Daily Tech Digest by Kannan Subbiah

June 03, 2013

Parsing through the software-defined storage hype
Essentially, SDS is emerging as an ecosystem of products that decouples software from underlying storage networking hardware, placing it in a centralized controller or hypervisor. This centralized software will provide visibility of all physical and virtual resources, enabling programmability and automated provisioning based upon consumption or need.

ERM: 5 Steps to Success
Everyone agrees the role of ERM is for risk management to be involved in the "key business decisions," however, some misinterpret this as interviewing only the senior executives in "big picture" assessments. In reality, aligning day-to-day activities of all managers to the strategic objectives set senior leadership, and then aggregating and analyzing this information is the winning approach. So how is this accomplished? Here are the 5 steps to quickly and practically embed risk management enterprise-wide.

Your company's cloud strategy must come from the top
Define, refine, understand, and publicize your cloud strategy, then implement your plans in small phases. IT should drive any technological shift from the top down. Moreover, in doing so, IT should make sure it understands user and development requirements as related to the company strategy.

Microsoft Survey Picks Up Early Signs Of New Trend - Bring Your Own Service
Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) to work it seems is old hat already. Early signs of a new trend have now been spotted – that of, what can be loosely called, Bring Your Own Service (BYOS). A recent survey by research firm Ipsos on behalf of Microsoft Corp. found that nearly half of the employees surveyed were of the opinion that social tools at work helped increase their productivity.

Tripartite Approach to Enterprise Architecture
Architectural work in an enterprise be designed and built around organizational accountability levels and be divided into three distinct yet interlinked architectures: Technical Architecture, Socio-Technical Architecture, and Ecosystemic Architecture. Each of these architectures would be self-contained and self-regulated with its paradigmatic function, methods, and tools.

Active/Active WAN-based Replication in GemFire vs Oracle and MySQL
The replication service in GemFire is transparent to applications and does not affect normal use of the distributed big data grid. Setup is easy too as there is nothing to change in your configuration other than enabling the WAN service and providing the WAN endpoint(s) to use for replication. GemFire automatically sets up a parallel asynchronous replication system across your machines that reaches out to the remote site and efficiently batches changes asynchronously across the WAN.

Virtualization security 101: A user's primer
Server virtualization allows you to float multiple 'virtual machines' on top of a physical server, using a hypervisor to manage them. The obvious benefits are better hardware utilization, faster scalability and the ability to move VMs around to get optimal processing power. However, this same structure creates some very real security concerns.

Big Data and the Cambrian Explosion of Information Sources
Welcome to the Age of Data! From every direction, along any number of trajectories, data now streams at us in unprecedented fashion. Customers, prospects, partners, competitors; Web sites, mobile phones, medical devices, manufacturing machines – the number and nature of data sources seems to be growing exponentially. What’s a data manager to do? Fasten your seat belt and prepare for a wild ride!

IE10 steals user share from IE9, jumps 53%
In relative terms, IE10 was the third-most-used browser of the five that Microsoft now supports, passing the 12-year-old IE6 for the first time. IE10's climb has been brisk: As late as January, it had a mere 2.3% user share of all of IE. The increase was prompted by the automatic update from IE9 to IE10 on Windows 7 PCs, which began shortly after IE10's release on the popular platform in late February.

5 Rockin’ Motivation Techniques That Won’t Cost a Dime
Managers often struggle to get their team into high gear without using financial incentives. They don’t realize that the best motivation is self-motivation—and you don’t need a dime to get your staff going. There are two parts when it comes to team motivation: preventing dissatisfaction and engendering satisfaction. Use them both.

Quote for the day:

"Why are you going to choose failure when success is an option?" -- Jillian Michaels

June 02, 2013

How Design Can Save the Average Data Center More than $1M
There are many options to consider in the area of data center power system design, and every choice has an impact on data center efficiency and availability. The data center is directly dependent on the critical power system, and a poorly designed system can result in unplanned downtime, excessive energy consumption and constrained growth.

The Latest Developments in Neo4j
Neo4j has announced Neo4j 1.9 GA and Neo4j 2.0 M03. A new project called Neo4j Mobile for Android intends to bring a graph database to smartphones and tablets. Among the most important enhancements are: Neo4j Enterprise edition now has its own clustering solution based on Paxos protocols, which replaces the previous one based on Zookeeper. This eliminates the need for a separate Zookeeper cluster.

