Home

HOW IT CAN BENEFIT YOUR BUSINESS

1. there are so many variants that it can be impossible to detect and remove them all Often she says getting rid of a rootkit requires a radical solution If a user suspects a rootkit he should first disconnect the system from the Internet to cut off possible remote access and prevent data from leaking Menting says Next remove data from the infected computer and scan it for malware on another de vice Menting notes that if the data contains unknown or zero day mal ware this step may not guarantee the malware is eradicated Finally the computer should be purged wipe the hard drive and reinstall every thing she says O Gorman in fact says starting over is the only real solu tion because really you can t trust cleanup methods as you are never really sure if they worked HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF The first defense against rootkits and malware in general is keeping the OS and all software especially secu rity software up to date and fully patched Completely relying on anti virus software is a mistake however As O Gorman says there s always a lag between the time a new threat pops up and the point at which anti virus software can detect it The best way to avoid issues is to not engage in risky activities he says Run trust worthy current software that s kept patched Don t go to shady sites with out of date browsers and plug ins Don t run software
2. eooeece ee eee eee ee eee eee ee eee o oo onc o o on o eo o o o o BUSINESS TRAVEL 911 ON THE GO TECH SUPPORT other programs are running in the background Menting advises checking the Task Manager to detect which ap plications or processes are running and using significant memory For the non tech user it may be difficult to un derstand she says But users should familiarize themselves with how their Task Manager looks when it s running on a clean system so that when it actu ally is infected the user can spot some differences when looking at the tasks That said detecting a rootkit is still generally difficult This is due to how adept they are at installing themselves and hiding their presence in a way that is virtually undetectable by your sys tem software Olds says In this case the only way to find the rootkit is to e ooo eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee oo co on o o o o ooo Rootkits give an attacker free reign to perform any task desired include installing software deleting files modi fying programs transmitting data and using spyware to steal credit card numbers passwords keystrokes etc eoeeesce eee ee eee eee eee eee ee see eee eee no oe e o oo all trust with the computer You can t know what is private what is not All integrity is gone HOW YOU LL KNOW There are several ways a rootkit can find its way into a computer A down loaded
3. EXECUTIVES PROFESSIONALS ENTREPRENEURS SCIENTISTS MAKE FINDING amp SEALING BUILDING LEAKS EASIER gt A big contributor to heating or cooling inefficiency is building leaks It can be something as simple as a door that doesn t sit quite right in its frame or something more com plicated such as a crack in the wall that lets air seep through The dif ficulty is in finding these leaks and sealing them Scientists at the UC Davis Western Cooling Efficiency Center developed a new approach to sealing leaks that should help make even the draftiest offices more ef ficient The unique system uses com pressed nitrogen that pushes the sealant through five nozzles When released as a mist into a pressurized environment the particles move to ward where air escapes from a room sealing the leak as they attach to the crack or crevice Software that tracks the entire process will verify that the room or building is 100 sealed UC Davis scientists report that it takes approximately one hour to run the system and seal leaks in a 1 200 square foot home A BLADELESS WIND ENERGY GENERATOR If you haven t had enough of unique wind generator designs then you ll want to see the EWICON Elec trostatic Wind Energy CONVertor from Delft University and architec tural firm Mecanoo both based in the Netherlands The metal tubes that make up the EWIOCN s interior re lease electrically charged water drop lets that when wind blow
4. gt HIGHLIGHT IMPORTANT DATA IN A POWERPOINT CHART Whether you re presenting numerous charts or need to add emphasis to spe cific data within a chart sometimes it s beneficial to call out key points Locate the Drawing pane in the Home tab and expand the Shapes menu Select one that is appropriate for emphasizing informa tion in your chart and then click any where in the chart to place the shape To customize the shape select it and click the Shape Fill Shape Outline Shape Effects and Quick Styles options in the Drawing pane INSERTA CHART THAT S LINKED TO EXCEL If you re used to working in Excel and prefer to construct the skeleton of your chart first you can compile data in Excel and then create a chart in Excel to use in PowerPoint Start by entering values in an Excel workbook Highlight all nec essary data cells click Insert and apply a preferred chart style in the Charts pane Next select the newly created chart and click Copy in the Home tab Open a current or new PowerPoint slide and find the Clipboard pane Click the Paste drop down arrow and choose Keep Source Formatting amp Link Data to maintain the appearance of the Excel file or Use Destination Theme amp Link Data to match the chart appearance with the presentation EDIT amp ADD LABELS A chart that includes a lot of numbers or a detailed legend may require some editing especially because you want it to look polished for prese
5. ment to collide with the trend around set top box content customization and interaction catalyzing a new level of connected home application adoption There s tremendous opportunity in asset tracking service insight inventory man agement component counterfeiting pre vention etc for industrial automation and manufacturing Chris Rommel vice president VDC Research Weldon says examples of M2M consumer facing devices include such home appliances as thermostats and security devices in which embedded sensors transmit data to the sensor s owner Owners in turn can typically remotely control the appliance via wide area network to lower temperatures during certain times of day or do video surveillance and send footage to remote locations she says Business centric M2M usage ex amples Hatton cites include new auto mobile ownership and usage models A notable U S based car sharing ser vice for example uses wireless tech nology to track details of customer trips in a shared vehicle Almost any industrial process can also make this type of change from selling a piece of equipment to selling the benefit that the equipment brings he says An ex ample of this approach includes a U S based company that historically sold the machines used to create a certain product With the addition of connec tivity however the company was able to change its business model to provide the machine for free and c
6. nator Bear in mind that actual Wi Fi throughput is often only half the theo retical top speed or less On the other hand if you introduce an 802 11b laptop to your Wi Fi N network it might immediately slow down all WLAN traffic including connections from the Wi Fi N router to 802 11n devices to 802 11b s PCToday June 2013 59 11Mbps or less To avoid a Wi Fi slowdown you can either connect the notebook to the router with an Ethernet cable or upgrade it with an inexpensive Wi Fi N adapter so the system doesn t drag down the whole network MIND THE DISTANCES The longer the distance between a router WAP and a wireless adapter the weaker the Wi Fi signal will be That translates to slower data trans fers Hence the key is to shorten that distance or increase the power of the signal If you have a large or ranch style home for example consider putting your wireless router or access point near the center of the house Alternatively if your router supports replaceable antennas you could look for a high gain antenna that will fit the router If your router and wireless adapters are from the same manufacturer you might be able to turn on a proprietary turbo mode or MIMO multiple input multiple output mode for a faster con nection among the devices You might also have the option to boost power to the antenna s You may need to enable these items in the router s set tings which you can typically access
7. your wishes appear to be about to come true Russia based Yota Devices www yotaphone com re cently revealed what it hails as the first dual screen Android phone The so called YotaPhone sports a 4 3 inch high res LCD screen on one side and a 4 3 inch electronic paper display on the other Yoto Devices claims the approach will let users stream data to the e paper display without sapping any battery power and without having to wake up the phone Rather than pick up a device turn it on and open an application to say read a text the YotaPhone A recently unveiled smartphone with a high res LCD screen on one side and an e ink screen on the other saves battery power when just the e ink screen is in use displays the text or image location information social media notification boarding pass etc on the e paper display effortlessly and continu ously because the screen doesn t re fresh or draw power until an image is changed Units could arrive in 2013 s second half FINGERPRINT amp SMUDGE FREE SCREENS Fingerprints and smudges have been the bane of touchscreen users since well the invention of touch screens A smart coating technology that Queen s University chemists have developed could negate such frustrations According to the univer sity the technology could result in contaminants ice fingerprints and eraffiti losing their grip on a wide range of surfaces Furthermor
8. behind and check in on new technology to determine how it will affect your policies PCToday June 2013 37 companies avoid mandating BYOD policy changes and instead start a negotiation process where users feel like they re involved and have more control over the decision You simply have to tell the user that you understand they re trying to do something good for the com pany but that you are also trying to do the thing through security mea sures and policies You ask them to sign a contract but you make it more of a negotiation than a man dated set of rules that comes down from IT and gives them the sense that they re not in control says Hafner In some cases it s more of a better approach to getting them onboard Once you have a dialogue going with your employees you can then determine what changes need to be made to your BYOD policies and the technology you have in place to control those devices Hafner warns that there will always be trade offs but that it s important to listen to the needs of employees rather than force them to follow rules they may not respect or understand DEVELOP STRONGER RULES OF ENGAGEMENT Hafner says that most companies started with a focus on email when BYOD became popular because it was a well defined clearly hori zontal application and its inherent security rules were common sense and understood by most organiza tions Plus companies could use ActiveSync
9. discussions To start a note during an in session Lync meeting click the OneNote tab in the conversations window after you pause the presentation Then select My Notes to start typing private notes or click Share Notes and choose a sec tion for note taking SHARE A PRESENTATION Lync not only lets you share your Desktop a program window a white board or a poll but you also can share your PowerPoint presentations When you start an IM instant message con versation click the Share drop down menu and select the PowerPoint Pre sentation option After the presentation uploads you can enable restrictions such as who can enter the presentation who presents and who is allowed to an notate the presentation SEND DOCUMENTS VIA INSTANT MESSAGE There are two ways to send a document as an attachment using Lync from the document itself or through an open IM window Within the document you intend to send click File click Save amp Send and then select Send By Instant Message In the Address Book window add the recipient names in the To field and make sure you can see the attach ment in the IM window Alternatively you can start an IM conversation with a recipient click the paper clip icon for sending attachments choose a file click Open select the item you intend to share and send 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 Po DURING A LYNC maa bes v 3 Calendar Blue Yonder Status o Sales Meeting
10. e IDC Price component supply and a weak reception for Windows 8 hampered the PC industry s push for touch capabilities and ultraslim systems e Gartner Demand for ultramobiles was slow as prices remained relatively high new lower priced models should reach the market in the second half of this year e IDC Restructuring and reorganization efforts underway by leading PC manufac turers have magnified the impact of slow demand The U S market saw PC ship ments fall 12 7 year over year and drop 18 3 from the fourth quarter 2012 Ye o le 7 MRE CLOUD CRM TO DRIVE ENTERPRISE SOFTWARE SPENDING Worldwide spending on enterprise software will increase slightly through 2014 according to a large scale enter prise IT spending study conducted by Gartner Results from the survey in dicate that software spending will in crease modestly worldwide through the 2014 budget year with new software sales on premises and SaaS software as a service driving this increased spending says Hai Hong Swineheart research analyst at Gartner According to the study 60 of respondents expect to increase their budget for SaaS public cloud within the next two years MOBILE BANKING TABLET STYLE gt Along with the growth in tablet sales and usage 1t only makes sense that con sumers would be using the devices in new ways A Juniper Research report shows that by 2017 about 200 million people will be using tra
11. you only have one master pass word to remember and it becomes your key to unlocking the credential storing software Password manager utilities are available in standalone offline and Web utility online op tions Although password manager features vary the programs typically work the same You need to first create an account which you secure behind a master password and then JUST ENCRYPT IT If you decide to create a password list and encrypt it on a hard drive or portable USB drive whatever you lose in having to jump through a few hoops you gain in the ability to encrypt and store all kinds of files TrueCrypt www truecrypt org offers free open source encryption software donation requested that you can use for passwords or PERSONAL ELECTRONICS TECH FOR HOME amp LEISURE you save all your usernames and passwords into the program The software encrypts your data so only individuals with the master pass word can access the files After you add a username and password for a specific website the manager program will automatically enter your secure login information when you access that site Not only does this method reduce the burden of remembering the credentials but it also is a deterrent to hackers who may use keyloggers to monitor the keys you press in the hopes of gain ing knowledge about your usernames and passwords Password manager appli cations are also beneficial be cause the one click logon w
12. 1 and 5 all work in progress cloud security standards CSA is also developing its own of fering Cheang says including an Open Certification Framework that takes CSA s STAR toward a totally new frontier at the back of a clear and present need TOMORROW S FORECAST Although standardization will be more mature in coming years Cheang says the industry may need longer to take it and certification to the next level Cheang uses the pay ment card industry as a reference saying it may take up to 10 years before we see the same level of traction and trust built by the PCI Council when it comes to cloud computing security Pharro says al though providers broadly recognize a need for standards certification can seem like a formidable and arduous process Unless end users rec ognize the value of certification schemes and actively seek to do business with certified providers providers will have little incentive to sign up to the relevant standards he says Ironically he says the numerous standards and accreditation schemes now available makes it difficult for one standard to claim dominance Many of these schemes aren t as rigorous or strin gent as they could be effectively di luting the overall impact of cloud standards he says eoceeeee eee eee ee ee ESSENTIAL BUSINESS TECH EXECUTIVES PROFESSIONALS ENTREPRENEURS TTT wt tne s Encryption That Makes Sense It Isn t
13. An All Or Nothing Decision MOST ORGANIZATIONS ARE WELL past the stage of deciding if they need en cryption It s no longer a question of whether or not you should en crypt your data instead it s a ques tion of how much encryption do you need and for what data For your organization the answer ultimately depends on your industry and busi ness requirements but one impor tant thing to remember is that you shouldn t encrypt everything Be judicious Follow in dustry regulations internal company policies and best practices to determine what types of data truly Key require encryption level Points protection WHAT ENCRYPTION IS Encryption relies on software to protect sensitive data from outside sources that might try to access it The key word here is software because encryption will take up computing re sources so the more data you encrypt the more resources you will use It s crucial to secure your data and pre vent it from getting out to the public but it shouldn t be to the detriment of overall business performance There are many types of encryption It s important to remember that not all types of encryption area fit for different situations Match the encryption to the use case Encryption should your last line of defense and not your best foot forward Strengthen your overall security approach and make encryption a part of it In addition to taxing your infra stru
14. THE APP If you built your app with the in tent of generating revenue then you ll need to set a price point after Altaz Valani senior research analyst Info Tech Research Group eoceeeee eee eee ee eee eee eee o oo ooo o oo oo o oe e o o o you ve selected an app market place According to Valani there is a threshold where most apps are 99 cents to three dollars Less expensive apps can lead to more sales or even impulse purchases but if you believe your app has a large enough feature set to warrant a higher price you can always go beyond the threshold Valani also adds that lower priced apps make it so you re being driven primarily by volume But if your app can fill a particularly large need then you may be able to make up the dif ference in total revenue SUPPORT THE APP The development process isn t over as soon as the app hits the market place You should regularly check in on customer reviews or employee feedback to determine whether you need to change the app through quick updates or make wholesale changes in a future version Buggy and slow applications just won t survive says Valani about external apps There s a very low barrier where if the app doesn t do what I need to do it s gone You need constant updates and to consider things that are really im portant to your users such as per formance scalability bug fixes and security The moment you start to get thi
15. Tap the Delete History button and the evidence will be history ADD WEBSITE BOOKMARKS TO THE START MENU Windows Phone 7 has a handy feature that lets you pin items to the Start menu similar to pinning items to your desktop computer s Start menu What seems to have escaped the notice of many Windows Phone 7 users is that you re not limited to adding apps to the Start menu you can also add URLs If you routinely visit certain websites it can be a lot easier to get there from the Start menu than to launch your browser and then select the links from your browser bookmarks To add a Web page to the Start menu launch your browser and navigate to the Web page you wish to add Drag the menu into view by using the ellipses and select the Pin To Start option You can give the Web page a name or use the name provided The next time you access your Start menu you ll find the Web page listed for quick access PCToday June 2013 53 MOBILE OFFICE BUSINESS ON THE ROAD BLACKBERRY CHANGE SPEED DIAL SETTINGS If you set up a speed dial number that you no longer use it s simple to reassign the shortcut to a new number Start by pressing the Send key from the Home screen then pressing the Menu key Select View Speed Dial List scroll to and high light the speed dial entry you want to change press the Menu key se lect Edit scroll to and select a new contact confirm the number you want the Speed Dial to call and then
16. and has clear enforcement of the self certifica tion process to maintain standards and integrity The CIF has made significant prog ress in recent years Burton says and now includes some of the big gest names in IT in our membership roster Those members are directly responsible for the CIP s direction and Code of Practice he says Ultimately the CIF hopes to see cloud standards mandated at a governmental level and is currently working with the British government to encourage a single standard in transparency for providers This would be enor mously useful for procurers who will then be able to easily compare and contrast different providers and see exactly the levels of service that are on offer Burton says The CSA is a member driven or ganization formed to promote best 14 June 2013 www pctoday com Tf I am to paraphrase Star Wars then our mission is to bring trust to the Aloysius Cheang managing director Cloud Security Alliance APAC e o oo onoe o e eee eee eee eee ne o ne ese eee eee eee se se There are today no formal ISO cloud standards nor are there any other certifi able cloud Codes of Practice in operation other than that offered by CIF Andy Burton chairman Cloud Industry Forum eoececereeec eee eee eee eee eee oe eee eee eee ee eee eee eee eee o o practices for providing security assurance within cloud computing Cheang says If I am
17. as about themselves Gillen says and that so cial analytics can be an effective form of market research Instead of asking customers to respond to a survey con versation analysis can identify needs that customers don t necessarily state EXECUTION In short executing social analytics typically requires an analytics plat form personnel to gather and review data and the ability to generate reports Beyond this Etlinger says the real chal lenge is that social data is an imperfect volatile and chaotic data set quite dif ferent from the more orderly enterprise data that enterprises are accustomed to Those charged with interpreting social data she says benefit from a grounding in statistical analysis and the ability to view the data in context of other data within the organization Depending on the analysis demo graphics geographies and markets Woo says numerous websites can assist in performing social analysis While English is the predominant language businesses may need to find providers that can adapt the analysis to non Eng lish speakers he says Dickie advises beginning social ana lytics in the marketing area as this will be the most natural outgrowth of what those doing analysis are likely already 26 June 2013 www pctoday com From a marketing standpoint there s a gold mine of information for helping refine segmentation and targeting for assisting with new produ
18. businesses _ make the most of mobile devices and services Personal Electronics Electronics services and helpful advice for home and leisure Copyright 2013 by Sandhills Publishing Company PC Today is a registered trademark of Sandhills Publishing Company All rights reserved Reproduction of material appearing in PC Today is strictly prohibited without written permission Business Travel 911 Highly useful information for conducting business on the road Sandhills Publishing GARTNER UPDATES IT SPENDING FORECAST IT departments worldwide will spend about 3 8 trillion this year up 4 1 from 2012 In making the predic tion Gartner Managing Vice President Richard Gordon says that while the U S avoided the fiscal cliff other fac tors such as the sequestration Cyprus debt burden and fragile business and consumer sentiment have lowered ex pectations However the new shocks are expected to be short lived and while they may cause some pauses in discretionary spending along the way strategic IT initiatives will continue he says Gartner expects spending on devices PCs tablets mobile phones and printers to be up 7 9 from 2012 Data center systems spending will be up 3 7 enterprise software spending up 6 4 and spending on IT and telecom services will be relatively flat SHORTAGE OF IS PROFESSIONALS IMPACTS ECONOMY More than half of information secu rity profe
19. buy online Offers valid for a limited time only Starter hosting package price of 0 99 per month is valid for a 36 month prepaid package purchase amount of 35 64 After first year 0 99 com promo returns to regular price Visit www 1and1 com for billing information and full promotional offer details Program and pricing specifications and availability subject to change without notice 1 amp 1 and the 1 amp 1 logo are trademarks of 1 amp 1 Internet all other trademarks are the property of their respective owners 2013 1 amp 1 Internet All rights reserved ESSENTIAL BUSINESS TECH EXECUTIVES PROFESSIONALS ENTREPRENEURS Uy Min D 1 My bi NK W h y i y f l if f W A Private Cloud Computing What It Is amp Is Not MOST COMPANIES ARE FAMILIAR with how public cloud computing works You sign up for a third party public cloud service migrate what ever data you choose to the cloud via that service and then pay for capacity based on how much you use at any given time With a public cloud your data is stored in an off site data center The most signifi cant benefits of the public cloud are that it is highly flexible available for quick scaling if necessary and is cost efficient as long as you don t maintain a high capacity for a long period of time Perhaps the main reason why the public cloud is easier to understand than the private cloud is becau
20. commer cial approaches There are today no formal ISO cloud standards nor are oe eeceer eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee ee esos eeeoeeeeeeeeee e o ne nee oo coco onoo pon e neo o o e e nooo e coco o co o o nc o e o o oo eo oono eo co no e eo oo oo Security wise standardization details the minimum criteria concerning security controls in place thus providing a minimum level of assurance that a user can move to the cloud safely and securely ec 0 2 0 10 0 ooo o oo o oops o eo on e o no o poco no o eo eo e o eo oo o o oo ooo o oe o ooo oo oo o o ce o o oo eo noo ooo o o e oo e os o o o o oo oo PCToday June 2013 13 ESSENTIAL BUSINESS TECH EXECUTIVES PROFESSIONALS ENTREPRENEURS cloud esec oo eee ee eee eee eee eno eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee ee oo ec 02 02 o oo eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee ese eee eeee there any other certifiable cloud Codes of Practice in operation other than that offered by CIF he says Al though there are pretenders he says due diligence will show whether a cloud accreditation is based on ro bust independent best practice similar to the accreditations typically mandated for a user s own operations The CIP s Code of Practice stands apart on the basis of accreditation he says It is independently devel oped and governed
21. effects to a chart or graph all within PowerPoint In addition applying WordArt Styles will change the fill color shade and outline of selected text drop down arrow at the top of the Cur rent Selection pane gt MODIFY DATA IN AN EXISTING CHART Regardless of whether you created your initial chart in Excel or Power Point you should be able to modify data without much hassle In Power Point click the chart you intend to change and select the Design tab in the Chart Tools contextual tab Next click Edit Data in the Data pane Excel opens the data sheet in a new window and from here you can click and edit indi vidual cells Simply closing the Excel file will refresh and save the new content ADD ANIMATION If you want to emphasize a particular data group you can add animations to a graph or chart Under the Animations tab the Animation pane has approxi mately 30 default animations you can apply to a chart Explore extra effects by clicking More Entrance Effects More Emphasis Effects or More Exit Effects at the bottom of the Animation menu To stagger the animation of individual objects click Effect Options and select one of the following func tions As One Object By Series By Cat egory Be Element In Series or By Ele ment In Category PCToday June 2013 69 Rootkit Attacks WHAT TO DO TO FIGHT BACK EVEN SEEING THE WORD rootkit can send shivers up the spine of someone who has suffered thro
22. email as well as use time management tech niques to lessen the stress of reading and responding to messages USE ALTERNATIVES TO EMAIL One of the biggest problems with email according to Christopher Wynder Ph D consulting analyst at Info Tech Research Group www info tech com is that users have extended email beyond its original function Originally designed as a memo system or one way message system whereby information is shared email systems are now used for real time communication knowledge storage document sharing to do lists scheduling and more Wynder says Not only is email being stretched thin and used for simply too many ap plications our culture now dictates that we should respond to email in a timely fashion Wynder offers a few ways in which companies can buck this trend but the ultimate goal should be to use alternate forms of communication for the proper situations For example he says that people should treat email like a formal communication akin to the written letter rather than an IM or SMS If you would not take the time to handwrite your message to someone or you can t wait for a reply why email it The key is to use your phone more often send instant messages or walk to someone s desk and have a face to face conversation with that person PCToday June 2013 27 ESSENTIAL BUSINESS TECH EXECUTIVES PROFESSIONALS ENTREPRENEURS All of these t
