Thornton May: The one thing we know about the future is that it's coming

This is how I roll. For the past 25 years, I have marked the end of summer not by devouring the closing page of the latest beach read or squeezing a lime into the final gin and tonic of the season, but by asking IT leaders, "What are you doing to prepare for the future?" Two responses have typically predominated. Over the years, CIOs have said that they were either "fixing" IT or "focusing" IT on delivering what the business needs. Here's some good news: This year's data indicates that "fixing IT" has all but disappeared from line-of-sight preparations for the future. I am pleased to report that in 78% of the Global 2000, IT does not suck. The various IT modernization efforts launched slowly and with limited funding in the shadow of the financial trauma of 2007-11 appear to have taken hold. Most of the "turnaround" CIOs who were airlifted into troubled IT shops have stabilized computational resources and succeeded in rendering enterprise IT nontoxic to key stakeholders. The IT community is to be commended for this. We are talking about rendering a massively heterogeneous, mind-bogglingly complex array of technologies and methodologies that border on being unmanageable into a stable and value-producing asset. That was accomplished in the face of ridiculously low budgets, a vendor marketing approach in which more money is spent on golf outings and sporting events than on R&D or thought leadership, and a tragically tech-illiterate corps of executives. Kudos all around for the IT tribe. Having gotten IT somewhere that was well worth going to, we still have to wonder what more the future holds. (It's a question that will expire only when we have no more future to look forward to.) Well, it would be nice if IT budgets went up, but we can't expect that anytime soon. I seriously envision a day when boards of directors will fire CIOs for not spending enough money on IT, but you don't need me to tell you that that day has not yet arrived. And it isn't just our own budgets that matter. All IT practitioners wish that our suppliers spent less on the swag (pens, flash drives, T-shirts) they distribute at those out-of-date, pipe-and-drape trade shows, and more on investments in understanding. I'm a futurist first, but I'm also a realist. Vendors appear doomed to always overspend on the trivial and leave the hard work of figuring out how to use technology to make money and create mission value to the folks in the trenches. Bear in mind, though, that while IT may not suck at long last, that won't last for long. Change is upon us. Is your organization prepared for the disruptions associated with the "SMAC stack" -- the mix of social, mobile, analytics and cloud? Have you adjusted your talent pipeline? Have you put in place the appropriate risk-adjusted "experimentation sandboxes" to gain experience with these technologies ahead of deploying them at scale? Have you created a network of smart people doing smart things on the edges? Of course, in the history of computing, enterprise IT has rarely ever been prepared for the future. Think about it. Were we ready for the PC, client/server or the Web? Decidedly not. But we can't go on that way. H.G. Wells planted the seed for modern futurism with a series of essays called "Anticipations," in which he advocated that thinkers/actors in the present should devote substantive cognitive resources to shaping the future. I think he was right. download plume for android apk download aero snap for windows vista download youtube videos in hd chrome download delivery installer magazine moment reader zinio download multi password recovery 1.2.8 download talking tom cat 2 completo apk download facebook messenger for windows cnet download 1channel ch pitch perfect download fruit ninja for ipad 2 download skype for android 4 0 tablet

Steps to take in wake of Gmail wiretapping decision

A recent decision by a federal court in California could expose mobile, Web- and cloud-based businesses to class-action lawsuits for doing nothing more than processing user data. U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh, ruling in a civil lawsuit alleging that Google violated federal and state wiretapping laws when it processed emails through its Gmail service, held that the processing of user data could constitute an illegal interception of electronic communications. Koh's decision reflects a very narrow interpretation of what it means to process user data in the ordinary course of business. Google, for example, routinely machine-scanned Gmail messages to create user profiles and provide targeted advertising. More troubling for the online community, however, is that when paired with the very broad definition of electronic communications under the federal wiretapping statutes, the decision has the potential to expose a host of current data processing activities to costly class-action litigation. Fortunately, there are certain specific steps that an at-risk business may undertake to mitigate or even avoid this liability. An expansive application of the federal wiretapping statute The source of the problem is an anachronistic federal wiretap statute, first enacted in 1968. At that time, the landline telephone system was the predominant communications system, and the voice telephone call was about the only thing that resembled an "electronic communication." In fact, the original wiretap statute did not even refer to electronic communications but rather described only wire and oral communications; the term "electronic communication" was added almost a generation later, in 1986. Today, almost 30 years later, the term "electronic communication" remains largely undefined and is applied (or misapplied) to a wide variety of user-initiated data transfers and related technologies. In application, the wiretap statute prohibits the interception of oral, wire or electronic communications, subject to various exceptions. A significant exception, and the one at issue in the Gmail litigation, excludes liability for interceptions made in the ordinary course of business. That is, any service through which users send and receive data may process that data within the ordinary course of business without running afoul of the wiretap statute. In the Gmail litigation, plaintiffs filed a class-action lawsuit alleging that Google illegally intercepted emails sent to and from Gmail users when it processed those messages to develop user profiles and provide targeted advertising within Gmail. Google argued that the processing was exempted from the statute because it was done in the ordinary course of business and that its users consented to the processing. Koh rejected the "ordinary course of business" argument based on a very narrow definition of what constituted the Gmail "service." Google argued that the Gmail service included all of Gmail's features and, therefore, the processing required to provide those features was necessarily done in the ordinary course of business. The court instead viewed the Gmail service narrowly, limiting it strictly to the transmission and receipt of email. Therefore, the court reasoned, the only processing conducted in the ordinary course of business (exempted from liability under the statute) was processing necessary for the routing, termination or management of the email message. Any additional "processing" was not within the ordinary course of business and was prohibited. download avg internet security latest update download jana gana mana instrumental download safari 6 for windows vista download yahoo messenger for blackberry touch download install antivirus smadav 2011 download the way of the ninja game download flash player windows 7 chip download ps3 xploder cheat system crack download project tv 90210 season 1 download speed meter pro 4.7

COBOL-based system for $160B pension fund is a political football

A COBOL (common business oriented language)-based system used to support New York's $160 billion state pension fund has become the subject of controversy, with some officials claiming it poses a potential security risk and others defending it as "battle-tested," albeit set to be replaced. Dubbed MEBEL (member, employer, benefits, executive and legal), the system dates back more than 25 years, according to an audit released earlier this month by the state Department of Financial Services. It "supports the core business processes of the retirement system including benefits processing, calculating and payment, employer billing and reporting, and enrollment and termination of membership," the audit adds. "Using a system that is more than 25 years old for such a high volume of transactions is dangerous, particularly because the systems and programs MEBEL was intended to interface with are also now very outdated and there are a small and dwindling number of specialists able to use and maintain them," the audit states. The audit also found that MEBEL had been using versions of IBM's z/OS mainframe operating system and Microsoft's SQL Server that were so out of date, they weren't supported by the vendors. While the state has upgraded SQL Server it won't do the same for z/OS until later this year, according to the audit. "Software vendors do not create security patches or fixes for recently identified problems for software that is past their formal support end dates," it adds. "This lack of security and functionality protection leaves the retirement system's data vulnerable to bugs and to security breaches, including attacks by hackers." The Department of Financial Services falls under the auspices of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's administration, but the pension system is overseen by New York state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, who is elected separately and also serves as the state's auditor. The two have sparred politically over various issues in recent years, including DiNapoli's handling of the pension fund and Cuomo's budget proposals. DiNapoli's office responded to the DFS audit on Friday, saying it contained "numerous inaccuracies, misleading statements and errors." MEBEL is a "secure and battle-tested system" and COBOL is a "very stable language used extensively throughout state government as well as financial institutions around the world," the statement added. A "reliable work horse," MEBEL has been "constantly maintained and updated," DiNapoli's office said. "None of the hardware or software used by the System is old. The mainframe was purchased in 2009 and the software is current. A stable computer system has a low risk of sudden and arbitrary failure." Although COBOL dates back more than five decades, its time of invention is "irrelevant" in light of this ongoing maintenance, he added. download microsoft net framework 3.0 gezginler download aplikasi sms banking bri blackberry download euro truck simulator full version crack download forever 21 promo code download victoria secret 59th street download kamus besar bahasa indonesia untuk android download power soccer 3d game download k lite mega codec pack para download video splitter for mac download world of warcraft stress test beta

