It’s a road show for the guys behind PAX East’s big, big LAN party

Among the many other exciting diversions for those of a nerdy bent at the PAX East 2015 gaming convention in Boston this past weekend, there was a LAN party. And as you might expect, it wasn’t your average hastily erected LAN, with computers situated around a couple cheap consumer switches nestled between boxes of pizza.No, the LAN party at PAX East featured fully 420 gaming machines, set out in endless rows on long rectangular tables, and stations for more than 300 computers brought in by conference-goers. The setup was provisioned and managed by LANFest, a non-profit organization sponsored by Intel to raise money for charity via sponsorship of big LAN parties.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apple’s radical 12-inch MacBook Air is the slimmest, lightest MacBook ever

There’s a reason Apple hasn’t changed the MacBook Air’s core design for years now: It’s basically perfect—the epitome of a thin-and-light laptop, from its luxurious, razor-thin exterior to its majestic glass trackpad. But even perfection can’t coax Apple into sitting on its heels. On Monday, Apple revealed a new 12-inch MacBook Air, a radical revamp that shakes up the winning MBA design by dumping virtually every conventional port—Thunderbolt, the SD card slot, a power connector, everything—in favor of a pair a single USB Type-C connection and an audio jack. That, paired with numerous other advances, helped the 12-inch MacBook Air become the slimmest, lightest MacBook ever—and it's silent, too.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Striking Gold with Copper in the Data Center

10G Ethernet (10GbE) is a very popular interconnect technology in today’s data center. It’s widely used for servers/storage devices connecting to top-of-rack (leaf) switches, as well as connecting those leaves to the aggregation (spine) switches. According to a Dell’Oro Ethernet Switch Market report published in 2014, 80% of server connections will be 10GbE-based by 2018.

In general, two types of physical media are used in 10GbE interconnects: fiber and copper. For intra-rack (server/storage to leaf switch) connections, most deployments use copper cabling as it is the most cost effective for short distances within the rack.

There are two copper cable types: twinax and twisted pair. Twinax is used in the 10GBASE-CR standard in the DAC (direct attached cable) format, which is a fixed length cable with SFP+ plugs integrated into both ends. Twisted pair, on the other hand, is something that should be very familiar to every IT person. Remember CAT cables and RJ-45? The 10GbE interconnect standard that uses twisted pair is 10GBASE-T, which is officially defined in the IEEE 802.3an standard.

10GBASE-CR with DAC is great and used in many deployments. However 10GBASE-T over twisted pair offers some unique benefits:

Distance & Interoperability

10GBASE-T over twisted pair Continue reading

Robots to get more processing muscle with Intel’s Xeon D chips

Intel’s Xeon server chips dominate hardware in data centers, and now they could also end up powering robots on factory floors.The new line of Xeon D chips, announced Monday, are designed primarily for servers and network appliances, but as industrial automation grows, Intel believes the chips can all add processing muscle to robots that handle complex manufacturing tasks.Simple robots that do mundane work can run on basic, low-power processors, but faster chips are being plugged into advanced robots for more sophisticated tasks.Xeon D is the first server chip from Intel based on the Broadwell architecture. It’s already being used in PC chips, but it’s graduating to servers, appliances, and now perhaps robots.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The ‘Why Talented Employees Stay’ Listicle – ORLY?

I’ve seen a list entitled “Why Talented Employees Stay” floating around Twitter. The list has been bothering me, because I don’t think it’s quite…right. The list is interesting, but I don’t believe it tells the whole story. Taken at face value, I think the list could even make it more difficult to retain certain people — not less.

Cyberespionage arsenal could be tied to French intelligence agencies

A collection of computer Trojans that have been used since 2009 to steal data from government agencies, military contractors, media organizations and other companies is tied to cyberespionage malware possibly created by French intelligence agencies.Researchers from several antivirus companies have found links between the malware programs, which they call Babar, Bunny, Casper, Dino, NBot and Tafacalou. Some share the same command-and-control servers and some use the same implementations for Windows process listing, process blacklisting or export hashing.In January, German news magazine Der Spiegel published several secret documents about the malware activities of the U.S. National Security Agency and its closest partners, the intelligence agencies of the U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand—collectively known as the Five Eyes intelligence alliance.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Tired of drones? Build a satellite

An amateur-radio satellite called $50SAT/MO-76 marked its 15-month earth-orbiting anniversary last month.Now, you might not think that's a particularly big deal. Satellites stay up longer than that (or don't) all the time.Well, the big deal about $50SAT is that it's a self-built kit. And it's still up there—although possibly only just. Unfortunately, it is now experiencing some premature battery deteriorating caused orbit decay, says Michael Kirkart, a member of the team that built the bird.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Tired of drones? Build a satellite

Zero rating: The overlooked mobile bandwidth revolution from Mobile World Congress 2015

I didn't attend Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last week, and I don't know what I missed more, the yummy Spanish ham or all the cool new smartphones that were introduced.But the thing that many attendees and press reports, even from those who did attend, also seemed to miss was the increasing importance of a big change in who pays for mobile bandwidth.See also: Five takeaways for CIOs from this year's MWC Whether you call it – "zero rating," "toll-free data," or simply associating it with Facebook's Internet.org initiative – the idea is that carriers make a certain amount of bandwidth available free for specific apps or use cases. The idea, according to Mark Zuckerberg's keynote presentation at MWC, is that by making a baseline amount of mobile net access free, more and more users will be enticed online, see the value of the internet, and over time become inspired to pay real money for additional access to mobile data.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

When Worlds Collide: Digging Deeper

Now that some basic definitions of these new approaches to implement LTE in unlicensed spectrum can be agreed, delving deeper into the colliding worlds of licensed and unlicensed band services, it’s important to understand how these technologies might be deployed...