23. example may ultimately de cide that the potential liabilities as sociated with adopting a BYOD policy outweigh the possible benefits PARTICIPATION amp REIMBURSEMENT Some experts believe the core of a BYOD policy is pinpointing which employees should be eligible to participate Many companies place less emphasis on device type eligi bility than user eligibility with the philosophy being that doing so lets businesses focus more on security data protection and permissions Generally not every employee must participate Further a manager is likely to require greater access to sen sitive data and other resources than other employees who may only war rant corporate email and basic tool sets Elsewhere companies must decide if stipends or reimbursements are due to certain users for what voice and data usage roaming etc and in what amount DEVICES amp APPS Adopting a BYOD policy doesn t mean a company must necessarily support every device and platform It may decide to support smart phones but not tablets for example or only allow certain device makes models and OS versions Platform wise a business may determine it PCToday June 2013 47 will allow say iOS devices but not Android units or vice versa due to the differences between the plat forms Regardless of the devices supported it s generally best to bar all jail broken devices from partic ipation and require acceptable de vices to un
24. fad about to blow over SEE THE DIFFERENCE To briefly lay a foundation for un derstanding monitor technologies it s important to know that the basic dif ference between flat screen displays is their light source The light source in traditional CCFL backlit monitors is the fluorescent lamp technology that has been around for decades You ll find light emitting diodes in LED backlit monitors When comparing efficiency CCFL monitors are considered less power efficient than LED backlit monitors Although both types of monitors are backlit in their own way CCFLs backlight an entire display and can t be easily dimmed LED backlighting rather than projecting light from a single bulb through LCD pixels il luminates LCD panels using edge lit technology with LEDs lining the edges of a display or local dimming technology with LEDs organized in a grid pattern In terms of how flat panel displays actually render images LED backlit displays can produce greater color contrast and depth than their CCFL counterparts CCFL backlit displays however often require less calibra tion and tinkering to most closely approximate the correct range of colors LEDs win however when it comes to the green factor because PCToday June 2013 31 ESSENTIAL BUSINESS TECH EXECUTIVES PROFESSIONALS ENTREPRENEURS they offer a smaller ecological foot print and therefore provide a lower cost of operation Cost is another consi
25. gathering is especially compelling if it can be done wirelessly and on a mobile basis Wi Fi and other technologies are also often used inside buildings and wired technologies can prove useful for fixed devices that send a lot of ongoing data The processing of this big data set is a growing piece of the puzzle she says There s no point to collect all this data if you can t use it to make processes more productive and intelligent and revenue generating she says A convenient way to describe the Internet of Things says Matt Hatton director at Machina Research machina research com is as the next phase of the Internet s evolution in which all manners of devices electricity meters light switches refrigerators cars etc are Internet connected The most im portant point is that we are not just connecting them for their own sake Hatton says We are connecting them because it facilitates some beneficial process change For homeowners the connection could enable altering the time of day they use electricity to coin cide with cheaper rates For businesses and enterprises the connection could enable a fundamentally new business model And it s here that we think the Internet of Things is actually at its most important Hatton says In par ticular the constant monitoring allows 22 June 2013 wwwoctoday com ce oo oo o o ono oo enn o oco o o oo o o ce o eo ooo on thi
26. have a private cloud Virtualized environments require au tomation and self service portals to make the jump to cloud computing Private clouds are avail able in on premises or off premises varieties With off premises you avoid risk without hav Ing to invest in on site infrastructure For most companies a hybrid approach to cloud computing is essential You can store sensitive data in a private cloud while hosting other data in a public environment Plus you can add capacity temporarily as needed ESSENTIAL BUSINESS TECH EXECUTIVES PROFESSIONALS ENTREPRENEURS down to who owns the infrastruc ture and how it s maintained In a private cloud you own all of the capacity says Sloan With a public cloud the idea of elasticity and being metered is that slice of the public cloud that you can grow or shrink because the capacity is not owned by you it s owned by the cloud provider But if you own all of the capacity upfront then you re not getting those cost ben efits of elasticity because you also own the overhead You aren t just consuming your bit you own the whole thing That s one thing that makes a private cloud maybe less cloudy In essence with private cloud computing you own the under lying infrastructure so you re avoiding the common multitenant approach of public clouds and in stead storing your data on site The ability to differentiate the private from the public cloud is grea
27. making advice CREATE A BASIC CHART OR GRAPH To insert a colorful chart or graph il lustration into your PowerPoint presen tation locate the Insert tab and select Chart Next look through the available chart types select the design that best represents the information you want to share and click OK A Microsoft Ex cel chart will open with placeholder 68 June 2013 www ctoday com text and figures you can replace with relevant data When you finish entering information click File and Close to open the finished chart in PowerPoint SAVE amp MANAGE CHART TEMPLATES If you want to adjust the look of an existing chart click the chart in the PowerPoint slide and the Chart Tools contextual tab appears Keep in mind Chart Tools will only appear when you select a chart Open the Design tab and you can manipulate the over all layout of a chart adjust its style and save it as a template for future presentations To adjust the orienta tion size or spacing of a chart s data and graphical elements expand the Charts Layouts pane and choose one of the nine layout options You can also change chart elements and background colors by selecting options from the Chart Styles section on the Design tab When you ve fashioned a chart you d like to reuse click the Save As Tem plate button on the Design tab Name the chart and PowerPoint saves it with the CRTX file extension which indi cates it is a chart template
28. might look like once produced turing process but instead adds an extra step to improve efficiency The nanow ires are stored in a liquid and applied to solar panels in a gas form before they are covered with a polymer that seals them in Sol Voltaics hopes to reach a total of 50 million in funding by 2015 to start a pilot production program before putting SolInk into mass production in 2016 GREEN TECHNOLOGY INVESTMENTS DOWN IN Q1 2013 There seems to be a lot of excitement around green technology supplied by the positive figures coming out recently about the United States starting to catch up with other nations But that doesn t mean the industry as a whole is immune to down shifts which is what happened in Q1 of this year Global investments in green tech nology projects fell to 1 07 billion which is half total investments made in Q1 2012 according to Cleantech Group Analysts say that one reason investors are scared of green technology is the uncer tainty of the return on investment It seems there is news daily about new startups coming onto the scene just as four or five established companies announce their closures With so much turnover it s difficult for investors to jump in comfortably Cleantech Group says more investors will likely invest in clean water and sustainable food programs in addition to gas and oil companies rather than pure green tech nology projects PCToday June 2013 35 ESSENTIAL BUSINESS TECH
29. much data the de vice can juggle or keep at the ready at once so more is better especially for more intensive applications and multitasking Consider 1GB a doable minimum but 2GB or 3GB offer better performance and tablets with 4GB memory are increasingly available As with processing power more memory is particularly essential for tablets run ning Wing STORAGE Tablet pricing is often tied in part to storage capacity or the amount of 42 June 2013 www pctoday com MOBILE OFFICE BUSINESS ON THE ROAD ce o oo eoceo no neon eee eee eee eee eee eee eee ese eee eee esos eoeeecee reece eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee ese eee nn eee eee As with display size it s easy to take note of the advertised maximum battery life and not look any deeper but it s worthwhile to read some user reviews for real world examinations of a tablet battery s life per charge e oo ce eee eee eee eee ee ee eee oo o osonoso pnS c sS o o o oo space available to hold apps and all manner of files Most tablets use flash memory with capacities generally ranging from 16GB to 64GB Note that there is sometimes a significant differ ence between the capacity a tablet is listed as having and the capacity that is truly available to the user which is due to the amount of space required by the OS and system files so include this in your research before deciding what ca pacity is appropriate for your workers
30. o o er Looking into the crystal ball a little what we ll see is more and more automation of processes One example is self driving cars Google is already a long way ahead Matt Hatton director Machina Research eoeerecece reece eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee ee eeee ee ee eee and growing medium for real time insight into and delivery of value to customers Injecting additional intel ligence into these extended networks he says enables new functionality and thus value to be delivered but also lets business extract net new revenue streams and experiment with new business models Rommel says for example think about the growing interest in data plans in vehicles and how soon there will be more oppor tunity for user selected applications to be downloaded Another example is tires as a service wherein consumers or commercial trucking operators could subscribe to a service that enables tire or car companies to dispatch service vehicles when flats occur or when tire wear reaches critical levels he says Often devices related to M2M net works are dumb sensors connected to a meter reader or various manufac turing equipment Weldon says The sensor sporadically sends data to its owner providing data about the ma chine it s connected to Think of a utility for example that wants to read meters but without sending numerous technicians into the field to do so manu ally Another example is
31. office locations or between two sepa rate businesses But you can also take an extra step and actually encrypt communica tions inside your company Servers exchange information back and forth to each other on a consistent basis which means that malicious outside parties may be able to find a way to intercept a transmission between servers and piece together a larger picture or otherwise parse out the essential meaning of the data they grab In order to prevent this you Eric Ouellet research vice president Gartner co o0 0 o oo noo oo o o o eee ee eee eee e oo o o ooo can encrypt the messages sent be tween servers and stop information from leaking A UNIFIED APPROACH TO SECURITY Because encryption goes below the surface and protects files at the source you may think that you can rely on it as your be all end all se curity approach but according to Quin encryption should be your last line of defense In fact he says by the time you re in a situa tion where encryption comes into play you should have exhausted all of your other security resources whether it s antivirus or access and identity management solutions The key is to educate your em ployees and implement policies that eliminate any confusion as to what types of data shouldn t be stored on endpoint devices After that you should institute strict password poli cies that are used to prevent access to the devices themsel
32. or ganizations MDM software gives companies the opportunity to turn off camera and whitelist or blacklist what applications employees can download he says This software limits potential risks but it could cause backlash with employees because it essentially involves in stalling an MDM client on their per sonal device Again that s why it s so important to negotiate these poli cies rather than to implement them suddenly Another reason why changing rules is difficult is because there will always be employees who prefer to have things done the way there were always done even if it means carrying an ancient smart phone that IT supports says Mike Battista technology research Bob Hafner managing vice president Gartner eoeerecece reece eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee ese eee eee ee eee ee analyst with Info Tech Research Group www infotech com He rec ommends not only bringing em ployees into the decision making policy defining fold he also rec ommends that companies pursue a gradual transition to more and more employee owned employee supported devices The key is to never surprise employees with policy changes but instead update and include them throughout the process FOCUS ON THE USE CASE MORE THAN THE DEVICE Phillip Redman vice presi dent and distinguished analyst at Gartner says that when adjusting your BYOD policies it s important to take all security costs
33. or add pages to your Public Website whether you re in the office or on the road Ce oo ooooooooo o 64 June 2013 www pctoday com ce o 2 o 0 0 ooo or post to a blog Use the Page tab to change layouts the Insert tab to add content or the Format Text tab to work with text Or click the Page tab and select New to create an entirely new page for the Public Website CREATE PERSONAL 8 TEAM WEBSITES When you become an Office 365 user you can activate a My Site website where you can manage and share docs hosted by SharePoint Online A similar feature exists for team project management in the Team Site where you can create a Team Site for sync ing calendars developing projects and working offline To start a team accessible home base site in Share Point go to the Site Actions menu choose New Site and then click the Featured Items or Browse All tab Assign your team site a URL Da and title and click Create Calendar BUSINESS TRAVEL 911 ON THE GO TECH SUPPORT Office 365 af Ne lt January 2011 gt ADD SHARED 4 26 27 28 29 30 31 1 2 34 3 6 7 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 PRIVATE NOTES MEETING Many times the records lists and important items you save in OneNote Microsoft s digital note taking software turn into meeting agendas and tasks for colleagues so it s convenient that Lync lets you save private notes or share notes for collaborative
34. rest but you can t forget about data in transit Email is a great ex ample of this because it has been around for a long time and often becomes an afterthought for most companies But because it s difficult and requires sometimes advanced Organizations need to spend some time to make sure they have a process for back ing up and archiving cryptographic keys One of the fundamental issues that can happen with encryption is that once you encrypt something if you lose the key the data is shredded You re never going to get it back Beware of the fact that if you do lose the key it s gone there are no back doors That s the way these things are designed ce 0 10 o oo o o eo o eee eee ee ee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee ee we technology to see exactly what s being sent and received via email it s especially important to encrypt messages that may contain sensitive data Of course the rule of thumb is to never send risky information over the Web but sometimes it simply can t be avoided This is where network based en cryption comes into play You re probably familiar with VPN virtual private network technology which provides a secure access point for employees outside the company to access resources maintained inside the company Quin says that using this same technology you can build an encrypted pipe through which data traverses This is great for sending messages between different
35. room at your workstation The savings from LED backlit mon itors can add up when displays are deployed in large quantities with an organization Not to mention the less heat generated from the LED monitors means less cooling overall within the office environment A chemical comparison between LED and CCFL components reveals that CCFLs typically use mercury whereas LEDs use none This means CCFL monitors require safe handling and the removal of fluorescent lamps that contain mercury for recycling or disposal In contrast many local waste Average size Of FPDs Since 2010 19 9 inch2 A recent NPD DisplaySearch www displaysearch com report revealed that the average diagonal size of FPDs flat panel displays in current desktop monitors is 20 9 inches which is 5 larger than the 2010 average of 19 9 inches Consumers are choosing larger monitors for their desktop systems which reflects the growing trend of flat panel adoption 32 June 2013 www ctoday com 0 3 inch 20 7 inch2 0 9 inch coerce were eee eee e e eee eee ee ee ese eee nc eo o agencies and retailers can easily collect and recycle LED monitors MAKING THE SWITCH As our intergenerational workforce continues to consume media rich appli cations and rely on creative visuals to maintain productivity the need for monitors with appropriate brightness and accurate color reproduction is apparent Eye strain and fatigue can be minimized with
36. s a good idea to set night and start up automati your BlackBerry to Haad and start up automatically the next morning cally the next morning To do this scroll to and select Options from the Home screen Auto On Off enable the Weekday and or Weekend options and then set a schedule under the appropriate heading MOBILE OFFICE BUSINESS ON THE ROAD ANDROID TURN OFF ENERGY WASTERS If you re not getting the kind of battery run time you expected it may not be the battery s fault We often jump to the conclusion that our phone battery is dying and needs to be replaced but today s batteries are very robust and usu ally have a very long lifetime Before you run out and buy a new battery take the time to determine how much energy your apps and var ious phone features are using You may be surprised at what you find You don t have to be a super sleuth to dig up this information in fact the capability is built into your Android phone From the Home page navi gate to Settings Select About Phone and tap Battery Use You ll see a list of all of the apps and background fea tures that are running on your phone Even better the list is organized in descending order from the apps or features that use the most amount of juice to the ones that use the least The display will likely be the first item listed You can ignore it because you re actively using the system so the display is turned on and i
37. security tools CLOUD WORRY A MITM attack can compromise fi nancial records customer or employee information or other sensitive data 30 June 2013 www pctoday com Doom ce oo o o o oo oncs ono o o oo o o o o o o oc o oo o oooo cs oo coo nooonon o eee eee eee eee eee eee n n e o o o of course But when all of this data is collectively pooled and uploaded through a single connection to a cloud provider the potential threat can be come very significant A cloud pro vider s user interface is very often accessed through a Web connection making cloud storage even more vul nerable since MITM attacks largely involve Web browsers If you use the cloud there is a lot at stake if you lose access to your cloud data due to a MITM attack Chuvakin says It is one thing for someone to hijack access to a Web forum but it is something else alto gether to lose access to all of your sensitive cloud data DO WHAT YOU CAN Beyond watching out for security warnings about invalid certificates and making sure there is an https in the URL indicating a secure con nection there is unfortunately little the average non expert user can do alone to thwart MITM attacks Some published reports say users should consider the possibility of a potential MITM threat if they notice their com puter is running slower than usual for example However anything from a faulty
38. the reason people bring their devices to work is not to be bad it s to be good says Bob Hafner managing vice president with Gartner www gartner com They don t bring them there because they want to lose cor porate information and in general they re not doing this to cause prob lems for the IT department though there are always exceptions In gen eral they re trying to be more pro ductive employees However Hafner adds the caveat that even though these employees aren t purposely opening up IT vulnerabilities for the company it doesn t mean that bad things won t happen He simply recommends that ce n o 0 0 0 0 0000 0 00 0 0 0 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000088 Make sure your BYOD policies and rules are in line with company security requirements and employee needs and Key consider implementing an Points _ MDM software solution Consider how employees will use devices more than what devices they will use Try to become a device agnostic organiza tion that is able to support a variety of platforms Your policies need to be flexible enough to support evolving tech nology but restrictive enough to protect your company Don t go too far in either direction Continually update your BYOD rules because there will always be new devices and applica tions Make sure you don t fall
39. the attacks and understanding specific vulner abilities requires the skills and talents of a professional T would hire somebody that knows what they are doing and avoid ad vice in newspaper articles Schneier says Any specific advice you read about MITM is incomplete and prob ably wrong because the subject is too complicated ESSENTIAL BUSINESS TECH EXECUTIVES PROFESSIONALS ENTREPRENEURS Why Choose LED Displays Equip Your Fleet With Green Lean Power Saving Machines MANY OF US INTERACT WITH screens regularly during any given day whether we re texting on a smart phone tapping a tablet using apps on a smart TV or checking email on a laptop And for the in office worker it s safe to say that the roughly eight hours spent working in front of a desktop monitor accounts for the ma jority of daily screen time As a business owner you may al ready be counting the number of older CCFL cold cathode fluorescent lamp backlit LCD liquid crystal display monitors occupying desk space While these displays do the job they may not be doing it efficiently or helping workers stay productive Before you schedule that inventory meeting with your IT department read on to get the skinny on a quality solution the LED light emitting diode backlit dis play We ll discuss what you should know about LED backlit monitors and outline some of the other compelling reasons LED backlit technology isn t a
40. the hapless HR em ployee discovers that all employee re cords on the cloud servers have been stolen Because the employee had fol lowed security procedures there ap pears to be no takeaway lesson from this catastrophe ATTACK MECHANICS This scenario illustrates one of many possible types of MITM man in the middle attacks In general a MITM attack involves an attacker who tricks two parties into believing they are communicating directly with each other when in fact all communications are passing through the attacker What is particularly tricky about MITM at tacks is that there is no evidence of this middleman as far as the legitimate users are concerned Communications look as though they are encrypted with https in the browser URL and security software indicating a pro tected connection Encryption just means that the pipe is secure says Bruce Schneier an independent secu rity expert and author www schneier com It doesn t indicate whom you are talking to You could be talking to Doctor Doom Other examples of MITM attacks are a keylogger program that intercepts data or a phishing scheme through PCToday June 2013 29 ESSENTIAL BUSINESS TECH EXECUTIVES PROFESSIONALS ENTREPRENEURS which an unsuspecting user uploads sensitive data to a bogus website However a common type of MITM attack takes advantage of website vul nerabilities when an attacker s pro gram passes t
41. three years This is an all or nothing game he says Cherian says some current infrastruc ture vendors are facilitating hardware Mark Bowker senior analyst Enterprise Strategy Group interoperability virtualization at all levels and standards compliance Be yond components that enable con vergence Brech says vendors are providing tools and services to ensure components are successful noting there s a broad spectrum now available In the last 18 months Bowker says larger vendors have gone through a packaging and pricing exercise to de liver what they did previously from a server storage networking perspec tive but with a wrap around them and in a package with a single SKU that s easier to consume In some cases he says vendors are working together to deliver solutions while elsewhere an emerging set of vendors is delivering similar capabilities as larger vendors Some of these are taking a slightly dif ferent approach by designing storage server and pooling capabilities on x86 hardware he says and maybe putting some additional hardware acceleration in there depending on the company and delivering that in a very simple easy to consume manner ESSENTIAL BUSINESS TECH EXECUTIVES PROFESSIONALS amp ENTREPRENEURS Machine To Machine Networks How M2M amp The Internet Of Things Are Changing Businesses DIVE INTO THE TOPIC OF M2M ma chine to machine networks and you re confronted
42. through a browser on a PC attached to the router by a wired connection Check the router s user s manual for an IP address you can type into the browser s Address bar Next you ll need to enter your username and pass word which you should have changed previously from the factory defaults There are also wireless extender or repeater devices you can install near a dead spot in your home as well as WAPs to supplement your existing one in underserved areas And of course you can always move your device closer to your router WAP for de manding uses such as video streaming REMOVE OBSTRUCTIONS The fewer the physical objects be tween your router WAP and wire less adapters the more power the 60 June 2013 www pctoday com PERSONAL ELECTRONICS TECH FOR HOME amp LEISURE signal will retain en route Signal power equates to data throughput so you ll get higher transfer rates and therefore a more detailed picture and smoother video streaming with a stronger Wi Fi connection Try to place your router or access point where there are relatively clear paths to your wireless devices You probably won t be able to achieve line of sight connections in your home but you can try to reduce the number of floors structural beams and walls in between especially walls with foil backed panels ce oo oo n o o e o eo eee eee eee eee eee The fewer the physical objects between your router WAP and wireless a
43. through an online password manager utility You may also run into issues if you use an of fline password manager and need to access your passwords on a different computer such as one at a hotel or at work TrueCrypt Volume Creation Wizard Create an encrypted file container Creates a virtual encrypted disk within a file Recommended for inexperienced Users More information Encrypt a non system partition drive Encrypts a non system partition on any internal or external drive e g a flash drive Optionally creates a hidden volume Encrypt the system partition or entire system drive Encrypts the partition drive where Windows is installed Anyone anything else you want to keep safe S imply who wants to gain access and use the system read and write files etc will need to enter the correct password each time SS before Windows boots Optionally creates a hidden system tainer on the drive of your choice encrypt it N See AN A A download the software create a secure con with a strong password and you re all set 58 June 2013 www ctoday com PERSONAL ELECTRONICS TECH FOR HOME amp LEISURE Improve Your Wireless Home Network L Wi Fi Optimization Advice WIRELESS NETWORKING WAS ONE Of the sweetest trends of the past 15 years Today thanks to invisible radio waves we regularly take our laptops and tablets online just about wher ever we please Well sort of Occasionally t
44. to para phrase Star Wars then our mis sion is to bring trust to the cloud he says The CSA aims to create a global trusted cloud ecosystem he says We are not a SDO nor do we claim to be one but rather a unique entity that is a little bit of every thing including NGO non governmental or ec oo oo eee see eee es Although standardization will be more mature in coming years the industry may need longer to take it and certification to the next level ganization industry think tank applied re search center incuba tor lobbyist group and coalition of profession als and organizations working to achieve a unique objective The CSA operates in the Americas EMEA and APAC and has research rela tionships with multiple governments or government backed agencies The alliance s strong corporate member ship base includes representatives from diverse regions industry sec tors and backgrounds he says In particular in the standards space we have established an Inter national Standardization Council under the Standards Secretariat that eeoeeceeeee ese ee eee c ooo o o o o o o has members from National Stan dards Bodies around the globe where we have multiple liaisons to major SDOs such as ISO and ITU T he says CSA is particularly ac tive with ISO IEC JTC 1 SC 27 and contributed resources toward de veloping 15027017 15027018 and 15027036 part