Q&A: Riverbed CEO sees WANs in the data center and the cloud

If you think wide-area network (WAN) optimization is a niche market, don't bring it up around Jerry Kennelly. The co-founder, chairman and CEO of San Francisco-based Riverbed Technology, Kennelly is a fervent believer that WAN optimization is the foundation for the next generation of IT infrastructure and that Riverbed is poised for a dominant role not only in corporate data centers but in the cloud as well. Since its founding in 2002, Riverbed has become the leader in WAN optimization (according to consultancy Gartner Group, Inc.), and it continues to grow at a rapid clip. The company had 39% year-over-year revenue expansion in its first fiscal quarter ended June 30. In this installment of the IDG Enterprise CEO Interview Series, Kennelly spoke with IDGE Chief Content Officer John Gallant and Network World Senior Editor Tim Greene about battling with Cisco Systems, the expansion of Riverbed's product line and big opportunities in the cloud. Where does Riverbed go beyond WAN optimization? You are a dominant player, but the danger is that you become a one-trick pony. How do you expand the scope of this business? What we're really doing is layer-seven application acceleration, and that has much deeper implications than simply making a particular land line faster and cheaper than it was. It's something that changes the nature of global IT infrastructure for every major company in the world. Everyone likes a fast line. It was attractive to people because it saves them bandwidth. It's much cheaper to do optimization and compression across the network than to buy bigger links. But then we saw people doing data center consolidation with it, which is moving all the server and IT infrastructure out of branch offices, out of multiple data centers into just one or two. That trend has driven a lot of our growth in the last three years. Our products make that possible because you can't do data center consolidation unless you can give reasonable performance to the people who no longer have local servers. We woke up one morning about six months ago to discover - wait a minute - what we're doing is creating private clouds, because what data center consolidation does is the creation of a private cloud. So, in fact, we've actually penetrated the cloud market. The further implication is that if you have to have our technology to do private clouds, well, guess what, you can't do public clouds without it either. The biggest companies in the world - the biggest service providers, the biggest systems integrators, the biggest Fortune 100 companies - are coming to Riverbed to ask us 'how do we do our cloud infrastructure into the future?' Cisco started out in the multiprotocol router business and expanded into many other areas, including switching, storage, security and more. Should we expect to see a similar, diverse growth track and expansion plan for Riverbed? Cisco is the layer two and three of networking, but the action now is less at layer two and three and much more layers four through seven. Cisco's the king of two and three and we're the king of four through seven. We just have a huge future for ourselves. We bring the capability customers could only dream about, that no one thought was ever possible, and here we are delivering it. There is a big product future, revenue future, for us. We're a strategic partner. I talk to CIOs all the time now, and the importance of having knowledge workers connect to their applications effectively, cheaply, globally, seamlessly, 24-7, is critical for them. That's what we do. That gives us an incredible position going into the next decade. download angry birds symbian 5th download quicktime for itunes windows download descargar plant vs zombies para pc full download chorus lagu kita forteen download avg internet security 2011 full version for windows 7 download chromium build for mac download videos from youtube mpeg download all your photos from picasa download itunes for windows home premium download london bridge fergie instrumental

Q&A: Sybase CEO John Chen touts a turnaround

Few companies get a chance at a second life. When John Chen signed on as CEO of Sybase 12 years ago, the database software vendor was, in Chen's words, "a very, very dead company." Once a strong competitor to Oracle, Sybase had missed an opportunity to push into the enterprise application market Oracle now leads. Over the next 10 years or so, Chen and his team helped Sybase turned around and reinvent itself as an enabler of the "unwired enterprise." Then, last month, enterprise software bigwig SAP signed a merger agreement with Sybase, citing the compmany's leadership in both mobile and in real-time analytics. The deal was valued at $5.8 billion. Since that deal was announced, Sybase has had little to say. But in March, before rumors about the merger began circulating, John Gallant, Chief Content Officer for IDG Enterprise (IDGE), and Eric Knorr, Editor in Chief of InfoWorld, sat down with Chen for an hour-long chat as part of IDGE's CEO Interview Series. The interview explored how Chen was able to rescue Sybase and establish it as a key mobile enterprise player. The result: A discussion rare in its frankness - one that offers retroactive insight into the real reasons SAP found Sybase so attractive. Excerpts from that interview follow. John Gallant: You've got a pretty interesting and diverse product set. You have the database, analytics, mobile management tools, and mobile tools that are pretty widely deployed among the service providers. Help us understand how those different technologies fit into a cohesive strategy that makes Sybase unique. Sybase traditionally has been an infrastructure software provider to the enterprise. We started as a client-server database company and then moved into development toolsets when we acquired PowerSoft. And after I came on board, we continued to develop our database. Gradually, we positioned ourselves in high-growth areas, like analytics, mobile middleware, and mobile services. And how we envision that it all comes together is that we believe mobile enterprise computing is going to be the next really big thing. If you think that e-commerce was a big sea change in the early 2000s, m-commerce will make e-commerce a very small thing. M-commerce reaches almost the majority of six billion people around the world. Eric Knorr: What characterizes an enterprise mobile service as opposed to a consumer service? Applications must talk to applications; machines must talk to machines. There has to be intelligence gathering, mobile analytics, real-time reporting, all these things. We could be a leader in providing those kinds of infrastructures. It starts with backend infrastructure in a data center to people sitting here with a device. That's a whole stack of a computing path. download color efex pro for capture nx2 download dynamsoft dynamic web twain activex download drudge report liberal equivalent download system tools for xp download sopcast 3 4 0 mien phi download itunes to your pc download aclu 4th amendment zone download facebook app for macbook air download youtube videos add ons chrome download youtube audio to ipad

Trojan malware steals sensitive data from SAP client apps

A recently discovered malicious program steals log-in passwords and other sensitive information from SAP client applications and allows cybercriminals to access SAP servers from infected workstations. Researchers from ERPScan, a company that develops SAP security scanning products, revealed at the RSA Europe security conference in October that a new malware program scans infected computers for the presence of SAP applications, possibly in preparation for future attacks. Researchers from Microsoft recently analyzed the same malware, which they named TrojanSpy:Win32/Gamker.A, and found that it does more than just basic reconnaissance. "This is an attempted attack on SAP and not just a harmless data-gathering operation to determine if SAP is installed," Geoff McDonald, a researcher with the Microsoft Malware Protection Center (MMPC), said Wednesday in a blog post. "The attackers are using the execution of the SAP component 'saplogon.exe' to trigger recording of the command-line arguments passed into it, combined with a series of 10 screenshots to the C&C server." Gamker has a keylogging component that logs all keystrokes entered into any application running on an infected computer. This component can capture log-in credentials like usernames and passwords, including those entered in SAP client applications. The malware also maintains a large list of specific applications for which it also records command-line parameters and takes screen shots of their active windows. The list includes saplogon.exe, but also finance-related programs, cryptography tools, VPN clients, Bitcoin wallets and more. The complete list is included in the MMPC blog post, but some examples are rclient.exe (remote administration client), translink.exe (a tool by Western Union), truecrypt.exe and bestcrypt.exe (two encryption applications), openvpn-gui (a graphical user interface for the OpenVPN client). Gamker shares some code with Carberp, a Russian online banking Trojan program whose source code was leaked online earlier this year, McDonald said. The common part is the Virtual Network Computing (VNC) remote desktop functionality that can be used to remotely control an infected computer. "It is unclear if there is a larger connection between Gamker and Carberp since the remainder of Gamkers code differs from Carberp's publicly leaked code," the Microsoft researcher said. According to McDonald, the command-line arguments for the saplogon.exe process are unlikely to contain sensitive information, but the screen shots of its active window can reveal the SAP user name, server name and other confidential data. That information, combined with the SAP password captured by the keylogging component and the VNC functionality, gives attackers everything they need to attack SAP servers directly from infected machines. SAP software is used by enterprises to track and manage many business operations including manufacturing, human resources and sales. This means that SAP servers usually contain a lot of sensitive information like customer details, trade secrets, intellectual property or financial data, which can be valuable for attackers. download crept we cameinstrumental beat bone thugs download data recovery software for micro sd card download antivirus smadav versi 8 9 download gta san andreas for mac full version download facebook password hack v2 1 download avast internet security 2012 completo download ie tab multi (enhance) download avast antivirus pro full crack download olympus camera initialization software download big lots 54th division

Cloud security: Symantec CEO shares why it's a game-changer

For Symantec Corp. CEO Enrique Salem, the three critical issues facing IT leaders today -- and the three biggest opportunities for his 'information protection' company -- are cloud, virtualization and the consumerization of technology. In this installment of the IDG Enterprise CEO Interview Series, InfoWorld Editor-in-Chief Eric Knorr and IDGE Chief Content Officer John Gallant caught up with Salem shortly after his RSA Conference keynote describing Symantec's cloud-focused security strategy,dubbed 03. In this discussion, Salem outlines why 03 is such a critical initiative for the company, and discusses how cloud and virtualization change the security threat landscape and the business opportunities for Symantec. He also talks about why Symantec isn't overly concerned about Intel Corp.'s purchase of McAfee, Inc. and what it means for Symantec to be on its own in a market with competitors like Intel, IBM, Cisco and other giants. Salem also outlines what's ahead for Symantec's non-security businesses in storage and systems management, and how collaboration and social networking will change everything for organizations in the years ahead. download tunisia-sat dreambox player&web streamer 6.0.0 download blackberry desktop manager for blackberry curve 8900 download batch convert word to pdf mac lion download spiderman 2 enter electro on demo download handbook of print media download generates validates credit card number generator download microsoft .net framework 4 standalone

