Archived Technology Notes
Published in 2013
Permanent URLEmerging Technologies are Changing the IT Job Market
by tony balistrieri, fusionstorm
Stardate: 523201.3, U.S.A.– Technology is changing and growing so fast that a reference to the future, and Star Trek, seems appropriate.
I’m often asked about the direction of the technology market and where it’s headed; the good news is that IT job opportunities are plentiful across the nation. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data, the number of U.S. employees working in applications and systems software developer jobs increased by 5.5 percent from 2011-2012, while the number of employees working in database, network and computer systems administrator occupations increased by 2.6 percent in the same year. The bad news, though, is that you have to be competitive about applying for these jobs and keep up with the industry’s pace.
If you are looking for your next dream job, your skills must be relevant; old technology is making way for new in ways we may never have imagined. In essence, the world of SDN, Converged Infrastructure, BYOD, Virtualization, ITaaS, SDS, and PAaaS, and of course, “The Cloud,” has arrived.
What do these trends mean and what new technologies are important for U.S. employers, vendors, employees and other relevant IT functions? continued…
first published week of: 06/10/2013
Permanent URLExplore Washington DC Through Interactive Esri Map
Esri’s interactive Downtown Washington DC Shortlist map highlights a selected list of the best food, attractions, and architecture surrounding the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. You can click a point on the map to learn more about each site or browse through a curated catalog of photos to find the places that most interest you.
Details Here
first published week of: 02/25/2013
Permanent URLFAA panel: Wi-Fi is safe on planes even during takeoff and landing
by jon brodkin
A Federal Aviation Administration advisory committee "has concluded passengers can safely use hand-held electronic devices, including those connected to onboard Wi-Fi systems, during all portions of flights on nearly all US airliners," the Wall Street Journal reported last night.
The committee's report and recommendations haven't been released yet, but a senior Amazon.com official who leads the advisory group's technical subcommittee revealed the contents to the newspaper. "Nearly all airline fleets 'already have been so dramatically improved and aircraft are so resilient' to electronic interference, according to Paul Misener, Amazon's vice president of global public policy, that the committee concluded they would be safe for 'gate to gate use' of such devices," the WSJ wrote.
We noted last week that the FAA was nearing a decision to remove the requirement that electronic devices be turned off and put away during takeoff and landing, with the change becoming official next year. At the time, though, the New York Times reported, "The ban on sending and receiving e-mails and text messages or using Wi-Fi during takeoff or landing is expected to remain in place, as is the prohibition on making phone calls throughout the flight." continued…
first published week of: 10/07/2013
Permanent URLFacebook Graph Search Announcement Inspires IT Leaders
by colin wood
On Jan. 15, Facebook announced the addition of a new feature that could drastically change the way people use the nation's most popular social networking website.
The feature, a natural-language search tool called Graph Search, was launched as a limited beta -- not all Facebook content can be searched yet, and only a limited group of people have been accepted to try the feature.
Seen by some as a potentially big change in the social media landscape, some forward-looking government IT offices are asking how they can harness the change to help their communities and stay on the cutting edge of technology.
“The Facebook Graph Search is a different way of using Facebook,” said Brian Blau, a research director for Gartner who recently received access to the beta. “It changes your Facebook user interface. It puts search front and center.”
Currently Graph Search only allows users to search for people, places, interests and photos, but Facebook will likely expand the search to include everything on Facebook, Blau said, adding that the company will likely release an API and other tools that will allow organizations to keep better track of data.
“The nature of search is changing,” Blau said. “All of a sudden, hundreds of millions of people are going to have access to what is very sophisticated technology.”
Details Here
first published week of: 02/04/2013
Permanent URLFacebook Phone Is Finally Here, but Who Wants It?
by rachel metz
On Thursday morning, Mark Zuckerberg stood smiling in front of a crowd of journalists and employees at Facebook’s headquarters and put months of rumors to an end. “Today we’re finally going to talk about that Facebook phone,” he said, referring to long-swirling speculation that the social network was secretly developing a device to rival the iPhone. He immediately clarified, adding, “More accurately, we’re going to talk about how you can turn your Android phone into a great, simple, social device.”
Zuckerberg proceeded to unveil an app called "Home" that takes over the home and lock screen of Android smartphones, essentially building functionality around the social network. Home’s “cover feed,” for example, fills the home and lock screens with status updates from Facebook friends, which you can double-tap to “like.” Notifications shown on these screens include a picture of the friend who posted each of them, and Facebook messages and SMSs turn into “chat heads”—headshots that float in bubbles on a phone’s display, making it easy to carry on conversations while using apps.
Home will be available for free download on April 12 and will initially be available on just a handful of smartphones that run the latest versions of Google’s Android software. There actually will be a “Facebook phone,” too: The HTC First, which comes with Home integration and runs on AT&T’s network. It will also be available April 12, and will cost $100 with a two-year wireless service contract.
The app makes a lot of sense for Facebook, and fits in with its much-mentioned “mobile first” strategy. But now that the Facebook phone is here, it’s not altogether clear how many of its billion-plus users will really want it.
Home, as Zuckerberg and several other Facebook executives made clear, makes your phone about people, rather than about apps. So, if you set it as your default home screen, it’s always there, showing full-screen status updates from your friends all of the time. Even if you spend a lot of time using Facebook on your phone—and you probably do, since as Zuckerberg pointed out, about a quarter of the time we spend on our phones is devoted to checking Facebook and Instagram—Home is a big change. continued…
first published week of: 04/08/2013
Permanent URLFederal judge finds NSA phone spying likely unconstitutional
by joe mullin
In a stunning decision, a DC-based federal judge has ruled that the National Security Agency spying revealed this summer violates the constitution.