7 Ways to ReWire Your Brain and Become a Better Leader
Our “fight-flight” reaction and strong memory for painful experiences are hardwired from birth. Our brains detect negative information faster than positive information and are drawn to bad news. This hardwiring is further reinforced as we grow up because our negative experiences leave an indelible trace in our brain. The brain continues to learn and change itself throughout our life.

Software Quality Attributes: Trade-off Analysis
It has always remained as a challenge for the software architects or designers in coming up with the right mix of the quality attributes with appropriate priority. This is further complicated as these attributes are highly interlinked as a higher priority on one would result in an adverse impact on another. Here is a sample matrix showing the inter-dependencies of some of the software quality metrics.

10 Things Really Amazing Bosses Do
Being a boss is hard. People don't naturally wish to have one. And not everyone aspires to be one. But most people are anxious to follow a good leader, and most organizations live and die on the quality of the leaders who run them. See how you stack up with these 10 traits.

A Very Short History Of Data Science
The term “Data Science” has emerged only recently to specifically designate a new profession that is expected to make sense of the vast stores of big data. But making sense of data has a long history and has been discussed by scientists, statisticians, librarians, computer scientists and others for years. The following timeline traces the evolution of the term “Data Science” and its use, attempts to define it, and related terms.

The Role of Decision Requirements in the Analytical Life Cycle
Decision requirements modeling provides the formal tools and techniques you need to develop business understanding for analytic projects. Established analytic approaches such as CRISP-DM as well as all the major analytic tools vendors stress the importance of understanding the project requirements from a business perspective.

Big Data Governance: Why Do You Govern Data Outside of Databases?
Frustration with results from data management programs such as Data Warehousing, Business Intelligence, and Master Data Management, has been the primary driver of the implementation of Data Governance programs at many of these organizations. Similarly, organizations are not getting the expected results from their Enterprise Content Management programs, frequently instantiated with Microsoft SharePoint , because they have not included sufficient Data Governance in the implementations.

Infusing Enterprise Architecture Into Your Bank’s Strategy
This is the essence of enterprise architecture, and even for smaller banks, keeping an eye on specific and measurable business results when driving technology changes is critical. When we help financial institutions work on transformative initiatives such as bringing multiple channels together (channel convergence) or implementing a mobile wallet, both near and far term business goals have to drive decisions.

Design patterns and practices in .NET: the Command pattern
The Command pattern is used to represent an action as an object. The action is abstracted away in an interface. In its simplest form the interface may only have a single method, e.g. Execute() which takes no parameters and returns no value. The interface gives an opportunity to the client to execute some command when appropriate. The main goal of the pattern is to decouple the client that wants to execute a command from the details and dependencies of the command logic.

Quote for the day:

"Success...My nomination for the single most important ingredient is energy well directed. " -- Louis Lundborg

June 01, 2013

Is Amazon becoming the Microsoft of cloud? Hold that thought
New report predicts Amazon Web Services will rule the enterprise world in 10 years. We'll see. ... On-premises server growth will slow because of the cloud; Private clouds will also eventually be migrated to AWS, creating "headwinds" for the virtualization market; and Storm clouds on the horizon for IT outsourcing as the cloud model gains traction.

Oracle reveals plans for Java security improvements
These changes, along with other security-related efforts, are intended to "decrease the exploitability and severity of potential Java vulnerabilities in the desktop environment and provide additional security protections for Java operating in the server environment," said Nandini Ramani, vice president of engineering for Java Client and Mobile Platforms at Oracle, in a blog post on Thursday.

How to Give (and Receive) Positive Criticism
People like to be right, correct, and accomplished, and when they're not, it hurts to hear the truth, no matter how nice your critic tries to be. Still, those who strive to improve, value direct feedback no matter how painful. And as long as the critic is not being malicious, he or she can actually build a higher level of trust by providing constructive criticism carefully and empathetically.

Data Velocity: Why Decreasing Your Time to Insight Matters
Business leaders understand that soaring volumes of data have the potential to offer valuable insights to their enterprises. They also realize the remarkable variety of data – be it financial information, customer tweets or mobile phone GPS signals – represents an enormous opportunity. Yet most leaders are only just beginning to grasp the concept of data velocity. The pace at which data can be gathered, sorted and analyzed to produce actionable insights is increasingly becoming a determinant of success.

Asking the right questions key to managing cloud security risks
"If we are going to manage effectively, we've got to honestly look at all three areas: the benefits, the costs and the risks," Holmquist said. "In the end, it's what you don't know that will bite you." In this video, get more tips on evaluating and managing relationships with cloud providers as Holmquist and former Accume senior manager Jason Novak discuss best practices for implementing a cloud security risk management strategy.