Some data center operators take their chances with floods

Given the dire warnings about climate change, some business leaders and IT professionals are pondering this question: How should data center managers handle the crop of so-called 100- and even 500-year storms, coastal floods and other ecological disasters that climatologists predict are heading our way? Some experts suggest that managers of mission-critical data centers simply need to harden their existing facilities, other observers say data centers need to be moved to higher ground, and a third group advises data center managers to pursue both strategies. One thing is certain, experts say: Few IT organizations -- even those that suffered or narrowly escaped damage during recent major storms -- are thinking long term. Most IT leaders are, if anything, taking the path of least resistance and least expense. For instance, the response to Hurricane Sandy, on the East Coast at least, "is nothing more than hardening existing data centers," says Peter Sacco, founder and president of PTS Data Center Solutions, a data center design and management consultancy in Franklin Lakes, N.J. On the other hand, he says, the fact that most computers are networked these days de-emphasizes "the importance of any single data center." Internap, an IT infrastructure colocation company, is strengthening its most at-risk facilities, including the building at 75 Broad St. in lower Manhattan that flooded after Sandy hit. During the storm, fuel pumps shut down and Internap switched to a 1,200-gallon reserve fuel tank on a higher floor to keep servers running. "No one expected Sandy to become as catastrophic as it was," says Steve Orchard, Internap's senior vice president of development and operations. Between Sandy and 2011's Hurricane Irene, "we're seeing a trend that's a little alarming," he adds. The company has announced that it's building a new data center in Secaucus, N.J. -- outside the flood plain. "We take climate change very seriously, and it does factor into our new site selection," Orchard says. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, followed by Gustav and Ike (2008) and Isaac (2012), slammed into the Gulf Coast with such ferocity that IT executives at Entergy, a $10 billion electrical power company with 15,000 employees, abandoned the idea of a single data center in the New Orleans area. Before Katrina hit, Entergy, which provides both nuclear- and fossil-fuel-generated electricity to 2.8 million customers, had its corporate headquarters in New Orleans and a single data center in Gretna, La., just across the Mississippi River from downtown New Orleans. "We knew the data center was in the storm's way, and we made a decision after that event to move the data center because we were holding our breath," says Jill Israel, Entergy's CIO. "We didn't have flooding in the immediate area of our data center, but there was no power, our lines were down and we had to run on our generator and keep topping it off." download internet manager serial number blogspot download lock on modern air combat full download ice age village for android apk download vlc media player per mac gratis download angry birds seasons theme song download adobe flash player per windows xp gratis download kate upton sports illustrated download rar password recovery 5 0 full version download apk batch installer tool v1.3.0a download microsoft outlook inbox repair tool

The Grill: Kathy Moore, CIO, West Virginia Health Information Exchange

The West Virginia Health Information Network was created by the state of West Virginia and charged with building a secure electronic health information system so providers could access and exchange patient data. The goal is to improve the quality of patient information and thereby enable providers to more quickly offer better care at lower costs. Among those leading the effort is Kathy Moore, CIO of the network. Moore is now working with hospitals and other healthcare providers in the state to get them connected to the exchange. "The exchange is now up and live, and we're focused on rollout and bringing on as many as possible," says Moore, a former deputy CTO for the state of West Virginia. Here she shares her thoughts on leading this huge IT project. Kathy Moore Family: Married, with four grown children What accomplishment are you the most proud of? "I feel like I've helped a lot of others with their careers, and I feel good about that." What's the best advice you've ever given to anyone? "Don't take it personally, it's just business." And what's the best advice you've ever received? "'Never go down with an issue.' I got that from a college professor who used to be a state official who went down with an issue." Hobbies: Gardening How do healthcare providers need to prepare for the new network? Technically [the electronic health records] need to be in one place, and organizationally [the providers] need to be ready, too. That's a big part of the onboarding process. You can connect up technically, but if you don't know how to use it, what data you want to contribute, how your employees are going to implement that, then you're not really ready. What are the biggest challenges in building this system? Orchestrating everything. There are just so many players and so many factors. For example, for a single hospital to onboard, you've got a governance team, a technology team, a training team, patient notice, and support. Then there's our staff, the vendor, their staff, their policies, our polices, training and ongoing support. So getting all those moving parts working is a challenge. And there are so many different vendors selling [electronic health record systems] to doctors, so each one is a different connection. Is the technology side a bigger challenge than the other parts of the project? I think they're equally impactful because it really is any one of those pieces that can cause the entire thing to not work well or not get adopted. On the technology side, everybody is hitting the market with [application options] at the same time without necessarily seeing what's ahead with some of the future requirements. A lot of people are offering the same services, so you have to be careful not to step on each other's toes in what you're trying to provide to the customer. We don't intend to, but sometimes it appears that way, because some of the larger vendors are offering their own private [exchanges]. What they end up doing is connecting anyone who has their product together. Does that mean you have to sell your organization and its mission? Sometimes I feel like we get put in that position. It's more negotiating what makes sense to do: participating in this state exchange versus participating with the vendor. It looks sometimes to the customer like the same thing, and we have to sort it all out for them. Do healthcare providers have to pay to be part of your group? Eventually they will. We will be developing our sustainability model. We have funding to last us approximately four more years, and our sustainability requirements aren't great because we're not a profit-making organization. But it will be one of our future challenges. What are other challenges? Short term is developing that sustainability model, driving the value and managing the initiatives with limited resources. But longer term, it is consumer engagement. We have a patient portal, so there will be a point where patients could access their records, regardless of who contributed that information. Is the patient portal active? It is active, but we haven't deployed it. We have a pilot coming up in the next few months. We expect that to be managed by the providers themselves, for them to give patients access. But we're hosting the application, and we have to develop the policies around the use of the patient portal and how the providers can provision and manage within that portal. Then patients would be able to access and see and download any information in there to their own personal health records. What are the biggest opportunities around this initiative? It is really for improving access to information to healthcare providers so they can make decisions sooner with the right information, and they can improve outcomes and lower costs. To me, it's really hitting home because I'm having this type of experience. My father has [healthcare providers] coming to the home and they're asking the same questions. But if they had the information through an exchange, they'd have those answers before they walk through the door. It's almost like they're working with blindfolds on. It's amazing to me to think about how much of a difference it can make in the future. Are you seeing that difference now? We are. The stories are starting to come through. Yesterday we worked with a public health [official who was] able to access and validate information about a disease. It was a public health mandatory reportable disease. We were trying to see if the system had information valuable to her. 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Platform as a service heats up

Of all the members of the cloud services family, platform as a service has been the slowest to grow and is the one that enterprises have had the most trouble adopting, despite its benefits. But experts think PaaS might soon shake its reputation as an underachiever. Gartner estimates that worldwide PaaS revenue reached $1.2 billion in 2012, up just a bit from $900 million in 2011. That's peanuts compared to the $109 billion that the researchers estimated for 2012 from all hosted services, including software as a service. PaaS is one step up from the infrastructure offerings like Amazon Web Services, which manage servers and the virtualization layer but leave the rest up to users. With PaaS, the provider also maintains the server operating system and typically an application development environment on top of that, so developers can focus on the application they are building, rather than keeping track of server software updates. There are signs that the PaaS market is poised for growth. PaaS providers say that while the bulk of their users have been startups, the number of large enterprises that use the technology is increasing. "Uptake was slow, but I think we're into a second generation [of PaaS] that's a little better suited to enterprises," says John Rymer, an analyst at Forrester. Growth in the PaaS segment will still be relatively slow -- Gartner expects worldwide revenue to reach just $3.5 billion in 2017 -- but businesses should take note. Gartner analyst Yafim Natis says the revenue projection "grossly underestimates the importance of this part of the cloud architecture." Early adopters swear by PaaS. "Anybody that's building their testing and development team on real iron in a data center has to be crazy," says Mario Cruz, co-founder and CTO at Choose Digital, a company that builds digital marketplaces for customers such as United Airlines and Marriott. "If you tell someone, 'If you went to PaaS, you would have your builds automatically generated and tested,' why wouldn't they do it?" Users like Cruz say the PaaS advantage is so great, enterprises that don't start using the services are likely to fall behind their more nimble competitors. Plus, many of the traditional vendors of enterprise IT systems, including IBM, Oracle, HP, Dell, Microsoft and Red Hat, now have PaaS offerings that are aimed at their long-term customers. With the big vendors pushing PaaS, the segment is sure to get more notice. download scars basement jaxx engine earz remix download transformers the game full save game download angry bird game windows xp download clean green and blue download album art er for windows xp download rider ft chris brown download start menu themes for windows 7 download google chromium for windows xp download java se development kit 6 update 11 download spray maker cs 1.6

