Daily Tech Digest by Kannan Subbiah

March 12, 2013

RSA reports security shift toward monitoring and response capabilities
Customers' habits are maturing in the face of 100,000 new malware threats a day. The scale of this threat is impossible to manage unless businesses can improve their ability to understand what is happening in their networks, Tom Heiser told Computer Weekly. The need to get ahead and improve understanding of new and emerging threats is what is driving RSA product offerings, he said.

Indian startups go abroad to win at home
In an interview with ZDNet, Manju Gowda, co-founder of Nasscom's IP4Biz program, said the industry body had made some progress, but he believes it will be several years before the attitudes of Indian CIOs can be changed. "In India, to sell to your neighbor, you have to go through the United States," said Gowda, who previously sold his IT security startup to BlueCoat Networks.

New HIPAA Rule Has a Short Compliance Deadline and Lots to Do
The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights, which administers and enforces the HIPAA/HITECH rules affecting privacy and security, not only made business associates liable for the security rule safeguards for PHI (which the HITECH Act required), but also extended the definition of "business associate" — and the liability — to subcontractors all the way down the business chain.

Creating Custom Tooltips with jQuery UI
While native tooltips are perfect for quick textual tips, their behavior and appearance can’t be customized, and this means that they don’t scale well to the complex requirements of modern Web applications. The 1.9 release of jQuery UI includes a new tooltip widget that’s intended to be an accessible, customizable and themeable replacement for the native tooltips provided by the browser.

Is Virtualization Stalled On Performance?
IT architectures that blindly optimize for maximum utilization, and subsequently make it hard to figure out who is really doing what, are unsuitable for hosting performance-sensitive applications -- which is to say, most mission-critical applications. But the situation is not hopeless. There are solutions in the marketplace today that aim to help IT with performance-focused management in dynamic IT infrastructures.

Public Cloud Backup: Is It Right for Your Enterprise?
So far, only 15 percent of its capacity is being used for backup and recovery, according to Steve Erdman, Acronis senior VP and general manager for global business development. "It's still a low percentage of capacity," Erdman says. "We work with our customers to get them over the natural hesitation, but it's not an exploding market yet." Steve Fairbanks, data management VP at CA Technologies -- which has added support for AWS and Microsoft Windows Azure to its popular ARCserve software -- agrees. "We're seeing an uptick, but it has been slower than we had expected," Fairbanks says.

Difference Engine: Hackers' paradise

In a sense, though, the victims of such attacks have only themselves to blame. Many organisations have a false sense of security, complacency even, as a result of having invested heavily in security tools in the past. Yet “non-agile” defences like passwords, firewalls and antivirus software, as well as intrusion-detection and prevention systems have become less than effective now attackers have started using encryption and other tricks to evade them, notes Deloitte & Touche, a management consultancy.

Artificial intelligence: Job killer or your next boss?
The power of man and machine working in unison was at the heart of a speech about intelligence augmentation by Ari Gesher, engineering ambassador with Palantir Technologies, at the recent Economist Technology Frontiers 2013 conference in London. "The idea is to have a very well defined division of labour between the computing machines and the humans," he said, spelling out the complementary skills of men and computers.

Don't let consumerization be the free lunch that eats you

There's a pretty good chance that replacing what you have with cloud-based alternatives would end up costing you more. ... Here's one valid reason to move to the cloud; astonishingly enough, various industry pundits got it right. Sorta -- they got it right in the sense that someone who bought a great horse but put the saddle on backward got it right. It's consumerization.

RegEx Lab.NET
Regex Lab .NET is a full-featured application for editing regular expressions. The application features a modern, highly functional UI allowing increased productivity when writing or debugging regular expression patterns. Features include: Supports all regex operations: matches, replacements and splits; Detailed match analysis with group breakdown; Syntax-highlighted editor with unlimited undo-redo buffer; Live highlighting of matches as text is typed and more.

Quote for the day:

"All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure." -- Mark Twain

March 11, 2013

How Blueseed Will Change the Software Industry and Businesses around the World
Blueseed’s location is a ship 12 nautical miles from San Francisco in international waters, where thousands of startups and entrepreneurs will, by Q2 2014, live and work and have access to the Silicon Valley ecosystem without the need for a U.S. work visa. ... Both founders are involved in the Seasteading Institute, a nonprofit venture for creating floating cities in international waters, thus facilitating creating a new way of life that is more equitable and entrepreneurial.

India doubles Google user data requests
According to the search giant's latest biannual Transparency Report, where it reveals the number of times governments and authorities asked for user data--usually to aid criminal investigations--in the six months to December 31, 2012, India was again ranked second for the total number of requests made by a single country. The United States topped the list again.