Can tech help teachers teach and students learn?

It's spring break, and high school students are eager to put away their books, binders, pencils and... iPads?High school classrooms, teaching techniques and the very way students learn may receive a tech infusion in the near future. Already some schools across the country, most notably the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), are bringing in tablets and other technology."Technology is becoming pervasive in the classroom and playing a strategic role," says Carolyn April, senior director of industry analysis at CompTIA.CompTIA surveyed teachers, admins and students late last year and found that idea of technology in the classroom is exciting for everyone. All tallied, 58 percent of schools with 1,000 or more students use some education technology, compared to 45 percent of smaller schools.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Office Word 2011 – An Annoying Little Bug

Microsoft Word 2011 Mac Logo

Today I take a gentle swoop away from networking into the world of documentation. Specifically, I’m looking at a bug in Microsoft Office Word for Mac that drives me bonkers.

Custom Properties

The management of custom properties in Microsoft Word has never been the most elegant part of Word’s interface. The mechanism by which the property values are managed has always been a bit clunky and unfriendly, but at least in the Windows version of Word, it at least functioned as stated.

In Office for Mac however, there’s a bug when you select a property to edit. Since it’s easier to show than tell, here’s a quick video demonstrating the issue.

Now isn’t that a silly bit of coding? Yes, I thought so too! Microsoft just announced availability of the Office 2016 Mac Preview, but sadly Document Properties is not yet available:

Feature Available Soon

If you find out before I do, please let me know!

If you liked this post, please do click through to the source at Office Word 2011 – An Annoying Little Bug and give me a share/like. Thank you!

Microsoft asks US court to ban Kyocera’s Android phones

Microsoft has asked a court in Seattle to ban Kyocera's DuraForce, Hydro and Brigadier lines of cellular phones in the U.S., alleging that they infringed seven Microsoft patents.The software giant has in its complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington charged that some Kyocera phone features that come from its use of the Android operating system infringe its patents.Microsoft has previously claimed that Android infringes some of its patents, and offered a licensing program to vendors of handsets running the operating system. A number of vendors including Samsung Electronics, HTC, ZTE, LG Electronics and Hon Hai have signed such licensing deals with Microsoft.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to keep your connected home safe: 7 steps you can take to boost home security

The Internet of Things is based on sensors and controls in all sorts of devices. When those types of devices are used to create a smart home, they can give residents unprecedented control and insight. The proliferation of smart devices, however, also opens the door to new dangers and threats.According to research architect Brandon Creighton, with application security provider Veracode, “At the end of the day, you’re installing a device that is really just a tiny computer.” Even with something as simple as a smart light socket that you can control remotely with your phone, what makes that possible is the little computer in the switch that can talk to the Internet—which means that Internet users can talk back.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

SugarCRM acquires Stitch to boost mobile CRM offerings and know-how

SugarCRM has acquired software and programmers from Stitch, the developer of an iPhone app that acts as a personal assistant for sales staff, in order to boost its customer relationship management offering.Future releases of the Sugar CRM platform will be enhanced with Stitch capabilities, SugarCRM said Monday without offering any details. Following the deal, however, the Stitch app is no longer available.The growing popularity of smartphones is having an effect on all types of software, including CRM. Stitch’s technology analyzes email, calendar and customer relationship management (CRM) data and makes personalized recommendations to sales staff on how to make the most effective use of their time. The recommendations are aggregated in the mobile app or in Google’s Chrome browser with the help of a plug-in.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

SugarCRM acquires Stitch to boost mobile CRM offerings and know-how

Decide!

Last week we talked about orienteering — using models and information to orient ourselves to what’s going on in the network. This is part of the OODA loop, which we talked about two weeks ago. This week, let’s look at the next step — decide.

In fact: Decide! Now! How many hours have you spent thinking through what to decide? Which car to buy, which house to buy, which vacation to take, which… It seems like our life is a continuous stream of decisions through which we must dig deeply to make a choice. Sometimes it makes you want to replace your entire outfit with grey and black. Everything. Actually, we should feel blessed to have so many decisions — at least we’re not considering “eveningvear…” (note the ever fashionable flashlight).

But the last place you want to be is in the middle of a major network outage or attack, spending hours deciding — what was it we were deciding? By the time you get to the fifth pizza and the tenth box of bonbons, maybe you’ve forgotten what you are sitting in that “war room” for. There is another alternative, of course.

Decide what you’re going to decide before Continue reading

How to get certified in VMware virtual networking

During the past year VMware has released a series of network virtualization certifications for network professionals to gain expertise in software defined networking, and specifically how it integrates with existing physical networking.“Some people may get this feeling that their job is in jeopardy” because of SDN, says Chris McCain, director of training and certification for networking and security at VMware. “The message is that it’s not an us vs. them though. Virtual networking still requires networking skills, it’s just a different implementation of that skill set.”+ MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: 18 Hot IT certifications +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to get certified in VMware virtual networking

The Upload: Your tech news briefing for Monday, March 9

Apple event Monday holds promise of more news on WatchApple enthusiasts will be tuning into the live-stream of the company’s “Spring forward” event on Monday. It’s expected to reveal more details about the Apple Watch, as well as information about pricing and sales plans. The event is a long-awaited dropping of a second shoe into the wearables market: last week’s Mobile World Congress provided a venue for competitive launches, but the landscape wasn’t complete without a clear picture of Apple’s offering.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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