The Grill: Gino Pokluda gains control of an unwieldy database system

Gino Pokluda had a problem: The database system at Presbyterian Health Plan in Albuquerque, N.M., where Pokluda serves as manager of service improvement and innovation, was becoming increasingly expensive and unwieldy, requiring about 80TB of storage for 13 database environments. To gain control, Pokluda implemented Delphix software to enable agile data management and eliminate redundant infrastructure. The 2012 project sliced his storage needs to 35TB, even though his team now maintains 23 environments. Here Pokluda, who manages all production, test and development environments for the company, discusses the database system overhaul and shares other IT management insights. Dossier Gino Pokluda Hometown: El Paso, Texas Family: Wife, an adult daughter and two dogs Outside pursuits: Pokluda is an ultramarathoner, whose longest run was 77 miles in 24 hours. He's also a published author of steampunk fiction. What are you reading these days? Search Inside Yourself: The Unexpected Path to Achieving Success, Happiness (and World Peace), by Chade-Meng Tan and Eat and Run: My Unlikely Journey to Ultramarathon Greatness, by Scott Jurek and Steve Friedman. What would surprise people about you? "I owned a motorcycle store called Rider Valley Motorcycles from 2002 to 2006." What are your key responsibilities? To look at those things we do now in IT and to get a culture of innovation to take hold here. That's something that hasn't existed in the past. In addition, I'm charged with implementing ITIL best practices throughout IT. How do you define innovation? I can tell you the things it's not. It's not process improvement. Process improvement is where innovation gets hijacked, and it always revolves around ROI. Innovation, in my mind, is, "What is the job to be done and what is the best possible way to do that?" Innovation doesn't always involve technology. It could be just looking at something differently. How do you cultivate innovation? The best innovation comes from the bottom up. You get those who are doing the work, and you give them the opportunity to come up with new ideas. We have 100 people in IT, so we have 100 innovators, and I submit that everyone has at some point innovated and they just don't realize it. Was the Delphix project innovation or process improvement? It was definitely innovation. We were a mainframe shop that got thrust into the world of diversified processing. That made life a whole lot simpler. But in 2005, our payer system [vendor] decided that they were not going to provide any more upgrades. So we had to enter the world of Windows servers and a diversified infrastructure running Facets [a healthcare payer system]. In 2005 we built this Windows architecture running this product and, unfortunately, we had a flawed architecture. As a result, this became a legacy problem we perpetuated until about two years ago when we realized we couldn't keep up with the business demand for databases. That prompted us to look at how we maintain storage and utilize our storage. What finally prompted the overhaul? Our biggest problem was volume: We had a 1.5-terabyte database for production and a 1.5-terabyte database for development. Multiply that by three or four, and then a couple of configuration environments and testing environments and training environments, and 33% growth each year. All of a sudden, the cost of storage for nonproduction environments is rising exponentially. When we got to 13 environments, we said something's got to change. Also, we could not meet the needs of the business. If they had a large project or a large push for a regulatory requirement and they had to test it, we just couldn't do it. What sold you on this technology? The virtual databases the product provided acted just like the [original] databases. They were every bit a database except when you looked at the footprint. How did you devise the solution? I did what everyone else does: I Googled. I was fishing for clues; I was fishing for something out there to see what everyone else was doing, and that's where I came across a white paper written by Delphix for Boeing about how Boeing was experiencing these same issues in their credit union and how they used virtualized databases to solve their problem. We were already well into our journey into VMware, virtualizing our servers. And then you realize that if you can virtualize databases, you can virtualize your entire stack. And when you combine those, virtual servers and virtual databases, you can clone entire environments very easily. I realized that was the way we should go. What was the biggest challenge? Actually persuading corporate leadership to go this route; convincing them that this new technology was going to be beneficial to them. We convinced them through a number of presentations, and we sold it to them by saying we'll try it for a year and see how it works. Besides lower storage requirements, what other benefits did you gain with this project? It used to take 50-some-odd days to develop an insurance product, to get that through configuration, development and testing. That time frame has shrunk. Now we can get a product to the customer in about 23 days. What was the biggest lesson learned from that project? It doesn't have anything do to with the product, but I've learned that IT shops, when they're deeply embedded with their customers, the relationship is more of an ecosystem, because something we do here can affect something down the line or up the line. So the relationship between IT and the customer is approaching a symbiotic relationship rather than a collaboration. 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How to balance maintenance and IT innovation

Social! Mobile! Big data! BYOD! You probably already know what your company's executives most want to see from your IT organization. But unless your company is very new, or you're unusually lucky -- or a very, very good manager -- more than half your time and resources are spent, not on innovative projects, but on "keep the lights on" activities whose sole purpose is to prevent existing systems from breaking down. And sometimes the percentage is a lot higher than that. "I've seen companies where it's 80% or 90% of the IT budget," says Columbia Business School professor Rita Gunther McGrath, who examined this issue for her book The End of Competitive Advantage: How to Keep Your Strategy Moving as Fast as Your Business. "I think it should be no more than 50%," she adds. Most CIOs would agree with her, but can't achieve that 50-50 split in their own budgets. In a recent Forrester Research survey of IT leaders at more than 3,700 companies, respondents estimated that they spend an average 72% of the money in their budgets on such keep-the-lights-on functions as replacing or expanding capacity and supporting ongoing operations and maintenance, while only 28% of the money goes toward new projects. Another recent study yielded similar findings. When AlixPartners and CFO Research surveyed 150 CIOs about their IT spending and their feelings about IT spending, 63% of the respondents said their spending was too heavily weighted toward keeping the lights on. Why So Difficult? If no one wants to spend such a huge portion of IT's funds just to run in place, why does it keep happening? One explanation lies in the term "keeping the lights on" itself: Turning the lights off isn't an option. "It's the ante that allows you to hold on to your job," says Eric Johnson, CIO at Informatica, a data integration company in Redwood City, Calif., with annual revenue of $812 million. "If the systems are down and the phones aren't working, no one will care how innovative you are." Of course, new projects are very important, so the challenge is to do both. "CIOs are striving to be business executives, truly driving value for the organization," Johnson says. "That's why there's so much emphasis on keeping the lights on while still finding the budget to drive innovation." A bigger problem has to do with the traditional approach to IT at most companies, where techies who are expected to abide by the principle that "the customer is always right" find themselves creating unwieldy systems in an ongoing effort to give the business exactly what it asks for. Keeping those systems running is usually difficult, time-consuming and expensive. "I've worked with a lot of companies where the CEO says, 'I want you to do this, this and this.' The CIO says, 'That'll be $5 million.' The CEO says, 'Do it for $3 million.' So it's patch, patch, patch," McGrath says. That approach creates "technical debt" -- something you'll have to go back and pay for later -- according to Bill Curtis, chief scientist at CAST, a software analysis company headquartered in Meudon, France, with annual revenue around $47 million. Similar problems arise when IT tries to satisfy business needs too quickly. "Sometimes these things were built as 'Let's just get something up and see how it works,'" Curtis says. "Things that were designed as a demo suddenly have to grow. Or even if something was designed appropriately for what they thought would be the use, people kept adding new requirements and features until it became a kludge." Perhaps worst of all is the tendency to customize licensed software in an effort to fulfill business requirements -- whether or not those requirements have any real bearing on the organization's goals or success. "We talk about business capability -- the list of things a business needs to do to be successful and achieve its goals," says Nigel Fenwick, an analyst at Forrester Research. "Out of 30 high-level capabilities, maybe two or three are differentiators." When senior executives understand this well, he says, they encourage IT to focus on those key areas and seek standardized, easy-to-maintain solutions for everything else. download hide folder xp software download neat image pro 7.0 full download openerp 6.1 for windows download sopcast version 2 0 4 download blackberry messenger 6.0 version download msn messenger for android phone download realtime landscaping plus 2013 download itunes 64 bit direct download avira antivirus gratis portugues baixaki download usb video driver for windows xp