45. you may find throughout the development process that an app de signed for internal purposes could be useful for people outside of your com pany or customer base or vice versa So be prepared to adjust the app s scope during development DETERMINE THE NEED Before you begin the development process search the online app stores serving various mobile platforms and consult the vendors your IT department works with to determine whether an app offering similar functionality al ready exists If you are considering a consumer facing app compare your app concept with any similar apps to make sure a market exists for your product If an internal app is what you have in mind make sure a vendor doesn t offer an app that could be adapted to your company s needs with the vendor s help CHOOSE PLATFORMS A potential deterrent to building an app in house could relate to your choice of platform If you are building for one platform such as iOS or Android then PCToday June 2013 43 your in house team might be able to handle the programming testing and debugging needs of the app But says Altaz Valani senior research analyst at Info Tech Research Group www in fotech com if you re thinking about spreading across multiple platforms and devices then the best approach is to consider an abstraction of the whole mobile space and there are third party companies that do that PREP FOR MULTIPLE DEVICES Preparing yo
46. 000000000000000000008 Analyzing social media data helps organizations harness large amounts of structured and unstruc tured data for results that Ke are meaningful especially if tracked over time 24 June 2013 www pctoday com When getting involved in social analytics it s best to start small with free or low cost tools and then advance to using more sophisticated tools as needed Although instant current moment views of social trends are possible using social analytics solutions real izing deep benefits can take some time A snapshot of social attitudes is often just that It s important to set reasonable expectations for what can be derived from social analytics keeping in mind that attitudes can swell dissipate and shift quickly ESSENTIAL BUSINESS TECH EXECUTIVES PROFESSIONALS ENTREPRENEURS and abilities to mine actionable insight out of for the purpose of marketing sales customer service product devel opment human resources and others Dickie says In addition to structured and un structured data Susan Etlinger Altimeter Group www altimetergroup com industry analyst says social ac tions and social content are other so cial data types Social actions are the means likes shares retweets 1s etc that people use to show interest in spe cific posts people products or brands Social content is what s generated on social platforms such as blogs posts tweets pho
47. ARCH ANALYST with Info Tech Research Group www infotech com has a fitting way of describing social analytics Namely he dubs it the discipline of tapping into the world s largest focus group structuring the data in a way that it makes sense and then analyzing the data to provide busi ness decision makers with a framework for making actionable decisions based on that data The world s largest focus group Dickie refers to consists of consumers conversing about products services brand names customer service and more on social networks Here we explore how businesses can apply social analytics to purposefully harness this mass of data ANALYZING SOCIAL ANALYTICS Simplified social analytics is the pro cess of gathering structured and unstruc tured data from Facebook LinkedIn e O ee ee O oe cs OQ ee O e O e Oa Twitter and other social media net works and then passing it through an intermediate management platform that condenses and segments it according to demographics location frequency trends sentiment and other parameters The amount of data in question Dickie says is massive and arguably outstrips any other source of customer information in human information The unstructured data is just waiting for companies to develop tools programs ce o 0 0 0 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
48. ATE MESSAGE FILTERS Email Filters is a good way to take control over j no filters apply send email to the emails that show up on your handheld BlackBerry To use filters scroll to No and select Messages from the Home screen press the Menu button and select Options scroll to and select iTo BCC Default CC Default Sent directly to me Add Speed Dial H Add Speed Dial 1 Add Speed Dial Add Speed Dial K Add Speed Dial N Add Speed Dial Email Filters Press the Menu button and then select New From this menu you can name the filter at the top of the screen and block or allow mes sages by specific senders from certain email addresses with a given subject messages sent directly to you carbon copy and blind carbon copy messages and any message with a given importance or sensitivity For example you can block messages from Aunt Millie from crossing over to your BlackBerry by moving the cursor into the From field pressing the trackball pad choosing Select Name scrolling to and selecting Millie s email address from among your contacts and then setting the Action at the bottom of the screen to Do Not Forward Create email filters to cut down on unwanted messages SAVE POWER OVERNIGHT If you use your BlackBerry primarily for work purposes it s a good idea to set your BlackBerry to shut off over If you use your BlackBerry primarily for work purposes it
49. Blue Yonder Status o Sales Meeting Litware 3890 Litware 3890 There are plenty of helpful features built into Office 365 to keep you organized For example you can customize your Outlook calendar Web app as you plan meetings and work toward deadlines Trey Research Status Trey 1100A4 Lucerne Call Lyne Call gt EDIT OR VIEW DOCS IN REAL TIME Another advantage of SharePoint is the ability for multiple users to work in the same documents simultaneously To access a document that s available for team editing find the document link in your SharePoint website s document library hover over and click the arrow if you re asked to select Ready Only or Edit and choose View In Brows er or Edit In Browser Accessing doc uments in this way requires that the corresponding Microsoft Web App Word Excel PowerPoint or OneNote is installed gt SHARE YOUR CALENDAR Office 365 Outlook includes calendar sharing options that let you select a con tact or group of people who may access your schedule You can do so by en tering the Calendar view clicking Share and choosing Share This Calendar Next insert the individual or group who will receive the shared calendar gt STAY IN TOUCH WITH COLLEAGUES VIA MOBILE APP If your company uses Microsoft Lync try the mobile app when you re away from the office The Lync app is avail able for a variety of mobile platforms and provides you with capabilities sim ilar to
50. DISPLAY SIZE 8 WEIGHT We combine these three character istics because a tablet s display size is directly connected to a tablet s overall size Check system specs and user reviews to make sure the screen is durable offers precise multitouch control provides good imaging in bright light and other circumstances and is not overly susceptible to glare or smudging Also consider whether high definition and wide viewing an gles are important Otherwise simply choose based on the size that s most appropriate for those using the tab lets On average tablets have 10 inch screens measured diagonally with other sizes ranging roughly from 7 to 12 inches Most weigh between 1 25 and 2 5 lbs WIRELESS Tablets overwhelmingly come with integrated Wi Fi radios fewer offer cellular connectivity Bluetooth and or GPS Look for Wi Fi that supports the 802 11a b g n standards 802 11n is newest and delivers the best func tionality At first glance Bluetooth may not seem necessary but before dis missing it as a determining factor in e o oso o co o noo opos ee eee cocos o o ss co eo e oo o o your purchase find out whether users may need to use Bluetooth accessories such as headsets or keyboards BATTERY LIFE As with display size it s easy to take note of the advertised maximum battery life and not look any deeper but it s worthwhile to read some user reviews for real world exami nations of a tablet battery s
51. ER CONVERGENCE Mark Bowker Enterprise Strategy Group wwwesg global com senior analyst uses an analogy of building a backyard shed to describe data center convergence To date companies have built IT the same way I built the shed which is going to the lumberyard getting a bunch of building materials throwing them in the truck coming home throw ing them on the lawn and starting to build the shed he says The approach now is to come up with a blueprint de sign and architecture so that when I show up to the lumberyard I know how many 2x4s I need how many sheets of plywood etc I ve streamlined the pro cess and know what I ll get at the end Frost amp Sullivan www frost com an alyst Anu Elizabeth Cherian says due to ever declining budgets companies are wise to eye convergence Long term eevee er eee eee eee eee eee eee eee meee eo ee ome eee ewe eo ee eo Ho HOH OHO ss o o O HEE HOOT OHO HHO EHH sS p co so ooo ss o eo oo no ons o eo o HEHE EHO HOBO OOH OHO HEH HOO EHO OEE HOE EOD Vendors are adapting their infrastructure so lutions to enable data center convergence including providing turnkey solutions 18 June 2013 www pctoday com that a converged data center infrastructure can provide are reduced capital and operating expenses available in a silo approach center convergence is the ability to share pooled resources that were un A drawback of dat
52. Japan Display Sony Hitachi and Toshiba formed the company which debuted prototypes in October 2012 of a 5 inch smart phone and 7 inch tablet display along with a 12 2 inch display with curved and rounded edges for pos sible car dashboard use that are col lectively referred to as Innovation Vehicles Reportedly the smart phone s border measures less than Imm and the tablet s a mere 1 5mm For comparison sake imagine a 50 June 2013 www pctoday com MOBILE OFFICE BUSINESS ON THE ROAD smartphone screen thinner than the dime in your pocket As reported by Diginfo tv Japan Display arrived at the thinness using a technology known as Pixel Eyes In short the approach involves integrating the touch panel straight into the display vs attaching it from the outside A Japan Display representative stated that mass production of the displays could possibly begin this year Events 28 Among the numerous new operating sys tem emerging for mobile device use is the Linux based Ubuntu Touch from Canonical IMPROVED NETWORK EDGE CONNECTIVITY Few of us have been lucky enough never to have suffered through a poor mobile phone connection at the edge of the network at one time or another Technology from Nokia Siemens Networks and Qualcomm called HSPA High Speed Packet Access Plus Multiflow aims to offer some relief for those situations by al lowing devices located close to the edge of a mobile base stati
53. More Knowledge Encryption That strategies For Better Business Makes Sense Efficiency DLS Aag TECHNOLOGY FOR BUSINESS NOOO XA VW June 2013 Vol 11 Iss 06 pctoday com na MSS a Complimentary Co TANS COO p y Copy AAS Ss A f N gt h AN AN A dle E am m a a f 4g y ATV Wnr A ua jj AIN Ne N JpigZ2ZZsn Ss S55353 i E SS YOU 3 y 2 24 j j S88 y PITT 2 a MSR SARA F VILA TECHNOLOGY FOR BUSINESS Table Of Contents Volume 11 Issue 6 June 2013 www pctoday com ON THE COVER ted gt gt Ss ANNAN Most companies are familiar with how public cloud computing works Private cloud computing can be more difficult to grasp With private cloud computing you essentially own the underlying infra structure so you re avoiding the multitenant aspect of public clouds and storing your data on site while using a provider s cloud services Turn to the Essential Business Tech department to find out how this approach can benefit your business Contact Us Advertising 800 247 4880 P O Box 82545 Fax 402 479 2104 Lincoln NE 68501 or Circulation 800 334 7458 Fax 402 479 2123 www pctoday com email feedbackOpctoday com 120 W Harvest Drive Lincoln NE 68521 IN THIS ISSUE Essential Business Tech Technology intelligence for executives professionals and entrepreneurs o Mobile Office Solutions that help
54. N DOS DDOS ATTACKS DoS denial of service and DDoS distributed denial of service at tacks are making a resurgence ac cording to new research from IDC Volumetric attacks or ones that overwhelm servers and network re sources with traffic rendering them unavailable will be the predominant type of attack through 2017 IDC reports with the growing reliance on cloud services and mobile net works adding to the attack targets IDC expects the market for DDoS prevention tools to have an 18 2 CAGR through 2017 with makers of anti DDoS products and services working to address the evolving nature of these attacks IDC notes that volumetric attacks overwhelm the capabilities of security devices such as firewalls and intrusion pre vention potentially making them unwilling allies because they are unable to separate legitimate for il legitimate traffic PCToday June 2013 3 REPORT BIG DEMAND FOR ALL THINGS CLOUD Backed by strong demand for all types of cloud offerings the public cloud services market will grow 18 5 this year Gartner reports Last year infrastructure as a service offerings such as cloud compute storage and print services were the markets fastest growing seg ments up 42 4 from 2011 Gartner expects that segment to be up an other 47 3 this year Cloud adver tising is the largest overall segment accounting for 48 of the public cloud services market followed by the business proce
55. NON CANOSCAN 5600F COLOR IMAGE SCANNER According to Canon the use of high luminance white LED lamps in its CanoScan 5600F Color Image Scanner 129 99 www usa canon com means two things The first is less power consumption required The second is scanning begins immediately after you press the power button A letter sized color scan for example takes roughly 11 seconds to complete Canon states As for actual scans expect 4800dpi quality Additionally Canon builds in seven EZ Buttons to au tomate the scanning process and an Auto Scan mode lets the 5600F detect the document type scan it and save it using optimal settings Elsewhere for those with 35mm slides or negatives taking up space the 5600F can scan four or six respectively at a time COOLER MASTER NOTEPAL U2 PLUS If there s one thing a notebook doesn t need it s heat which as Cooler Master wisely states is the enemy To that end the company s NotePal U2 Plus cooling pad 30 www coolermaster com mitigates the damaging effects of heat via its aluminum constructed body and two patented 80mm quick release fans Users can adjust the positions of these fans to match a notebook s specific layout precisely targeting heat zones and maximizing the cooling effect Compatible with up to 17 inch notebooks the U2 Plus includes two integrated loops that let you keep cables and cords in check The cooling pad also transforms into a protec tive carryin
56. NY WIDE EMAIL USAGE POLICY Wynder stresses that while individ ualized email management techniques are important it s also crucial for com panies to implement email strategies that should be used company wide We found that it has to be a com pany specific plan based on industry risk tolerance and information use 28 June 2013 www pctoday com The challenge is very much a lack of institutionalized process for email use rather than any technical flaws with email as a tool Companies have this assumption that because we all use email at home everyone knows how to use it Most companies do not realize how the way we email and interact with our wives husbands friends family is different from how we should interact with our peers in a work setting Again context and person al history between the sender and receiver are important when we talk about what is really wrong with email use ce 10 1000 0 0 0 0 0000000000000 0000000000000000 he says You have to develop a plan that minimizes the amount of email flowing in and out of your company while also keeping issues such as regulatory compliance in mind For most companies this comes down to deciding which emails they need to archive and which ones they can de lete forever From a company standpoint email management is really about the decision to archive emails in another storage tier says Wynder This is not about reducing stora
57. RESTRICTION Of course the flexibility vs re striction argument is far more than a budget issue It s also an issue that is tied to the overall company employee relationship As we men tioned not all employees will be comfortable with having an MDM client reside on their personal de vice because that can provide the company with the capability of wiping a device if it s lost or stolen Consider your own personal de vice There are probably hundreds of pictures a music catalog and PCToday June 2013 39 more Imagine that you forgot to back up that information lose your device somewhere and then have it wiped Even if you did find the device a lot of that information is gone forever so it s understand able why some employees might be apprehensive There are options however that can basically partition a device into two halves half personal device untouched by company software and half business device which can be wiped if necessary without affecting the personal half Using this type of software can increase costs however as well as com plexity for IT personnel dealing with employee owned devices For Redman it s all about bal ance because your BYOD policy should be restrictive enough to provide security to enterprise data and privacy to the user but it has to be flexible enough to address the rapid change of technologies and apps as well as different user segments And while it s difficul
58. a center convergence can be the need to provide training to staff that previously spe cialized in only one infrastructure area ESSENTIAL BUSINESS TECH EXECUTIVES PROFESSIONALS ENTREPRENEURS she says data center convergence can reduce capital and operating costs by taking data center resources out of predefined tasks and combining them into blocks that are essentially modu Companies can use or reuse these blocks for any type of application within an organization Conversely a silo based approach pre allocates resources for customized tasks Once allocated reusing the infrastructure for new tasks or using any slack capacity for other tasks is very difficult she says By con verging data center resources busi nesses with the right management can take all of their IT infrastructure and make it into building blocks to solve different problems she says This al lows resources to be shared and utilized to a much higher capacity than would be possible in the silo based approach Brad Brech a member of The Green WW lar Grid s www thegreengrid org board says multiple levels of convergence are hap pening in the data center industry both in terms of forming fewer data centers and converging silos of IT resources In both cases the goal is to drive efficien cies and reduce cost by widening the scope of shared IT resources he says Beyond the cost of IT equipment there s typicall
59. a manufac turing company that wants to know devices in its factories are working ESSENTIAL BUSINESS TECH EXECUTIVES PROFESSIONALS ENTREPRENEURS cs 2 0 0 010 10 0 0 000000000 0 0 u0 un 0 x 0e 000 0 0000 0 0 0 0 0 000000000000 000000000000000000000000000m000000000000008 properly and operating at and main taining correct temperatures Another example is a manufacturing company that wants to track the cur rent location of packages en route to determine say if cargo is still fresh and cold In the automotive segment Weldon says auto manufacturers de sire the ability to charge a premium to customers to navigate know what restaurants are available price check nearby gas stations view car engine status and obtain the forms of enter tainment they normally get online or via smartphone There are so many ex amples but they have in common that the device or machine and the network it is connected to allow processes to be done more productively and remotely and with more intelligence so they save both time and money for the enterprise and can also be used to generate new service revenue Rommel says There s tremendous opportunity in asset tracking ser vice insight inventory management component counterfeiting prevention etc for industrial automation and manufacturing The home area net work will also be a hot spot of growth he says He expects energy manage
60. able value from social ana lytics if their specific target market or broader target market consists of a lot of people using social media Dickie says Businesses must have the tools people and processes implemented to fully take advantage he adds Just taking an ad hoc approach using the resources built into the insight tools that social network provide likely won t prove as successful as if using a good third party tool he says ESSENTIAL BUSINESS TECH EXECUTIVES PROFESSIONALS amp ENTREPRENEURS Email Management Strategies Implement Policies amp Encourage Individual Management Methods EMAIL HAS BECOME AN essential tool in every businessperson s arsenal It s a quick and easy way to send someone a message plus it doesn t re quire a face to face meeting or phone call to communicate with someone However due to the convenience of email many people are seeing their inboxes grow on a consistent basis often receiving dozens if not hun dreds of messages a day With most email services offering storage capacities of 5GB or more it s easy to see why email usage is get ting out of hand Without any guid ance or best practices to follow many employees are content to save ev erything until they hit critical mass For this reason and others compa nies need to find ways to not only improve their email management strategy as a whole but also en courage employees to use communi cation methods other than
61. actics lead to less email usage which in turn means less email to manage This works but it doesn t fix any cultural ignorance of tools or issues that may be the core nut to crack says Wynder The big institutional way to deal with this is for everyone to make the decision to email less Get up and talk to folks or pick up the phone Email is no sub stitute for actual conversation CONSIDER POMODORO OTHER METHODS Focusing on the individual there are multiple ways to address email without making it the center of your existence For instance the Pomodoro method is a good start says Wynder because it s about prioritizing emails based on your time investment to answer each one The technique calls for working for 25 minutes or so taking short breaks and then get ting back to work You can then de termine how many of those 25 minute chunks you should dedicate to read ing and responding to email Another method that doesn t re quire anything more than self con trol and time management is setting a routine to only check your email a few times throughout the day For instance you would check your email right away when you arrive at work and then again in two hour intervals the remainder of the time you are at work Then every other time you check messages you would either close your email applica tion entirely or turn off notifications so you are not tempted to break your schedule ADOPT A COMPA
62. ality is there from the beginning long before you deploy the application After the application is deployed and employees or customers are using it you can then gather feedback in order to make quick changes You avoid the snares and tangles of the app approval process that many ap plication storefronts use and instead add functionality on the fly whenever you see fit GET INSTANT TECH SUPPORT In addition to being able to add any new features and functionality you desire you also don t have to deal with contacting customer sup port to troubleshoot an application If you fully develop the application in house you simply need to turn to your internal team to address any issues And if you opted for a third party developer you can go directly to the source for potential fixes Of course providing your own customer service can be both a blessing and a curse so make sure you are well pre pared to handle the development de ployment and maintenance aspects of building your own app AUTOMATE TASKS Apps should make life easier for employees but sometimes that simply isn t the case It s impossible for any third party app developer to know the intricacies of your specific business processes so if you want to fully integrate an app into your ex isting infrastructure you may have to build it yourself You can use custom applications to automate tasks within your enterprise so instead of using pre existing software for ma
63. an it has been in the past In fact many cloud computing suites offer custom app building tools to add functionality to existing services Plus there is a variety of free or pay to distribute app builders available so you can tinker with the technology with little risk and only deploy an app if you find it completely fits your needs Not only can you tailor the toolset and overall functionality to match your business processes but you can also de sign the look and feel of the application for the best possible performance and user experience CUSTOM MARKETING APP Most large companies have applica tions designed specifically for public re lations and brand recognition but that doesn t mean that small to medium sized businesses can t join in Because apps are getting easier to build you could use an internal team or hire a third party developer to create a fun informative app that leads people to your website or simply puts your com pany s name in the minds of customers It s a way to market your company as well as give you a view of your adver tising ROI DEVELOP amp DEPLOY AT YOUR OWN SPEED Relying on a third party applica tion for important tasks can be incon venient especially if you re waiting for updates that are supposed to add the exact functionality you need One of the biggest benefits of building PCToday June 2013 45 your own apps is that you can make sure all of that essential function
64. anagement tools mean while provide control over network 48 June 2013 www pctoday com MOBILE OFFICE BUSINESS ON THE ROAD access and can identify device types Guest networks can be employed to grant access to unsecured devices PRIVACY CONCERNS One of the most difficult tasks companies face in adopting a BYOD policy is reaching a balance between the need to protect data and secure resources and meeting the privacy expectations of employees regarding the personal data on their devices Questions to address include how much personal data is the company entitled to collect and view who is authorized to monitor and view it and should personal data be con tained or separated from corporate data on the device General advice is to clearly spell out any decisions made regarding privacy in the policy make them aware to employees and obtain employees agreement and consent Many experts also recom mend seeking employees input be fore developing policy END USER SUPPORT One belief concerning BYOD poli cies is that because employees use devices they own they take better physical care of them are less likely to lose them and will take the ini tiative to solve problems themselves when they occur Still BYOD policies should outline which types of sup port if any the company will pro vide Considerations include exactly which support problems users are responsible for which support prob lems the company is r
65. and user requirements that you have under consideration However he also adds that policies should be broad to support technology but also be clear and specific providing guid ance and direction and that it s more important to focus on how employees use devices rather than determining what types of devices should be supported Battista agrees with Redman and says that the ultimate goal for companies should always be device agnosticism The reality today and this will be even truer in the future is that employees carry a variety of devices that suit their needs and allow them to do their jobs better Battista says The ideal state is being able to enable access to corporate resources from any of those devices without com promise Battista admits that this idea is easier said than done and that it s often more practical to start by supporting the most used de vices and then use that experi ence to make choices that could carry over to other devices as well Using this approach com panies could become more device agnostic over time and according to Battista it s not impossible to end up with support for almost any device Even if you do put yourself in a position to support virtually any device that doesn t meant you have to move to an all BYOD model or avoid being specific about your requirements For in stance Hafner points out compa nies could require
66. appli cations in order to better serve cus tomers or to meet specific internal needs You could for example build an out facing app that improves com munication between your employees and customers Or you could create a more in depth application that helps administrators monitor your compa ny s network or data If there is an unmet need in your company or even in your industry as a whole it can make sense to make your own appli cation to solve the issue We will high light what it takes to get the job done FOCUS ON THE IDEA Of course every app starts with an idea which usually grows from recog nizing that a process for getting some thing done is either lacking or could be improved If you think an app could help there are numerous specifics to consider before embarking on the app building process but first you should document what the app will do in its en tirety It might be easy to write down a sentence or two about the app and deem the idea solid but more is needed Draw out the idea to all imaginable conclu sions using a whiteboard for diagram ming if necessary to ensure the app s full scope is understood at the outset DEFINE YOUR AUDIENCE Identifying an audience for your app should be implicit when you draw out the overall app idea Broadly speaking an intended audience is ei ther internal company employees or external customers or others outside the company However as sometimes happens
67. applications easier scaling and a greater utilization of resources Two of the most prevalent benefits are the improvements in economics of the data center and the increased agility in responding to new workloads by deploying and redeploying them in a common resource pool Brech says The deployment redeployment replaces the old practice of bringing in all new infrastructure for every new workload Greatly reduced time to de ployment helps drive responsiveness and business value ultimately saving money Bowker says data center con vergence also relates to IT processes and policies Once you ve pooled re sources you can draw upon them much more efficiently than in the past he says It s ultimately being able to share the resources that may have been available in a siloed approach but you were unable to actually tap into them due to how they were configured and managed Drawbacks associated with data center convergence meanwhile can include those related to staffing You will have your network guy and your server guy and both of them know their own technology inside and out but they know very little about the other s technology because up until now they really haven t had to Maertz says With Convergence com panies will need people who know networking storage and servers and how they interact Maertz says com panies should expect to train staff to help align these traditiona