The opinion (PDF) published today by US District Judge Richard Leon is in response to a lawsuit filed by Larry Klayman, a longtime conservative activist. Klayman was fast on the draw, filing his lawsuit on June 6, one day after widespread NSA surveillance was revealed in June.
Leon's order grants an injunction that will shut down the NSA's Bulk Telephony Metadata Program, and it requires the government to destroy the metadata collected on the plaintiffs' accounts. The shutdown will only happen if an appeals court agrees with Leon, who has stayed the injunction pending appeal, "in light of the significant national security issues at stake in this case and the novelty of the constitutional issues."
A problematic precedent
Today's 71-page order works around a problematic precedent for privacy reformers, Smith v. Maryland. That's the 1979 Supreme Court decision that found there's "no reasonable expectation of privacy" in the actual phone numbers dialed from a telephone, because they are "business records." That's what allows "pen registers" to be installed by police without judicial review, since it's not a "search" in the eyes of courts.
"The question before me is not the same question that the Supreme Court confronted in Smith," wrote Leon. Using a pen register "is a far cry from the issue in this case." We've reached a turning point in the history of technology, in Leon's reading. The government's decades-old reasoning can't hold up in the present day. He writes:
Indeed, the question in this case can more properly be styled as follows: when do present-day circumstances—the evolutions in the Government's surveillance capabilities, citizens' phone habits, and the relationship between the NSA and telecom companies—become so thoroughly unlike those considered by the Supreme Court 34 years ago that a precedent like Smith simply does not apply? The answer, unfortunately for the government, is now.
continued…
first published week of: 12/16/2013
Permanent URLFireEye study finds 92% of attacks use ZIP files to deliver malware,.
by eduard kovacs
Security firm FireEye has released its Advanced Threat Report for the second half of 2012. Based on data collected from over 89 million events, the study focuses on malware, and the way cyber–criminals distribute it and defend it against security products.
According to the figures, on average, organizations experience a malware event up to one time every three minutes. However, the rate of malware activity varies depending on the industry.
For instance, tech companies experience one malware event per minute.
It’s also worth noting that spear phishing continues to be the most common malware distribution method. To make their campaigns as successful as possible, cybercriminals use common business terms as filenames.
For example, the most utilized term in malware file names in the second half of 2012 was “UPS.” continued…
first published week of: 04/29/2013
Permanent URLGartner: Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends For 2014
by peter high
Gartner just concluded its Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2013 in Orlando, gathering tens of thousands of IT executives. Among the most anticipated aspects of the gathering are the ruminations from the Gartner pontificators regarding IT trends. Among several trends shared were the Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2014. Here is a summary of those trends: continued…
first published week of: 10/21/2013
Permanent URLGartner’s Top IT Predictions Would Make the Jetsons Envious
by elliot markowitz
Yeah, we were all fans of the 1960s cartoon "The Jetsons" and fantasized about the incredible technology we watched this space-age family use—from voice-activated machines to wearable computers to even mobile technology.
But back when the cartoon sitcom first appeared, and then reintroduced in the 1980s, everything on this futuristic show seemed completely out of reach. Fast forward 50 or so years and some of the technology we use makes the Jetsons look more like the Flintstones. Anyone remember Rosie the robotic maid? Primitive when compared to today’s robotic advancements.
This is especially true when looking through Gartner’s latest top predictions for IT organizations and IT users for 2014 and beyond—emphasizing Digital Business, Smart Machines and the Internet of Things. And while some of these predictions seem to be a bit of a stretch, it all spells opportunity for the evolution of the solution provider.
And beyond all the technology hype, this continued evolution and melding of IT and business is the real key. As technology becomes more ingrained in business functions, solution providers are bound to play a more critical role.
"Gartner's 2013 CEO survey suggests CEOs feel that business uncertainties are declining and yet, CIOs awake each day into a world of technology uncertainty and change," said Daryl Plummer, managing vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner, in a prepared statement. "The savvy CIO will get his or her CEO to recognize the change being brought about by disruptive shifts is coming at an accelerated pace and at a global level of impact." continued…
first published week of: 10/14/2013
Permanent URLGeofencing in Flickr
by Dr. Drang
With so many people fleeing Instagram and returning to—or trying out—Flickr, I thought it worth describing one of Flickr’s less well-known privacy features: geofencing.
Geofencing is a way of controlling who gets to see the location information associated with your photos. Flickr, like iPhoto, allows you to set that information through a map interface, but I suspect most photos that have location data are those taken with an iPhone or other smartphone, where the latitude and longitude are added to the photo automatically by the phone’s GPS. Because I have this pseudonymous presence on the ’net, my reason for keeping certain location data hidden is obvious: I take a lot of photos at home and at work, and although I often want the photos themselves to be public, I don’t want those locations known. And even if you use your real name in your blog or on social media sites, that doesn’t mean you want everyone who sees you photos to know exactly where you live. Geofencing is the solution.
To set up a geofence in Flickr, make sure you’re logged in and hover your mouse over your avatar in the top right corner of the page (it doesn’t matter which page you’re on as long as you can see the avatar in that corner). A short menu will drop down.
Details Here
first published week of: 01/21/2013
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