The Grill: Becky Blalock counsels women to get in front of decision-makers

In her 33-year career with $18 billion Southern Co., IT veteran and first-time author Becky Blalock held positions in accounting, finance, corporate communications, external affairs and IT, where she rose to the rank of senior vice president and CIO before retiring in 2011. Regardless of the department, she continually encountered young women starved for career tips who sought mentors to share lessons learned and real-life how-to information. That experience, combined with the fact that she always wanted to write a book and "couldn't just go from being CIO to doing nothing," led her to pen Dare: Straight Talk on Confidence, Courage, and Career for Women in Charge, which was published last month. Dossier Becky Blalock What are you reading these days? Flash Foresight, by Daniel Burrus. What's on your iPod? This Week in Tech, Real Secrets of the Top 20%, Freakonomics Radio and '70s music. Stretch goal: Run a marathon. What's your proudest achievement? Raising a smart, beautiful and successful daughter. What's the best leadership advice you've ever received? Know what's important and focus on it. Dream dinner party guests: Oprah Winfrey, Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Edison. What would people be surprised to learn about you? I'm an avid gardener. You worked in many areas and had a lot of experience outside of IT. Obviously that was instrumental in your making it to the C-suite. What else helped? One of the things that really gave me comfort is the fact that I went to four high schools, three junior high schools and eight elementary schools. All my life I was thrown into new situations. I had to learn to adapt. While I hated all of that growing up, I look at it as something that was a gift. Federal Reserve CIO Lyn McDermid, whom I interviewed for the book, was a military brat, too, and she says that experience of going into new situations helped her, too. But the single greatest thing that holds women back is confidence. Women need to believe in themselves so much more than they do. We all live in these comfort zones where we feel safe and valued and appreciated, but you have to push yourself out of those things. That's what qualifies you for the next job level. How do women get on the radar screen, especially at companies where the "old boys' network" is alive and well? There is definitely an old boys' network. When you look at businesses at the very top, it's white males that dominate. I don't think men purposely exclude women. I think they don't think about the advantages they have [as men]. Women have to educate them. I went to an executive conference and 20% of the men in the room came up and asked how they could be more sensitive to women. I told them to be sensitive to the fact that you need to give women equal face time. If you're taking a man out to play golf, give a woman an opportunity to have exposure to you -- perhaps have her work on a special project. Women don't have equal access to decision-makers. Men clearly have an advantage and some of them get really angry when you bring it up. But I won't make men mad who have daughters and who care about their daughters' progress. You write about the need to understand the difference between managing and leading. Tell me about that difference. There is a big difference. A lot of people in middle management can't understand why they don't make it to the next level. In middle management, you're executing on ideas that someone else has created. It's not easy to execute, but the higher value to a corporation is not just doing what someone tells you, but figuring out what needs to be done. What are we doing? Do we need to make a change? Do we need to shift the customer base? That's higher thinking than when you're in mid-management. In a leadership position, you need to be thinking ahead and looking around the corner. You may only have 20% of the information you need, but you have to be smart and courageous enough to go to the next level, even with that limited information. How should middle managers position themselves to take advantage of those career-defining moments? I think a career-defining moment is anytime you are put in charge of a high-profile project or have a chance to get in front of a group of executives and show them who you are. People in senior management are always looking for talent. I was always on the lookout for stars. I used to spend a lot of time on that. That's part of the reason that Computerworld was always picking Southern Co. as one of the Best Places to Work in IT: We put so much focus on leadership development. As an employee, if you have an opportunity to get in front of a decision-maker, you have to leverage that for all it's worth. Don't shy away. I know a very smart and talented woman who was frightened to do that. I think public speaking and confidence and leadership are learned skills. People aren't born knowing how to do those things. But you have to put yourself out there. You have to be able to stick your head out there and get it chopped off. It's not failing. It's what you learn from it. Do all of these tips apply to men as well as women? The truth is you have to be very careful about putting anybody in a box. Men suffer from a deficit of confidence just as much as women, but women are much more obsessed with being liked. In general, when I talk with my female friends, we're much more sensitive about things and take things much more personally. When I interviewed men, I asked them what one thing they'd change about women. Some of them would say women take things much too personally and that they need to lighten up in the workplace. Women pick up on clues that men never see. Overall, women score 3% higher on IQ tests, but they think different. 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Google Nexus 4 deep-dive review: Android at its best

Google's Nexus devices are meant to be the Holy Grail of Android technology -- pure representations of the platform that show just how good its user experience can be. With its new Nexus 4 phone, available November 13, Google offers its best effort to date and its most aggressive attempt to upend the U.S. smartphone market. The Nexus 4's most noteworthy feature may well be the phone's pricing and sales model: The device will be sold unlocked and contract-free directly from Google: $299 for an 8GB version or $349 for a 16GB phone. This may sound like a normal price, but it's actually extremely low. While most comparable smartphones are sold for $200 to $300, that's only because they're subsidized by carriers -- in other words, the carriers cut the price in exchange for a guarantee that you'll subscribe to their services for a full two years. Most phones of this caliber would cost between $600 and $800 if bought in a similar unlocked and unsubsidized manner. Buying the phone outright means you wholly own the device and are under no obligation to anyone. As a result, you can choose to use the phone with any compatible provider -- including prepaid service providers, which often offer the same basic service you're used to at a fraction of the cost -- and can switch providers at any time with no penalties or fees. (The Nexus 4 will be offered through a more traditional sales model as well -- T-Mobile will sell the device for $200 after a $50 mail-in rebate and with a new two-year contract -- but most consumers would fare better in the long run by choosing the unlocked model.) So pricing aside, what's the Nexus 4 actually like to use? I've spent the past week using the phone in place of my own personal device. Here's what I've found. Body and display The Nexus 4 is manufactured by LG, but don't let that fool you: This is without a doubt a Google phone. Google's Android engineers worked closely with LG on every facet of the device's design, and the company's influence clearly shines through -- so much so that at a glance, the phone actually looks quite similar to last year's Galaxy Nexus device. Google Nexus 4 While the general design language remains consistent, though, the Nexus 4 is anything but an incremental upgrade -- and that's immediately apparent the minute you pick up the device. The Nexus 4 feels sleek, solid and substantial. It's a luxurious piece of hardware, with not a single flimsy or plasticky-feeling surface to be found. The Nexus 4 is 2.7 x 5.3 x 0.36 in. and 4.9 oz. -- almost exactly the same dimensions and weight as the Galaxy Nexus, despite its roomier display. Speaking of display, the Nexus 4 has a gorgeous 4.7-in. True HD IPS screen with 1280 x 768 resolution and 320ppi. The screen is among the best I've seen on a smartphone, rivaling the likes of HTC's One X and Apple's iPhone 5 for top honors. Colors are bold and brilliant, details are crisp and sharp, and even in bright outdoor lighting, the Nexus 4's screen remains impressively viewable.. . . . . . . . . . (Incidentally, the contrast with the Galaxy Nexus in that regard is immense: When I hold the two phones side by side in direct or even indirect sunlight, the Nexus 4's display is easy to read while the Galaxy Nexus's screen is almost impossible to see. It's amazing how much difference a year can make.) This isn't just any regular ol' glass, either: Google has introduced a new type of curving technique with the Nexus 4's display in which the screen is sloped subtly at its edges. The goal was to create a surface that matches the way you interact with the phone -- swiping and gesturing side to side. That's a marked change in approach from past Nexus devices, which were curved to match the shape of your face. It's a subtle yet important distinction: The physical act of moving my fingers on the Nexus 4's screen feels smoother and more natural than on any device I've used. By optimizing the phone's form for touch over talk, Google is making a bold move -- but one that very much matches the way our smartphone usage habits are evolving. The Nexus 4's screen extends all the way to the sides of the phone's face, creating a large surface area on an otherwise reasonably sized device. The display is surrounded by a thin silver metal band that's most visible when you look at the phone from the side. The edge where the screen and the band meet is a pleasingly smooth curve that's not at all sharp to the touch -- a demonstration of the attention to detail that went into this device. Another impressive bit of detail, surprisingly enough, is on the phone's back: The Nexus 4's rear is a smooth and reflective glass plate with a crystallized design that appears to move as you tilt the phone. The effect is eye-catching and distinctive without being over the top; you actually don't even notice it until you're looking closely at the phone. One minor drawback: The glass does seem to pick up an inordinate amount of visible fingerprint smudges. The bigger risk with this flourish, of course, is that glass is inherently prone to breaking. Google and LG have taken steps to reduce the risk of shatter, including using Gorilla Glass 2 on both the phone's front and back and implementing edging that extends ever so slightly past the rear glass's reach in order to help break a fall -- but still, the more glass you have, the more risk you have of it cracking. If you have butterfingers, you may need to use a case or bumper in order to maintain peace of mind. The Nexus 4 has a small LED indicator at the bottom of its face that alerts you to missed calls, new messages and other system events. As with other Android phones, you can customize exactly how and when the LED works by installing a third-party LED control utility. Buttons, ports and charging The perimeter of the Nexus 4 is taken up by a soft rubberized plastic material. On the left side of the phone is a silver metal volume rocker along with a tray for the micro-SIM card, which is locked shut and requires a small pin tool (included with the device) to open. The top of the phone has a 3.5mm headphone jack, and the right side houses a silver metal power button, which -- to be nitpicky -- is set back just a hair too far in the device and is consequently not always easy to press. In terms of buttons, that's it: The Nexus 4, as you'd expect, utilizes virtual on-screen buttons for the main Android functions (back, home and app-switching), matching the design standards introduced with Android 4.0 last year. Given the fact that this is the way current versions of the Android operating system are designed to be used, this setup creates a far more fluid and user-friendly approach than the dated button-reliant configurations some manufacturers continue to employ. The Nexus 4 has a standard micro-USB port on its bottom, which doubles as an HDMI out-port. LG and Google have opted to go with a relatively new protocol known as SlimPort instead of the more typical MHL interface for the video-out functionality. The upside of that setup is that SlimPort adapters are able to charge the device while it's connected to a TV, monitor or projector; they're also able to connect via both HDMI and VGA. The downside is that you'll need a special SlimPort adapter in order to make any such connections. The Nexus 4 supports wireless charging via the Qi charging standard. 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7 low-cost videoconferencing services: Which is best for your meeting?