68. applications from desk tops to storage arrays and are par ticularly helpful because companies don t have to rely on the employee to start the encryption process One problem with self encrypting drives though according to Quin is that you have to make sure they can be centrally managed otherwise you run into a situation where users encrypt the drive and data in house forget the decryption key and es sentially lose all of the data That s why it s critical to back up your keys and keep them in a safe place Digging down from full hard drive encryption you ll find a tech nology called file based encryp tion which provides users with the ability to encrypt selected di rectories and folders on the com puter Wang Instead of encrypting an en tire drive you get to choose specific pieces of data Sherman and Wang write that a major benefit of file based encryption is that encrypted directories or folders remain en crypted even after the system boots and that decryption only happens when the user opens a protected file or a designated user authentication event occurs successfully But they also point out that this technology can be more complex to use than other alternatives so you ll have de termine whether or not it s a fit for your business requirements and for the employees who will be using it J according to Sherman and PROTECT DATA IN TRANSIT It s important to protect data at
69. ast year The CRA s annual Taulbee Survey notes that 2012 was the fifth straight year of increased enrollment in computer science studies Bachelor s of Science degree production was up 19 8 overall up 16 6 for departments that reported in both 2011 and 2012 marking the third straight year of double digit percentage increases Ph D produc tion was at its highest level ever according to the survey with 1 929 degrees awarded which amounts to an 8 2 increase from the previous survey More than half of graduates found a job in the industry less than 1 are unemployed and the rest are self employed or work in an aca demic or government position IN BRIEF TECHNOLOGY NEWS GIGAHERTZ SPEED HARD DRIVES TRY TERAHERTZ Hard drives rely on well estab lished magnetic memory read write techniques to store and retrieve data from spinning platters But imagine optic laser pulses switching the 1s and Os that make up binary data faster than femtosecond quadril lionth of a second at a time That s what researchers at the U S Depart ment of Energy s Ames Laboratory have been testing at lowa State Uni versity and the University of Crete in Greece The result would be a hard drive capable of terahertz speeds or With laser pulses interacting with hard drive data at incredible speed it s possible that future drives could operate quantum mechanically rather than thermally 1 000 times faster than today s gigahe
70. blishing a good looking online presence en tering listing data and ensuring that data stays up to date Founder Matt Barba leads the 16 person company which plans to use the new money to add more customer website themes 6 June 2013 www pctoday com on premises products for managing securing and enabling the sharing of all types of content M Files uses a metadata approach rather than using what M Files calls chaotic folders to store data sensibly One way to understand the M Files metadata powered approach is to look at the iPhone says Greg Milliken company president When you put music on the iPhone you don t put it in a music folder the device just knows 1t is music and it shows up where and how you expect it This is what M Files does for informa tion management Milliken suggests thinking of M Files as offering the combined power of Dropbox and Documentum but for enterprise scale businesses Bode Tree SMALL BIZ FINANCE STARTUP RAISES 1 4M Denver based startup BodeTree offers small businesses a service that syncs with QuickBooks and is designed to be straightforward enough for any small business to use Targeting business owners with a phobia when it comes to number crunching BodeTree promises to do the financial heavy lifting for its cus tomers with tools that help determine business worth success relative to competitors future strategy and more Now BodeTree has secu
71. ct development and closing the loop in some cases using analytics to ID customers who have fur ther insights on your product ce oo oo o ono oo onso no o ooo o nooo o o o oo o o ooo doing with traditional marketing re search Social analytics is also applicable for product development within the marketing realm in terms of learning what consumers want and don t want as well as their trends tastes and pref erences From a marketing standpoint there s a gold mine of information for helping refine segmentation and tar geting for assisting with new product development and closing the loop in some cases using analytics to ID cus tomers who have further insights on your product Dickie says Where cus tomer service is concerned he says so cial analytics can uncover for managers common defects and issues complaints customers are discussing concerning services products or the resolution pro cess itself Dickie says Elsewhere so cial analytics can help identify leads for company sales reps operating in the B2B environment REALISTIC EXPECTATIONS For numerous reasons companies should set realistic expectations when using social analytics For example Woo says like any market research social attitudes are often a point in time representation by a community Understanding changes in trends and attitudes can provide a sense of how customers and competitors are reacting to market chang
72. ction Traditionally audio is connected using the notebook s audio out jacks and the projector s audio in ports both of these are often RCA or 3 5mm If you re not using the projector s built in speakers make sure you connect your notebook s audio out to the sound system you intend to use and turn the volume down on the projector s speakers Mouse If you are using a mouse or a remote mouse controller make sure the controller mouse is connected usually through the notebook s USB port If you are using a wireless device make sure the notebook has the ap propriate wireless connection enabled This is typically Bluetooth or a USB port wireless dongle NETWORK CONNECTION Many venues supply network projec tors which are made available as a CID NOTEBOOK PROJECTOR Toubleshooting Tps Turn off all equipment before connecting the note book to the projector If possible use a digital connection to ensure a high quality presentation If you re not using the pro jector s built in speakers turn them down and con nect the notebook s audio out to the sound system 3 If you re using a wireless mouse or controller make sure you can establish the wireless connection Use the straightforward network connection feature in Win7 to connect to a net work projector If there is no video check all the ports and then check Windows Screen Resolution settings Out of ran
73. cture encryption too much and too often can result in a loss of data transparency Eric Ouellet research vice president with Gartner www gartner com says that you have to be judicious as to where you want to apply encryption and that you shouldn t just blindly encrypt ev erything because doing so can create circumstances under which you be come unable to search or index your It s just as important to protect data in transit as data at rest Consider using network encryp tion technologies e g VPN server to server encryption email encryption to prevent leakage of sensitive data PCToday June 2013 15 ESSENTIAL BUSINESS TECH EXECUTIVES PROFESSIONALS ENTREPRENEURS data Once you encrypt data it can t be viewed unless you use a crypto graphic key to unlock it By encrypting all of your data regardless of importance you will lose access to important information and essentially block any form of productivity That s why it s so im portant to sit down before you start encrypting and prioritize your data Once you do that you can pick and choose certain elements that you need to protect and find the tools that meet those requirements says Ouellet WHAT DATA SHOULD YOU ENCRYPT Companies store more data now than ever before and those data sets vary wildly depending on the industry and business approach The choice to encrypt certain data is much easier than the choice to en cr
74. dapters the more power the signal will retain en route eecececeeese eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee REDUCE INTERFERENCE If you live in an apartment building you re probably already aware of the effects of electromag netic interference on your Wi Fi network As your neighbors use Bluetooth devices microwaves baby monitors cordless phones and other gadgets that operate in 802 11b g n s 2 4GHz frequency your WLAN slows down to ensure that all your data will make the trip There are a few things you can do to combat interference short of wallpapering your home in alu minum foil If you have a dual band 802 11n router WAP and adapters that support 5GHz signaling for ex ample switch to that frequency The 54Gbps 802 11a was an earlier 5GHz standard If you can t switch frequencies at least you may be able to move your WLAN to a clearer channel Use a utility such as MetaGeek InSSIDer free www metageek net to check your local airwaves for usage per 2 4GHz Wi Fi channel usually labeled 1 through 11 or 14 InSSIDer will show you other WLANSs in your area color coded for clarity Look for a channel with the least amount of ac tivity on it and then enter your rout er s or access point s settings menu to switch your WLAN to the new channel CHECK YOUR HARDWARE Finally check the router manufac turer s website for a new firmware version Likewise update the drivers for the wireless adapters on
75. deration when choosing which displays best fit your company s needs Now that LED backlit monitors are mass produced their costs are coming down to below that of CCFL style monitors LED models are also less costly to operate because the LED technology uses less energy These factors alone will make the LED monitors more attractive to the budget conscious buyer GO GREEN WITH LEDS Applying the green label to a computing product is like saying a product is helpful because there are several ways to interpret this de scription In the case of LED backlit monitors business owners have at least two green advantages to keep in mind when making purchasing decisions power savings and eco friendly disposal Considering an LED monitor s thin and lightweight form factor a small and lighter packaging can lead to more efficient shipments and less e 000 0 000 0 00000000000 0 00000000000000000000000 0 0 0 Ce oc o ooocooo ooo o o o oo o o nc co ne o o o As our intergenerational workforce continues to consume media rich applications and rely on creative visuals to maintain productivity the need for monitors with appropriate brightness and accurate color reproduction is apparent e o o o nooo o ee etree eee ese eo oo eee eee eee eee reese eee reese material to dispose of Additionally lighter monitors give you more mounting options while a thin form factor will leave you with more
76. dergo a registration and authentication process before their users can access corporate resources Companies must also decide which apps are acceptable for use and if providing a corporate app store is worthwhile DATA SECURITY Preventing data leakage is un doubtedly a goal of every company that adopts a BYOD policy How to go about this however can differ drastically Various topics to address include what and how much corpo rate data employees can store on their devices how data will transmit over the corporate network restrictions for using corporate data on cloud based services multi factor authenti cation usage if and how to remotely wipe data in cases of lost or stolen devices and if an MDM mobile de vice management or MAM mobile application management solution is worthwhile Another key issue is the procedure the company will use when employees resign are fired or exchanges a device NETWORK SECURITY Beyond network capacity issues that adding scores of new devices to a corporate network will generate businesses must address concerns related to secure access malware prevention including malware infec tions in third party apps users in stall authentication encryption and more One solution is using an MDM tool to handle device Wi Fi configu rations as well as to provide mobility and security management abilities including connectivity and data flow management Many network moni toring and m
77. e the coating has shown promise in repel ling undesired water and oil based PCToday June 2013 49 deposits on multiple surfaces in cluding glass metal wood ceramics plastics and fibers Dr Guojun Liu one of the chemists responsible for the technology said that researchers were inspired by the lotus leaf which has given us a wonderful example of a self cleansing system designed by nature The university has partnered with manufacturer Lorama to commercialize the tech nology including for anti fingerprint and smudging applications NEW MOBILE OPERATING SYSTEMS You re already familiar with and probably an owner of a device run ning an iOS Android or Windows Phone It s time though to famil iarize yourself with other emerging operating systems of which there are many In addition to BlackBerry 10 there s the upcoming HTML5 based Firefox OS from Mozilla expected to run on lower end devices initially Sailfish from Finish based Jolla de vices are expected in 2013 s second half and Ubuntu Touch from Linux OS developer Canonical Among these Ubuntu Touch which will be aimed at smartphones and tablets re leases later this year has garnered considerable favorable buzz due to its Unity interface that relies on gestures and touches at the screen s edges to drive functionality INNOVATION VEHICLES If thinness is a trait you covet in smartphones and tablets turn your attention to
78. e expressing in online con versations This is particularly effective if the needs aren t explicitly defined he says For example people didn t ask for 100 calorie snack portions but they The core challenge is to ensure that you set clear objectives for 1t that tie to your business and not engage in social media for social s sake Susan Etlinger industry analyst Altimeter Group ce oo ooo o o ooo o o o o o e noo o e on o eee o oo did ask for lower calorie versions of the foods they liked to eat Rather than change products at least one company brainstormed the use of packaging to force smaller portions The second area is sentiment Here social analytics can provide an early warning system of customer dissatisfaction or problems with a product or conversely indicate a product is a hit and or could be more successful with certain modifications The third area is identifying customer support needs that demand attention before they become complaints and major problems CONNECTING WITH CUSTOMERS Another social analytics strength is its ability to help gauge immediate customer attitudes Etlinger says social analytics provides a window into what people are actually thinking and saying about a product company person or service Such information can help pin point and resolve customer complaints identify innovation ideas reduce op erational costs and maintain an on going dia
79. each of your computers if newer drivers are available Be sure to record all set tings before you perform an update because you may need to re enter them afterward BUY NEW If you have a suitable budget the most direct route to improving your network might be to purchase a new router and adapters with the latest 802 11n networking technology There are 150Mbps 300Mbps and even 450Mbps Wi Fi N products on the market They may offer more fea tures and or speed than earlier Wi Fi N routers and adapters not to men tion 802 11a b g devices Some 802 11n WAPs routers use two or three antennas in MIMO mode to transmit data faster and or more reliably at longer ranges And as we mentioned a dual band WAP or router can use 5GHz and or 2 4GHz frequencies Some can even maintain fast connections to Wi Fi N adapters on the 5GHz band even when slower 802 11b g legacy de vices are connected via 2 4GHz No matter what new equipment you buy the optimization tips out lined in the previous section will still apply They can help you maximize your new gear s wireless perfor mance right out of the box PERSONAL ELECTRONICS TECH FOR HOME amp LEISURE ASUS VIVOTAB SMART gt Running a full fledged version of Windows 8 the Asus VivoTab Smart 499 my asus com comes with a bevy of touch enabled Win8 and Asus software perfect for its 10 inch screen 1 366 x 768 resolu tion and productivity and entertainment tasks The
80. ease that if you need to says Nelson Typically it takes two to five days to increase physical resources and you can get virtual resources in 15 minutes or less like you can in the public cloud environment THE IMPORTANCE OF A HYBRID APPROACH Even if you decide that a pri vate cloud is the best fit for you and you can handle its unique challenges Sloan and Nelson both agree that most companies will want to use a hybrid cloud Is virtualization a private cloud Say you have some virtual infrastructure If we circle back to those attributes that make a private cloud does your virtual infra structure have them Where virtualization becomes a private cloud for an organi zation is really around automation and self service Is it automated and self ser vice to the point where if someone inside the company needs server capacity for a project can they go into an internal Web portal and say I need four processors and 500GB of memory and it s set up and available without a lot of intervention by IT If it s at that level of automation then I think it s fair to call it a private cloud Ce eo o ooo approach instead of relying on one over the other For example you could have a private cloud in house for your data and applica tions but then have the ability to burst into a public cloud for situ ations where an application starts to get to the ceiling of your internal cloud a
81. edicated so you know that in a private cloud envi ronment the virtualization infra structure is not shared with other tenants And to help separate the terms further Pingree stresses that virtualization does not have to include the cloud since expanding and contracting across physical compute is not necessary to virtu alize In essence virtualization is necessary for a cloud to exist but just because something is virtual ized doesn t make it a true cloud solution ce 0 0 2 o 2 o o 000000000000 0000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000m000000000000000000000000m0000000 0 0 000 0 00 Private cloud computing is more similar to what folks have been doing but it doesn t quite take advantage of cloud in the way that s going to differentiate it ce o oo cono eo non eee ees eee ee eee eee eee eee eee eres neos eee ee eee ono ceon en en n e ne eo ro eones oosonoc o oso coso o n o ono e o no ooo o o o eo e eee e e o e oo PCToday June 2013 9 ESSENTIAL BUSINESS TECH EXECUTIVES PROFESSIONALS ENTREPRENEURS OTHER BENEFITS 8 CHALLENGES OF PRIVATE CLOUDS One reason why private clouds are particularly helpful is that they move your data out of the multi tenant environments that public cloud services use which is im portant if you re concerned about security issues It s about ris
82. eer eee eo een eo o eonco con oe oe o 10 June 2013 www pctoday com ESSENTIAL BUSINESS TECH EXECUTIVES PROFESSIONALS ENTREPRENEURS have to make sure you re getting what you pay for She says that there are two different types of off premises private clouds virtual private clouds and hosted private clouds but that there s a lot of flexibility in the market about how dedicated these are Nelson says that the biggest thing a company can do when it starts using off premises private clouds is to ask questions because sometimes your storage is isolated and sometimes it is not A vendor may offer physically isolated pri vate clouds that are completely separate and on their own servers or they may offer virtually isolated environments that are separate from other clouds but may be in the same rack sharing resources For Nelson there are two huge benefits that come with using an off premises private cloud as long as you communicate well with your vendor The first is that you know the vendor has experience in keeping workloads up and run ning and how to spend money on updates to make sure they have the best infrastructure and end support for those resources says Nelson And the other is that you still get some form of flexibility even if you sign up for a three to five year contract You ll commit to a cer tain amount of physical resources but you have the ability to incr
83. ees to pass along to customers Here benefits can include quicker responses to inqui ries from customers partners and sup pliers an ability to place orders check inventory and access specific cus tomer details remotely implementing mobile centric customer self service ce o oo ncoon o o o oo o o o o o eo o o o o eocsocs o ns o o abilities such as tracking deliver ies visually presenting new products to customers and immediately shar ing notes regarding customer visits with colleagues THE CLOUD Mobile devices and cloud com puting services go hand in hand in helping employees leverage de vices to complete business related tasks An online storage service for example provides workers with an online space where they can up load access and share data from any Internet connected device For Ce no oo oononso ns sn oso Perhaps the most valuable aspect of adopting a mobile strategy is the enhanced service it allows employees to pass along to customers e o co eee eee ee sce eee eee re e oc nono oo o e o o ce e o coo eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee ese nos o ooo PCToday June 2013 51 MOBILE OFFICE BUSINESS ON THE ROAD ce 02 ooo o eee eee eee eee eee no ono eo o o o o enc oo po o oo oe o o on o eee eo HEE eo no oo o o oe oo oo ooo on eo 0000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000 0 The massive bank of product
84. employees to make sure their device s operating system is updated to a certain level before allowing it on to the net work It s also important to con sider the fact that not all jobs are a fit for BYOD and some positions may actually require a company issue device instead Where we see the segmentation occur is by the type of user says Hafner For the sales people or the executives I m going to provide them with devices and full cov erage and they can use it unlimited because we know they re using it to generate money for the com pany They re going to have access to a CRM system sales support MOBILE OFFICE BUSINESS ON THE ROAD Technology is going to get more power ful more varied and more integrated into every person s life Again keeping up with consumer technology and reevalu ating policies regularly are some things companies can do to prepare Device agnosticism is also important Companies that are locked in with a particular type of technology or vendor will find themselves with more barriers when the next big thing comes along possibly from an un expected source And because technology will be so integrated into everyone s life the next big thing will hit the enterprise faster than ever Mike Battista technology research analyst Info Tech Research Group e o oo o o eee eee eee ese ee eee eee eee see eee eee eee ese se system and we re going to put all of t
85. ent at least or something difficult to guess and even potentially unique even better So you may be wondering What separates a good password from a bad one And how if you heed the warnings about not using the same password for multiple web sites do you keep track of all the passwords you create BEST PRACTICES A password shouldn t be a simple word because hackers typically have software that can attempt thou sands of dictionary combinations And because some websites require a number in the password the au tomatic hacking tools typically add a single digit behind the common words and phrases Thus a pass word such as homed isn t any more secure than home Other unwise choices include passwords that in volve personal information that a hacker or someone with personal knowledge of you could have access to For example a last name a part ner s first name a child s name or a number combination that involves the birthday of yourself or a loved one is not advisable The best password would be a random combination of uppercase and lowercase letters and numbers The longer the string the harder the password will be to crack The down side is that the random assortment of characters isn t easy to remember so a long set of mixed characters isn t really practical Fortunately there are a few easy tips for creating complex passwords that are memo rable One common method is to use the fi
86. es updates and ad ditions but businesses shouldn t rely solely on social analytics Computers and technologies can help in many different ways but human intuition shouldn t be thrown out Any form of Ben Dickie research analyst Info Tech Research Group Co ono oo o o e n o ooo coo oo o o oo ooo oo o ooo analytics should be used to enhance de cisions not replace them he says While not perfect social analytics provides a guidepost into issues oppor tunities and trends that organizations should know Etlinger says Without it you re flying blind The core challenge is to ensure that you set clear objectives for it that tie to your business and not engage in social media for social s sake she says Further realizing benefits from social analytics can take time she says because you re collecting an entirely new data set with different interpretive conventions Thus Etlinger cautions that reason tolerance and acceptance of a test and learn approach is critical By nature Gillen says social analytics is skewed toward people who like to share opinions and won t capture at titudes of the silent majority That said social analysis can prove a more honest feedback form than a handpicked focus group he says Use it as one indication of sentiment but don t base major deci sions on it without doing more in depth research he says Overall companies will only see consider
87. esponsible for which employees are eligible for sup port only managers revenue pro ducers etc for example which apps the business will support and how users will make support requests IT S ROLE Initially at least adopting a BYOD policy can add difficulty for IT per sonnel in terms of increased responsi bilities where endpoint security data and application security user authen tication application management and network access and other issues are concerned Conversely a potentially significant benefit of implementing a BYOD policy is that it can lead IT from spending a lion s share of its focus on actual device management to spending more time on how it can enable employees to better ac complish given responsibilities For example rather than spending time remedying device issues something users will likely do more of them selves IT can focus more on exactly which apps and data specific users or groups require on their devices EDUCATION amp ENFORCEMENT Nearly all experts agree that for a BYOD policy to be effective the company has to not only make em ployees aware of the policy but ef fectively communicate the policy and ensure employees are notified of changes made to it Following training on BYOD procedures most advice suggests acquiring consent from employees before their enroll ment and participation Enforcement of the policy is also vital Companies must determine consequences if
88. estoration If nec essary the tapes can be used to restore older backups DAS DIRECT ATTACHED STORAGE A storage system that is directly con nected to a computer system without an intervening network is called a DAS The attached storage system sometimes called a DASD direct access storage de vice is most commonly used by indi vidual workers for extra storage small businesses and home users DLT DIGITAL LINEAR TAPE DLT is a common type of magnetic tape storage It became popular in the PCToday June 2013 33 ESSENTIAL BUSINESS TECH EXECUTIVES PROFESSIONALS ENTREPRENEURS mid 1980s and remains so albeit to a lesser extent today Tape storage in general has been rejected to some de gree over the past decade as organiza tions modernize their storage systems but there remains a strong market for tape as it provides a convenient and affordable medium for ongoing large scale backups HOT SWAP If you can remove or add a compo nent or device such as a hard drive in a storage system while the system is running the drive can be described as hot swappable The ability to hot swap equipment is vital to maintaining unin terrupted uptime in any system NODE In a computing network such as a LAN local area network or WAN wide area network a computer or de vice attached to the network is referred to as a node A storage device can there fore be a node on a network PARTITIONING Partit
89. for with tablets these days so if you re expecting a lot from a low end tablet you might be better off investing in newer smartphones PCToday June 2013 41 standard programs including business staples such as Microsoft Office this combined with computing power are what drive these devices to command higher prices If you are consider ing an iOS or Android device thor oughly investigate the corresponding app stores and the tablets hardware capabilities to make sure the range of apps and tablet power will meet your needs PROCESSOR The higher the processor s clock speed the better keep in mind though that most tablets have clock speeds slower than 2GHz It s tempt ing to sum up a processor s power based solely on clock speed but also consider the number of cores dual core is common now and quad core is becoming more so the cache if indi cated 1MB is fine but more is better and graphics processor capabilities which are important mainly if your employees work with high resolution images and video A lesser processor may work fine for an Android tablet but more powerful components over all are required to capably run Wins MEMORY When discussing mobile devices some users and vendors use mem ory and storage interchangeably depending on the context but these are two separate things As with RAM random access memory in a full sized computer the memory in a tablet determines how