Middleware is Dying -- and for Good Reason
As acceptance of platform as a service (PaaS) cloud services continues to accelerate, companies are increasingly free to bypass underlying in-house IT infrastructure and OS requirements, focusing instead on the type of services required and service level agreements (SLA). And that spells the beginning of the end of having to deal with the cost and hassles of complex middleware.

U.S. SEC to propose rules to tackle trading glitches
The plan calls for these groups to notify the agency about problems with or changes to technology systems, to designate individuals or firms to participate in testing business continuity and disaster recovery plans at least once a year, and to give SEC staff access to systems so they can monitor compliance, according to an SEC fact sheet.

Singapore to double speed of free public Wi-Fi
"The free Wireless@SG network was popular with Singaporeans. More businesses have subscribed to Wireless@SG for their own operations, such as cashless payments and facility surveillance. But the system is now over six years old," noted Yaacob. Part of the enhancement plans includes a more simplified login process, instead of the current system requiring users to repeatedly enter their details on every use.

Hackers break in to RBA, but it's business as usual
According to Freedom of Information documents (PDF) released by the RBA in December last year, the attackers' point of entry was via an email. The email, which was sent in November 2011, contained a link to a malicious website that if clicked on would download malware to its victims' computers. It was sent, undetected by the RBA's security systems, to "several bank staff, including senior management up to head of department", and was ultimately successful — six people clicked the link and infected their machines.

Today in Tech: Privacy, Big Data, Meetings & More
Watching Steve Jobs speak, you wonder if either Jobs or his admiring audience gave any thought to privacy at all. Jobs’s pitch was mostly about business and strategy. The audience, even though they cheered when Jobs uttered the word freedom, seemed to be more excited about the new features that Mac would bring than about some of the darker implications of technology.

China calls for cooperation, not war, in cyberspace
"Cyberspace needs not war, but rules and cooperation," said foreign minister Yang Jiechi during a press conference. "We oppose cyberspace becoming a new battlefield, and to using the Internet as a new tool to interfere in another country's internal affairs." Yang is so far the highest Chinese official to comment on recent allegationsthat a large number of hacking attacks against foreign companies originated from China.

iYogi to enhance real-time monitoring with NICE
NICE Process Analytics, part of its Real-Time Activity Monitoring solution, will enable the automatic capture and analysis of all managed processes that take place within a single customer interaction, including tasks performed on both the phone and desktop by Tech Experts. This will increase iYogi’s visibility and productivity across multiple geographies, enhancing their Tech Experts’ delivery across all task types, skills and levels.

Amazon top-level domain plan opposed
Amazon has applied for a large number of gTLD strings, some directly linked to its current trademarks such as ".kindle," and ".fire" but others which are more generic in nature. Bookseller Barnes & Noble has also written a letter to ICANN to ask it to deny Amazon.com's application to purchase several TLDs, most notably ".book," ".read" and ".author," which it refers to collectively as the Book TLDs.

Quote for the day:

"Holding anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned." -- The Buddha

March 10, 2013

Skill Up to New Trends in IT

"Customers expect one person to play multiple roles in the project, and this requires multiple skills," comments Deepak Jain, senior vice president and global head, workforce planning and development, Wipro Technologies. "For eg, the project manager is also expected to technically guide the design team. A test engineer is also expected to think like a developer, and vice versa.

Yahoo Wants Bigger Slice of Tech Pie, Less Emphasis on Media Products
The company said Friday most of the products it is dumping will either shut down April 1 or not be supported after that date. Yahoo said in a blog post that affected products include Yahoo Avatars, Yahoo app for BlackBerry, Yahoo Clues (beta), Yahoo App Search, Yahoo Sports IQ, Yahoo Message Boards Website, and Yahoo Updates API.

A Myth That Thwarts Leadership

It is particularly strong when you have highly technical people who pride themselves on their knowledge and skill in their craft. Sometimes promotions are granted as a way to reward them financially even though these individuals often have no interest in managing or leading. Yet if you listen closely you will discover that lack of interest in managing or leading is only part of the story.

Platfora and the Foundation of Business Intelligence for Big Data
The challenge with traditional architectures, Platfora argues, is that they organize data in a predetermined manner, but today’s big data analytics environment dictates that organizations cannot determine in advance what they will need to explore in the future. If a user gets to a level of analysis that is not part of the current schema, someone in the organization must undertake a herculean effort to recreate the entire data model.

Huawei Leans on SAP to Give Enterprise Push a Boost
The direct benefit is that Huawei can now sell systems in an important growth area of the market, according to Gartner research director Adrian O'Connell. There are also indirect benefits in terms of raising the profile of Huawei as a server vendor, both for users and other technology partners, increasing the credibility of the technology capabilities of its offerings, he said via email.