These days, any computer with a webcam -- and most current tablets and smartphones -- can be a front-end to services that offer low-cost or free videoconferencing functionality. Services such as Skype and Google+ are offering alternatives to conferencing solutions that used to cost companies thousands of dollars. In fact, many of these services have moved away from being formally installed apps, and can be invoked from most any kind of hardware client or OS platform through its browser. Some use Flash to run entirely in-browser; some deliver a binary executable on-demand through the browser, which runs as-is without needing to be installed; some still use a local client.. . . . . . . . . . Check out our video reviews In order to offer a better idea of how each of these teleconferencing applications worked, we've included a video that highlights the product's best (and worst) aspects. You'll find the video at the bottom of each review. Most of the systems profiled here have many essential features in common, even at their most basic level, such as text chat (as well as voice/video chat) or the ability to share documents, applications or the entire desktop among conference attendees. Features available in the more advanced tiers include the ability to record conferences, support for large numbers of people (that is, more than five or ten) and high-definition video. In all cases, there's a moderator who has control over the conference room behavior (such as who has the floor or who can show his or her desktop to the rest of the members) using a central console. Prices in these formerly expensive services have changed over the last couple of years. Entry-level pricing now starts at anywhere from $8 to $40 a month. Many companies provide trial periods or free usage tiers (albeit with some features missing). I looked at seven major offerings, ranging from free adjuncts to popular social-networking systems to products with enterprise-level tiers; some needing a local client, some not. To try them out, I held test videoconferences, using three participants on different platforms -- both Windows and OS X, whenever possible. We looked at how the apps were deployed and how they were performed, and also for the presence of auxiliary features, such as the logging of discussions or tools for moderators and presenters. While they may not be appropriate for some high-end uses, most of these services can offer solid, basic videoconferencing that can allow you to keep in touch with your remote colleagues and friends -- and perhaps even get some work done. (Story continues on next page.) How to record your conference Not all conference apps or services have the built-in ability to record your meeting. If that's the case with your chosen service, you'll have to make use of a third-party app to record either just the audio or audio and video from the desktop. Bear in mind that recording video from the desktop is going to generate big files. If you just want to record audio only, which will be a big space-saver, any number of programs can do this. Windows' own Sound Recorder is rather meager, but the open-source audio app Audacity has a better range of features. Other programs can capture all activity on the desktop as a video stream, no matter what applications are running. Camtasia is one of the best-known such programs, but at $299 it might be a bit steep for some individuals. Free alternatives do exist, and I used one such program, CamStudio, to generate the video captures created for this article. CamStudio has its own limitations, though -- the resulting files can be huge for only a few minutes of capture, and capture files over 2GB sometimes come out broken. Some third-party apps work in concert with a given service or program. Evaer, for instance, is designed to record Skype voice and video calls. It runs as a separate application, but uses a Skype plugin to synchronize the recording actions so calls can be recorded automatically. download 50 cent quotes tumblr download skype for samsung s8300 download wifi hacker para android download music for windows phone download goverlan remote administration suite download easy installer 6.31 hen download ski challenge 2011 game download flash videos google chrome extension download scott pilgrim vs the world game for pc download play plants vs zombies in mac

HTC's Windows Phone 8X review: Fast, bright and sleek

If you're looking for a well-designed phone that really shows off Windows Phone 8, you'd do well to consider the Windows Phone 8X by HTC. This sleek device wraps the newest version of Microsoft's smartphone operating system in a nifty and svelte piece of hardware. HTC Windows Phone 8X The phone sports a 4.3-in., 1280 x 720 Super LCD 2 screen with a 341ppi resolution, protected by Gorilla Glass 2. The display's colors are crisp and bright. The HTC Windows Phone 8X has a rounded body made of a stylish, soft matte polycarbonate that feels pleasing in the hand. At 4.5 oz., it is smaller and lighter than the 6.4-oz. Windows Phone 8-based Nokia Lumia 920, with the Lumia 920 having a slightly larger 4.5-in. screen. I found the HTC Windows Phone 8X's performance to be outstanding, with no delays in launching apps or changing screens, and no lags or slowdowns when listening to music or watching video. That's likely due in part to the phone's 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm S4 processor with 1GB of RAM. Previous versions of Windows Phone supported only single processors and still tended to be zippy. With dual cores, Windows 8 on this phone is even faster. However, there is a hardware downside. The phone comes with either 8GB or 16GB of storage and no expansion slots, so if you're a media hound and needs lots of room, you could run into trouble. The phone's simple, straightforward design is marred by physical buttons that are almost impossible to locate -- and even when you figure out where they are, they're still hard to use. The power button, for example, is on the top right of the phone, but it's small, rectangular and so tight against the body of the phone that you have to look extremely closely to find it. I even had a hard time locating it by touch when I ran my hand along the top of the phone. The camera and volume buttons on the right side of the phone have similar problems. There is also a micro USB plug for charging and connecting at the bottom. The Windows Phone 8X works with LTE as well as global HSPA+ networks; it offers Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0, GPS and NFC (which, as I'll explain in a bit, Windows Phone 8 makes nice use of).. . . . . . . . . . The 8-megapixel camera with 1080p video recording capabilities is serviceable, but I wasn't impressed with the quality of the photos; the colors looked somewhat washed out. What's new in Windows Phone 8 The hardware tells only part of the story. The biggest news about the HTC Windows Phone 8X is Windows Phone 8, Microsoft's latest iteration of its smartphone operating system. As with Windows Phone 7, Windows Phone 8 has a tile-focused interface sporting "live" tiles that show constantly changing information, such as social media updates or new mail messages. Windows 8 tweaks that tiled interface. For example, you can now choose from three different tile sizes. In addition, the Lock screen can display notifications from apps or services and lets you choose which to display, much like you can in the PC and tablet versions of Windows 8. Parents will welcome the new Kid's Corner, which lets parents create a separate account for their kids -- it can be customized to only allow access to specific apps, videos, music and games. The People Hub has been beefed up; it's now easier to see all of your contacts and friends from multiple services in a single location. And if you have an NFC-enabled device (like the HTC Windows Phone 8X), you can exchange contacts with another NFC-enabled Windows 8 phone simply by tapping them together. The new Wallet in Windows 8 is also NFC-enabled, which means you can use it to pay for goods and services by tapping an NFC-enabled point-of-sale device -- not that there are many of them around yet. (The Wallet, as its name implies, is a digital wallet that stores credit cards, debit cards, loyalty cards and so on.) Windows Phone 8 also includes a new Office hub, which gives access to Microsoft Office apps and documents. It improves slightly on the previous version of Office by including new viewing modes for documents and support for reading charts in Excel. OneNote has also been improved, including the ability to send photos to it. The Windows 8 ecosystem In Microsoft's worldview, no Windows 8 device is an island, and using the HTC Windows Phone 8X in concert with a Windows 8 PC shows that off. At a Glance Windows Phone 8X HTC Price: $99.99 (8GB), $199.99 (16GB) with two-year contract from AT&T, T-Mobile or Verizon Wireless (availability/price may vary depending on supplier). No-contract version: $499.99 (8GB), $549.99 (16GB) Pros: Slick design, excellent performance, good screen,syncs and works well with the Windows 8 ecosystem Cons: Limited storage with no expansion capacity; so-so camera; lackluster voice-control capabilities; no voice-guided turn-by-turn GPS When I signed in with my Microsoft ID, the phone automatically populated with photos, social networking information, documents and more from my Windows 8 PC. Changes made on the phone were synced back to the PC as well. It even grabbed information about my home wireless network, including my name and password, and automatically connected me to it without asking. All this happened so seamlessly that I didn't even realize I was connected to my Wi-Fi network until I checked. (If you don't want to sync automatically, you can change your settings on your Windows PC.) And when I launched the OneNote app for the first time, the phone automatically synced my OneNote notebooks from SkyDrive to the phone. So if you use other Windows 8 devices, you'll find that a Windows Phone 8 device -- such as the HTC Windows Phone 8X can truly become an extension of your work and computing life. Nothing's perfect, of course, and I did find a few flaws. For example, Windows Phone 8's voice search and control capabilities don't come close to rivaling iOS's Siri or Android's Google Now feature. In addition, it doesn't offer voice-guided turn-by-turn GPS navigation. Bottom line The HTC Windows Phone 8X is a slick, beautifully designed phone that shows off the new Windows Phone 8 software well, especially if you buy into the Windows 8 ecosystem of devices. It's fast and has a beautiful screen, although you may be put off by the limited storage. If you've already got a Windows Phone 7 device, you'll find the HTC Windows Phone 8X a worthy upgrade. For existing iPhone and Android device users, it's a harder call. It comes down to whether you want the information-rich interface of Windows 8, or the app-centric approach of Android and the iPhone. However, if you think you're ready to switch to Windows Phone 8 from iOS or Android, you'll find the HTC Windows Phone 8X a solid bet. See more Computerworld Windows 8 launch coverage including news, reviews and blogs. Preston Gralla is a contributing editor for Computerworld.com and the author of more than 35 books, including How the Internet Works (Que, 2006). download microsoft security essentials 2012 offline installer download skype in windows mobile download dbf to xls converter 1.20 download spy fox dry cereal download plants vs zombies iphone michael jackson download youtube videos using itunes download the core pocket media player symbian download chip skylark find your voice download pbs stations with able realtime viewiang download justin timberlake tour 2013

