These units are great and quite speedy now.  As you can see in the photo I’m a proud owner of a Motorola Xoom.  Their are many great options on the market now.  The iPad is the market leader and for good reason.  It is quite easy to use and has the largest amount of apps available currently.  Being a techy, I prefer the underdog, Android.  Android OS has been gaining serious speed on the handheld market but is still second contender in the tablet market.  Samsung also makes a great tablet that is worth checking out.

The differences between the two now are quite marginal so I’d suggest getting whichever fits your fancy.

On to the main point that everyone is dying to know.  Can I ditch this old clunky laptop now and get a tablet?  My answer is always yes & no.  Let me explain why.

For starters the units are still quite limited in comparison to the freedoms your laptop has.  Software and hardware configurations are almost limitless on your laptop as well as operating system etc.  On a tablet you are stuck with apps in the market or non-tested ones that you have to override the system to install.  This can prove to be an issue for business specific software and access requirements.

For the users who will be browsing the internet, playing Angry Birds, and video chatting with Grandma you will never have any problems whatsoever.  But those people really aren’t the intended audience and likely aren’t reading this anyway.  Now let’s take that same device and try to dial up a corporate VPN, open the company intranet page, browse to the fileserver, and print to a network printer at your desk.  It is likely that you can get 1 or 2 of those tasks accomplished with a slew of apps that don’t really play nice together.  It will also require much more setup time and maintenance to keep it actually doing what it should.  Kind of a bummer I know but at the moment the apps don’t integrate well with one another and the amount of extra work negate the positives.

I have my tablet with me all the time and I love it.  When I need to get some serious work done though I’m always pulling my laptop out without a second thought.

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading.
Have a great day!
Chris

The old thinking told us that one box did one thing.  You could touch it and label it with a sticky so you could find it in your sea of servers and switches.  That is all fine and dandy but very wasteful and difficult to manage.

The new technologies are allowing us to pull multiple servers and tasks into a single box.  Think about using a school bus for just 5 or so students.  That would be entirely wasteful on gas and materials etc.  Virtualization technology takes that bus capacity and allows you to maximize its use.  We can allocate resources and give each server a few seats on the bus or a lot of seats based on their need.  By doing this companies can see significant reductions in hardware costs, electric costs (including cooling), and support cost.  So it’s green and budget friendly at the same time.  Seems like a no-brainer.

Virtualization can also be used to pull old hardware into new hardware.  A lot of times this is valuable to do when your server runs fine except that the hardware is older and maybe out of warranty or nearing the end of its life.  On top of that you can usually add more resources and functions into the new virtual setup to make your business run better.

All in all it’s a very wonderful thing and a model most small to medium business need to be moving toward.

Chris

I’m sure you’ve all heard references to “the cloud” and how awesome it is and will be.

The interesting thing is that we’ve been using the cloud for some time now.  It really isn’t anything more difficult than your Gmail or AOL account years ago.  When you are accessing an internet site or hosted data in theory that is the cloud, it’s the internet.  If you were hoping it was going to be more Star Trek than that I’m sorry to have disapointed you.  In other news your computer isn’t the cloud, sorry.  The commercials that show you software driven, locally run, applications aren’t the cloud.  That’s called “into the marketing”.  A mother goes “into the cloud” to fix a picture of her son not paying attention is just a piece of software just like any other.  It’s just a way of using “hot” terminology to sell equipment.  It’s synonymous to the HD trend.  It doesn’t really have any quantifiable definition but people use it like water.  What happens when TV is 3413*1920?  Is that HDD?  Probably not but it sells radio’s and TV’s and people usually don’t even know what it means.

Now that we’ve come to realize we all use it what is all this fuss about?  As I mentioned before I think a lot of the fuss is sales, marketing, and new buzz words.  In the IT world it is a real thing and something that is being taken to the next level.  Security is another issue that we as the user community need to start thinking about.

For the enterprise cloud computing is usually used in a reference to multi-site hosting.  It’s the procedure of keeping data on multiple servers in multiple locations across the country or world.  This allows the larger corporations to take the stress off of one main datacenter and also provide their end-users a faster and more effective user experience.  It also allows new technologies to be more effective such as virtualized desktops.

So onto security and the average user that is in the cloud daily.  There are huge benefits to the cloud and also huge disadvantages.  Playstation Network was a great example and something that is still on the tongues of many.  Their system was hacked and user addresses, names, and credit info was possibly stolen.  So it seems our data isn’t as safe as we assume it is.  Emails are already un-encrypted when the fly over the internet, meaning anyone can see your email to grandma.  Or a private email involving sensitive corporate information.  Generally things are kept pretty tight, but as consumers we need to be aware of all the risks involved as well.

We’re all moving pretty fast to the Facebook, YouTube and Google world.  (All cloud based systems in case you weren’t listening earlier.)  The coming years will see an explosion of data on the internet and it will be interesting to see the changes.  Infrastructure is and will be taking a giant hit as well to make the next iteration of “the cloud” possible.

Stay safe,

Chris Adams

http://mashable.com/2011/05/09/sitting-down-infographic/

I’d think Sony would have a DR or cold site that is updated, patched and ready to go in the case of a DDOS attack or what have you. Sadly it seems they were neither doing that nor maintaining good security policies on the live datacenter.