China's next-generation internet is a world-beater
THE net is getting creaky and old: it is rapidly running out of space and remains fundamentally insecure. And it turns out China is streets ahead of the West in doing anything about it. A report published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society last week details China's advances in creating a next-generation internet that is on a national level and on a larger scale than anything in the West.

Snapshot of Business Pulse

A recent Ernst and Young report, Business Pulse, provides fresh insight into the top 10 risks and opportunities in 2013 and beyond. It explores a range of thoughts and views and gives recommendations for those who want to start preparing and planning now for what lies ahead.

Big Data Plumbing Problems Hinder Cloud Computing
The plumbing problem arises because of the rate at which data is being created and stored. The digital universe will approximately double every two years, or 41% per year,2and it is rising significantly faster than the bandwidth of network connections. In 2012, there was just 11% growth in wired speeds, compared to an average connection rate of 2.8 Mbits/s.1 The growth of connections isn’t keeping up with the growth in data. That’s the plumbing problem.

Growing EAI with Apache Camel
Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) provides us with all the knowledge, technology and best practices to build extensible, maintainable and capable integration solutions in a productive fashion. However, most integration solutions place us in a dilemma: while they are full of features and can be quite productive for large projects and a demanding environment, they also require big investments up front when it comes to learning the system, deploying it and maintaining it.

Exclusive Interview with Leadership Guru Author John Baldoni
In 2012, Leadership Gurus International ranked John Baldoni in its top 10 global leadership gurus. His increasingly relevant book, Lead with Purpose, featuring illuminating stories, interviews, and profiles of leaders from a variety of fields, shows readers how to take their organizations to the next level with renewed focus and improved direction. What does this bestselling business guru author have to say about Lead with Purpose, which builds on the foundation laid out in his groundbreaking title, Lead Your Boss?

Quote for the day:

"It's not enough to know that a threat is coming. You need to know whether it's coming right for you" -- Maxwell Wessel and Clayton M. Christensen

March 09, 2013

Enterprise Risk Management: A Holistic Approach
A well defined risk management program cannot achieve high maturity scores without integrating risk management systems across divided organisational units. Organizations must thoroughly understand the true value at risk and ensure their compliance mandates are not geographically siloed. ... Check out this live webinar from GRC Forum.

What to do when the CEO says 'Get it Done!'
“What do you do if the CEO tells you to get it done and f*** the governance? Well you probably go away and just do it, no?” I should have been faster on my feet to say then and there that there are four good reasons why that was not necessarily the best response. These reasons are: Compliance, Efficiency, Risk, Effectiveness

Who ratted out Microsoft on browser ballot absence?
According to Almunia, neither the Commission nor Microsoft -- which had been left to police itself -- was aware that the browser choice screen was AWOL until a third party reported the oversight. The Commission has repeatedly declined to name the complainant. The choice screen, also called the "browser ballot," was not shown to approximately 15.3 million users running Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) for more than a year, from May 2011 until July 2012, when the complaint was filed.

Feds Asked to Back Cybersecurity with Legal Protections
“Cybersecurity is largely a voluntary effort, and the task of the government is encouraging companies to participate,” said Gus Coldebella, a former top lawyer at the Department of Homeland Security and a partner in Washington at Goodwin Procter LLP. “If you don’t have liability protection, that task is infinitely harder.”

Don't Establish Data Management Standards
Standards can help control cost. Standards can help reduce complexity. But, in an age when a data management architecture needs to flex and meet the business need for agility, standards are a barrier. The emphasis on standards is what keeps IT in a mode of constant foundation building, playing the role of deli counter, and focused on cost management.

VMware preps vCloud-based public cloud service
The service, which is to be built on VMware's vCloud products, including vCloud Director, according to multiple industry sources, is still a ways away from general availability. In the meantime, VMware loyalists who use public cloud can find service providers with vCloud, so switching to a VMware public cloud wouldn't be necessary.

Patch Tuesday: Microsoft to fix four critical flaws, all versions of IE at risk again
Three of the four 'critical' flaws affect Windows, Internet Explorer, Office, Windows Server and SharePoint, which could all lead to remote code execution—such as allowing hackers access to install malware without user prompts or permission. The flaws rated 'important' could lead to an elevation of user privileges or the disclosure of user data or personal information.

IT Talent Shortage Or Purple Squirrel Hunt?
But a talent shortage may just be another way of describing an unwillingness to pay market rates for talent. As Peter Cappelli, professor of management and director of the Center for Human Resources at the Wharton School, put it in The Wall Street Journal back in October, 2011, "Some of the complaints about skill shortages boil down to the fact that employers can't get candidates to accept jobs at the wages offered. That's an affordability problem, not a skill shortage."

Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us
This lively RSA Animate, adapted from Dan Pink's talk at the RSA, illustrates the hidden truths behind what really motivates us at home and in the workplace.