90. g case for you notebook just place it in the NotePal U2 Plus and attach the included safety belt 62 June 2013 www pctoday com PC Today Sandhills Publishing Developer Page gt PC Today Tell a Friend gt What s New In This Issue Latest Issue Apr 06 2012 April 2012 Enterprise Storage Description PC Today is the essential guide to business technology for executives and company owners PC Today is a monthly magazine that helps you cut through the buzzwords and jargon and learn in concrete terms about the latest technologies tech More Category Business What s New in Version 1 0 1 Updated Jan 06 2012 Released Jan 07 2012 Version 1 0 1 Bug fixes to subscription process Size 1 7 MB Language English Seller Sandhills Publishing 2011 Sandhills Publishing Rated 4 i TR a WIRELESS DATA LOSS Wise BOTTLENECKS PREVENTION Requireme Compatible with iPad Requires iOS 5 0 or later TECHNOLOGY FOR BUSINESS Developer Web Site App Support SECURITY More iPad Apps by Sandhills Publishing sa ow The a blem Beto J The Affe t Y pad Certified Pie Lifestyle KKKKEK Get PC Today On Your iPad the essenta Anytime Anywhere Rens tara For Executives amp It s Free Easy Convenient Company Owners With the FREE iPad app you can read the latest issue of PC Today or catch up on back issues all at no charge The app includes an offline reading mode and both portrait and
91. ge costs for the vast majority of companies Email archiving is about managing risk Disk is cheap nowadays so defining email storage per employee has lim ited cost savings to most compa nies We have a saying at Info Tech Disk is cheap storage is expensive meaning that the space to store infor mation is easy to get but the strategy on why to store information is time consuming and expensive Wynder says companies will often assume that because they have terabytes of available storage they should just allow employees to keep everything He says this shouldn t Christopher Wynder Ph D consulting analyst Info Tech Research Group ce oooooo oo ooo con op o o o no coo o o ooo o be the case and that most em ployees should have a limited mail storage size of about 5GBs with an automatic prompt to move older emails to an archive location de pending on your obligations Wynder also adds that companies can separate employees into groups for easier management and compli ance For instance low risk employees that do not handle customer data or manage other employees can be put on a bulk schedule with a time frame of approximately seven years But if you have high risk employees that deal with sensitive data on a regular basis you need to consider stricter more formal systems This is about risk management says Wynder Regulators and judges frown on
92. ge messages can be solved by adjusting the screen resolution When a projected image isn t proportionally correct try repositioning the pro jector and or changing the projector s keystone setting If a display turns off during a presentation check the notebook s power manage ment settings If video isn t displaying cor rectly change the Display settings to make the pro jector the primary display BUSINESS TRAVEL 911 ON THE GO TECH SUPPORT shared resource Making a connection to a network projector is as easy as plug ging your notebook into the corporate network via wired or wireless Ethernet Check with the company s IT staff for specifics Once connected use the net work connection wizard in Windows 7 to find the projector you wish to use Click Start the Windows button in the bottom left corner of the screen Click All Programs Click Accessories Click Connect To A Network Projector The network connection wizard may inform you that your notebook s firewall is blocking the ability to connect with the projector Click to establish the network connection Either have the wizard search for available network projectors or enter the projector s address manu ally if it is available Once connected a Network Pre sen tation window will minimize to your Taskbar When you re ready to make your presentation open the Network Presentation window and select Resume Your notebook will treat
93. grate and manage these pieces In the past Bowker says the ap proach was to first think about how to manage servers and how to get analytics and performance measurements from them and then think about how to do the same for the network bandwidth and the storage system This approach Bowker says can lead to headaches in terms of having to troubleshoot or look at applications that have complexi ties that affect all three Convergence en ables using management tools that layer on top of the servers storage network etc and takes advantage of virtualiza tion to gain visibility and monitoring abilities and potentially set policy By converging data center resources businesses with the right management can take all of their IT infrastructure and make it into building blocks to solve different problems Anu Elizabeth Cherian analyst Frost amp Sullivan The problem with most business owners and especially IT leaders professionals is that IT is too focused on infrastructure rather than information Ben Woo managing director Neuralytix So being able to look at manage ment tools that actually layer on top and take advantage of what s already hap pening in virtualization have aware ness and have intelligence fed from servers network and storage be able to be visible and monitor and maintain and potentially set policy upon through a management tool is a key piece to ac tually moving
94. hard drive to a software glitch could slow down a PC Encryption just means that the pipe is secure It doesn t indicate whom you are talking to You could be talking to Doctor Bruce Schneier independent security expert and author ce oo oo o o ooo on o o ono ono o n oo o ooo ooo o o o oo If your browser says the certificate is in valid then don t go there especially if it is a sensitive site That serves as the primary warning that users should look out for Anton Chuvakin analyst Gartner eoeerece reese eee eee ees ee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee ese ooo Users should also be on the lookout for warnings and alerts from security software that flags unsecured Web pages or connections If your browser says the certificate is invalid then don t go there especially if it is a sen sitive site Chuvakin says You need to also watch for basic common sense signs of a MITM or any other kind of attack Just paying attention is good Schneier says I mean if you look at your bank statement and you sent 7 million to the Russian mafia then something is wrong The best an enterprise can do to ward off MITM attacks is to keep soft ware and anti malware updates cur rent and to make sure that security software and appliances are properly configured and monitored While MITM attacks can be understood by the layperson on a conceptual level assessing the intricacies of
95. harge cus tomers per product supplied he says INCREASED PRESENCE Currently Roy says M2M networks are primarily seeing usage in the auto motive telematics vehicle tracking and utility sectors though M2M wireless technology holds high business oppor tunities for mobile operators system integrators and solution providers Developed countries such as the United States Japan and the UK have a high demand for M2M solutions he says owing to the maturity of their cellular markets Different M2M wireless services are distributed over various types of ser vice providers and vendors Roy says M2M module vendors are acquiring other technological vendors to meet the varied customer requirements and to ensure effective product performance Further such sectors as security ser vice healthcare transportation con struction and energy depend on each other directly or indirectly As a result Roy says customers in the market de mand vertically integrated communica tion systems As market competition increases expect vendors to be more committed to providing reliable and comprehensive solutions that cover key verticals for improved and more effec tive device integration into the M2M ecosystem he says Overall as Hatton says the list of examples in which M2M is making or will make a mark in is almost end less This includes current examples involving the automotive industry re mote vehicle unl
96. he signal we get around the house isn t all that There may be a dead spot right over your dining room table depriving you of browsing online news over breakfast And the signal strength to your patio may be too weak to stream video especially when the baby s napping or someone is microwaving popcorn There are plenty of reasons why your home Wi Fi can be unreliable or slow making network backups take longer than necessary and causing other grief And in this age of Web based applications social networking and other developments an always on connection to the Internet is more of a constant necessity than an occa sional luxury Time for us to talk about opti mizing the performance of your WLAN wireless LAN We ll touch upon a number of no cost and low cost ways to get speedier more reli able performance BUCK UP LITTLE ADAPTER Who wants to spend money when you don t have to Let s start by dis cussing how you can make the most of your existing devices Avoid introducing slower devices Wi Fi is backward compatible For instance if you have a notebook with a Wi Fi N 802 11n 150Mbps adapter built in plugged into a USB port or in an expansion card it will work just fine with a router or WAP wireless access point that supports 11Mbps 802 11b and 54Mbps 802 11g However this connection won t ex ceed 802 11g s fastest theoretical speed of 54Mbps as 802 11g is the two devices least common denomi
97. he authentication test and establishes a connection between two endpoints A security hole in a website for example can be hijacked with a simple Java command or even through HTML text with the help of rogue software to lay the groundwork for the attack A very prevalent type of MITM attack is when someone hijacks a Web connection an analyst for Gartner www gartner com It executes a simple view your stocks online message to you and then executes a sell your stock and then send some money to Estonia 7 says Anton Chuvakin command to your bank ENCRYPTION ISN T EVERYTHING The main function of encryption is to create virtually impenetrable tunnels through which data transfers can occur Authentication protocols also play a key role to ensure that the person or computer on the other end of a connection is the right one But while encryption does indeed secure the connection so that it can be virtually impossible for a third party intruder to decipher the data without the encryption keys it does not guarantee authentication protec tion either even though that is one of its functions Still using encryption as a means to thwart MITM attacks is essential People break in through win dows but you still need to trust door locks Schneier says Encryption will not magically keep you safe just like a door lock will not magically keep you safe It is a security tool to use with other
98. he use case Because PowerWINDows don t rely on spinning blades to generate en ergy they are much quieter and safer to use than traditional wind turbines But Safaei and his team didn t stop their innovation at function They also focused on the design PowerWINDows are modular for easier manufac turing and transportation and they can be painted to match a building s exterior if aesthetics are important to a company according to Safaei The UOW has already signed a two year contract with an Australian engi neering company to build prototypes which will be used for testing and making improvements MOBILE OFFICE BUSINESS ON THE ROAD Better Mobile Management Embrace BYOD With Better Policies Clearer Communication LIKE IT OR NOT EMPLOYEES bringing their own devices to work is inevi table Smartphones and tablets are essentially extensions of the human being and are used extensively for both personal and work related purposes Many companies have al ready put BYOD bring your own device policies in place to help get more control over the devices that connect to their networks but there s always room for improve ment The important thing to under stand is that most employees aren t bringing these devices in to cause problems but rather to improve their productivity by using mobile devices with which they are more comfort able and familiar What I always like to tell the IT department is to remember that
99. hese applications on there so that the device is always ready to use and there are no games or any thing else on there that could cause problems for the device Then you may have another sit uation where an employee in the back office or factory floor wants access to their company email but they don t want to be tethered to a computer terminal Hafner says that in this case you could permit them to use their own mobile de vice but have them download an MDM client to protect company information Doing this lets the employee know that if there s a problem it s your problem to limit the organization s responsi bility over the device Hafner warns that while it s true that some companies can benefit from implementing BYOD to avoid any one time upfront hardware charges using a BYOD plan can backfire in certain situations For instance those same back office and factory workers that didn t eoeereece eres eee eee eee eee see eee eee eee ese ese ese eee reese see previously require mobile de vice support now have MDM cli ents on their devices that can cost the company anywhere from 30 to 50 a year to maintain That s an additional cost that wouldn t exist without the BYOD policy Organizations have to be careful then to determine in what areas to be flexible and what areas to be strict otherwise there is the poten tial of incurring unexpected costs STRIKE A BALANCE BETWEEN FLEXIBILITY amp
100. hive usually consists of data that is deemed worth keeping or that must be kept for regu latory compliance reasons and that is taken offline after it is archived Other copies of archived files can then be de leted and any files that are later needed from the archive must be retrieved by authorized personnel BACKUP Backing up data is the process of cre ating a copy of files that are currently in use and will remain in use A backup set contains the entirety of backed up files from one or more computers Backup sets are typically stored in a location away from the original data often com panies employ routines whereby data is regularly backed up and the backup sets stored in a secure remote location COMPRESSION Compression saves space in a storage system by reducing the amount of data stored without compromising the data itself For example compression can find identical data in a given file and retain just one copy of it replacing du plicates with references to the data that are much smaller than the data itself D2D2T DISK TO DISK TO TAPE In tape storage the D2D2T model uses disk storage as a backup reserve Backups are stored on disk and then transferred to tape for storage else where typically in an off site facility Because writing to and restoring from disk is more efficient than using tape the D2D2T model is useful because only the most recent backups are stored on disk for quicker access and r
101. iPhone s Mail accounts are set to push notifications so you get a heads up the instant an email arrives But to save your battery you might want to fetch at intervals of your choosing Access Settings tap Mail Contacts Calendars and Fetch New Data and move the slider adjacent to Push to Off Now you can use the interval settings below to deliver mail less frequently Bumping your mail fetch setting to Hourly will help a bit but fetching data manually can mean even greater battery savings To fetch new data manually tap Manually from the Fetch New Data screen Note that this disables the Find My iPhone feature If you re not inclined to fetch less often then consider limiting the email accounts that your iPhone checks To turn off an email account access Settings tap Mail Contacts and Calendars select an email ac count and then set the account to Off You can also delete an account by accessing Settings tapping Mail Contacts and Calendars selecting the unnecessary email account and tapping Delete Account PERSONAL ELECTRONICS TECH FOR HOME amp LEISURE Too Many Passwords simplify amp Secure Your Digital Life IN THE PAST COUPLE OF YEARS at tacks on Gawker com and LinkedIn resulted in hackers gaining access to millions of passwords The incidents have heightened awareness for the importance of using strong pass words as these and other websites have advised users to change their passwords to something differ
102. ies According to James Quin director of research with Info Tech Research Group www infotech com any time the potential exists for sensitive privileged or otherwise confidential information to be stored on the endpoint device whether it be a laptop or a USB key encryption should be considered For starters you should decide whether certain types of data actually need to be stored on those devices in the first place But if that potentially sensi tive data does need to be stored or accessed there then you need to be prepared to implement encryption solutions that will protect it FULL DISK ENCRYPTION SELF ENCRYPTING DRIVES 8 MORE Quin says the most common type of endpoint encryption is full disk encryption Full disk encryption takes all of the guesswork out of the process by encrypting every single piece of data stored on a hard drive whether it s just a few files or an entire operating system Full disk encryption is particularly helpful for business travelers because it is used most often with laptops The com pany doesn t have to worry as much about what data is on the drive be cause it can only be accessed by the person who has the key ESSENTIAL BUSINESS TECH EXECUTIVES PROFESSIONALS ENTREPRENEURS A similar piece of technology is the self encrypting drive but it s slightly different because the encryp tion process itself is automated Self encrypting drives can be used in a variety of
103. ill save you time when logging in to websites Another plus is that many of these programs support a variety of popular Web browsers in cluding Microsoft Internet Explorer Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome KEY PASSWORD MANAGER FEATURES Some password managers fea ture random password generators that are ideal for creating highly se cure passwords Once the program generates a password it saves the password and links it to the web site and username you prefer so TrueCrypt Volume Creation Wizard you never need to remember the complex sequence Another pop ular feature is automatic form fill where the password manager en ters your saved personal informa tion such as name address phone number or credit card number into Web forms Similar to the automatic password fill in automatic form fill can deter keyloggers from steal ing your personal identity You can also download pass word management apps for your mobile devices Some apps work in conjunction with an online service but in general such apps will at least provide a PIN or password pro tected space on your smartphone or tablet for securely storing passwords and other vital information THE DOWNSIDES OF PASSWORD MANAGERS Because you probably won t be physically typing in passwords very often it s much easier to forget your usernames and passwords And if you need to get into your accounts from several computers it may take extra time to do so
104. imum criteria concerning security controls in place thus providing a minimum level of assurance that a user can move to the cloud safely and securely If such standards are global in nature he says providers and Ce users globally will have a common language that defines a minimum level of requirements for services pro vided and the quality and security users can expect Further standard ization means performance among providers will be similar regardless of their location Cheang says Beyond unlocking interoper ability issues standardization will provide a standard baseline for how providers should operate particu larly with regard to service quality Cheang says Providers would have to differentiate themselves through customer service and additional ser vices provided From a macroscopic perspective Cheang says standard ization will reduce vendor lock in or at least it will facilitate users to switch providers Security wise Cheang says enu merating and defining security con trols with expected outcomes will make it easier to review providers that are certified to a certain stan dard in which security controls are open for inspection This was a pri mary reason he says for developing CSA s STAR Security Trust and As surance Register initiative which documents providers security con trols based on a CCM Cloud Control Matrix The CCM is a control frame work of security concepts and pr
105. in ciples mapped to major industry security standards and a CAIQ Many of these schemes aren t as rigorous or stringent as they could be effectively diluting the overall impact of cloud standards Richard Pharro chief executive officer APM Group Cr oo Consensus Assessment Initiative Questionnaire that transforms these security controls into a checklist of controls that a user can use to review the provider s security controls WHAT S BEING DONE Burton says that certification schemes such as the CIF s Code of Practice aim to shed light on key areas of concern and arm end users with data to help them make in formed choices about cloud adop tion The CIF s primary goal he says is to establish robust standards of transparency accountability and capability across the cloud industry To this end we work with cred ible cloud service providers to en courage best practices and advocate cloud adoption among end users by conducting impartial evidence based research on cloud related topics and sharing the resulting knowledge Burton says User education is vital he adds because cloud computing s relative newness still leads to mis understanding and confusion about cloud services Burton says currently numerous cloud bodies offer their own focus on standardization from a pseudo stan dards perspective whether that focus is on interoperability security or vendor specific best practice
106. in this direction he says Brech counts three front burner ele ments as fundamental components the first being an ability to disconnect the workload from the physical resources using some form of virtualization There are many levels of virtualization available some at the workload execu tion level in the OS and some at the IT resource compute network storage level The latter has become the focus of many consolidations he says The second element includes management tools for the shared infrastructure and an ability to operationally support the workloads Without a good plan and the right tooling the complexities of shared resources could eat deeply into the savings he says The last element is a real understanding of the workloads their resource needs their operational dynamics peaks and valleys of capac ity and the business SLA Q0S re quirements Brech says Many vendors PCToday June 2013 19 ESSENTIAL BUSINESS TECH EXECUTIVES PROFESSIONALS ENTREPRENEURS provide tools to assist in the workload analysis he says BENEFITS 8 DRAWBACKS Beyond potentially reducing the data center s footprint and saving costs converged data center infra structure can provide more flexibil ity for resources help avoid vendor lock in and enable the company to view the data center as a way to create value vs simply as an infrastructure Other benefits include quicker provi sioning of
107. inclusion of Win8 on this system means you can also run older desktop based software Productivity gets a boost from an optional TranSleeve Keyboard acces sory 129 99 that provides a Bluetooth keyboard stand and protective cover Beyond Bluetooth 4 0 the tablet which weighs just 1 28 pounds and measures 0 38 inches thick includes NFC support 64GB onboard storage access to Asus cloud storage dual speakers 1 080p video re cording 2MP front and 8MP rear facing cameras and solid connectivity options micro HDMI micro USB card reader and 2 in 1 audio jack ports Reportedly a 4G VivoTab Smart version is planned PCToday June 2013 61 PERSONAL ELECTRONICS TECH FOR HOME LEISURE CORSAIR FLASH VOYAGER GT USB 3 0 64GB FLASH DRIVE There are your typical flash memory sticks and then there s the Corsair s Flash Voyager GT USB 3 0 64GB As Corsair states standard USB 3 0 flash drives are fast but the Flash Voyager GT 104 99 www corsair com takes matters up a notch with transfer speeds that are about 2X faster than standard USB 3 0 drives and 8X that of USB 2 0 drives That means waiting for files to copy is a thing of the past USB 2 0 compat ible the drive comes wrapped in Corsair s proprietary rubber housing to provide water resistant and shock proof traits Functionality wise the drive supports Windows Mac OS X and Linux systems without driver or software installations required CA
108. individual applications are eating up Android provides a way Go to Settings Device and then Battery This menu will not only show you how much battery life remains but also the amount of battery life each app is consuming This information should give you a solid foundation for where to cut down on power hogging apps For instance if you leave your Bluetooth or GPS features turned on 100 of the time it s going to drain your battery much faster than if you only turn them on when you need them You should also consider connecting to a Wi Fi network when possible but not leaving the feature turned on when you re out of Wi Fi range Also try dim ming the brightness of your display KEEP UNWANTED APPS OFF THE HOME SCREEN By default when you install an app it auto matically adds a shortcut to your home screen That s handy for many of us because it pro vides easy access to our apps But if you re a power user or you have tons of apps installed you may not want your home screen to get cluttered or to be automatically re arranged To turn off the auto add feature launch the J 2 A 7s d Google Play store Tap Menu Settings and e uncheck the Auto Add Widgets option PCToday June 2013 55 DIM YOUR SCREEN FOR LONGER BATTERY LIFE gt You may have noticed that your iPhone s default screen brightness is well bright It s so bright you could probably use it as an emergency light the next ti
109. ing mat and then passing the charge to a Qi enabled smart phone placed back to back with the tablet There s no word to date con cerning availability though Fulton Innovation and the Wireless Power Consortium which backs the Qi standard are reportedly working toward that goal MOBILE OFFICE BUSINESS ON THE ROAD Go Mobile 10 Keys To Employee Mobility THERE S NO ARGUING that mobile devices mobile solutions and mo bility in general have permanently changed how companies and work ers conduct business The harsh re ality for companies yet to arm their employees with mobile devices and solutions is that the longer they wait to do so the farther they fall behind the competition The following are 10 key benefits related to companies embracing mobility WHENEVER 8 WHEREVER Arguably the most frequently cited benefit of bringing mobile devices into the workplace is the ability it pro vides employees to work at any time and from any place Beyond the con venience this provides employees in terms of working from a hotel room airplane seat home office and just about anyplace else where an Inter net connection is available various research concerning business mobility topics strongly suggest companies ex perience improved levels of worker ef ficiency and employee job satisfaction CUSTOMER SATISFACTION Perhaps the most valuable aspect of adopting a mobile strategy is the en hanced service it allows employ
110. ioning is the division of a hard disk drive into multiple designated portions called partitions The exis tence of multiple partitions on a drive means that the drive can be treated STORAGE CAPACITIES One thing that has definitely changed over the years is storage capacity Whereas a decade ago we talked mostly about giga bytes it s now common to refer to terabytes and look ahead to zettabytes which is the equiva lent to 1 125899 x 10 megabytes Here s a quick look at what these storage capacity terms amount to 1 024 megabytes 1 gigabyte 1 024 gigabytes 1 terabyte 1 024 terabytes 1 petabyte 1 024 petabytes 1 exabyte 1 024 exabytes 1 zettabyte 34 June 2013 www pctoday com as if it were multiple drives Different operating systems and file systems can then be run on different partitions of the same drive and certain system files can be kept on partitions separate from those dedicated to user storage these are just some of the many ways to use and benefit from partitioning PROVISIONING In a storage system serving multiple computers such as one that is part of an enterprise network serving many workstations provisioning is the pro cess by which incoming data is matched in the most efficient manner possible with available storage capacity Storage servers offering automated or auto nomic provisioning features accomplish provisioning automatically reducing the level of storage management re q
111. ivity tools available in the form of free and paid mobile apps helps workers do everything from tracking expenses to organizing customer contact lists e oo ooosSs e o o oo c e e o ne nee o eo nc e po o o oo e o o eo pnc oe o eo o o po o o eo en eo so osoos os o o p o e eon o o o e e e con o o ooo business owners and IT mean while cloud services can offload the burden of various day to day infra structure responsibilities so that they can devote more time and resources to planning and launching new rev enue making initiatives including mobile ones ENHANCED MANAGEMENT Especially among smaller busi nesses mobile devices offer consid erable potential when it comes to managing business details while in the field In addition to placing and tracking orders on mobile devices for example users can access in voices contracts forms payments and other pertinent data related to clients partners and customers as needed Beyond reducing operating costs such management abilities can improve the accuracy of gathering and sharing of such information IMPROVED COMMUNICATION Customers forced to suffer through multiple transferred calls being put on hold and sent to voice mail and other obstacles to communicating di rectly probably won t be customers long In addition to making em ployees accessible to customers at any time and from any place mobile de
