Android tune-up: How to boost performance while you wait for Lollipop

Android 5.0 Lollipop has been heralded as the operating system’s biggest step forward to date. Improved battery life and performance through changes to Android’s core runtime and power management systems are among the most anticipated enhancements among users, given their promise of a faster, more efficient experience.At least that’s the theory. Unfortunately, for the 98 percent of Android devices eagerly awaiting their Lollipop update, there’s no way of knowing whether Lollipop will breathe new life into their devices. That’s where third-party developers can fill the performance gap, as they have been since Android’s earliest days.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Android for Work pushes Google further into enterprise

Google's push into the enterprise gained steam last week when the company finally launched Android for Work, a containerization platform and standalone app for older Android devices that lets IT administrators create separate corporate and personal workspaces on Android smartphones and tablets.Android for Work is Google's latest attempt to address two of Android's most significant challenges for IT: security and fragmentation. The latest version of Android, v5.0, known as "Lollipop," now supports separate spheres for personal and work. Devices running older versions of the OS can access some of the same features in a separate Android for Work app.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

What’s in my toolbag – Update 2 – SergeantClips

Building on the “What’s in my toolbag” series that I revisited last week with the Fluke LinkSprinter, I wanted to talk about the next new item in my tool bag.  This week we will take a look at a product called SergeantClip.  The SergeantClip is used to help with cable management and switch replacements.  I […]

The post What’s in my toolbag – Update 2 – SergeantClips appeared first on Fryguy's Blog.

Response: Open Web Alliance Lobbies to Intercept Your Traffic

The Open Web Alliance is a lobby group that is opposed to secure and safe HTTPS traffic over the Internet and forms lobby group for the HTTP2 process to ensure that your Internet traffic can be intercepted and logged by service providers. This major purpose of this so-called technology innovation is that your personal information to can […]

The post Response: Open Web Alliance Lobbies to Intercept Your Traffic appeared first on EtherealMind.

The Upload: Your tech news briefing for Thursday, March 5

China defends surveillance plan by pointing to U.S.The Chinese government is calling out U.S. opposition to its new anti-terror law, saying that it’s similar to what other countries are doing as they ask tech companies to hand over information that they need to fight terrorism. On Wednesday, China’s parliamentary spokeswoman tried to play down the impact the proposed legislation might have on foreign tech businesses, who have complained about having to turn over encryption keys and create “back doors” to enable government surveillance.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Upload: Your tech news briefing for Thursday, March 5

China defends surveillance plan by pointing to U.S.The Chinese government is calling out U.S. opposition to its new anti-terror law, saying that it’s similar to what other countries are doing as they ask tech companies to hand over information that they need to fight terrorism. On Wednesday, China’s parliamentary spokeswoman tried to play down the impact the proposed legislation might have on foreign tech businesses, who have complained about having to turn over encryption keys and create “back doors” to enable government surveillance.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

China aims to help local Internet firms cross into the global market

China seeks to help the country’s Internet firms gain a bigger foothold in the international market, and is preparing to pour more state funds into its emerging tech sector, according to one of its top leaders.Chinese Premier Li Keqiang made the statement in his opening address to the country’s annual parliamentary session on Thursday. He added that China is establishing an “Internet Plus” plan to promote its mobile Internet, cloud computing, and e-commerce sectors, as part of a push to support the country’s emerging industries.“The country has already established a 40 billion yuan (US$6.5 billion) emerging industry innovation investment fund, and more capital will be brought in and integrated,” he said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco ACI – a Stretched Fabric That Actually Works

In mid-February a blog post on Cisco’s web site announced stretched ACI fabric (bonus points for not using marketing grammar but talking about a shipping product). Will it work better than other PowerPoint-based fabrics? You bet!

What’s the Big Deal?

Cisco’s ACI fabric uses distributed (per-switch) control plane with APIC controllers providing fabric configuration and management functionality. In that respect, the ACI fabric is no different from any other routed network, and we know that those work well in distributed environments.

Read more ...