Stop Reinventing Disruption
Disruption is a story of rational responses to a changing environment. It's the sensible retreat from your low margin business towards your more demanding, more profitable customers. At least, it's a sensible retreat until you recognize that you've given away your business and there is nowhere left to run.

Quote for the day:

"Leadership cannot just go along to get along. Leadership must meet the moral challenge of the day." -- Jesse Jackson

March 08, 2013

For credit card handlers, cloud computing guidelines just got clearer
If a client moves a regulated function to the cloud and later falls out of compliance due to a shortcoming on the cloud vendor's part, the client remains accountable. So it's essential to have as much clarity on these issues as possible. Recognizing this challenge with regards to the handling of credit card data, the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Security Standards Council has recently issued guidance on how to apply PCI Data Security Standards (PCI DSS) in the cloud.

Spectralink Tackles Nurse Workplace Safety with New Wireless Solution
“It is surprising to many people that the healthcare field can be a dangerous work environment,” said Spectralink vice president of marketing and product management, Mike Lanciloti. This is much of the reason why solutions like the Spectralink Staff Safety Solution were not developed until recently. ... The Spectralink Staff Safety Solution is designed to integrate easily with other complementary nurse applications

IT Risk Management: Managing the Problem
In this video, Dr. Ron Ross, NIST Fellow delivers a closing keynote on the subject. ... The RMF changes the traditional focus of cybersecurity as a static, procedural activity to a more dynamic approach that provides the capability to more effectively manage information system-related security risks in highly diverse environments of complex and sophisticated cyber threats, ever-increasing system vulnerabilities, and rapidly changing missions.

Fiddle with Javascript - JSFiddle
This cool workbench is a very useful tool for web developers to build HTML, CSS and Javascript based web content. It also has references to the popular Javascript frameworks and extensions.

WebKit and the Render Wars
Adopting WebKit would allow Microsoft to contribute code to the project, thus wielding greater influence in the HTML 5 conversation. It would also keep Microsoft ecosystem developers more in the Web mainstream. And even if Microsoft continued to maintain Trident, it could do so with a more informed sense of HTML 5 compliance.

Spring for Apache Hadoop Goes Live
The list of Spring Apache Hadoop capabilities also includes: declarative configuration support for HBase; dedicated Spring Batch support for developing workflow solutions that incorporate HDFS operations and "all types of Hadoop jobs;" support for the use with Spring Integration "that provides easy access to a wide range of existing systems using an extensible event-driven pipes and filters architecture;"

Aligning a cloud computing project with your enterprise mission
Companies adopting a cloud model make the mistake of opting for a vendor with the lowest price for their chosen type of cloud service. This is a big mistake; an enterprise needs to align its mission with the best cloud service provider, taking into account three aspects of the provider's offering: software, application availability and data requirements. The following are three questions related to these aspects that all enterprises should ask before choosing a cloud service or provider.

Intel touts multiscreen flexibility with 'display as a service'
The technology breaks the hard link between a video source and a screen the way virtualization software breaks the hard link between an operating system and a processor. With DAAS, people can view what's on their tablet on a big-screen TV, mirror the same imagery on multiple displays, or link up multiple displays to create a single, bigger display.

The CIO Toolkit for optimizing IT procurement
Our experience in the acquisition of IT products and services has demonstrated that, with a focused strategic plan and a close partnership with the procurement organization, CIOs can usually uncover significant savings opportunities and use smarter tactics to get the most from newly deployed IT dollars. Some of the ideas outlined below target potential low-hanging fruit;

Does ‘Big Data’ Mean the Demise of the Expert — And Intuition?
The subject-area expert, the substantive specialist, will lose some of his or her luster compared with the statistician and data analyst, who are unfettered by the old ways of doing things and let the data speak. This new cadre will rely on correlations without prejudgments and prejudice. To be sure, subject-area experts won’t die out, but their supremacy will ebb. From now on, they must share the podium with the big-data geeks, just as princely causation must share the limelight with humble correlation.

Quote for the day:

"The pessimist borrows trouble; the optimist lends encouragement." -- William Arthur Ward

March 07, 2013

Meet 60GHz Wi-Fi, the insanely fast future of wireless networking
Get ready for a ridiculous boost in wireless networking speed. Two camps are competing to deliver wireless components that are at least seven times faster than today's gigabit (IEEE 802.11ac) routers. By harnessing spectrum in the unlicensed 60GHz frequency band, these devices will be capable of offering more bandwidth than hardwired USB 3.0 connections.

Microsoft to update its core Windows 8 apps well before 'Blue'
Microsoft officials have acknowledged publicly that the Windows team is aware that the first-party apps on Windows 8 and Windows RT have room for improvement. Many users have been especially disappointed in the Mail and Music apps for the product, claiming they feel more like betas than full featured, polished products. Even though they're free, these apps, developed by the Windows team, just aren't very good, many of us Windows 8/Windows RT users feel.