112. k tolerance and looking at the risk of this particular application and this data and whether you can tol erate having it in a multitenant environment says Sloan In a multitenant environment there could be risks to the data But in a private cloud you might be able to have more control over that ap plication because you basically own the whole sandbox and you make sure it gets what it needs Pingree agrees and recommends the private cloud for companies that require stringent compliance mandates or those that wish not to share their compute resources with others Another area where private clouds have a leg up over public cloud alternatives has to do with specific workloads that have a lot of consistent usage over time ac cording to Nelson She says that many organizations will move ap plications out to the public cloud only to bring them back to a pri vate cloud environment shortly thereafter The reason for this is because the longer you keep data or applications in the cloud and the higher your capacity is the more expensive the solution becomes It looks cheap when you re buying it in increments but when you look at the yearly costs it s actually more expensive than doing it your self says Nelson The benefit of on premises is that a customer can continue to maintain control of their entire environment while still getting the cost efficiencies of distrib uting and maximizi
113. landscape viewing Available on the Download the PC Today iPad app from the Apple Newsstand in iOS 5 the Apple App Store on your A Dp Dp Sto re iPad or www itunes com appstore on your computer Office In The Cloud LEVERAGE THE WEB JUST AS THERE ARE NOW virtual or cloud based versions of software and storage solutions that used to be firmly entrenched in physical servers and desktops there are now Web versions of Microsoft s widely used Office products Word Excel and other Office programs are included in a hosted service called Office 365 office365 microsoft com But as familiar as you may be with the functional ity of traditional Office products there are plenty of new capabilities features and collaborative possibili ties to explore in the Web based eevee e eee ee eee eee eee ee eee woe e eee eee ee ooo co e o o version We offer some practical tips and how to steps to will help you advance from novice to experienced Office 365 users gt CUSTOMIZE YOUR PUBLIC WEBSITE If your company uses SharePoint Online you can update or add pages to your Public Website whether you re in the office or on the road Click the Page tab and select Edit to start mak ing changes to an existing page say to add new information and photos for a new product update a schedule eevee ooo eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee see eee eee eee eee eee e o If your company uses SharePoint Online you can update
114. life per charge Also keep in mind that usage determines battery life so although an advertised 12 hour battery life sounds great it might not take into consideration heavy wireless video or graphics usage Most tablets use a lithium polymer battery that de pending on overall device hardware and usage will last between 4 and 18 hours per charge PORTS amp EXTRAS Tablets are notoriously light on ports so make sure the tablets you buy have the quantity and type of ports necessary for your employees Standard 3 5mm headphone jacks are common as are HDMI and USB but keep in mind that these aren t all the same there is HDMI vs Micro HDMI for example as well as Micro USB vs full sized USB and older USB stan dards vs the newer USB 3 0 In fact there are far more port differences than these Tablet extras to consider include built in speakers and micro phones most have these cameras many have them but they vary in functionality and quality choose carefully if videoconferencing is im portant security features such as biometrics and face detection and detachable keyboards MOBILE OFFICE BUSINESS ON THE ROAD pc TAMPA VENG rs SACA BN THE UNITED ST ATES OF AMERICA Ue a F S544 ww270008 Y F54 4270088 N O ta hes Ave a A oP hy La p ee ae KD AR 3 Get Your App To Market From Concept To Distribution THESE DAYS MANY companies are opting to develop their own
115. lly siloed roles with the new reality of converged 20 June 2013 www pctoday com You will have your network guy and your server guy and both of them know their own technology inside and out but they know very little about the other s technology because up until now they really haven t had to Jenna Maertz Consulting analyst Info Tech Research Group Once you ve pooled resources you can draw upon them much more efficiently than in the past It s ultimately being able to share the resources that may have been available in a siloed approach but you were unable to actually tap into them due to how they were configured and managed infrastructure and a broader role of data center administrator Companies can avoid some draw backs by planning the transition to converged infrastructure For example Cherian says If you cannot easily add new resources without signifi cant redesign to your converged data center companies will have long term problems Additionally if existing applications are especially reliant on one compute resource vs another the converged environment design should account for this Brech also advises conducting a good analysis of middleware stacks so as to ensure that your company doesn t break SLAs when converging THE VENDORS Woo believes that any infrastructure vendor that claims to be just a storage networking or server vendor will be irrelevant within
116. logue with customers through the awareness to advocacy stages Identifying blind spots or issues that companies might not have detected via call centers or other service channels is another possibility she says Detecting customers the business wants to reach out to including dis satisfied ones to follow up with is also possible Dickie says For example iden tifying a consumer s tweet about a bad experience with a company could lead to routing the tweet to the appropriate department creating a service ticket for a response or reaching out directly with assistance PCToday June 2013 25 ESSENTIAL BUSINESS TECH EXECUTIVES PROFESSIONALS ENTREPRENEURS Beyond customer relationships social analytics also lends itself to some unex pected uses including recruiting talent Social analysis can be both a shield and a sword Woo says The prevalence and number of social networks means though a company may do analysis on one network more representative senti ments may be appearing on other net works he says Also enterprises need to understand that human nature is such that we are more prone to express our dislikes than to necessarily advertise our likes he says Social media is also viral he says so something impacting customers regionally could spread and taint customer attitudes broadly Businesses often also find there s as much value in listening to conversa tions about their competitors
117. ly aware of the scope and coverage of any ESSENTIAL BUSINESS TECH EXECUTIVES PROFESSIONALS ENTREPRENEURS certifications the provider holds Pharro says Currently Pharro says the most promising cloud standard in development is ISO IEC SC83 which aims to introduce a universal best practice standard for cloud computing He cautions that as with all ISO standards development can be slow to materialize due to the level of consultation and consen sus required THE NECESSITY FOR STANDARDS As with any new market says Andy Burton CIF chairman there are credible capable professional and well intentioned vendors and there are those looking to make a quick profit and whose public claims will not pass the test of scrutiny The challenge for end users is dis cerning credible suppliers from the cowboys by considering a so lution s security stability effective ness and reliability he says This is where standards have a sig nificant role to play Organizations need reliable consistent and clear information around what the ser vice providers do and don t offer Burton says Users must also know what process and operational sub stance is behind providers and the assurances in place to deliver ser vice levels and effective security he says Cheang says standardization helps clearly define the required quality any cloud provider must offer Security wise standardization details the min
118. ly fast data transfer and retrieval times which are limited mainly by a computer sys tem s I O input output capabilities rather than the SSD itself relatively small size and low power consumption SAN STORAGE AREA NETWORK Now extraordinarily common in enterprise settings SANs are used to connect multiple hosts to multiple stor age devices in order to accommodate the storage needs of many servers and workstations sharing the same net work A SAN has the complex job of co ordinating the flow and storage of data between servers and workstations net work devices such as switches and bridges and different types and models of storage devices such as hard disk based systems and tape libraries STORAGE VIRTUALIZATION Storage virtualization involves the abstraction of logical storage the desig nated portions of physical storage that appear as a cohesive whole but may in fact be partitions of a disk or storage pools that may span multiple storage devices from physical storage the ac tual hard disks for example In terms of what end users generally experi ence in enterprise settings the result of storage virtualization is that a collection of many logical volumes and storage devices which can include different types of storage devices from different manufacturers are invisible simply ap pearing as one huge drive on the corpo rate network viewed for example in Windows Explorer Storage virtualiza tion pr
119. mately better to have this as an internal resource because you can manage it and are in full com pliance he says But a smaller company may decide that it can manage this stuff internally but they can t guarantee the same level says Sloan In that case a smaller company can J as an enterprise invest in an off premises private cloud where they have more con trol over the infrastructure but still have enterprise level skill and sup port from an experienced third party provider Off premises solutions are also great for adding capacity on a more permanent basis You may already have a private cloud in place but you want to add even more capacity without expanding or building more infrastructure says Sloan You can still get the scalability of the cloud without leaving your sensitive data or ap plications vulnerable to attacks When it comes to off premises solutions Nelson warns that you e 1 o o o eee eee ee ee eee eee osos o o o c o eo no o o no eeoo neo ono o e o e o ono o eo eo oOo EHH HEHEHE HHO OHM HOBO EEE OBE OHO EEO HOO HPO HDHD o OHO OTHE HOHE EOE HOHE HO BHO OHO oO OBE OEE OD The main reason that people go to the private cloud is because it s easier and closer to home ce oo oononr o eo o nn ne esc eee eee eee nee e seer eso e eee eee eee reese sesreseree nens o oo sons e oo n nono eo o oe o eo nono eoeooso ee ees eresereeee
120. me Spent on iOS amp Android Connected Devices Android Native 4 Opera Mini 2 A Games 32 the mobile Web om ox A The graphic at the Productivity 2 mamm News 2 righ illustrates the Tom A DEORE AE split Utility 8 Facebook 18 and also gives an indication of how we spend our time using our smart phones and tablets FLUAAY BIG FORCES SHAPING INFO MANAGEMENT gt Growth in information volume ve locity variety and complexity are cre ating new challenges for information management according to research firm Gartner making the process much more difficult Information is one of the four powerful forces changing the way busi ness is done says Regina Casonato managing vice president at Gartner with huge amounts of value and po tential liability locked in ungoverned and underused data Here are some top technology trends impacting informa tion infrastructure according to Gartner Big data new and existing offers real business benefits Tech infrastructure needs to help information producers and consumers organize and share any type of data anytime Semantic technologies help extract meaning from data Logical data warehouse architec ture has been relatively static for years but is evolving and forcing companies to rethink how data is manipulated Entertainment 8 Source Flurry Analytics comScore NetMarketShare ENTERPRISES NOT PREPARED FOR SURGE I
121. me the power goes out But if you re going to use it in an emer gency or for anything else it must have battery power and that bright screen is sucking your battery dry To reduce screen brightness and extend battery run time tap Settings and Brightness Set Auto Brightness to Off and use the slider to lower screen brightness AUTO LOCK TO SAVE BATTERY LIFE To maintain a longer battery life per charge on your iPhone lock the phone when not in use by pressing the physical lock button on the top right corner of the de vice You might think it would help to power off the phone every time you don t need it but the startup process is particularly taxing on the battery It s typically best to auto lock the device To do this tap Settings General and Auto Lock and specify the amount of time you want to lapse before your iPhone automatically locks itself we MA a Me gt Ya 17 56 June 2013 www ctoday com MOBILE OFFICE BUSINESS ON THE ROAD iOS Mail Fetch New Data EN New data will be pushed to your iPhone from the server Fetch Push The schedule below is used when push is off or for applications which do not support push For better battery life fetch less frequently Every 15 Minutes Disable Push to l lighten your Every 30 Minutes battery s Manually Y CHANGE MAIL SETTINGS MAKE YOUR BATTERY LAST LONGER By default your
122. mitigates that need ce oo coo nono oo cs no non oo o noo o o o oo oooo o oooo their own internal data This can be intellectual property and related documents and files that could be used by a third party to replicate your products or gain a competi tive advantage But you also must consider your employees because a significant amount of personal em ployee information is stored within the organization In their report Market Overview Endpoint Encryption Technologies Q1 2013 Chris Sherman and Chenxi Wang Ph D write that human resources handle employee records that contain PII and PHI protected health information and thus are subject to the same data privacy and protection laws as cus tomer data For example many companies use a direct deposit system to pay their employees elec tronically which means that they have hundreds or thousands of bank account numbers on file It s just as important to protect that financial information as it would be to protect a customer s credit card number as compromised data in these areas can cause a similar level of damage to the company It s also important to look at how many devices are deployed in your organization at any given time and determine whether or not those are vulnerable to attacks from outside James Quin director of research Info Tech Research Group ce oo coo os o o o o ooo o o o o o oo ooo ooo part
123. n gt Right click a blank area on the Desktop Select Screen Resolution Select the display associated with the projector Use the resolution drop down menu to adjust the resolution to the correct value Try 800 x 600 or 1 024 x 768 as these are resolutions that many projectors can handle DISPLAY TURNS OFF If the projector s display turns off during your presentation check your notebook s power management fea ture especially if you re running the notebook off of its battery Whenever possible use your AC adapter to run your notebook gt VIDEO WON T DISPLAY OR IS CHOPPY Your slide presentation works fine but when you try to show a video all you see is a blank window or a choppy rendition of the video Trying to display a video on two monitors can be too much for a video card that has marginal graphics capabilities If video isn t dis playing correctly change the Display settings to make the projector the pri mary display PCToday June 2013 67 PowerPoint Tips For ADDING CHARTS amp GRAPHS THE SCENARIO IS FAMILIAR to traveling professionals your PowerPoint presen tation is all set when new and relevant information comes to light and must be added If you re on the road or in the sky and find yourself having to add charts or graphs to a PowerPoint presentation this article will help We include tips designed for PowerPoint novices and adept PowerPoint users seeking specific chart
124. n Current Analysis principal analyst for enterprise mobility www currentanalysis com M2M connects all types of devices and machines to a network generally but not necessarily a cel lular one so the machine can send an array of useful status information to a central or cloud based server an enterprise generally owns The en terprise can then process the data and use it to not only be better informed about whether the device is working but also about its environment via for example gauges that measure the current and likely future health of the machine she says Rituparna Roy TechNavio marketing manager www technavio com describes PCToday June 2013 21 ESSENTIAL BUSINESS TECH EXECUTIVES PROFESSIONALS ENTREPRENEURS M2M networks as those in which elec tronic devices communicate with each other through a wireless medium to capture an event and relay it via a net work This communication does not require human interference he says Machines and devices permit wire less access when they are linked to a separate M2M communication ter minal incorporated into a wireless M2M module or when wireless chip sets are integrated into them at the design stage Roy says these cellular M2M modules are classifiable accord ing to the technology such as 2G mod ules 3G modules 4G modules and so on The cellular part of the M2M equa tion is important Weldon says be cause a lot of this data
125. n desktop computers mo bile versions of BI solutions enable traveling salespeople to keep tabs on every scrap of information available about their clients These solutions are also useful on the sales floor as they allow employees to immedi ately access product information check inventory provide add on rec ommendations and gather informa tion based on customer requests MOBILE OFFICE BUSINESS ON THE ROAD A i 4 N 9 o f Smartphone Tips Power Saving amp Streamlining Advice STOP LOADING MOBILE WEBSITE VERSIONS gt One of our pet peeves is being forced to accept mobile versions of websites One of the reasons to have a modern smartphone is it has a full featured Web browser that can easily handle standard versions of websites But even after you make your selec tion many websites continue to force the sometimes diffi cult to navigate mobile ver sions of their sites on you You can stop the in sanity by selecting Settings Applications and Internet Explorer Tap to change from Mobile to Standard browser WINDOWS PHONE CLEAR BROWSER SEARCH HISTORY There are many reasons to delete the search history from your Windows Phone 7 smartphone They can range from protecting corporate secrets to hiding the embar rassing results of a seemingly innocuous search phrase No matter the reason deleting search history is a snap Bring up Settings then tap Applications Search
126. nd wireless communications to transmit data that may or may not be based on the vehicle s location has come a long way Initially used mainly for roadside assistance services and per forming diagnostic tests remotely telematics is now the foundation for a host of in car apps and infotain ment systems According to Juniper Research app capability will expand to reach one fifth of all consumer ve hicles in developed North American and Western European markets by 2017 Furthermore Juniper forecasts that current services that are gaining in popularity such as smartphone tethering will help drive down the cost of manufacturer embedded telematics infotainment systems Juniper also sees telematics pro viders benefiting in relation to big data as it collects valuable informa tion from vehicles PCToday June 2013 5 IMAGE COURTESY U S DOE Ames LABORATORY IN BRIEF TECHNOLOGY NEWS STARTUPS STARTUP M FILES SECURES 7 7 MILLION Already well on its way to be coming a major player in the ECM FACEBOOK GETS INTO MOBILE DEVELOPMENT gt Mobile app development tools are nothing new but Facebook s deci sion to offer its own mobile devel opment solutions represents a move Flexible document and c deployment options that on premise cloud and F enterprise content management business startup M Files recently got some help in the form of 7 7 mil lion in Series A funding led by DFJ Esprit with o
127. nd requires more capacity for a limited amount of time You can also create a balance where low risk data is stored on a public cloud and high risk data is placed on a private cloud but you can still manage them with a single pane of glass says Sloan And if you re interested in off premises solutions you re in luck because as Nelson explains off premises solutions can often have the same interactive quali ties as an internal private cloud to an external public one creating that necessary hybrid approach Companies can make sure that their off site public and private clouds housed in the same data center so that some resources John Sloan lead research analyst Info Tech Research Group e oooooonsos po oo oo o o o o o on o o n o ononsososos in one environment can interact greatly with a resource that it s in the public cloud says Nelson The key to using cloud computing correctly is to take advantage of the unique benefits of public and private environments while trying to minimize any potential disad vantages Organizations trying to make a decision about how to approach cloud should not think Am I going cloud or private They should be thinking about spe cific workloads and what they re trying to get done says Nelson It s looking at the public cloud as an opportunity for innovation for specific variable workloads and looking at the private cloud as Is this going t
128. ng compute and use of company specific security controls In a public cloud the customer does not own the infrastructure therefore they are dependent on the operations and administration of the external party ce oocoo nono oo o oono o o ooco coo s o o oo oooo ooo o oooo Unfortunately doing it your self with a private implementa tion can also lead to losing many of the benefits associated with the cloud in general Nelson says that with a private cloud environment you become the cloud provider which means you will be running and managing that infrastructure And in addition to have more re sponsibility over the cloud itself you also lose the cost saving ben efits of elasticity You re doing more and you don t get the benefit of when you re not using your re sources says Nelson You pay for all of the capacity all of the time even when it s not in use OFF PREMISES PRIVATE CLOUD SERVICES We have discussed on prem ises solutions and how having the cloud in house provides you with full control over the entire stack not only with the virtual in frastructure but with the physical infrastructure underneath it says Sloan But internal private clouds simply aren t a possibility for all Lawrence Pingree research director Gartner c oo co no o oo o o e oc ooco o oo o oooooo oo o oo companies For instance a larger company may find that it s ul ti
129. ng of re sources It s essentially taking your existing internal infrastructure and applying some key cloud like fea tures so that it has similar function ality to a public cloud but within your own internal data center But there s more to the process than commoditizing the hard ware implementing virtualiza tion and setting up a Web portal You also need to make sure the governing software is capable of handling your private cloud needs There are a lot of private cloud software solutions out there and so the first step is using one of them rather than reinventing the wheel and trying to create your own solution says Nelson She adds that another common mistake Lauren E Nelson analyst Forrester Research ce 1 0 oo o o ooo ooo ooo on o o o oe o o oo companies make is not enabling all of the capabilities of the soft ware so in essence companies are implementing virtualization cor rectly but not putting self service access for end users and automatic provisioning place They re not completely automating their pro cess and because of that they re not getting down to that 15 minute deployment time that you get with a private cloud Nelson says Lawrence Pingree research di rector with Gartner www gartner com explains that virtualization is the underlying technology that makes clouds possible He also adds that the word private re ally just means d
130. ngs that aren t working correctly you open the opportunity for a com petitor to get in there and create an app that actually offers that il MOBILE OFFICE BUSINESS ON THE ROAD iI IN i nu fi jli iil Why You Need An App Top Reasons Businesses Create Their Own Apps COMPANIES SOMETIMES GET FRUS TRATED with available applications and wish they could build one of their own The problem is that it s often costly to develop your own apps and in many situations it s a better idea to hire a third party developer However if you have the means and experience to develop and build your own applications then there are a few solid reasons to take that route THERE ISN T AN EXISTING APP THAT MEETS YOUR NEEDS Jost Hoppermann vice president and principal analyst with Forrester Research www forrester com says that one of the main reasons why companies build their own applications is because there is no single off the shelf business application available that provides the broad required functionality without a lot of customization integration or both He says that many companies avoid building their own apps due to development costs but that developing your own apps may not be more ex pensive than larger scale customiza tion and upgrades for existing apps when you look at the total lifecycle cost WHY NOT It s much easier to develop mobile applications today th
131. not being able to fulfill eDis covery requests My point of view is that IT should follow the eDiscovery Reference Model for designing their email archive needs We advise cli ents that the benefits of adopting this process and having the appropriate archive technology can save money and enable users to find informa tion better ESSENTIAL BUSINESS TECH EXECUTIVES PROFESSIONALS amp ENTREPRENEURS Man In The Middle Attacks What They Are amp What You Can Do About Them HUMAN RESOURCES PERSONNEL fol low the company s security protocol to the letter A very strong 15 char acter password is used to log on to the cloud provider s server through its website Before sensitive employee data is uploaded to the cloud server the security software has flagged no warnings about the Web interface The URL address begins with https indicating that either the TLS Trans port Layer Security or SSL Secure Sockets Layer protocol is encrypting the connection But what the HR per son does not know as the data up loads is that a malicious attacker is at the other end of the connection seeking to broker the information he gathers to identity thieves The attack er has also received the encryption keys from HR to access other com pany data on the cloud provider s servers for an even bigger score The next day after attempting to log on to the storage provider s Web interface and calling to report the problem
132. nsactional tablet banking services Report author Nitin Bhas says consumers often prefer to manage transactions via tablets rather than smartphones adding With online payments accounting for a significant proportion of all bill payments espe cially in developed markets BPP Bill Presentment and Payment transactions will indeed migrate from the desktop towards tablet devices GARTNER IT S TIME TO START EXPERIMENTING WITH 3D PRINTING 3D printing is disrupting the de sign prototyping and manufacturing processes in a variety of industries Gartner reports If your enterprise isn t already testing the technology as a way to improve product design and proto typing it s time to start 3D printing is seeing mainstream adoption says Pete Basiliere research director at Gartner including both futuristic ideas and de scriptions of exciting current uses in medical manufacturing and other in dustries The hype leads many people to think the technology is some years away when it is available now and is affordable to most enterprises he says Prices have come down to the point where any size business can in vest in them Gartner reports COMPUTER SCIENCE ENROLLMENTS UP ABOUT 30 LAST YEAR Astonishing That s one word re searchers at the Computing Research Association used to describe the 29 2 increase in new undergrad uate computing majors at computer science departments in the United States l
133. ntation pur poses These fine tuning tools are lo cated in the Labels pane of the Layout tab on the Chart Tools contextual tab If you notice that your chart is missing a title you can add one by clicking Chart Title and selecting Centered Overlay Title or Above Chart this displays a title at the top of the chart You can browse the remaining label options to add axis titles insert legend variations and manipulate data gt ADJUST STYLE amp TEXT To put the finishing touches of color and contrast on a chart start by clicking the Format tab in the Chart Tools contex tual tab You can enhance backgrounds category shapes and 3D chart elements when you use options on the Shape Styles pane for each feature Options on the WordArt Styles pane let you apply fill colors outlines and effects to chart text To view every part of your chart such as depth floor horizon tal axis side wall and so on click the BUSINESS TRAVEL 911 ON THE GO TECH SUPPORT Eg View A s 1st Qtr 2nd Qtr 3rd Qtr m4th Qtr Microsoft PowerPoint s Design tab in the Chart Tools contextual tab lets you modify the layout of your chart and adjust its style These settings help you create one of a kind charts and graphs that illuminate important statistics or values w E x lt E Series 1 E Series 2 m Series 3 Axis Title You can outline a graphical element change its color and add unique
134. nts are still far from completed It will likely be an other three to five years before tradi tional SDOs Standards Developing Organizations complete bring to market and concertedly market new cloud standards he says The APM Group www apmgroup Itd com is an independent certifi cation partner for the Cloud Indus try Forum www cloudindustryforum org Richard Pharro CEO of APM Group says despite the lack of global standardization the cloud is rapidly evolving and acceptance in creasing According to the CIF he says 76 of U S organizations are formally using a cloud service Rath er than preventing cloud adoption the lack of cloud standardization is limiting the types of data that orga nizations may feel confident having hosted in the cloud A business for example may be fine using a cloud based email system but reluctant to put critical sensitive data in the cloud possibly due to a lack of trust and education scenarios that would likely change as standards become more widespread and users confi dence increases Pharro says Although cloud computing is still relatively young numerous de facto standards are emerging Several more general standards including ISO 27001 are being extended to in corporate cloud computing Pharro says Organizations considering cloud services however shouldn t take ISO 27001 certification at face value he says Rather they should ensure they re precise
