company Jana Partners. Jana, which owns a chunk of Qualcomm’s stock, has pressured the company to spin off its chip division from its patent licensing business.The realignment was announced as Qualcomm reported its profit fell by nearly half in the April-to-June quarter on revenue that declined by 14 percent from a year earlier.“The changes we are announcing today are designed to enable us to right-size our cost structure and reposition Qualcomm for improved financial and operating performance,” CEO Steve Mollenkopf said in a statement.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here