Strategies of Deceit
Generally speaking, if your competition can accurately anticipate your next move, you will lose, and lose big. Consider the amount of energy going into keeping the timing and placement of the Normandy and Inchon landings a secret, not to mention Pearl Harbor. Preventing your competition/adversaries from correctly anticipating your next move is a very large part of strategic management, indeed.

Hyper-V Deep Dive, Part 3: Networking Enhancements
You do pay some penalties for the benefits of SR-IOV, particularly in the area of flexibility. If you're using the Hyper-V extensible switch and have configured port ACLs and perhaps one or more extensions, these are all bypassed with SR-IOV, as the switch never sees SR-IOV traffic. You also can't do teaming of SR-IOV capable NICs on the host; you can, however, have two (or more) physical SR-IOV NICs in the host, present these to VMs and in the VM create a NIC team out of the virtual NICs for performance and failover.

Car X.O. cares about health
“We’ve only begun to explore the potential of SYNC, he told the audience. “We’re not just catering to the entertainment needs of our customers, but contributing to their wellbeing.” Since the launch of SNYC, Ford, which has a blind spot monitor and a lane-keeping aid, has partnered with several technology companies to make other health products available, such as technology that can track driver behavior and distraction.

Dell Puts RNA Networks Assets to Use in New Product
The Fluid Cache 1.0 software technology sits between the Express Flash solid-state drives attached directly to the PowerEdge 12G servers. The software essentially is an application accelerator that creates a high-speed caching pool to facilitate quicker reading and writing of data from SSDs. The software layer replicates data in cache, which improves response time without compromising the data.

Stuxnet Two Years Older Than Previously Believed
The 18-page report reveals that development of the malware dates back to 2005, although it first appeared in the wild in 2007. It wasn’t identified until July 2010. What explains the two-year lead time? An extended refinement process was probably part of what made Stuxnet and its precursor, Flame, so sophisticated. The exploits these bits of malware pulled off without attracting attention were "nothing short of amazing," Mikko H. Hypponen, chief research officer for F-Secure, a security firm in Helsinki, Finland, told IEEE Spectrum

Conquering confidence killers
Joanna Barsh, senior director at McKinsey & Company and author of How Remarkable Women Lead, says her biggest career challenge was getting out of her own way: "I was -- and am -- plagued by limiting fears … and because my sponsors were not versed in how to interact with such a creature, they took my 'no thank you' at face value and offered their opportunity to the next person -- a man who invariably grabbed it. It turns out that the challenge of getting out of my own way was the biggest one I ever faced."

What inspires your work-at-home policies?
Yahoo and CEO Marissa Mayer have made up their minds on telecommuting, but your company may be debating whether to allow it. Or, perhaps, your company does allow work from home but would like to improve the process. What should you be assessing? What are the perils and benefits? What role does your company culture play in success or failure?

People are strange(rs)
The concept of recognizing and knowing your customer is, in essence, an ancient concept. Having a clear view of who your customer is and what he or she is actually buying (or intending to buy), has proven to be a serious business advantage over the years. You do not want your customer to feel like a stranger.

Quote for the day:

"Make no small plans for they have not the power to stir men's blood." -- Niccolo Machiavelli

March 06, 2013

Ageing hardware is driving up your datacentre costs, businesses warned
UK organisations do not realise that in three years they spend as much on cooling inefficient and poorly performing servers as they would on buying new hardware, Bitterlin said, speaking at the Datacentre World 2013 conference. Every time datacentres change servers, they cut their power consumption by half and double capacity at the same time, he said.

Microsoft acquires cloud-monitoring startup MetricsHub
"MetricsHub will now offer all Windows Azure customers our premium product as a pre-release, no charge, service available through the Windows Azure Store," the company said in a statement. "We will also be converting all paying customers to this no-charge version of the service and MetricsHub technology will continue to keep your cloud applications running."

Businesses Concerned About State-Sponsored Cyber Attacks
"The number of organizations that are potential targets for state-sponsored cyber-attacks is probably much higher than 50 percent, because if attackers can't break into a targeted organization, they will go after partners and suppliers," nCircle chief research officer Tim Keanini said in a statement. "Frankly, I'm surprised that the level of paranoia among information security professionals isn't higher."

Using SQL Bulk Insert with the .NET Framework
The migration of the Bulk Insert process to the integrated coding environment has opened many more effective uses of Bulk Insert to .NET developers. The goal of this article is not just to show developers how to use the SQL Bulk Insert component within the .NET Framework, but to show how it can be effectively integrated into an automated system to greatly improve flexibility, code reuse, speed and efficiency.