The BYOD Mobile Security Threat Is Real
Sound and comprehensive policies and procedures are certainly needed in the modern BYOD environment, but they're often not good enough by themselves. Most policies need to be updated to take into account the various places that employees will be using their devices, such as home use, the avenues through which data can travel, and the different types of communication that are occurring, such as Facebook, Twitter and text messages.

Real-life examples of simple, low-cost work/life efforts
Studies show that work/life programs can help improve employee engagement and productivity. But you may believe effective strategies are expensive and require a big-business budget. Not true. Some larger and midsize employers have created innovative, low-cost work/life practices that even small businesses can adopt. Some examples:

Amazon cloud threatens ENTIRE IT ECOSYSTEM – report
The companies most at risk are those who will have trouble selling to Amazon or selling in a market where Amazon has grown. According to Morgan Stanley's report, if AWS experiences widespread adoption, the companies most likely to be put at risk are, in order, VMware, NetApp, Brocade, QLogic, and EMC. If adoption is mostly among SMBs, on the other hand, Morgan Stanley says NetApp, VMware, Brocade, QLogic and EMC are most at risk.

Signature-Based Endpoint Security on Its Way Out
"We are seeing about 150,000 new pieces of malware every day now," says Simon Hunt, vice president and CTO of Endpoint Solutions at security vendor McAfee. "The attack is just impossible&we're purely on the defensive. Before we know about any new virus, somebody has to be a sacrificial lamb and die and tell us about it. It's an awful way of doing things."

Project Lambda from the Inside. An Interview with Brian Goetz
Mark Reinhold, Chief Architect of the Java Platform Group at Oracle said in his blog: "the most important work that slipped past M6 is related to Project Lambda, the sole driving feature of the release. We integrated the language and VM changes for Lambda late last year, but between all the moving parts involved and the security work it’s taken a bit longer than expected to put the finishing touches on the stream API and the related core-libraries enhancements."

Quote for the day:

"A ship in port is safe, but that's not what ships are built for." -- Grace Murray Hopper

May 31, 2013

The Decorator Pattern in .NET
The components of the decorator pattern are the component interface, concrete component, decorator interface and the concrete decorator. The component interface defines the operations and properties for the component. The concrete component is the primary class you want to extend that implements the component interface. The decorator interface defines the contract for the functionality that will be added to the concrete component.

6 Practical Predictive Analytics Tools
Many tools promise to make predictions but, in reality, tend to do more of a historical analysis of data. The following six tools have a tighter focus: They use predictive technology in a tangible, practical way and, compared to other analytics tools, possess a "wow" factor that puts them over the edge.

Start menu isn't back in Win 8.1, but some key features are
The OS update also will allow users to boot directly to the traditional desktop interface, whereas before the Modern interface was the default and primary one. It will also be possible for users to have the same background image or pattern both on the Start screen of the Modern UI and on the traditional desktop interface in order to smooth the interplay of the two interfaces.

Pauseless Java Virtual Machine Integrates with WebSphere
The Zing JVM is optimized for Linux and x86-based servers, and the company bills it as the most scalable JVM for enterprise Java workloads. Zing can support very high memory allocation rates, and the company also claims that it's the only JVM that supports application instances exceeding 512 gigabytes of memory with pauseless operation.

The Clock Is Ticking For The Ad Cookie--With No Sure Alternative In Sight
The hard work is really to figure out the alternative to the cookie, said Tawakol. It will need to have a functioning opt-out that works over multiple devices. There also has to be transparency as to who is placing the cookie and what data is being tracked. And they need to be more closely connected to privacy policies.

Disruptions: At Odds Over Privacy Challenges of Wearable Computing
Deal with it, wearable computer advocates say. “When you’re in public, you’re in public. What happens in public, is the very definition of it,” said Jeff Jarvis, the author of the book “Public Parts” and a journalism professor at the City University of New York. “I don’t want you telling me that I can’t take pictures in public without your permission.”

Rackspace floats virty router and firewall into its clouds
"With Vyatta, customers can now get industrial-strength firewall, routing, and VPN into the cloud," says Engates, and in such a way that integrates with the Cloud Networks multi-tiered virtual Layer 2 networking service that is part of the public cloud as well as the RackConnect service. The Cloud Networks service is based on VMware's NVP OpenFlow controller and Open vSwitch virtual switch, which plugs into the XenServer commercial-grade hypervisor from Citrix Systems that Rackspace uses to underpin its OpenStack-based public cloud.