Five things we learned about Etsy from its IPO filing

Etsy, the online marketplace for buying and selling handmade goods and crafts, disclosed some interesting tidbits about the company’s business when it filed to go public Wednesday.Did you know that 86 percent of Etsy’s U.S. sellers at the end of last year were women? Or that three-quarters of its sellers consider their online store a business rather than a hobby?Etsy is hoping to raise US$100 million from the offering to help expand its business. Here are five other things we learned from combing through its S-1 filing.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Hello, I’m 47321

And now the big reveal. The reason I haven't been blogging or doing much of anything for some time now is because I've had a teeny tiny side project going on: And this week I passed the lab exam! I am CCIE 47321 (Routing and Switching).

Cisco might ONIE up

Cisco is preparing to open up its Nexus 9000 switches for further programmability, perhaps even supporting a popular open source tool for booting them up.A Cisco white paper posted on the company’s website and then withdrawn last week stated that the company’s Nexus 9000 switches, in standalone NX-OS mode, can now support the Open Network Install Environment (ONIE). ONIE is a network boot loader to install software, including operating systems from multiple vendors, on bare metal Ethernet network switches.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Facebook wants to get better at detecting fake profiles

Facebook is taking steps to improve how it detects fake profiles, particularly those created by people claiming to be someone else.Fake profiles are a real challenge for Facebook, especially in developing markets. For example, in India there is a significant problem with men creating profiles that impersonate real women, a violation of Facebook’s rules. This makes some women afraid of creating profiles.It’s part of a larger problem in India, where more men are on the Internet than women in comparison to other parts of the world, Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg said Wednesday.Facebook, Zuckerberg said, is tackling this problem and trying to become faster at flagging fake profiles, in part by getting better feedback from its users.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Amazon’s next cloud conference set for October in Las Vegas

IT professionals with skills in Amazon Web Services will once again swarm Las Vegas come October.Amazon will hold its next annual cloud services conference, re:Invent, from October 6 to October 9.As has been the case since the event’s debut in 2012, the venue will be the Venetian, a spacious hotel and conference facility.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Amazon’s next cloud conference set for October in Las Vegas

IT professionals with skills in Amazon Web Services will once again swarm Las Vegas come October.Amazon will hold its next annual cloud services conference, re:Invent, from October 6 to October 9.As has been the case since the event’s debut in 2012, the venue will be the Venetian, a spacious hotel and conference facility.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Intel’s Skylake chips to appear in tablets, PCs, servers

Intel has revealed more details about its next-generation chip code-named Skylake, indicating it will go into a broad range of tablets, PCs and servers. Intel has hailed Skylake as its most important chip architecture in a decade and now says that it will be used in mainstream Core i3, i5 and i7 PC processors as well as Xeon server chips.+ See our full coverage of MWC 2015 + The first Skylake chip is expected to be Core M, designed to be used in Windows as well as Android tablets and hybrids.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Against the odds, Canonical and Jolla trot out iOS, Android alternatives

Four smartphone OSes that hope to find room next to Android and iOS were on display at Mobile World Congress, but the most exciting were Ubuntu Phone and Sailfish OS. Apple and Google have further tightened their grip on the smartphone OS market; they had a market share of 96.1 percent last year, up from 94 percent in 2013, according to Gartner. However, that hasn’t deterred Mozilla, Samsung Electronics, Canonical and Finnish start-up Jolla from developing their own OSes.+ See our full coverage of MWC 2015 + At Mobile World Congress they all showed commercial devices for the first time. Mozilla’s Firefox OS and Samsung’s Tizen have user interfaces that are very reminiscent of Android, but Canonical with Ubuntu Phone and Jolla with Sailfish have been either brave or stupid enough to try something different.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

10 cool tablets from MWC 2015

Tablets, tablets, tablets!Even though the BBC argues that the age of the tablet has essentially ended, manufacturers exhibiting at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this year have only begun to fight. Here's a look through some of the coolest tablets on display.RELATED: See a running list of stories from MWC 2015To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here