Cloud: Fail to Prepare and Prepare to Fail
As a greater proportion of workloads make their way to the cloud each year, enterprises have a vested interest in expanding network capabilities and evolving critical data center infrastructure to accommodate an ever-increasing array of cloud-based applications and data storage requirements. So how do you put the foundations in place for successful cloud experience? On March 20th, MeetTheBoss TV will be hosting a virtual roundtable for six leading end-users – entirely free from the comfort of your own office – to find out.

Addressing Messaging Challenges Using Open Technologies
Tom McCuch, Solution Engineer for Hortonworks with over twenty two years of experience in software engineering and Oleg Zhurakousky, Sr. Software Engineer with SpringSource/VMWare and has 14+ years of experience in software engineering across multiple disciplines explain and demonstrate providing messaging for distributed systems with Spring AMQP, Spring Integration and RabbitMQ.

The Art of Failure
"I'm OK with having failed at this part of the journey," Andrew Mason wrote in his open memo, posted on the Groupon external blog. "If Groupon was Battletoads," he wrote, "it would be like I made it all the way to the Terra Tubes without dying on my first ever play through." ... And one trait that too many corporates, and no more so that then their communicators, seem to share is the fear perpetuated by failure.

BCP for SaaS a must on unstable broadband
"The very idea of being constantly online to use a particular app has its challenges [due] to the difficulty in having uninterrupted Internet connectivity," Ghosh explained. "This is one of the fundamental reasons why companies [in these locations] hesitate to move to the cloud model." If companies want to try out SaaS, they will first do so with non-mission critical apps, he noted.

Closing the app gap on risk
Many organizations are drowning in technical debt from more applications than their internal software security programs can handle. Many of these enterprises are turning to cloud services for support. With the support of SaaS-based software security partners, the enterprise can focus on those applications that are critical to core business. The first step, though, is to identify that there is a gap.

Accountants Will Save the World
Make no mistake, I am a capitalist: Someone who puts capital to work, and wants something back. But where we've lost the plot is that we only demand — and manage — a return on financial capital. In order to address current economic crises in a systematic way, we must begin to demand a return on social and natural capital as well. That's where we need to change the rules of the game.

Quote for the day:

"A good leader is a person who takes a little more than his share of the blame and a little less than his share of the credit." -- John C Maxwell

March 05, 2013

Citrix Nails Its Enterprise Mobility Strategy
Many customers and colleagues have asked me why Citrix acquired an MDM provider -- what are the value-adds and isn't the world moving towards MAM anyway? To answer, we have to make a clear distinction between the use cases. I agree and concur that for BYOD initiatives, MAM is a better, cleaner way of doing this things and that MDM is not the ideal solution.

Review: Better performance with FancyCache
Romex Software states that FancyCache uses state-of-the-art read and write cache algorithms that predict what data should hit the memory reserve for optimum performance gains. If you want to tweak the caching method yourself, the settings area provides a wealth of options to tweak and mess around with to your satisfaction.

Apple blacklists old Flash Player in Safari after recent attacks
Days after Adobe released a patch for flaws being exploited in Flash Player, Apple has begun blocking older versions of the software in an effort to encourage users to update their systems. "To help protect users from a recent vulnerability, Apple has updated the web plug-in-blocking mechanism to disable older versions of the web plug-in: Adobe Flash Player," Apple said in a new support document.

One-on-one with Randy Bias: Cloud standards and the battle for control
In this one-on-one interview, Randy Bias, co-founder and chief technology officer of open source cloud infrastructure provider Cloudscaling, talks about the lack of cloud standards among providers and how today's cloud computing service provider patchwork will ultimately give way to a more uniform cloud universe.

HTML5 Web Storage loophole can be abused to fill hard disks with junk data
A security researcher has found a loophole in how the HTML5 Web Storage standard is implemented in the Google Chrome, Internet Explorer and Apple Safari browsers that could allow malicious websites to fill visitors' hard disk drives with large amounts of junk data. ... The localStorage attribute of the Web Storage API allows websites to store between 2.5MB and 10MB of data per origin -- domain name -- depending on the browser used.

jQuery DataTables in asp.net with CRUD
Here is a very nice article on using jQuery data tables in ASP.NET. Though the article dates back to January 2011, it is still very relevant and valid. Thanks to my friend Mr. Kamaraj Palsamy for referring this article to me.

Disruptive? That Depends
"Disruptive" can be defined as a threat to order, or as an interruption to whatever it is we're doing now. When it comes to technology, the word has been misued, sometimes just to attract attention. In the same way coincidence has been confused with irony, disruptive has become a different way of saying "new and popular."