135. nual data entry for example you can create apps that handle those tasks for you and free up internal resources CREATE MULTIPLE VERSIONS If you already have some custom software solutions running on your internal systems and want to add an 46 June 2013 www pctoday com MOBILE OFFICE BUSINESS ON THE ROAD In some cases a firm knows or believes that off the shelf business applications do not offer a sufficient degree of com petitive differentiation This can include custom built front end applications like systems of engagement targeting de livery of great customer experience and support of rapid change Jost Hoppermann vice president and principal analyst Forrester Research e o ooo eee eee ne nn ne ee eee eee eee ne o o eooo o ooo existing app to your configuration you may find that the disentangle ment of existing business applica tions to prepare for integration of an off the shelf application may be too risky costly or complex says Hoppermann He points out that this is a perception many companies have about bringing existing applications into the workplace but it may not be the case for every situation However by building your own app you can choose how much it will integrate with your existing solutions and what platforms you want to support Whether it s smartphones tablets laptops desktops or Web portals the choice is yours ESTABLISH BETTER SECURITY am
136. o be a better way for me to manage my virtual resources It s more about increasing auto mation and slowly maturing your J internal resources but having a bigger opportunity in terms of new development projects for external resources PCToday June 2013 11 ESSENTIAL BUSINESS TECH EXECUTIVES PROFESSIONALS amp ENTREPRENEURS Standardizing The Cloud The Effort To Bring Uniformity To Cloud Computing WITH ONLY A FEW MOUSE CLICKS it s quick and easy to uncover moun tains of information relating to cloud computing including associated ben efits vendors providing solutions details on public private and hy brid cloud environments and much more What s more difficult is finding information concerning the uniform standards that globally govern cloud computing That s because there aren t any a situation that leaves cloud providers hosts and users without common ground to operate from in terms of expectations and requirements relating the security interoperability and performance of solutions On the upside several ef forts are underway including those detailed below PARTING THE CLOUDS One result of a lack of uniform globally recognized cloud standards 12 June 2013 www pctoday com is the fragmentation of the various standardization efforts now occur ring says Aloysius Cheang managing director Cloud Security Alliance www cloudsecurityalliance org APAC and many developme
137. ocking stolen vehicle recovery local search etc smart me tering monitoring and adapting elec tricity usage industrial process control and SCADA supervisory control and data acquisition systems fleet manage ment and logistics and remote moni toring of refuse collection Looking into the crystal ball a little what we ll see is more and more automation of processes One example is self driving cars Google is already a long way ahead on this Hatton says eoeceoeceeeeoee eee eee see eee eee eee eee eee ee ee o e eee eee e ese see esse eee eeseeee ee eee see see eee eeeeeeee eee ese ee eeseeeeeeeeeeeeee ee eee ee eee eee eeeeeeese esa eee eee eeeseereeeeerereeeseeeoe As market competition increases expect vendors to be more committed to providing reliable and comprehensive solutions that cover key verticals for improved and more effective device integration into the M2M ecosystem o ooo ocoo eee eee eee eee ewe eee eee ee eeeeeeeoseeeeeeeeee eee eee eee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeseeeeeeeeeeoseeeeeeeeseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeoeeeeseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee PCToday June 2013 23 ESSENTIAL BUSINESS TECH EXECUTIVES PROFESSIONALS ENTREPRENEURS CHO E e o oO g m SN oa ee E E w O e e O e e e oa A mol OO a CS eT a fona m a E ED ED E PP e ee L de Drill Down Into Social Analytics The Business Benefits Of Analyzing Social Data BEN DICKIE A RESE
138. oducts automate many processes and provide IT personnel with manage ment tools ESSENTIAL BUSINESS TECH EXECUTIVES PROFESSIONALS amp ENTREPRENEURS ENERGY CONSCIOUS TECH The electronic devices that make our lives easier also produce some un wanted side effects on the environment Fortunately many consumer electronics manufacturers and businesses are work ing to create products that keep us produc tive while reducing energy demands to lessen our impact on the environment Here we take a look at the newest envi ronmentally friendly technology initiatives NANOWIRES LEAD TO 25 INCREASE IN SOLAR PANEL ENERGY PRODUCTION The sad truth of the solar power industry is that many manufacturers are going out of business due to supply outgrowing demand While companies attempt to fine tune their manufacturing processes or create less expensive products one way they can make a difference in the solar panel industry is to increase efficiency Sol Voltaics a Swedish startup has de signed gallium arsenide nanowires that are capable of increasing efficiency of solar modules up to by 25 There s no shortage of innovation when it comes to using different mate rials for building solar panels and taking new approaches to solar cell applica tion Sol Voltaics nanowire technology dubbed Sollnk is unique because it won t disrupt the traditional manufac A close up artist s rendering of what the Sollnk nanowire
139. on s cell to connect with a second base station serving a neighboring cell Data can take two differing paths to reach the device the companies state resulting in greater network resource efficiency and delivery of up to double the data speed and up to 50 faster re sponse compared to existing HPSA networks The companies state that due to the rising popularity of smart phones and mobile data devices and applications there s greater use of HSPA networks now The higher concentration of such users leads to networks becoming unevenly loaded thus the need to provide a uniform users experience across the cell cov erage drawing focus on improving the cell edge user experience HSPA Multiflow demonstrated last year is expected for commercial availability later this year TWO WAY DEVICE CHARGING Like many users these days you might carry multiple mobile devices when you re on the go It s also pos sible you ve encountered situations in which one device had a sizable charge left but the other was run ning dry If a demonstration that eCouple wireless charger device manufacturer Fulton Innovations gave earlier this year of its two way wireless charging technology becomes a reality a user could charge one device directly from an other with no wires required Fulton Innovation technology is based on the Qi wireless charging standard and its demo involved charging a Qi enabled tablet on a standard Qi charg
140. p CONTROL Although the screening process for most app stores is rigorous it doesn t mean that a malicious application won t get through from time to time But if you build your own application or work side by side with a third party developer to design an app you can reduce the possibility that any potential loopholes or security vulnerabilities could leave your sen sitive data at risk GIVE REMOTE WORKERS SECURE ACCESS TO DATA Speaking of sensitive data re mote workers and business travelers need access to internal resources ce ooos o o eee eee ee eee eee o o e ne ee e o o o while away from the office which means becoming exposed to potential threats Instead of using a third party solution to manage data and give em ployees access to internal company information no matter where they are you can design an application platform so that users can have ac cess to information on any device at any time Plus as we stated before you ll have much more control over the security and access management aspects of the solution meaning you decide who has access to what infor mation CREATE AN APP STORE Imagine creating a multitude of applications for different purposes and then offering those internal apps to your workforce as optional or mandatory downloads You can focus on individual teams and give them the functionality they need but also give employees apps that can bring multiple departments
141. press the Escape key twice to return to the Home screen You can also just press the Delete key to un assign the speed dial Now simply long press the speed dial key to dial the number You can also shuffle your speed dial list by pressing the Send key from the Home screen pressing the Menu key selecting View Speed Dial List scrolling to and highlighting the speed dial entry you want to move pressing the Menu key and selecting Move Now just scroll with the contact number and press the trackpad when you ve found a new place for it Press the Escape key twice to get back to the Home screen Note the A Q and W keys will lock the phone change the profile to silent and call voicemail when long pressed from the Home screen respectively Therefore they cannot be used as speed dial keys 1 Add Speed Dial M Add Speed Dial Choose a letter from this screen to assign a speed dial shortcut 54 June 2013 www pctoday com BATTERY SAVING MODE gt BlackBerry OS 7 1 added a handy feature that benefits everyone Battery Saving Mode works by monitoring your BlackBerry s battery When the battery reaches a user defined threshold such as 30 remaining Battery Saving Mode automati cally invokes battery saving features such as dimming the screen or turning off the screen sooner than usual To enable this handy feature select Options Devices and Battery Saving Mode Tap to toggle between disable and enable CRE
142. program file a user believes to be legitimate for example may have a rootkit embedded within it Menting says rootkits generally enter a system through existing vulnerabilities and are loaded by malware which can infect computers via downloads email at tachments disguised as genuine com munication or documents websites with unpatched vulnerabilities USB thumb drives or mobile devices To the average user abnormal com puter behavior is the best indicator a rootkit might be present warning signs include files spontaneously dis appearing or appearing a sluggish Internet connection and slow loading programs Such behavior can indicate ce o 2 0 0 02 0o oo oo oo boot the system using a CD DVD or thumb drive that has special diagnostic routines designed to find and remove rootkits Hadnagy says if a system s OS is compromised it can t be trusted to find flaws in itself In this event it may be necessary to boot a self con tained OS running from a CD DVD or USB drive and run malware de tection and removal software from a clean environment WHAT TO DO For typical users arguably the worst news concerning rootkits is that getting rid of one can be beyond their scope Olds says in fact most users should probably seek an expert s help if they suspect a rootkit infection Though some security programs can detect and remove specific rootkits Menting says
143. protocols to ensure there was a password on the device and that it had encryption turned on among other important secu rity measures But as technology continued to evolve and consumer devices gained more complicated feature sets companies started looking for better ways to gain con trol over user devices to protect their networks and data This is where MDM mobile de vice management software came 38 June 2013 www pctoday com MOBILE OFFICE BUSINESS ON THE ROAD Are you going to mandate complete con trol over the device For example you re going to say that the device can only be used for work type functions because there is very highly classified information on there or information that could cause the corporation problems if it became public In those situations sometimes it s better to give a corporate device lock it down completely and basically say these are the rules it s a corporate device and as a result we re going to implement the appropriate level of policy and security on there because we can t afford that infor mation to be lost or stolen e o ooo eee eee eee eee eee ee see eee eee eee eee eee eee eee ee ee into play According to Hafner there are as many as 60 or 70 ven dors in this space that offer MDM software and some of them are cloud based as well which means that prices are becoming more com petitive and these solutions are now available to a wider group of
144. red 1 4 mil lion in a seed round of funding led by VC Greenline Ventures which is also based in Denver FOR YOURSELF HOTSPOTS COMING FOR U K TECH STARTUPS gt EE which thus far is the only wire less carrier in the U K offering 4G LTE Long Term Evolution cellular service has formed a partnership with government agency Tech City Investment Organization to provide 4G hotspots in London s East End Both EE and non EE customers will be able to use the hotspots provided they use devices that support 4G LTE but the offering will be par ticularly useful for the sizable tech startup community that works in the East End This will undoubtedly boost productivity for startups and established businesses alike HIGH PERFORMANCE AND BEST PRICES 1 amp 1 WebHosting Starter Package as low as ot E month Y 50 GB Web Space oY Unlimited Bandwidth o Dual Hosting for maximum reliability o Pv6 Ready Y 250 E Mail Accounts oY Choose from Linux or Windows lm 2 Y 2417 Phone and E mail Support Special Domain Offer 0 a 9 9 first year com Why 1 amp 1 Whatever your needs are for online success 1 amp 1 offers the right solution We guarantee maximum reliability thanks to the geo redundant Dual Hosting of your website in two geographically separate data centers Come join 1 amp 1 and see for yourself py DOMAINS E MAIL WEB HOSTING eCOMMERCE SERVERS unite Call 1 877 461 2631 or
145. rent approach But it s also advisable not to go to the other extreme and make employees embrace an all BYOD policy For that reason Hafner says that companies implementing a BYOD policy will probably need to give employees the option of opting out of BYOD completely You can t necessarily force them to bring their own device unless you ve written it into the job description from the time they were hired says Hafner You have to think about those kinds of things particularly in cases where for example there are union em ployees Their union may not even allow them to connect their per sonal device as part of their union rules We always say make sure you get your legal and HR people involved in these BYOD decisions because in some cases you might be breaking some of your own poli cies REVISIT YOUR BYOD POLICIES REGULARLY Even after your company has es tablished a BYOD policy and made adjustments to it with employee feedback it isn t the end of the story Battista says that companies Phillip Redman vice president and distinguished analyst Gartner Ce nooo oo oon o o o o oso n oo oo oooooso o oo should always have a process for updating mobile and BYOD poli cies and that this needs to happen at least once a year if not more frequently Companies need to bring all of their policy makers to gether to reevaluate their BYOD rules He also says that those same people
146. rst letters of a favorite phrase or lyric For instance I pledge al legiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands could become Ipa2tFotUSAattRfwis In this ex ample we mixed the uppercase and lowercase letters by capitalizing the letter for Republic The key is that the phrase be easily remembered and that it fit within the prescribed password size and requirements WHY YOU SHOULDN T REPEAT PASSWORDS Another issue that often comes to light following major website attacks is that many users choose to use the identical password for multiple sites We know that it s tough to remember PCToday June 2013 57 all the different passwords or even which passwords correlate with a given Web service And storing the passwords somewhere whether on a sticky note or a spreadsheet on your PC isn t advisable because anyone who has access to your computer could also make off with your pass words To protect yourself you could keep a list of your usernames and passwords in an encrypted file on your PC or smartphone However if your computer crashes or you lose your phone you risk losing that list In which case your only remedy would be to contact an administrator of each Web service to retrieve your passwords Some people have turned to password manager tools to keep track of their many usernames and passwords for sites PASSWORD MANAGERS When using a password manager
147. rtz speeds However says Jigang Wang a physicist involved in the research the speed of such thermal magnetic switching is limited by how long it takes to vibrate the atoms so it is dif ficult to exceed the gigahertz range at this stage in the research For that reason now the search is on for new materials that can support the super fast switching speed PATENT STUDY SHOWS EMPHASIS ON MOBILE The race is on in the mobile space with manufacturers rushing to create and patent the next best thing according to a study by Chetan Sharma Consulting The study looked at patent applications in both the United States and Europe over the past 20 years In the past decade the number of mobile related pat ents grew 591 in the United States and 76 in Europe This year Chetan Sharma Consulting predicts that about 25 of all patents granted in the United States will be mobile related that s up from 2 in 1991 and 5 in 2001 The United States and European markets remained relatively competitive in terms of mobile patents until about 2004 the study shows when the United States started granting mobile patents at a rate 2 1 2 times greater than Europe In 2012 the United States accounted for 72 of all mobile patents granted with one in five patents granted in 2012 related to mobile IN CAR APPS TO TAKE OFF IN NORTH AMERICA amp WESTERN EUROPE Telematics which refers to au tomotive systems that use GPS a
148. s ce ooooco o o see eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee ee eee e nooo a shift in business models from selling boxes to selling services Put broadly Hatton says M2M is the plumbing of the Internet of Things or how diverse devices ac tually connect In the same way a mobile phone connects via mobile network or a PC connects via Wi Fi at home he says M2M devices con nect using whichever technology they can Currently a few technologies are being deployed specifically to support M2M connections though there s no specific M2M technology Hatton says In fact he says there aren t re ally M2M networks because M2M devices work in the same way as any other devices You have some M2M devices that connect via cel lular networks some via Wi Fi some via other weird and wonderful tech nologies he says There are a few idiosyncrasies in the way that M2M devices are treated because of the need to keep the cost of supporting them very low but this occurs in the core network and relates to provi sioning and device management BUSINESS EXAMPLES Chris Rommel VDC Research vice president www vdcresearch com says M2M networks present a new There s no point to collect all this data if you can t use it to make processes more productive and intelligent and revenue generating Kathryn Weldon principal analyst for enterprise mobility Current Analysis ce o oocso
149. s as bright as possible Make sure the rest of the items listed are things you want to have activated and running Not using Wi Fi Turn it off Have apps running that you rarely use Disable or delete them Once you prune un necessary items your battery may seem like it s brand new again You can keep app shortcuts from cluttering up your home screen in Android by unchecking the Wigan Mtra option DO AWAY WITH PERFORMANCE SAPPING SYNCING All Android phones have Google services loaded and enabled by default For most of us this is a good thing but if performance seems to be taking a hit or you re having higher than expected data charges it may be because there s too much data sync activity between your phone and Google s cloud One way to trim this usage is to turn off syncing for services you don t use or for which you don t need up to the minute data freshness Open the Settings app Scroll if needed until you see the list of services that are set up for syncing these include Google Gmail Calendars and Contacts Remove the check mark if you don t use a service or don t need it to be synced automatically CHECK BATTERY LEVEL amp OPTIMIZE BATTERY LIFE For most smartphones the default battery indicator doesn t provide much more information than a general idea of how much life the smartphone has left But for those who would like to see a little more battery data or even analyze just how much battery life
150. s through the grid produce a current that can generate electricity The EWICON s oval like design and generation pro cess makes it scalable to a variety of different sizes and applications There is only one prototype in existence as of now 36 June 2013 www ctoday com Oe _ ad gt A E e E ii El pha VID oe LATIN A i Wy YE TD ALARA RRA AAA AA LA y r F SESE EL NE fi fi K o P lt An PE f f f P j M f fi fj Fi i y J i WLLL l MIDI Y id PowerWINDows are versatile enough to be used in urban and rural communities Because they lack spinning blades PowerWINDows can be used in a variety of situations that wouldn t be possible if you were utilizing traditional turbines A NEW APPROACH TO HARVESTING WIND POWER POWERWINDOWS Traditional wind turbines may offset the cost generating electrical en ergy however there are some disadvantages to using them because they take up space in terms of land and their design makes them difficult to manufacturer and move Recognizing that there are some drawbacks to using wind turbines Farzad Safaei a professor at the VOW University of Wollongong in Australia also realized that wind turbines were limited in their application Safaei spent four years working with a research team to design PowerWINDows which can be used between and around buildings or out in the country depending on t
151. se the public cloud has more com monly understood use cases Take Web email for example Web email involves a vendor offering a stan dard cloud service to many different users via a model called SaaS soft ware as a Service The provider em ploys multitenancy which means that a single service in this case Web email and accompanying storage for email messages and settings are offered to many users each of which can customize their own interface and settings change the software s appearance set up email filters etc and use the ser vice to store information their email messages Another issue with grasping the private cloud is that it has many different faces and it s that sort of thing where it starts to mean every thing but as it starts to mean ev erything it really means nothing says John Sloan lead research ana lyst with Info Tech Research Group www infotech com So how can you differentiate the private cloud from public alternatives It all comes eoeoeeeee sees eee eee eee eee ese ee ese eeeeeeseeeeeeseeeeeeseeeeeeeeeeeeseeeeseeeeeeseeeeeeeeseeeeeeseeeeseeeseeeeeeeeeeeeseeeeseeeeeeeeseeeseeeeeeeeeeeeeeseeeeeeseeeees A public cloud is part of a multitenant environment where most of the resourc es are shared whereas a private cloud is housed on Key infrastructure that you own Points and fully control 8 June 2013 www pctoday com Employing virtualization doesn t mean you
152. seful application is analyzing social data concerning one s company or industry she says Doing so can help identify a range of opportunities and risks that may not be immediately evident or characterized in the same way in tradi tional enterprise data platforms such as business intelligence market research and CRM she says Etlinger suggests starting small with free or low cost tools and advancing to more sophisticated tools as needed Ideally this data should be viewed in context of existing data sets from CRM BL and market research to provide a ho listic view she says Six primary social media use cases Etlinger identified in a 2011 research report included brand health marketing optimization revenue generation operational efficiency cus tomer experience and innovation Paul Gillen independent advisor and Society for New Communications Research www sncr org senior research fellow sees large businesses that offer numerous products and large distribu tion networks as benefiting most from social analytics due to more conversa tions typically occurring about their brands relative to smaller and regional businesses B2C companies generally get more value than B2B companies be cause more people are talking about them he says Gillen cites three major areas where social analytics is well suited for busi nesses The first is discovering market opportunities by identifying what needs consumers ar
153. should be keeping up with developments in mobile devices and other consumer tech nology that will find its way to the company If they don t compa nies could end up with outdated policies that simply don t apply to newer devices as technology evolves Technology changes so fast that policies become stale quickly and frequent updates are necessary says Battista For example in six months many companies will need a policy on wearable devices That yearly analysis doesn t need to take long and may not always re sult in major changes but it needs to be done You don t want to be the company whose policy is only good for a snicker from employees who notice that it applies exclu sively to flip phones Now more than ever Battista adds every company should be looking ahead to the future and remaining flex ible enough to deal with it when it arrives MOBILE OFFICE BUSINESS ON THE ROAD Tablets For Business Top Features To Consider PERHAPS THE TABLET COMPUTERS your employees are using are start ing to show signs of age Or maybe you re intrigued by the possibil ity of buying tablets for your em ployees for the first time You are not alone as businesses of all sizes are increasingly finding that tablets are worthy alternatives to laptops in certain situations or worthwhile second devices for salespeople and mobile workers in general How ever we won t try to convince you of the benefits of
154. soon enough by huge num bers related to the industry s projected erowth potential benefits and compo nents that M2M incorporates Take a February 2013 report from The Carbon War Room www carbonwarroom com for example that states in the coming de cade the M2M industry will maintain 23 annual growth rates bolstering its worth from 121 billion currently to nearly 950 billion by 2020 Why such growth As the report states in recent years we have moved beyond simply using our machines to connect with other people to program ming them to connect directly to one another The result is a collection and processing of information on an unprecedented scale For businesses this means a multitude of new opportunities Tightly connected to M2M is the so called Internet of Things or the scores of diverse devices smart utility meters for example that are Internet connected and communicating with one another Depending on the source projections estimate there will be anywhere from 25 billion to 50 billion such devices by the end of the decade Although M2M networks aren t ex actly new roots trace back roughly 15 years M2M and the Internet of Things are gaining massive momentum due to a growing importance and reliance on big data and business intelligence by businesses The following explores what M2M networks are and the impact they re making DISSECTING M2M Essentially says Kathryn Weldo
155. ss services seg ment cloud application services cloud system infrastructure ser vices cloud management and secu rity services and cloud application infrastructure services SERVER SHIPMENTS UP REVENUE DOWN gt Budget constraints in 2012 meant en terprises and midsized data centers de layed replacing their x86 based servers according to Gartner But server sales to application as a business data centers drove growth up 1 5 last year Gartner reports Weak sales of mainframe and RISC Itanium servers caused server revenue to be down 0 6 for the year North America Asia Pacific and Latin America were the only regions to have an increase in shipments last year ac cording to Gartner The research group expects continued modest growth this year as enterprises replace aging servers as the economy improves 4 June 2013 www pctoday com IN BRIEF TECHNOLOGY NEWS BETTER ECONOMIC CLIMATE NOT ENOUGH TO HELP PC MARKET gt Over the past few weeks there s been a lot said about the decline in the PC market Here s a look at the first quarter numbers from IDC and Gartner that re ignited all the attention e IDC Worldwide PC shipments to taled 76 3 million units down 13 9 year over year worse than the forecast decline of 7 7 e Gartner Worldwide PC shipments totaled 79 2 million units down 11 2 from a year ago That s the first time since 2009 that shipments have been less than 80 million units
156. ssionals feel their security or ganizations are short staffed according to the Global Information Security Workforce Study conducted by Frost amp Sullivan for SC This shortage of skilled professionals is leading to more frequent and costly data breaches the study shows with hacktivism cyber terrorism and hacking among the top concerns This shortage is causing a huge drag on organizations More and more enterprises are being breached businesses are not able to get things done and customer data is being com promised says W Hord Tipton execu tive director of ISC The study found that information security professionals enjoy stable employment but that new skills are needed to meet challenges such as BYOD Application vulnera bilities are one of the biggest security concerns cited in the study yet most security organizations are not involved in enterprise software development IN BRIEF TECHNOLOGY NEWS THE WEB IS CHANGING WE RE USING MORE APPS TO ACCESS IT As PC sales continue to slide and tablet sales continue to rise our Web usage is shifting from browsers to Web enabled apps As a result Web developers are shifting focus to apps as well as mobile friendly versions of websites According to new research from Flurry Analytics U S consumers now spend an average of more than 2 5 hours per day us ing mobile devices with 80 of that time spent using apps and 20 using Safari 12 Ti