CFOs Open to Improving Tech Literacy
The technology-related responsibilities of CFOs are for the most part still focused on more passive activities, respondents reported, such as measuring returns on IT investment or scrutinizing IT-infrastructure purchasing decisions. Fewer claim responsibility for aspects of technology that are more suited to driving business change, such as data analytics and the purchase of IT services.

Federal CIOs Must Embrace Hybrid IT in Shift to Cloud
"Make no mistake. It's not cloud in isolation. It's cloud in the mix of a series of disruptive trends that you really have to address," Cearley says. ... He argues that cloud computing, in the non-diluted sense of the term, must entail a layer of abstraction that casts whatever the function at issue -- software, business process applications, infrastructure, etc. -- as a service.

Cloud computing SLA failures: Preparing for the aftermath
When an SLA violation occurs, it's safe to say that providers will be dealing with unhappy customers. If a provider breaks one of the promises in a cloud computing SLA, the consequences can threaten the profitability of the customer's company. Luckily, there are ways to make the post-violation process less dire for all involved.

Quote for the day:

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one that is the most adaptable." -- Charles Darwin

May 30, 2013

Beyond privacy policies: Practical privacy for websites and mobile apps
In this environment of growing attention to the risks of data security breaches, and in the midst of an explosion of mobile applications that make data storage an increasingly far-flung proposition, many organizations assume that the first line of defense for a company with a website or a mobile app is a good privacy policy.

Evernote beefs up security with two-step verification and access controls
Evernote also states they will give you a set of one-time backup codes in case you are traveling or do not have access to your phone and need to enter a verification code. Two-step verification is optional and before you enable it make sure you have access to your selected secondary verification method or you could be locked out of your account. This security level is available to Evernote Premium and Evernote Business user only. As they refine and establish the process, they will open it up to free account users.

Hackers exploit Ruby on Rails vulnerability to compromise servers, create botnet
"It's pretty surprising that it's taken this long [for an exploit] to surface in the wild, but less surprising that people are still running vulnerable installations of Rails," said Jeff Jarmoc, a security consultant with security research firm Matasano Security, Tuesday in a blog post. The exploit that's currently being used by attackers adds a custom cron job -- a scheduled task on Linux machines -- that executes a sequence of commands.

BSNL launches enterprise cloud services in India
BSNL will be leveraging the relationship it struck three years ago with Datacraft – which later became consolidated under the Dimension Data brand – to set up six new internet data centres (IDCs) in 2010. BSNL is providing connectivity and Datacraft is managing the cloud service and data centres. According to COAI, India’s GSM industry body, the carrier is currently the fourth largest in the country in terms of mobile subscribers, but has struggled to grow its user base in an increasingly competitive market.

How to successfully implement the principle of least privilege
The key is to give employees access only to what they need and when they need it, so that they can best perform their job in a safe manner. ... IT security has no chance of fully enforcing least privilege without complete buy-in from their non-IT colleagues (yes, this is true for all security initiatives). To maximize your chances of successfully implementing least privilege access, I suggest incorporating these critical steps:

Infographic: Mobile Payments Going Mainstream for Meals
According to the latest industry projections, mobile payment transactions are projected to reach $1.3 trillion by 2017. Not surprisingly, the food service industry will claim a large portion of this burgeoning market as worldwide physical goods sales from mobile devices will account for 30% of all retail within four years.

Great CEOs Roll With the Punches
According to the Board’s study, dismissals were on the rise because of increased accountability of directors and a greater scrutiny from shareholders and activists. The Conference Board suggests that the pressure of serving as the CEO of a large company in an increasingly competitive global marketplace has resulted in more voluntarily shorter tenures, implying that CEOs are leaving on their own terms after fewer years on the job. This is a case of “jump” before you are “pushed.”

Tech Career Advice From Google’s Women
“It’s a disruptive industry,” Ms. Wright said. “You, too, might someday be unemployed on your father-in-law’s couch. What matters is the energy and tenacity with which you pick up your next job.” Another piece of advice Ms. Wright gave, which helps explain her rise at Google, is that employees should seize opportunities, and managers should ask employees about their desires and believe they can achieve them.

Open source: Its true cost and where it's going awry by Monty Widenius
"Now the problem is that you have companies that are heavily using open source but refuse to pay anything back because they don't have to," Widenius said. "The whole problem with not having to is kind of new because the open-source movement doesn't go forward if nobody is prepared to pay. You actually make it harder for new companies to form around open source," he said.