KiraBook review: An ultrabook for the 1%

Super-sleek, light, powerful and with a slew of amenities, Toshiba's 13.3-in. KiraBook is an ultrabook for the 1% -- and is priced like it. The KiraBook comes in three versions. The lowest end starts at $1,600 for a 1.8GHz Intel Core i5-3337U processor (with TurboBoost technology to get up to 2.7GHz), 8GB RAM, a 256GB SSD and a non-touch screen with Windows 8. The next model adds a touch display for a cost of $1,800, while the high-end edition comes with an 2.0GHz Intel Core i7-3537U processor (that goes up to 3.1GHz) and Windows 8 Pro for a total cost of $2,000. For this review, I looked at the midrange laptop. Toshiba KiraBook At 2.8 lb., the KiraBook is half a pound lighter than the Asus Zenbook Prime UX31A and 3 oz. lighter than the 13-in. MacBook Air ultrabook. If you add its small AC adapter, it has a travel weight of 3.1 lb. The KiraBook has a footprint of 12.3 x 8.2 in.; at a width of 0.7 in. in the front and 0.9 in. in the back, it is slightly thicker than the Air, which ranges from 0.1 to 0.7 in.. . . . . . . . . . The system has a brushed metallic finish with a lid made of stamped aluminum-magnesium alloy; the base is reinforced with honeycomb supports in high-stress areas, like the palm rest. Toshiba says the case is more than twice as strong as the metal used on the Air. During use, I found that unlike the Air, the KiraBook is rock solid with almost no flex to its case. A vibrant display Open the lid and you'll see one of the sharpest and brightest notebook screens available. Based on Intel's HD 4000 Graphics, the 13.3-in. display boasts 2560 x 1440 resolution. I found the colors on the screen to be lush and vibrant, although not quite at the level of the MacBook Pro with Retina display. The KiraBook's display does, however, offer something the MacBook doesn't: touch sensitivity with the ability to interpret 10 independent inputs and work with gestures, like spreading your fingers to zoom. The system uses Corning's new Concore glass, which is thinner and lighter than conventional touchscreen displays. Over the course of a week, I found the screen on the KiraBook always responded quickly and accurately to both the touch of my fingers and a stylus. The slight lip around the edge of the display is annoying at first but easy to get used to. And the screen wobbles slightly when you swipe or tap on it, so if you plan to do a lot of touch computing, be ready to brace it with one hand as you tap and swipe with the other. While some ultrabooks tend to skimp somewhat on their keyboards, the KiraBook's is comfortable and functional, with 19.1mm keys that are slightly scalloped. I really appreciated its backlighting and large touchpad. Above the display is a webcam that can capture 1280 x 720 video and a dual-microphone array that comes in handy for videoconferences. As is the case with other ultrabooks, there isn't a lot of room for ports. The KiraBook has three USB 3.0 connectors, an audio port, an HDMI port and an SD card slot (like most ultrabooks, there's no room here for a DVD drive). There is also 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. At a Glance KiraBook Toshiba Price: $1,600 (Intel Core i5 processor, non-touch display); $1,800 (Intel Core i5 processor, touch display); $2,000 (Intel Core i7 processor, touch display) Pros: Thin and light, bright HD touch display, solid construction, fine audio, good included software, two-year warranty with support package Cons: Non-removable battery, high price In addition to a pair of Harman-Kardon speakers, the system comes with DTS Studio Sound technology that makes the sound richer and fuller than you'll find in most other laptops. The KiraBook also offers Intel's WiDi wireless system for sending audio and video to a nearby display. Superior performance It all adds up to a superior performer that scored 1,887.0 on PassMark's PerformanceTest 8.0, making it one of the most capable notebooks around regardless of size and weight. Its Cinebench 11.5 results of 2.45 and 15.54 frames per second were slightly ahead of competing products such as the Zenbook (with scores of 2.31 and 14.50) and its own cousin, Toshiba's Portege Z935 (with scores of 2.37 and 14.51). I was surprised (and pleased) at the power of the KiraBook's 3,400mAh lithium polymer battery. It ran for 5 hours and 38 minutes while continuously playing back HD videos from a USB drive without any power conservation turned on. That's 18 minutes longer than I got when I tested the Zenbook's larger-capacity 6,840mAh battery and translates into a solid day of regular use. (Be aware, however, that you can't remove the battery.) The KiraBook comes with full versions of Adobe Photoshop Elements 11 and Adobe Premiere Elements 11 as well as a two-year subscription to Symantec's Norton Internet Security. Toshiba offers a two-year warranty instead of the standard one year of coverage. It also provides a dedicated team of support technicians and a special phone number to use if you have a problem.. . . . . . . . . . Bottom line At a price that reaches $2,000, a KiraBook can cost as much as a pair of lesser ultrabooks. However, if you want a computer that comes with everything, can outperform the pack and has been built to last, it may be money well spent. This article, KiraBook review: An ultrabook for the 1%, was originally published at Computerworld.com. Brian Nadel is a frequent contributor to Computerworld and the former editor in chief of Mobile Computing & Communications magazine.

