So were those Black Friday electronics deals really worth the hassle?

With memories of the crowds and lack of sleep from Black Friday 2014 now distant memories for those of you who partook in the massive shopping day four months ago, you'll be glad to know you really did save yourself a bundle on certain electronics. An analysis of the best deals on TVs, laptops/PCs, tablets, cameras and video game consoles shows that prices indeed have risen significantly for most items since them. The biggest price increases (both dollar-wise and percentage-wise) were seen for televisions, according to BestBlackFriday.com, one of numerous outfits that tracks deals. + LOOK BACK: 20-Plus Eye-Popping Black Friday Tech Deals +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft gives one of Windows Phone’s best features to iOS, Android

Windows Phone is not setting the world on fire, which means that only about 3% of all mobile phone users even know about some of its cool features. Rather than keep those features to itself, Microsoft is making them available to other platforms.The company has announced that Office Lens, its photo scanning app that crops pictures and automatically drops them into OneNote or Onedrive, is available for free at Apple's App Store, and that the Office Lens Android Preview is available for testing.The idea behind Office Lens is comparable to the Scannable feature in Evernote. It lets you take a quick picture of a whiteboard, receipt, billboard, or anything else similar and quickly scan and save it to a storage service. The app will auto-crop receipts, whiteboards, and anything else where there is a white object against a dark background.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Vulnerable Dell support tool now detected as risky software

Security vendor Malwarebytes has flagged the Dell System Detect tool as a potentially unwanted application after older versions of the program were found to put computers at risk.Last month a security researcher named Tom Forbes warned that attackers can exploit a weakness in older versions of Dell System Detect to remotely install malware on computers when users visit specially crafted websites.The program allows Dell’s support website to automatically detect the service tags of users’ PCs, so it can offer the corresponding drivers. The tool is offered for download when users click the “Detect Product” button on the website for the first time and continues to run in the background after installation.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The best way to stop DDoS attacks

This vendor-written tech primer has been edited by Network World to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note it will likely favor the submitter’s approach.

Experiencing a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack is like having your home flood. Without warning, attackers can upend your enterprise. Every moment counts, but unfortunately by the time some DDoS solutions identify and report the attack, the damage is already done. You need a faster, more immediate means of threat detection to prevent severe damage. 

When a DDoS attack hits your network, a long time can pass before the security/network staff fully realizes it is actually a DDoS attack that is affecting the services, and not a failing server or application. Even more time may pass before the actual mitigation of the threat starts to take effect.

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

The Upload: Your tech news briefing for Monday, April 6

Camera chip could turn phones into 3D scannersCaltech researchers have developed a camera chip that could let you use your smartphone to take 3D scans of an object, then send the results to a 3D printer to duplicate the thing. The device works by shining perfectly aligned beams of light on a targeted object. It detects subtle differences in the light that is reflected back from that object and uses those differences to build a digital 3D image.U.S.—and IBM—are surging in mobile patents raceThe days are gone when the U.S. was the notable laggard behind Europe in mobile technology: a new report on mobile patents won last year show a sizable increase in the U.S. but a decrease in Europe. And while Samsung still has the biggest mobile patent portfolio, IBM is gaining on it with the most new mobile patentTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

New products of the week 04.06.15

New products of the weekOur roundup of intriguing new products. Read how to submit an entry to Network World's products of the week slideshow.APImetricsPricing: APImetrics offers four levels of pricing: Community (free), Developer ($10/month), Professional ($150/month) and Enterprise (custom). To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Camera chip could turn phones into 3D scanners

U.S. researchers have developed a camera chip that could give smartphones the ability to take 3D scans of everyday objects, a sought-after feature in the 3D-printing world.Engineers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) said their device is based on a cheap silicon chip less than 1 millimeter square and it can produce 3D scans with extremely fine resolution.The chips could be incorporated into phones and the data could be sent to 3D printers to duplicate scanned objects, eliminating the need to use large desktop devices.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

California sends revenge porn operator to prison for 18 years

The operator of a revenge porn website has been sentenced to 18 years in prison, in what is being described as the first criminal prosecution in the U.S. of the operator of a website of this type.Kevin Christopher Bollaert, 27, of San Diego, was found guilty in February this year on six counts of extortion and 21 counts of identity theft, California’s Attorney General Kamala D. Harris said in a statement. He was arrested in December 2013.U.S. regulators have started clamping down on revenge porn, which generally consists of the posting of nude photos and other explicit content of users without their permission, and then blackmailing them for payment to take it down.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