Top 10 Ways to Blow Up an Agile Project
Everyone knows agile is better. But if you do it just right, agile can be fragile, too. Follow these 10 'tips' and your project is bound to come off the rails. In the spirit of David Letterman's "Top 10 Lists," it's time again for a list of worst practices that can make even the best agile team melt down. Here's David Taber-man's newest Top 10 List of things you can do to make that a reality.

Quote for the day:

"A man's accomplishments in life are the cumulative effect of his attention to detail." -- John Foster Dulles

May 29, 2013

3 CIO Strategies for Going Global
When these companies went global, they leveraged IT to unify, localize and lay the foundation for future growth ... The CIO Executive Council talks to CIOs about the role IT played when their companies went global. Here are three lessons you can learn about unifying, localizing and laying a foundation for growth.

Taiwan faces resistance over SOPA-like anti-piracy proposal
Taiwan's intellectual property office only wants to go after major offenders, said Li Mei, vice director for the government body, on Tuesday. These piracy sites would include those that "specialize in copyright infringement activities," like Megaupload, a file hosting service that was known to provide links to bootleg movies and software. Last year, U.S. authorities shut down the popular site.

Software Development: How the Traditional Contract Model Increases the Risk of Failure
... the Contract Model compounds the effects of poor management, and that poor management is often based on the flawed thinking underlying the Contract Model. We have found that even if an IT project is resourced internally, the organisation tends to apply quasi-contractual relationships between its internal departments for the purchase of IT services. And we find the principles of the Contract Model in evidence here too.

A Great Product Will Fail Unless You Price it Right
The revenue model you select is basically the implementation of your business strategy, and the key to attaining your financial objectives. Obviously, it must be grounded by the characteristics of the market and customers you choose to serve, the pricing model of existing competitors, and a strategy you believe is consistent with your future products and direction. Here is a summary, with some of the pros and cons or special considerations for each:

Becoming a World-Class Innovator
A common misconception today is that innovators are innately creative people. Specifically, many people think that innovators are born with intuitive skills and views of the world that differsfrom the rest of the population. This is simply not true. Innovators aren’t born, they’re made. But we can learn from a few key attributes that leading innovators share.

Evolving Business Intelligence Ecosystems
While these trends and the associated models of engaging in business are becoming clear, we have two significant problems that need to be understood: There are a lot of different types of data available for consumption by business today; and Today, much of the data cannot be derived from the business layers directly and needs processing. This leads us to the critical question – “Big Data and Innovation – Why Bother?”

100 Top Tools for Graphic Designers
While the Adobe Creative Suite of tools is pretty much the industry standard software for graphic designers, there are plenty of other tools available online, as web apps, mobile apps, or even desktop software, to meet the specific needs of artists and designers working in any niche. The sites listed here aren’t ranked in order of quality, they are all amazing! They’re categorized and numbered for ease of use. Happy designing!

At SAP, the Other Shoe Drops
SAP will consolidate all innovation under Vishal Sikka; effective June 1, all SAP development and custom development leaders will report directly to Sikka. “By creating one single development organization under Vishal’s leadership, we will dramatically accelerate the speed of these innovations,” said Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe, co-CEOs of SAP AG.

BYOD, for Buy-your-own-device policies, dampens corporate PC purchases
The expansion of BYOD -- whether approved by the business or not -- and the resulting consumerization of traditional IT practices, where the company decides what employees will use, buys that hardware, and preps it with approved software, may have begun because workers pushed for the tools they wanted, but it's also been a benefit to employers, O'Donnell argued.

A HIPAA compliance checklist for corporate mergers and acquisitions
A common problem among companies merging two HIPAA compliance programs is lack of enforcement: All of the controls have been documented and responsibilities delegated, but there's no follow-through and no internal penalties for those who ignore regulations. ... The road to HIPAA compliance is filled with potholes, but by implementing the best practices below as soon as M&A activity is underway, the combined health care organization can steer clear of most of them.

Quote for the day:

"Never give an order that can't be obeyed." -- General Douglas

May 28, 2013

CIOs Bullish on Cloud Benefits, But Worry About SaaS Data Silos
CIOs continue to grow more and more bullish about cloud solutions, with a whopping 92% saying that cloud provides business benefits, according to a recent survey. Nonetheless, IT execs remain concerned over how to avoid SaaS-based data silos. The survey was conducted by Dimensional Research and commissioned by Host Analytics.

Security Regulations: Being Compliant Doesn’t Mean You’re Secure
The problem with regulatory compliance is that, despite the best intentions they are written with, they often don’t meet the goals they were originally intended for. That said, following security standards and regulations doesn’t make your business secure.