It's a desktop! It's a tablet! Dell XPS 18 vs. Sony Vaio Tap 20

Not too long ago, computers were computers and tablets were tablets. However, some vendors are experimenting with hybrid All-in-One (AIO) computers that combine the best of both worlds. Dell's XPS 18 and Sony's Vaio Tap 20 Mobile Desktop can be set up as regular AIO Windows 8 desktop systems, including large, adjustable touch displays that contain reasonably powerful computers, wireless keyboards and mice. However, because they run on battery power, the displays can also be picked up and carried anywhere. Well -- almost anywhere. While the typical laptop or tablet is small enough to be dropped into a briefcase, these hybrid desktops are bulkier and heavier, weighing between 5 lbs. and 11.5 lbs., and taking up as much as 12.4 x 19.8 x 1.6 in. They are more suited for a journey from cubicle to conference room than from home to office. To test these portable desktops, I used them every day for two weeks, moving them from the office to the basement to the porch. I spent time playing games, writing emails, watching online movies, editing images and visiting a variety of websites. Along the way I found unexpected uses for them. My favorite was temporarily setting one up in front of my stationary bicycle to watch the morning news on CNN.com while exercising.. . . . . . . . . . What you choose to use them for depends on how mobile you want to be. Dell XPS 18 Despite looking like a traditional all-in-one PC, on closer look it becomes clear that Dell's XPS 18 is meant to be carried around. The Dell XPS comes in four models. The basic model comes with a 1.8GHz Intel Pentium processor, 4GB of RAM and a 320GB hard drive ($900); the next offers a 1.9GHz Intel Core i3 processor and a 500GB hard drive ($1,000). Dell XPS 18 The review unit is based on Intel's Core i5 3337U dual-core processor that runs at 1.8GHz and uses TurboBoost technology to sprint at up to 2.7GHz. It comes with 8GB of RAM and a two-stage storage system that combines a 500GB hard drive with a 32GB SSD. The flash portion caches the most frequently used data and programming code to speed start-ups and raise overall performance. Prices for this model start at $1,350. Finally, the highest-end model comes with an Intel Core i7-3537U processor with up to 3.1GHz; it starts at $1,450. At 18.1 x 11.2 x 0.6 in., the 5.1-lb. XPS 18 is not only significantly smaller than Sony's Vaio Tap 20, but weighs less than half as much. Dell's 18.4-in. display has an all-black bezel with strategically placed soft rubber grips, but lacks a carrying handle. If you want to take it outside of the home or office, Dell sells a $30 soft sleeve for the system. The XPS 18's 18.4-in. display is 1.6 inches smaller than the Tap 20's, but can show full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution. I found that the screen reliably responded to 10 individual touch inputs and accepted gestures, like pinching or spreading my fingers to zoom in or out. I also used it with a Wacom Bamboo Solo stylus without a problem. Minimalist to a fault, the display has a pair of USB 3.0 ports, an audio jack and an SD card slot. Unlike the Tap 20, the XPS 18 doesn't have an Ethernet port; it depends on 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. There's a prominent Windows Home button under the screen as well as a power button on the right edge and volume controls on the left. There are two speakers, one on each side; I found the sound to be reasonably rich and natural, but without the Tap 20's impressive volume.. . . . . . . . . . As with the Tap 20, the system comes with a matching wireless mouse and keyboard. A handy charging stand While you can use the XPS 18's fold-out feet to set it up like a traditional all-in-one, I preferred the cantilevered charging stand that comes with the $1,350 and $1,450 models (it's available as a $100 option for the $900 and $1,000 models). The stand looks like a piece of modern sculpture and provides power to the system (although it would have been nice if it also offered some additional data connections). The stand allows the screen to tilt from a vertical display position 3.5-in. above the tabletop to 10 degrees short of horizontal orientation. This provides the flexibility to easily use the display for standard desktop computing or tilt it to a flat angle for use as a touchscreen. The higher-end models of the Dell XPS 18 all-in-one system come with a charging stand that lets you tilt the screen from a vertical to a horizontal position; you can also just use the display's fold-out feet. There's no physical latch; the screen is held in place with a magnetic strip, making it perfect for grab and go maneuvers. (As a result, though, it wobbles somewhat when you swipe or tap the surface.) I like the ability to remove the screen, but the XPS 18 is tedious to hold on your lap for more than a few minutes at a time. In other words, look for a table to lay it down on. Like the Tap 20, the XPS 18 offers WiDi hardware and software to wirelessly connect to a display. I used it with a WiDi-ready Netgear NeoTV Max Streaming Player connected to an LG 47LH40 TV; the system stayed connected up to 25 feet away. On the other hand, the XPS 18 lacks the Tap 20's Near Field Communications (NFC) capability that can ease the setting up of wireless accessories. Performance testing Despite its thin profile, the XPS 18 I tested is a powerful computer; it scored a 1,623.6 on PassMark's PerformanceTest 8.0. On the other hand, its Cinebench results were a mixed bag with the XPS 18 scoring 15.37 frames per second on the OpenGL graphics and 2.44 on the processor portion of the benchmark. At a Glance XPS 18 Dell Price: $900 (1.8GHz Intel Pentium processor, 4GB RAM, 320GB HD), $1,000 (1.9GHz Intel Core i3 processor, 4GB RAM, 500GB HD), $1,350 (1.8GHz Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB RAM, 500GB HD/32GB SSD), $1,450 (Intel Core i7 processor, 8GB RAM, 500GB HD/32GB SSD). Pros: Slim and light, long battery life, good performance, tiltable stand Cons: Non-removable battery, no Ethernet connection In tests, the XPS 18's 4,200mAh battery lasted for 4 hours and 16 minutes on a charge while running constant videos, more than twice as long as the Tap 20's battery. On the downside, like so many tablets on the market, the system's battery can't be removed. The system comes with a one-year warranty that can be extended to three years for $200, FingerTapps Instruments software that lets you play up to four different "instruments" at one time and a 30-day subscription to McAfee's SecurityCenter. Bottom line Dell's higher-end XPS 18 models might seem a bit expensive, but it's a small price to pay for an innovative and well-designed system that can assume several different computing profiles.

Keep watch: 5 cloud security cameras

Whether you feel the need to keep an eye out for intruders at home, keep tabs on the baby in the other room or just want to see what your pets are doing when you're not around, cloud security cameras can help. These cameras offer more flexibility than do regular webcams because they typically use a Web portal, rather than a laptop or personal computer, as the monitoring and control hub, allowing you to check in from anywhere -- including your smartphone. But keep your expectations in check. While you can use the cameras to get the gist of what's going on at home, the quality of video can be downright awful when streamed over your home Wi-Fi, through the public Internet and over the cellular data network to your smartphone.. . . . . . . . . . Web-based security cameras with motion capture video can let you in on what your pets are up to when you're not around. Cloud security cameras and services all take slightly different approaches and offer a variety of features. I tested five models from different vendors for this roundup: the D-Link Day/Night Network Cloud Camera (DCS-932L), the Dropcam HD, the Logitech Alert 750n Indoor Master System, the Netgear VueZone Video Monitoring System and the Samsung SNH-1011 IP SmartCam. Which one might work for you? Before I get to the reviews, I'll start by telling you what you need to know -- and what to expect. Facts and features Most of the cameras reviewed here offer wireless connectivity to your home's broadband router, save one -- the Logitech 750n -- that uses your home's electrical wiring to transmit the camera signal back to a base station that connects to your router. While some cameras require a personal computer for initial configuration, all offer a Web portal that allows remote viewing and configuration from any device with a Web browser. In addition, all offer apps for Android and iOS mobile phones. All but Samsung offer an iPad app as well. These apps can display live video feeds and let you take snapshots of what you're viewing at any given time. All of the models include hardware for mounting the cameras on a wall or ceiling, and all offer infrared "night vision," either standard or as an option. I highly recommend this latter feature, because it not only enables you to see clearly what's happening in dark rooms at night, but also makes it easier to see what's going on in dimly lit rooms on cloudy days. All of the cameras I tested offer motion detection, which generates an alert based on the sensitivity level you select. But some also let you receive alerts when the camera detects a sound. D-Link lets you restrict motion detection to specific parts of the image, so your pet won't trip the camera every time he walks through the room. And some cameras include both a microphone and a speaker, so you can chat with your burglar or yell at your dog to get off the sofa. When you do get alerts, they generate either one or more still images or a link to a video clip that typically lasts about 30 seconds. There are several ways to view and/or store these images, and different devices offer different combinations of these features. Most cameras offer a Web portal, which effectively acts as a personal closed-circuit TV monitoring service for your camera; some vendors offer a feature that lets you view multiple camera streams simultaneously on a single screen. (Keep in mind, though, that while it's possible to install 10 or more cameras in your home, too many video streams can bog down a wireless router and degrade the performance of the cameras, your Netflix account and any other service or device that's connected to the Internet.) Some camera models can store recorded video on a microSD card (which is great, unless the burglar steals your camera). Some let you view images on the hard drive of the computer that's running the vendor's monitoring software.. . . . . . . . . . Finally, a few devices let you store images in the cloud. While some vendors require a monthly subscription service for the use of a storage option on their Web portals, Samsung allows you to upload video clips and images from its SmartCam camera directly to your personal YouTube or Picasa account. For security, all cameras require a user account name and password, and some require an additional password to access each device. Two-factor authentication, however, is not an option. That means less protection against security flaws that could put your home video streams at risk -- such as those recently discovered in D-Link's cameras.

Acer hires semiconductor vet for CEO post

Taiwanese computer maker Acer has named Jason Chen, vice president of worldwide sales and marketing at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, as its new president and CEO, effective Jan. 1.    Jason Chen, formerly of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing and Intel, takes over as CEO at Acer. Acer's board of directors chose Chen as the company's CEO Monday. Acer founder Stan Shih will continue to serve as chairman of the company, Acer said in a press release. Shih, in a statement, called Chen "the ideal executive to lead our transformation." Last week Acer said it would refocus its business on software and cloud services with its PC-making business lagging. Chen joins Acer after Jim Wong, who had been named to take over as its next CEO, left the company in November. Wong had been named as Acer's next CEO just two weeks earlier, but left "in light of the company's recent performance," the company said. Wong, who was company president, had been slated to take over as CEO in 2014, but the company had posted poor earnings on declining PC shipments. The company, the world's fourth largest PC vendor, has primarily sold products to consumers, but sales of tablets and smartphones have been hurting its business. Shih took over leadership of the company after Wong left. Acer said in November it had eliminated the CEO position. Chen served joined Taiwan Semiconductor in 2005 as vice president of corporate development. He has been in his current position there since 2008. Previously, Chen worked at Intel in sales and marketing positions for 14 years, joining that company as sales manager for Taiwan. He was later promoted to regional sales manager for Greater China. He later served as Intel's vice president and general manager for the Asia-Pacific region and as the corporate vice president of the sales and marketing group at Intel's U.S. headquarters. download mailwasher pro windows 7 download skype for windows vista business download wifi hack mobile jar download wga remover chew v0 9 download lalim parallel port control download itunes movie rental size download descargar full version de plants vs zombies gratis download flash player for a phone download photoshop for windows xp download facebook messenger for ios 5