157. t but it s only half the battle For a true private cloud offering the under lying infrastructure will need to be virtualized But just because you use virtualization in your organi zation it doesn t necessarily mean that you have a private cloud envi ronment in place VIRTUALIZATION VS PRIVATE CLOUD One problem with virtualiza tion and the private cloud is that sometimes companies use them interchangeably says Lauren E Nelson an analyst with Forrester Research www forrester com but she warns that this shouldn t be the case It s one thing to have virtualization where you use com modity hardware and move the ac tual processing and management You re shortchanging yourself on cloud value if you end up going with just a private cloud A lot of companies are investing a significant amount of money on building a private cloud thinking they re going to get a huge ROL and that s just not the case Co eo eee e oeo o ne eo e eo ooo to a central software solution but something else entirely to have a private cloud where everything is automated and requires very little attention from IT administrators What you need to do is pool re sources that can then be managed through a self service portal where the actual provisioning of re sources is completely automated says Nelson From there it needs to be able to provide usage reports for the metering and tracki
158. t to determine just how much flex ibility you can afford Battista says that companies should err on the side of more flexible unless there s a good reason not to Battista stresses that even though you have all of these MDM restrictions available to you it doesn t mean that you should take advantage of them The whole ad vantage of BYOD is obliterated if devices are locked down the same way a company issued device would be Battista says Hafner agrees that organizations shouldn t be excessively restric tive because eventually the situa tion might reach the point where it becomes more cost effective and simply makes more practical sense to issue company devices to employees rather than deal with loading personal devices with ap plications and security clients At that point it will take more time effort planning and financial re 40 June 2013 www pctoday com MOBILE OFFICE BUSINESS ON THE ROAD Companies need to have a policy that matches the security costs and user re quirements that they have When it comes to devices companies should list the re quirements based on user needs and secu rity requirements and provide minimum standards They shouldn t really advise on specific models because it would be too difficult for them to test and keep up on the ever changing portfolios ce 2 2 o oooo sources to undo the BYOD plan as originally implemented and start over with a diffe
159. tablets here rather we ll run through the fea tures you should consider if you re looking for new or updated tablets in today s market PRICE If email and a modicum of produc tivity power are in order you can get away with using tablets that retail in the 300 to 400 range But if you want versatility consider 500 as your bare minimum and be prepared to pay 600 or more per device If low cost is of pri mary concern know that you tend to get what you pay for with tablets these days so if you re expecting a lot from a low end tablet you might be better off investing in newer smartphones Operating system has a great deal to do with price so read the next section for relevant cost information OPERATING SYSTEM There are three major operating system players in the tablet game Apple s iOS Google s Android and Microsoft s Windows 8 Because An droid is an open platform tablets run ning Android cost less usually in the 300 to 400 neighborhood than those running iOS 329 to 929 or Win8 typ ically 500 or more Windows tablets most closely resemble full sized com puters in their ability to run a variety of eoeceerece eee reece see eee eee eee ee ee eee eee es ee eee eee e eee eee ese eee essere eeeee eee ee eee eee seereereeeeeeeee ese eee eeeeee eee eee eee eee ne eo n ne eo noc o pc e o e e o o o o o If low cost is of primary concern know that you tend to get what you pay
160. te the paper trails and administrative tasks traditionally associated with on site payments So arming key employees with a smartphone and a mobile payment solution that in cludes an attachment for swiping credit cards makes it possible to ac cept and process payments wher ever those employees go whether they are walking a trade show floor making a service call visiting a customer s office or roaming the business s own retail floor APP CONTROL Many companies don t realize that improved mobile app control is within reach An increasing number of MAM mobile application man agement and MDM mobile de vice management providers are expanding their offerings to include solutions to help businesses create internal app stores and thereby gain control over the apps employees use and where company data is placed Furthermore an internal app store lets a company more easily deploy updates for its fleet of mobile de vices as well as make suggestions concerning what apps are best suited to their employees Many solutions include the ability to remotely locate lost or stolen devices and wipe data if necessary MOBILE BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE Real time access to information is a chief benefit of mobility The breadth and depth of company stored information available to mo bile workers is increasing to the point that BI business intelligence solutions are going mobile No longer confined to big display dash boards o
161. ted testing internally and use the resulting feedback to build a more stable version If after that you feel comfortable with the current state of the app then you should start casting a wider net for testers After testing with a relatively small set of users consider ini tiating a beta test with a wider audience before releasing the app for regular use SUBMIT FOR DISTRIBUTION For external apps it will be obvious which marketplaces to submit your app to if you built it for specific platforms The curating process varies roughly the Apple s Tunes Store is most strin gent Google Play is the least and c o 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 00 0 0 0 0 0 00 If you feel confident that your idea for an app is worth pursuing and all of the targets processes audience platforms are nailed down the next step is to build it up to speed regarding specific mobile platforms But if your workforce lacks any of the necessary technical know how it s often a good idea to enlist the services of a third party vendor Ultimately ensure that whoever de velops your app can execute on the overall vision as buggy or otherwise problematic apps invariably draw un wanted negative attention 44 June 2013 wwwoctoday com Microsoft s Windows Phone is some where in between If you created the app for multiple platforms it s simplest to start the curation process with the Android version SELL
162. that doesn t come from trustworthy sources Unfortunately the likelihood of being hacked or unwittingly down loading malware on a computer is extremely high Menting says Es pecially in the network connected environment of a company even if you take all precautions necessary someone else may not have and you get a virus from them internally She suggests using different passwords for all logins encrypting sensitive and con fidential data constantly being on the lookout for odd system behavior and securing mobile devices if connecting them to a company network or busi ness computer PCToday June 2013 71 SS gu A Gan A gos x AMAR rami oe DILA KINLA i ne Nape i C T los aey Egin Sandhills Publishing www sandhills com PC Today is produced by Sandhills Publishing Founded in 1978 Sandhills Publishing is an information processing company with a diverse range of products covering a variety of industries Sandhills Publishing is located in Lincoln the capital of Nebraska and benefits from the quality of life and strong work ethic traditionally associated with the Midwest
163. the adoption of LED backlit monitors because they can produce dynamic contrast run the gamut of colors and reveal more natural image rendering when calibrat ed properly The benefits of LED backlit image quality and accurate color representa tion are twofold less eye strain due to zero flicker on the back light and a better representa tion of content because what you see on the display is more true to what is produced Before you make a pur chase compile a list of the features that are important to you and shop according ly Be sure to compare the main features that will affect how you view content includ ing the monitor s resolution brightness contrast ratio and viewing angle Some analysts believe mon itor size will actually be the top consideration this year Corporate buyers should con sider an upgrade in size or to two smaller monitors per desktop instead of the large monitor primarily for cost effectiveness ESSENTIAL BUSINESS TECH EXECUTIVES PROFESSIONALS ENTREPRENEURS a 4 a gt gt Enterprise Storage Understand The Terms ENTERPRISE STORAGE HAS GROWN in scale and complexity over the years Although much of the terminology associated with storage technology has remained the same it can be challenging to keep up with the new storage technologies and jargon This article points out some of the most im portant terms to know ARCHIVE Unlike a backup an arc
164. the network projector like an external monitor NO VIDEO In many cases your notebook will de tect that you have a projector plugged into one of its video outputs and will automatically turn on the port Not all notebooks do this however and even those that do can still have missing video if the notebook isn t set to dupli cate the Desktop or extend it to the sec ondary monitor the projector Many notebooks use a function key combina tion to toggle the projector port on or off and set how you can use the dis play We recommend using the control panels in Win7 Right click a blank area on the Desktop Select Screen Resolution Select the second display from the drop down menu Select Extend These Displays from the Multiple Displays drop down menu Your Desktop background should now appear on the projector Win7 also has a pop up display for selecting the content that is sent to the projector Press the Windows P keys to bring up the four possible selections Computer only turns the projector display off Duplicate mirrors your computer s Desktop on the projector Extend uses the projector as an ex tension of your Desktop Projector only turns off your note book s display and uses the projector as the main display VIDEO IS OUT OF RANGE When the projector can t reconcile a video signal from a notebook with its preset resolution it displays an out of range message To solve this in Wi
165. then click Microsoft Lync Open the Manager and choose your preferred recording PCToday June 2013 65 Solve Laptop Projector SETUP PROBLEMS YOU RE READY TO GIVE YOUR presenta tion but until that first slide appears on the big screen you can never be sure that your equipment has got your back We can t tell you not to worry but these handy tips should help bail you out if your presentation goes south HARDWARE amp CABLE CONNECTIONS It can be difficult to track down the source of problems that occur when connecting a notebook and projector Here are some things to watch for Video Turn off all equipment and connect your notebook s video out port to the projector The usual connection choices for a notebook are VGA Video Graphics Array DVI Digital Visual In terface HDMI HD Multimedia Inter face and DisplayPort Many projectors 66 June 2013 www ctoday com e oooo o ono ne eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee ee ee eoeerecee rece e eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee ee eee ee If you are using a wireless device make sure the notebook has the appropriate wireless connection enabled have VGA and one or more digital con nections If possible use a digital connec tion for high quality Sound Some HDMI and Display Port digital video connections can carry audio through the same port but both notebook and projector must support audio over the digital video conne
166. ther investors includ ing Finnish Industry Investment A Finnish company with a U S base in Dallas M Files offers both cloud and M Files delivers an identical experle servers behind the firewall in the el into new territory for the social media company With the acquisition of San Francisco startup Parse which had accumulated 7 million in funding prior to the purchase Facebook will be able to quickly expand its brand M Files wants to be the go to vendor for content management sharing and security in the enterprise new set of developer tools Although financial details about the acquisi tion were not disclosed Facebook an nounced its intention to make Parse a cloud based platform part of its own Facebook Platform The ultimate goal is to enable developers to more easily create apps that work and tran sition smoothly across Facebook and other platforms Placester memes TESTIMONIALS PRICING PRODUCTS ACADEMY 800 728 8391 ProTeam ProServices 4 em a RAKSABAH ProTools Everything you need in one place REAL ESTATE HELPER PLACESTER GETS 2 5M Two year old Cambridge Mass based Placester offers solutions built to help realtors market them selves and promote their listings on the Web Now the startup has raised 2 5 million in seed financing led by Romulus Capital and with participa tion from angel investors Placester solves problems for real estate profes sionals associated with esta
167. those of the desktop version Log in and start connecting with colleagues directly via IM or use the app to place calls start an email message or partici pate in a videoconference As with the desktop Lync you can use the app to let others know your present availability as well USE YOUR MOBILE DEVICE TO SHARE DOCS Microsoft recommends two sharing methods from mobile sharing with recipients you invite to your site and sharing via a guest link Both methods may require you to switch from mobile to PC view through the Settings menu To share with site invitees tap More in the document library then tap Share Next type the appropriate names or email addresses of those with whom you re sharing the doc Next select Can Edit or Can View check the Require Sign In box If you would like to add a message choose Show Options and tap Send An Email Invitation If you opt to send a guest link simply uncheck the Require Sign In check box RECORD COLLABORATION SESSIONS USING LYNC Lync helps you document current mul tiuser conversations calls and meet ings so you can easily reference pivotal conversations To do this while you re in Lync direct your pointer to the con versation window and click the More Options menu two arrows on the right side of the window Next click Start Recording You can access saved record ings by navigating to the Microsoft Lync Recording Manager Click Start select All Programs and
168. together Do your employees want to stay up to date on what s happening at the company You could create an app that provides company news in the form of a regularly updated widget Does your CEO or CFO want con stant updates on sales data You can build an app that provides up to the minute notifications The possibilities are only limited by the experience of your workforce and your techno logical imagination MOBILE OFFICE BUSINESS ON THE ROAD 10 Considerations For BYOD Policies Key Issues To Tackle Regarding Employee Devices In The Workplace IF YOUR BUSINESS HAS YET to adopt a BYOD bring your own device policy doing so may be inevitable That s according to some experts who say employees are increasingly dic tating the tools they require for top productivity and will circumvent bar riers that restrict them from doing so A BYOD policy can give employees what they want while enabling com panies to maintain a level of control but implementing such a policy re quires careful consideration ACCEPTABLE RISK Arguably the first and most impor tant consideration businesses must tackle is if they even want to accept the risks associated with adopting a policy enabling outside devices to access company resources via the company s network If so businesses must then decide how much risk is acceptable Companies that operate under stringent legal and compliance requirements healthcare financial etc for
169. tos and videos Structured data includes things like customer rat ings while unstructured data entails descriptions comments and other free form language Of the many uses of social ana lytics says Ben Woo Neuralytix www neuralytix ccom managing director is sentiment analysis It is probably the most common he says as it allows businesses to look at customers and prospective customers attitudes and perceptions toward a product brand or market Further social analytics can also help point out customer related trends and buying plans Dickie says that according to Info Tech s latest survey on the topic 41 of companies indicated they are using some type of social listening This in cludes ad hoc activities done manually or via basic tools Roughly 25 of com panies indicated they planned to de ploy social analytics or listening abilities in the coming 18 months Clearly this is a pretty big area of interest for a lot of managers in business Dickie says Ultimately he foresees social analytics being vetted much more into organi zation decision making and a lot more managers in more business divisions taking social media into account when making decisions WHO CAN BENEFIT To a certain degree all businesses can benefit from social data Etlinger says For those not currently engaged in Co oe co ooo o ooo oo o o o on oo nos osos n o o social media the first and most u
170. ugh the incon venience and damage a rootkit can exact As Dan Olds of Gabriel Consult ing Group gabrielconsultinggroup com says rootkits are some of the most insidious and dangerous pieces of malware out there today That s due to the fact that rootkits are both ex tremely difficult to detect and get rid of completely Therefore the more you know about rootkits the better gt WHAT IS A ROOTKIT A rootkit is software that infects and gains privileged access to a com puter This means it can perform administrator level type tasks says Michela Menting ABI Research www abiresearch com senior ana lyst The primary feature is that it 70 June 2013 www pctoday com can hide itself in the system and re main undetected One way to think of how a rootkit wreaks havoc says Jim O Gorman an instructor of offensive security measures is to envision that you are driving a car but someone else is intercepting all your movements and deciding if he should pass them on to the car or not In some cases he might decide to just insert some of his own commands as well O Gorman says Although rootkits are similar to vi ruses or Trojans says Chris Hadnagy a security training professional vi ruses and Trojans usually delete data stop services or cause harm while a rootkit provides an attacker system access to get at data Not all root kits are malicious a company might install one to remotel
171. uired from IT personnel RAID REDUNDANT ARRAY OF INDEPENDENT DISKS RAID technology is used in storage systems with multiple drives to con trol how those drives are used There are many RAID types but the most used are RAID 0 which stripes two or more drives with blocks of data in creasing performance by writing half to one drive and half to a second drive but providing no redundancy in case one drive fails RAID 1 which mirrors all data on one drive to a second drive pro viding redundancy but no performance gain and RAID 10 which in the case of four drives uses striping on two and mirroring on the other two for both re dundancy and improved performance SCALABILITY Although scalability can be most simply defined as providing the ability of something to grow what it means with regard to a storage system is the ability to expand as in capacity through upgrades and connect easily with additional storage that might be added in the future Buying a truly scal able storage system translates into sav ings of space resources and in some cases energy consumption SSD SOLID STATE DRIVE Unlike hard disk drives which em ploy read write heads to access and store data on hard disks SSDs don t include moving parts Instead SSDs use NAND flash memory or DRAM dy namic random access memory tech nology Similar technology is commonly found in SD cards and thumb drives Benefits of SSDs include extreme
172. ur app for use on cer tain device types doesn t always end with choosing one or more platforms You need to get out of the mobile only mindset says Valani You can use mobile to get into the marketplace but everything is connected and every thing is a potential device Users are now looking for integration with their tablets and with their desktops so you have to service that need You have to keep all of these branches synchro nized at all times BUILD THE APP If you feel confident that your idea for an app is worth pursuing and all of the targets processes audience plat forms are nailed down the next step is to build it Your company may have developers on staff who are experts at app building or some training might be necessary to get on staff developers e oo ooo eee eee eee eee ee eee see ee ee eee o o o o o ooo oo so MOBILE OFFICE BUSINESS ON THE ROAD Mobile consumers are really savvy They are actually de facto expecting certain criteria like usability scalability and portability All of that is kind of a given within an app You can t be thinking in a single dimension anymore You have to think on two dimensions We re talking about both a vertical and a horizontal development strategy e o 02 0 02 oo o o o ooo eee eee eee oe eee eee o e o o eoo o ooooso TEST RETEST After developing a minimum viable product version of your application perform limi
173. users violate the policy and detail and communicate those consequences Violations can cover issues regarding failing to report lost or stolen de vices sidestepping acceptable usage requirements or installing banned apps on devices MONITOR amp FEEDBACK For most companies imple menting a BYOD policy will be a work in progress After enacting a BYOD policy continuously obtaining feedback from employees concerning what is working and what is not unexpected concerns that have sur faced and improvements that can be made is important Also important is monitoring for policy violations reviewing any usage that jeopardizes compliance overall general device activity and where productivity has improved or not Here an MDM or MAM solution can prove helpful MOBILE OFFICE BUSINESS ON THE ROAD Mobile Tech Innovations smartphone Tablet Technologies On The Horizon A LONG TIME AND WIDELY ACCEPTED fact concerning technology is that like history it doesn t stand still Companies are always innovating new form factors and functionality to better their products Nowhere is this as true then in the mobile device sector where devices continue to be come more powerful more efficient and more capable The following de tails several such developments that could eventually morph into new smartphone and tablet abilities TWO SIDED SCREENS If you ve been longing for a whole new relationship with your smartphone
174. ves If you de tect an attack and determine that the only thing that stopped it was encryption then it might be time to reassess your security approach in general and make sure that en cryption is only one part of a larger whole PCToday June 2013 17 ESSENTIAL BUSINESS TECH EXECUTIVES PROFESSIONALS amp ENTREPRENEURS Data Center Convergence Has The Time Of Silos Passed THERE WAS A TIME when silos roamed the land of data center infrastructure as the dominate beast As Jenna Maertz Info Tech Research Group www infotech com research analyst spells it out the traditional silo approach to data center infrastructure essentially involved your servers and your server admins your networks and your network admins and your storage and your storage ad mins and never shall the twain meet The technologies only overlapped so as to provide integration and knowledge only overlapped so as to allow this in tegration she says There wasn t a ho listic sense of the data center or the roles within it It s the absence of this holistic sense that many data center experts believe is why silos are on the way out Taking their place is the converged data cen ter an infrastructure approach that offers numerous benefits including a potential reduction in CAPEX capital expenditure and OPEX operating ex penditure savings improved efficien cies and enhanced management DEFINING DATA CENT
175. vices and solutions give employees more way to communicate both with customers and colleagues This in cludes Web conferences on a tablet and multiple person conference calls on a smartphone CREATE 8 COLLABORATE Historically being away from the office has automatically meant be coming less accessible to customers and co workers When paired with 52 June 2013 www pctoday com mobile solutions with sharing and collaboration support mobile de vices give employees a platform from which they can stay digitally connected with customers and co workers These solutions enable employees to share calendars doc uments presentations notes Web pages photos videos and other files in real time APP ACCESS The massive bank of productivity tools available in the form of free and paid mobile apps helps workers do everything from tracking ex penses to organizing customer con tact lists In short mobile apps can greatly assist business users with location based tasks GPS naviga tion travel and event planning organization calendars appoint ments expense tracking booking accommodations and transportation hotels rental cars air travel data gathering voice memos notes pho tography social networking public posts internal social network up dates and more MOBILE PAYMENTS Mobile payment solutions in crease opportunities for taking in revenue They also bring conve nience to customers and elimina
176. y a larger savings in the skills required he adds Ben Woo Neuralytix www neuralytix com managing director says the prob lem with most business owners and especially IT leaders professionals is that IT is too focused on infrastructure rather than information Convergence enables transforming IT back into its real job of delivering information ser vices vs infrastructure services he says The majority of CIOs are Chief Infra structure Officers not Info Officers he says Woo equates data center conver gence to a holistic environment The old saying of the whole is greater than the sum of the parts applies here Data center equals whole Silo equals parts Despite the enthusiasm for data center convergence silos aren t neces sarily irrelevant just yet because the silo based approach is dependent on a given application and business needs Sometimes business governance needs to drive the need for siloed approaches or the inability of workloads to share resources Brech says These issues are typically becoming smaller in work loads that run in the same architectures but they haven t gone away So while shared resource approaches are gaining some silos will continue to exist to meet specific business needs CONVERGENCE COMPONENTS Core components involved in data center convergence include storage networking servers and virtualization Also key is planning how to inte
177. y access and control employee computers for ex ample however Menting says they are extremely popular with mali cious hackers and cyber criminals which is why they have such a nega tive connotation THE DAMAGE DONE Essentially rootkits give an attacker free reign to perform any task de sired include installing software deleting files modifying programs transmitting data and using spy ware to steal credit card numbers passwords keystrokes etc A root kit s ability to modify existing pro grams and processes says Menting enables it to avoid detection by se curity software that would normally catch such software There really aren t any limits to how much damage it can do to a PC Olds says It can delete data files and then rewrite gibberish on the hard drive to ensure that the data can t be recovered or it can quietly work in the background and log user keystrokes eventually capturing workplace ecom merce or banking usernames and pass words Ultimately a rootkit can route that data to a hacker to plunder ac counts or gain access to a corporate net work Olds says Beyond software based rootkits there are hardware based rootkits says Hadnagy These like software root kits give the attacker full admin access to a machine compromising everything on it and even at times the network it s connected to he says For users O Gorman says a rootkit destroys
178. ypt other data because you might be required to encrypt specific types of data because of some regula tory compliance says Ouellet Standards such as PCI for financial institutions or HIPAA for health care organizations mandate the use of certain encryption protocols and specifically layout the types of data that must be encrypted for security and privacy reasons The most common types of en crypted data are customer credit card numbers and PII personally identifiable information generally which often consists of contact or location information that can be used to search for individuals and design targeted attacks It s abso lutely crucial to encrypt these types of information because leakage of these kinds of information can not only tarnish your company s image and result in a mass exodus of cus tomers it can represent the start of an irreparable domino effect that could effectively end your business In addition to customer informa tion Ouellet says that companies need to be equally concerned about 16 June 2013 www pctoday com Any time the potential exists for sensi tive privileged or otherwise confidential information could be stored on the end point device whether it be a laptop or a USB key encryption should be consid ered Many jurisdictions have laws that require notification to individuals whose information may have been leaked as a result of loss and demonstrable use of encryption

HOW IT CAN BENEFIT YOUR BUSINESS

Contents

Download Pdf Manuals

Related Search

Related Contents