4 To-Dos for the 'Someday' Entrepreneur
Most would-be entrepreneurs get scared off by the “business” side of things. They overestimate the skills and knowledge that are needed to run a business and assume that there are huge mountains to be climbed and learning curves to overcome before even getting started. But it’s important to confront the monster under the bed—it’s not as hard as you might think, and you certainly don’t have to have an MBA to do it.

PDF File Writer C# Class Library
The PDF File Writer C# class library PdfFileWriter allows you to create PDF files directly from your .net application. The library shields you from the details of the PDF file structure. To use the library you need to: add a reference to the attached PdfFileWriter.dll class library, add a using PdfFileWriter statement in every source file that is using the library and include the PdfFileWriter.dll with your distribution.

9 Tips for Mentoring Next-Generation Leaders
It's a low-cost and extremely effective way to prepare future leaders early on. Mentoring is as simple as a gentle push in the right direction. It's also an easy way to preserve the intangible assets of your company—the minds and capabilities of the key young people who are the future face of your brand. Mentoring increases retention of your best and brightest, builds your reservoir of talent, speeds employee growth and shortens the learning cycle. It also engenders loyalty.

Chinese hackers expose US weapon designs: report
The Defense Science Board did not formally accuse China of involvement, but governmental sources with knowledge of the breach say that the vast majority of U.S. infrastructure cyberattacks originate from the country. However, the Post does not indicate whether the data breach took place on a governmental or third-party contractor network, nor does it indicate the timeframe in which cyberattacks took place.

Do You Really Need Real-Time Data?
Big data is getting corporate executives excited. They see opportunities to gain more insight to help support better decision making, and that’s good reason to be excited. All the more reasons that data warehouse managers need to provide good guidance regarding the value of things like real-time data in the context of the cost and the value achieved.

Peter Kuper on hacktivism, the evolution of hacking and mobile threats
In this video interview, Peter Kuper, partner at In-Q-Tel, explains how hacking as evolved as malicious hackers seek to use their skills not only to make money for themselves, but also to cause financial harm to their victims. He also discusses mobile security threats and how the increasing use of mobile devices impacts enterprise security.

Google to Fund, Develop Wireless Networks in Emerging Markets
Google plans to team up with local telecommunications firms and equipment providers in the emerging markets to develop the networks, as well as create business models to support them, these people said. It is unclear whether Google already has lined up such deals or alliances. A Google spokeswoman declined to comment.

Documentation Guide for Teams Doing Domain-Driven Design
The most important thing is to get a shared understanding of the domain between everyone involved in developing the software, Paul Rayner, a consultant and coach, explains as a reaction to a question what kind of documentation teams doing Domain-Driven Design, DDD, should produce.

Quote for the day:

"So much of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to work" -- Peter Drucker

May 27, 2013

Pattern-powered cloudlets (Part 2)
For the pattern-powered cloudlet environment to be complete, two more requirements need to be met: The cloudlet needs to be able to accept requests from mobile devices to find out which application to deploy on demand; and Mobile applications need to be location aware, so that latency-sensitive functions are enabled only when served from a local cloudlet.

Carr refuses to confirm China hack claims
Senator Bob Carr said that the government is "very alive" to cyber security threats, but refused to confirm the ABC's specific claims on Tuesday."I won't comment on whether the Chinese have done what is being alleged or not," he told Sky News. "I won't comment on matters of intelligence and security for the obvious reason: We don't want to share with the world and potential aggressors what we know about what they might be doing, and how they might be doing it."

Messaging Application Line Flags Sensitive Phrases in China
China exerts vast control over content transmitted on the Internet and employs sophisticated filters to monitor communications within applications, as well as requiring developers employ certain censorship capabilities. NHN could not be immediately reached for comment. However a man identifying himself as a vice president for Line based in Taiwan wrote on Facebook that the warning was required to comply with China's Internet regulations.

IBM Cloud Computing Reference Architecture 3.0 – Why does it matter?
"We have now a consistent story and asset alignment from sales to delivery. We started with the marketing and sales messages, which are structured in the well known four adoption patterns, which are: Cloud Enabled Data Center, Platform Services, Cloud Service Provider pattern and finally the SaaS pattern" -- Dr. Stefan Pappe, IBM Fellow, CCRA Overall Co-Lead and the leader of the Specialty Service Area (SSA) for Cloud Services in IBM’s Global Technology Services

Structuring Your IT Service Delivery for Maximum Profits
It is easy to see why and how the backwards structure came into existence. As a small IT shop grows and brings in its first engineer, the company is usually not drowning in profit. Money is tight and the founder knows they need help because the 80 hours of weekly work is killing the founder. So they hire what they can afford, which is generally a desktop technician or an equivalent lower-level technical position.