California sends revenge porn operator to prison for 18 years

The operator of a revenge porn website has been sentenced to 18 years in prison, in what is being described as the first criminal prosecution in the U.S. of the operator of a website of this type.Kevin Christopher Bollaert, 27, of San Diego, was found guilty in February this year on six counts of extortion and 21 counts of identity theft, California’s Attorney General Kamala D. Harris said in a statement. He was arrested in December 2013.+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Meet the White House's new open-source happy IT Director +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Sharp mulls overhaul of LCD business amid fierce competition

Struggling electronics maker Sharp said Monday it is grappling with how to reform its LCD panel business, but has yet to make any decisions.Kyodo News and other media reported that Sharp plans to spin off its business for small and mid-size LCD panels, used in smartphones and other mobile devices, by getting the state-backed Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ) to invest ¥100 billion (US$840 million) in a new subsidiary.INCJ would control a roughly 40 percent stake in the LCD subsidiary, according to the reports. Sharp, however, denied that any plans have been made regarding its own business.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Troubleshooting Networks: Tips from a Network Detective

For over 30 years I’ve been in the playing in the “world of IT” and wow has that world changed a great deal in those years. But through all that change, there has been a thread, for me, that has always remained constant. Troubleshooting! The thrill of the “chase” and the challenge of solving the […]

Author information

Denise "Fish" Fishburne

Denise "Fish" Fishburne
CPOC Engineer at Cisco Systems

Denise "Fish" Fishburne, (CCIE #2639, CCDE #2009:0014) is a team lead with Cisco's Customer Proof of Concept Lab in Research Triangle Park, N.C. Fish loves playing in the lab, troubleshooting, learning, and passing it on.
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The post Troubleshooting Networks: Tips from a Network Detective appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Denise "Fish" Fishburne.

You can’t put the future on hold

Greg Ferro recently participated in an “Ask Me Anything” thread on Reddit. In that thread, user “1DumbQuestion” made this comment:

Last, never finished my CCIE because of what I perceive will happen with SDN in the next coming years.

I’ve seen similar comments from others over the last couple of years. This concerns me because it seems that people are saying “There’s too much change going on here, and I don’t know how it will all work out. So I’ll just do nothing.”

Don’t be one of those people.

You should take a hard look at your career, and try to understand where the industry is going. If you think that CCIE study is not the best use of your time, that’s fine. But you should make a conscious choice about that. Crucially, you must decide where else to invest your time and energy.

If you firmly believe that networking will change dramatically over the next few years, then take active steps to prepare yourself. Think about your current skills, and where you have gaps. Maybe you need to learn more about Linux. Maybe it’s configuration management, or Python scripting. Put your time into Continue reading

CCIE RS study planning, books, notes

Study planning Books, workbooks, videos, software, rack rental tokens, laptop hardware and software have all been purchased; it’s time to get this party started. So, what’s the plan? The urge to dive right into the sexy labs and save the boring planning stuff for later was strong. More than once I had to channel my […]

Author information

quingenerd

quingenerd
Network Engineer at Healthcare Specialty Benefits Management company

Quentin Demmon is network engineer, hobbyist weightlifter (the type you see at the Olympics), and wannabe philosopher. He is excited to be blogging about his CCIE journey in gory, melodramatic detail. Follow him on twitter, facebook, and instagram.
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The post CCIE RS study planning, books, notes appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by quingenerd.

Network Automation Training

If you are a frequent reader of my blog, you know that last year I left my job to do something that I was intrinsically motivated to do. Unfortunately, because of this, I haven’t been able to write as much as I normally would. I do hope that changes. But, time is money now – literally. My time has been spent driving business, negotiating, writing Scopes of Work, building a website, managing finances, and producing quality work for customers, and I hope all of that continues.

Up until this point, I’ve been focused on providing services to end user customers. Today, I’m happy to say that I’ve officially launched the first, of hopefully many, training courses. This one is focused on foundational skills as it pertains to network automation. More detail can be found here.

Cisco Network Programming & Automation

Training and Education are paramount for technology adoption and hopefully courses like this can play a small part with empowering network engineers to not only expand their skill set, but realize the value that could be had by these skills for their own organizations and employers.

As always, I’m open to comments and feedback below or through the contact page.

Thanks,
Jason

Twitter: @jedelman8

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