How CIOs Can Help Manage Disruptive Technology
Quite a few people think that entrepreneurship in large companies is an oxymoron. In March of 2009, The Economist published a very good special report on entrepreneurship. Its lead article defined the term as: “somebody who offers an innovative solution to a (frequently unrecognised) problem. The defining characteristic of entrepreneurship, then, is not the size of the company but the act of innovation.”

IT Department Reorgs Are on the Horizon
Given the opportunity, more than one-fourth (27 percent) of IT and business leaders would rebuild their IT departments from scratch, according to an IDG Enterprise survey of 696 senior IT and business executives. That approach may be more radical than most, but the "Future State of the IT Organization" study shows that IT departments are headed for profound changes as CIOs try to refocus their staffs on business results such as revenue, customer service and product innovation

Cyberinsurance is latest small business safety net

While cyber policies reimburse a business for the damages it must pay its customers, they do much more. A victim of a cyber loss must first investigate the cause, often with the use of IT forensic examiners. The company must then comply with required notices to potentially affected customers. ... Cyber insurance can cover the costs of paying regulatory fines and penalties.

Quote for the day:

"A problem is a chance for you to do your best." -- Duke Ellington

March 04, 2013

A Cloud-Based Testing Tool for the Budget-Minded
The testing tool is aimed at small and growing QA teams looking to escape the heavy lifting and expense required from enterprise-focused systems such as HP Quality Center. Its vendor claims qTest is on par with large enterprise systems, yet unlike those heavyweights the platform's SaaS subscription model makes it a low-risk proposition to pilot and adopt.

Touchless touch screen gives you control without contact (video)
One of the more jaw-dropping tech demos on view at this year's Mobile World Congress, new touch-screen technology from chipmaker STMicroelectronics lets you control your smartphone or tablet without actually touching the display. Using it, you can swipe, drag, and prod at your touch-screen device, replacing the fear of fingerprints with the feeling of controlling a spaceship's navigation system.

Hackers take Sabah conflict to cyberspace
According to GMA News Online on Sunday, one Philippine Web site and several Malaysian ones were hacked and defaced with messages sympathizing with either side of the armed conflict. The territorial dispute started on February 11, 2013 when followers of Sulu sultan Jamalul Kiram III asserted his claim over eastern parts of Sabah. The claims take root from the North Borneo dispute, when Sabah state was known as North Borneo prior to the formation of the Malaysian federation in 1963.

Yahoo bans telecommuting – Will it WORK?
"So it was perplexing to see Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer tell employees who work remotely to relocate to company facilities. This seems a backwards step in an age when remote working is easier and more effective than ever. If you provide the right technology to keep in touch, maintain regular communication and get the right balance between remote and office working, people will be motivated to work responsibly, quickly and with high quality.

Dyson on patents and intellectual property
Sitting down with CNET Australia, Sir James Dyson shares his strongly held views on the importance of patents and intellectual property rights. From the ease with which Asian manufacturers can copy his designs, to the lenience of penalties, Sir James Dyson suggests that there is real damage to innovation when others get away with copying the hard work of companies like Dyson.

Tips for Enterprise Application Integration
A very common problem for large companies (particularly in the financial sector) is the existence of several independent IT departments with different goals and poor interaction. Companies receive a set of “automation islands” that cannot easily communicate inside or outside the organization. Let’s look at the widespread ways that companies use to integrate applications and their potential problems.

Local, vertical laws critical in SaaS adoption
Danni Xu, Asia-Pacific research analyst for data center and cloud computing of ICT practice at Frost & Sullivan, said local regulation on data has seen increasing significance across the region with several governments taking "meaningful steps" to adopt the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA). Coverage and enforcement, though, vary from country to country, she said. For example, Xu noted that Singapore passed the personal data protection bill in October last year with enforcement slated to begin mid-2014.

Microsoft Starts Sending Cutoff Notices to Office 365 Preview Users
At the time, Microsoft said that the previews would expire about 60 days after the release of the final plans in each market. Microsoft launched Office 365 Home Premium in the U.S. on Jan. 29, 2013, and followed with the business-oriented plans on Feb. 27. The March 16 cut-off noted in Microsoft's email would be 47 days after the Jan. 29 launch of Home Premium, or about two weeks shy of the 60 days Microsoft previously cited.

With Business Foundations Shaking, Good Enterprise Architects Are Hard to Find
Business leaders are scrambling to take their organizations deeper into the cloud, leverage the growing amount of data about their customers, and protect their companies from new security threats. Enterprise architects are usually their first call when it comes to bringing order to IT business process chaos, but EAs are also having to adapt to the very same trends impacting corporations.