Technology Revolution And Risk
With all new technology comes a litany of opinions about the product, from a customer perspective, a financial perspective and a marketing perspective. And, we are seeing now that it generates a risk perspective as well. To highlight this point, here are just a few of the new stories on Google Glass that have generated a risk response.

Conversation with John Swainson, President of Dell's Software Group
President of Dell's Software Group joined us on DellShares to discuss the importance of Quest to Dell's Software strategy. We invite you to listen to John as he provides perspective on the following: Quest fit within Dell's Software strategy; Synergies between Quest portfolio and existing Dell solutions; and Platform nature of Quest acquisition and what that means

Amazon Adds More Analytics Features For Its App Developers
Following Google's footsteps, Amazon today announced new features that allow developers to keep a check on app engagements, usage and revenue. The company has added App Engagement Reports to its Mobile App Distribution Portal. These reports will be available as free usage reports. Earlier during I/O 2013, Google's annual developer event, Google had announced a host of new features for Android app developers which included some extensive analytics management tools to check app usage.

The Top 9 Things That Ultimately Motivate Employees to Achieve
To help you get the most from your employee relationships, here are the nine (9) things that ultimately motivate employees to achieve. As you read this, think of how you associate with each of them. Share your story and perspectives – and comment about it. This is a hot topic and the more we can discuss it, we can help one another become better leaders.

Quote for the day:

"I have been up against tough competition all my life. I wouldn't know how to get along without it." -- Walt Disney

May 26, 2013

Android Studio: An IDE built for Android
Android Studio uses a new build system based on Gradle that provides flexibility, customized build flavors, dependency resolution, and much more. This new build system allows you to build your projects in the IDE as well as on your continuous integrations servers. The combination lets you easily manage complex build configurations natively, throughout your workflow, across all of your tools. Check out the preview documentation to get a better idea of what the new build system can do
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What Are The Drawbacks Of REST?
Ganesh wrote a response, which he repeated in his blog: I wouldn't say REST has "drawbacks" as such. It does what it says on the tin, and does that very well. But remember that the only implementation of the REST architecture uses the HTTP protocol. We can surely think of a future RESTian implementation that uses another transport protocol, and that is where some improvements could be made. He then goes on to talk about four areas for possible improvement and it is worth noting that as with many people, Ganesh equates REST to REST/HTTP, i.e., REST over HTTP:

No niche for iPad: A cautionary tale on 'needing a purpose'
Don't discount the PC yet. Latest market figures suggest that there is a massive consumer decline in PC shipments. But enterprise and business figures are still widely unknown. Anecdotal reports suggest that PCs are still core to desk-work productivity, which makes sense as tablets can suit one industry and not another. Also, people love using tablets for sitting on the sofa and winding down.

Jim Goodnight on SAS in-memory analytics and the data scientist
In the 12-minute podcast, listeners will: Hear Goodnight's take on the potential benefits of SAS in-memory analytics and other in-memory tools; Get advice on the responsibilities that data scientists can take on in organizations; and Find out how SAS judges which new technologies deserve the most attention.

Logitech Alert review: video surveillance over power lines
Quality video over internal power is surprisingly solid, regardless of whether or not appliances like dishwashers or clothes dryers are running. ... That's not to say there aren't some issues. There are, but nothing that can't be mended in subsequent software updates. The core of the system just simply works — and that's a darned rare thing to say about any networking product, let alone one that mixes video, power distribution, and the Internet.

Newbie leadership mistakes and the important lessons learned
Here are eight important lessons learnt by newbie leaders around which are provided by the Young Entrepreneur Council, an invite-only organization composed of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs.

5 Kinds of Business Analysis Techniques Every Executive Should Know
If you’re a business user thinking about analytics, the options can be dizzying. Where do you begin? Here is a list of 5 business analysis techniques to get you started. ... Once you have these 5 business analysis techniques in your toolbox, you’ll be able to cover a lot of analytical ground—and have the information you need to make more informed decisions as a result.

Leadership: A Thriving or Surviving State of Mind?
Many would say they understand the fundamental difference between thriving, and surviving. Most leaders would easily choose thriving over surviving at any given moment in time. Then, why is it that I see so much hype around teaching business leaders and others how to “survive”? How can any justice come from teaching businesses to perspire as a reaction to the economy and endorse protectionism and stagnation as a tool for growth?