Here is a snippit from the PSN blog about what happened:

• Sony has been the victim of a very carefully planned, very professional, highly sophisticated criminal cyber attack.
• We discovered that the intruders had planted a file on one of our Sony Online Entertainment servers named “Anonymous” with the words “We are Legion.”
• By April 25, forensic teams were able to confirm the scope of the personal data they believed had been taken, and could not rule out whether credit card information had been accessed. On April 26, we notified customers of those facts.
• As of today, the major credit card companies have not reported any fraudulent transactions that they believe are the direct result of this cyber attack.
• Protecting individuals’ personal data is the highestpriority and ensuring that the Internet can be made secure for commerce is also essential. Worldwide, countries and businesses will have to come together to ensure the safety of commerce over the Internet and find ways to combat cybercrime and cyber terrorism.
• We are taking a number of steps to prevent future breaches, including enhanced levels of data protection and encryption; enhanced ability to detect software intrusions, unauthorized access and unusual activity patterns; additional firewalls; establishment of a new data center in an undisclosed location with increased security; and the naming of a new Chief Information Security Officer.

So it seems that not only were they taken down but users data was taken. Sony admitted that 12,700 credit cards with numbers and expiration dates have been stolen during the compromise to their network as well. From a company as large as Sony and with almost limitless resources these seem like standard policies that should have been in place.

The attack seems to have come from the hacker group “anonymous”. They’ve been targeting Sony for a bit yet after Sony took legal actions against George Hotz. George is partially responsible for creating and releasing a jail break hack for the PS3 system. George was also invlolved in the initial jail break for the iPhone. Sony has also acquired all the ip addresses of the people who visited George’s blog as well as his youtube page on how to install it. To date Sony hasn’t released what they plan to do with any of this, and I’m guessing the outages have been more of a focus lately than anything.

Amazingly this proves that even multi-national, billion dollar corporations aren’t immune to failures. Maybe even more so because of their larger attack surface. Either way it is quite incredible and something can certainly be gleaned from their situation.

We’ve all likely had some spyware or virus on our computer.

So what’s up with that?

In the past it seems that viruses were without purpose.  They’d shut down your computer, corrupt your hard drive, or just plain mess up your day.  These days it seems like the virus/spyware programmers have gotten smarter.  Most of the viruses we see now are looking to fake you into purchasing something.  The program looks legit and a lot of times will even call itself, “Microsoft Antivirus 2010″, or something similar.

Their trick is to convince you to renew your AV software to remove the exponential risks you now have on your computer.  Very very ticky.  Crazy enough when you do give them your credit card, and possibly a new car, it stops popping up for a while.  Soon enough though they’ll want to hit your card again for the same thing or maybe even something a little different.  Either way it is a giant game and something to be avoided.

So now what?

First off make sure you know where you are going on the internet.  Ideally stay onto major sites and avoid downloading screensavers, web search bars, and really any other content 0r site that looks off.  Most sites that are infected will be littered with ads and other non-related info.

Well, it didn’t work I have a virus…  The best thing to do is shut it down as quickly as possible.  The longer the Virus is allowed to run the worse it will get.  If you need to pull the power cord or battery in the case of a laptop, do that.

Now call your IT provider, hint hint, and get them to remove it for you.  If you try to ignore the issue it can get worse and likely increase the amount of time your IT company needs to fix it.

I hope this was slightly helpful, and as always feel free to drop us a line if you have any questions.

Chris

http://www.techbitts.com/2011/04/iphone-5-to-feature-8mp-camera-faster.html

We live in a soon-to-be paperless world.  All our notes, tasks, emails, crm, erp etc is stored “in the cloud” (a topic for another day).  So what are businesses doing to protect their “cloud”? 

Usually not enough…

It’s not always easy and free but something all companies should have documented and planned.  Outages are no fun and extended outages can mean closing the doors for good.  Statistically 90% of businesses had to close their doors forever if the outage lasted 10 days or longer.  For prespective that could be as minor as an out of warranty server failing.  Servers can be a 10+ day wait in a lot of cases to get them configured, built and shipped.  Then you have to have it installed, setup and restored with your data and setups.  Seems like a minor oops could equal major corporate headaches and bankruptcy.

All the scare tactics aside it is really an important thing that most businesses don’t realize.  Redundancy is key in both servers and backups.  Plans for an offsite work location can also be critical to keep the wheels rolling during an outage or disaster at your brick & mortar office.

So is your business covered?  If not I’d love to help out.  Please fill out our contact us page or send in a ticket on our support page if you are a current customer.

Stay Well,
Chris

Thanks Google, maybe our children will have a cleaner healthier planet to live on.

The steering wheel is now a digital control center.  All the info you could ever want to know or control can be done without taking your hands off the wheel.  I can add new phone numbers to the bluetooth system, check current MPG, see oil % status, pick up an incoming call and so much more.

So what does this all mean?  Can my car get a virus?  Will I be able to work my car in 5 years?  Technology is a great tool but we might be on the way to taking it too far.  I saw a gentleman the other day in his Mercedes S600 talking on his phone, and what I mean is he actually had it to his ear.  So why use your phone old school style when you have one of the most modern pieces of technology and innovation in the palm of your hand?  The only thing I could think of was the technology was too difficult to use.  I thought technology was supposed to make our lives easier…  I can just see the headline, “Local business exec survived aneurysm shortly after purchasing a new Mercedes S600.”

There is a breaking point where technology meets usability.  Can we make the new digital age work for everyone?  Will everyone need a personal Senior Network Analyst handy in case your toaster stops working?

I love this new world of gadgets and computer but think product development needs to make sure their devices are usable by everyone.  I can’t imagine if my Grandma got herself a new car.  She’d never get out of the driveway, let alone figure out how to turn on the heat in the car.

Welcome to the new age, love it or hate it, it’s here.

Chris