What is a PC now?
The question "What is a PC?" has been bemusing analysts and industry observers since long before the introduction of the iPad -- but especially since. The answer is not so simple. In some ways, it's a question of mere rhetoric. But when it comes to analyzing markets and companies, it becomes a lot more than that. Tablets and smartphones have been cutting into PC sales for years. That's because for many people, the newer gadgets do everything they had previously counted on PCs -- including laptops -- for: email, Web browsing, watching video.

Quotes for the day:

"The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up." -- Mark Twain

March 03, 2013

IT security managers too focused on compliance, experts say
Experts say that meeting such standards is important, but they should be used as baseline controls in a broader IT security strategy. "The audit industry has become a monster," said Anup Ghosh, founder of security firm Invincea. "Keeping those guys at bay" has become a full-time job in many IT security organizations, he said. "A lot of compliance regimens have been all about checking boxes and following processes."

'Copyright Alert System' rolls out to catch illegal downloaders
While the CAS seems like something that would raise the hackles of privacy and civil liberty groups, the plan isn't to arrest, sue, or fine people downloading illegal movies, games, or music. Instead, the group managing the program -- the Center for Copyright Information -- says its objective is to "educate" such downloaders that they are infringing on protected intellectual copyrights.

1183RA Week of Activity Underscores Challenge of Valuing Data
The consensus of Saugatuck’s discussions this week with provider and user enterprise executives is that the majority of provider activity consists of positioning themselves for future, expected opportunities; and the majority of user enterprise activity consists of interest, searches for knowledge, trials and PoCs. The most interest expressed is in the concept of data analytics, especially Big Data, rather than in the details of how it will work or benefit the enterprise customer.

Are you on the right cloud computing career path?
There is an explosion in both the use of cloud computing and the demand for people to assist in the mass migration to cloud. Indeed, there are about 50 to 70 jobs chasing truly qualified candidates at this point in time, according to technical recruiters. And there are two categories of cloud computing careers that seem to be emerging in the space: positions seeking IT pros with specific cloud skills and positions looking for IT admins with cloud architecture know-how.

Secret Weapon: How to Strengthen the Most Valuable Job Skill

An extensive analysis led at Virginia Commonwealth University, “The Relation Between Emotional Intelligence and Job Performance: A Meta-Analysis,” showed that individuals with high EI made better workers. For managers or senior executives, high EI usually corresponds with a good job performance. For employees, it often leads to better decision-making abilities, job satisfaction and completion of goals. Managers who lack a good EI usually find great difficulty in social interactions and the nurturing of professional relationships.

Pets now welcome in many workplaces
It’s a growing office trend, as both employer and employees acknowledge the advantages and enjoy the benefits of allowing pets in the workplace. And now there’s research to support what people like 26-year-old Ann Marie DeLa Rosa have known for years. “Reduces stress,” said DeLa Rosa, 26, who works at software design company Inverse-Square under Baird and appreciates the pet-friendly policy. “When I’m stressed, I usually call Zoe (a chocolate Labrador retriever) over and rub her ear. That’s my therapy.”

Entity Framework 6 Alpha 3 with Code First Stored Procedures and Connection Resiliency
Microsoft has announced the availability of Entity Framework 6 Alpha 3 with support for code first mapping to insert, update, delete stored procedures with the help of fluent API, connection resiliency, pull request from iceclow, UnaiZorrilla and new DbContext API scenarios that enables you to manage your own transactions.

Refactoring Legacy Applications: A Case Study
Legacy code is stinky. Every decent developer would like to refactor it, and in order to refactor it, one ideally should have a suite of unit test cases to prevent regressions. However, writing unit tests for legacy code is not easy; the legacy code is usually a big mess. To write effective unit tests against the legacy code, you probably need to refactor it first; and to refactor it, you need unit tests to ensure you are not breaking anything. So it is a chicken and egg situation. This article describes a methodology to safely refactor legacy code by sharing a real case I once worked on.

Here’s a Quick Way to Fire Up Your Motivation
Surely all the benefit of a backup plan accrues when the main plan goes wrong and there's something to fall back on? While coming up with a 'plan b' might be necessary, I always thought of it more as a chore. (Ho-hum now I've made my main plan, instead of getting started, I've got to spend more time thinking about an alternative plan). But when you start to think about it, backup plans don't just make sense as, well, backup plans, but also as a means of driving you forward at the precarious early stages of a project.

Evernote note-sharing service says hackers stole some user data
Evernote spokeswoman Ronda Scott said via email on Saturday that the attack "follows a similar pattern" to other cyber attacks on Internet-based companies in recent weeks, but she did not elaborate. "In our security investigation, we have found no evidence that any of the content you store in Evernote was accessed, changed or lost," the company said on its website. "We also have no evidence that any payment information for Evernote Premium or Evernote Business customers was accessed."

Quote for the day:

"Pay no attention to what the critics say; there has never been set up a statue in honor of a critic." -- Jean Sibelius