7 Big Data Trends That Will Impact Your Business
We are reaching an inflection point in the market where the level of hype and frequent confusion about “Big Data” will soon be replaced by customer success stories. Already we’re seeing such stories emerge as businesses willingly share their triumphs. As with any paradigm shift in computing where a particular topic draws great attention from the press, investors and innovators, this shift is supported by strong business value proof points.

Internet History: Blast From The Past
Do you know what the biggest websites on the web looked like when they started? Internet has evolved a lot since its early days, and with the technical improvements of both screen resolution and connection speed, so did web design. Websites are more graphically-rich, but that’s not the only point of evolution. More and more effort is put into providing internet users with nice browsing experiences.

Quote for the day:

"If you make friends with yourself you will never be alone." -- Maxwell Maltz

May 25, 2013

Facebook engineers reveal how Parse fits into Platform, B2B strategies
The last pillar, Application Services, is where Parse comes in. Ilya Sukhar, co-founder and former CEO of Parse, acknowledged that developing for mobile is "really hard" given the sheer amount of devices, mobile operating systems, apps, use cases, and everything else possibly related to the form factor. Prior to the acquisition, Sukhar explained that his startup's biggest competition came from companies choosing to build apps in-house.

Hands-on with Mercedes-Benz's new Google integration
Mercedes-Benz was on the scene at this week's Google I/O conference showcasing its new Google services integration in a new SL convertible. The entire onscreen interface is rendered on an Apple iPhone running Mercedes-Benz's DriveStyle app. The phone is connected to the infotainment system via a Mercedes-Benz Drive Kit Plus HDMI connection and is controlled via the Comand control knob on the center console.

Wearable Tech Market May Grow to US 30-50 Billion Size by 2018: Credit Suisse Report
Parts of the Credit Suisse report that found their way into the blog of the business magazine Barron’s, said smartphones and smartwatches were one of the key driving forces behind the expected growth in wearable tech, and could act as a hub between all our devices. The report said over time, wireless devices would become even more popular as hardware improved, and sensors and batteries got better.

Three Quick Rules: Be In, Be Real and Be Bold
This interview with Brad Garlinghouse, chief executive of YouSendIt, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant. ... great cultures encourage risk and are tolerant of failure. If you don’t do that, you’re going to end up with a culture that is stagnant and not thinking about the next generation of products and experiences.

Build your own supercomputer out of Raspberry Pi boards
For his baby-supercomputer, Kiepert elected to use Arch Linux. He explained, "Arch Linux … takes the minimalist approach. The image is tiny at ~150MB. It boots in around 10 seconds. The install image has nothing extra included. The default installation provides a bare bones, minimal environment, that boots to a command line interface (CLI) with network support.

6 Ways To Commit Innovation Suicide
When starting innovation, a lot of the same mistakes are made over and over again. Here is how you can recognize and avoid them. These six ways of committing innovation suicide, and how to avoid these pitfalls in practice are from the book The Innovation Expedition by Gijs van Wulfen

CFOs Recognize Need to Adapt for Mobile, Social, Cloud
"CFOs have a strong interest in cloud and mobile technologies,” John van Decker, Gartner research vice president, said in a statement. “SaaS (and cloud-based delivery) is starting to affect business applications. Many CFOs use mobile devices and would be interested in getting access to key business information using these tools. CIOs should use this interest to show how wider investments in cloud and mobile technology could deliver benefits across the organization."

Two-factor authentication: What you need to know (FAQ)
"Twitter made the decision to use SMS [to deliver its second factor] because it makes sense from their position," said Jon Oberheide, a two-factor authentication expert and co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Duo Security, which uses apps to prove identity. "[SMS is] universal in some respects, all you need is a mobile phone." But Twitter has faced some backlash, he said, because many of the highest-profile Twitter hacks have been against corporate Twitter accounts.

Exploring OpenFlow scalability in cloud provider data centers
The migration to OpenFlow represents a big paradigm shift for most cloud providers. "We tend to think of networking as little pieces of a jigsaw puzzle to assemble any way we want," said Brad McConnell, principal architect at Rackspace. "It takes time to adjust to big changes." Whether OpenFlow will trigger a fundamental shift in networking remains to be seen

The Misunderstanding of Master Data Management
It gets particularly uncomfortable when someone was misinformed about a new technology (and this happens all the time when vendors roll out new products to their sales force). ... A few of my colleagues and I used to call this “bright shiny project syndrome”. While it’s perfectly acceptable to acquire a new technology to solve a problem that it is suited; it can be a very expensive to purchase a technology and force fit a solution that it doesn’t easily address.

Quote for the day:

"The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership." -- Harvey Firestone