The HTC Rhyme
The HTC Rhyme is something of a delicate matter, as it is HTC's firstphone that is said to have been designed with a female audience in mind. Yet it comes in dull colours and looks quite a lot like every other HTC handset we’ve seen so far.
PENTAX Q-REVIEW
Let’s get one thing straight from the start. The Pentax Q is quite an incredible camera to behold. It’s tiny. But not only is it tiny, it also looks great.
NIKON 1 V1
Nikon has announced two new compact system cameras: the Nikon 1 V1 and the Nikon 1 J1. We got our hands on both new cameras today, so until we can bring you our Nikon 1 V1 review
The ULTra Personal Rapid Transit System
"Think of it as a horizontal lift," says Fraser Brown, managing director of ULTra, the company that has built a new way to travel to Heathrow Terminal 5 from the business car park
THREE MIFI HSPA
Three has updated its MiFi range with the new Huawei E586 complete with HSPA+, and we have managed to get our hands on one to test out all its mobile internet goodness
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Mark Zuckerberg Is The Most Followed User On Google
In what has to be somewhat embarrassing for Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is the most followed user on Google+, according to the Google+ Statistics counter.
The Facebook CEO has 21,213 followers, compared to the Google CEO at 14,798, Google social czar Vic Gundotra at 13,783, Google co-founder Sergey Brin at 11,629, blogger Robert Scoble at 11,389, Google spam avenger Matt Cutts at 9,153, TWIT founder Leo Laporte at 7,566, Google’s Bradley Horowitz at 7,187, TechCrunch’s MG Siegler at 6,579 and blogger Gina Trapani at 5,649.
Google+ Statistics creator Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten explains the CEO’s unlikely popularity thus, “He has the most friends in the world, they made a movie about him, and he is more handsome than the Larry and Sergey.” I think the answer goes more like this; The more media coverage someone receives related to Google+, the more followers they get, hence MG Siegler at #9.
I’m at #104. Discuss.
via techcrunch.com
Joining Google! « Peter Beverloo
Thank you everyone, I truly appreciate all the responses!
It’s definitely a very exciting change for me and I look forward very much to starting my job in London.
Jon, Dinu, LeRoy, I do intend to continue with the updates, they just have to change. While nothing is definite yet, there are a lot of people who like them and who have offered to help me finding a new way of making them.
Peter Gasston, I’d really like to meet you as well! Your post asking why there were no updates like this for WebKit was one of the reasons for me to start making them.
Aussiewebmaster, while I’m not planning to attend TNW, I will be around in Amsterdam. Feel free to mail/tweet if you’d like to meet up.
Lex, Met wat luchtbedden moeten we een heel eind komen, haha!
via peter.sh
Google slides Prizes into beta, helps you get real paid -- Engadget
Boss of the Year Entry Form
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
via engadget.com
HOW TO: Measure the ROI of a Content Marketing Strategy
Shane Snow is co-founder of Contently.com, an “agile publishing” platform for brands-turned-publishers and freelance journalists.
Most people quit blogging — and most companies do too, for that matter.
Like healthy diet, frequent exercise, proper posture or any other New Year’s resolution, blogging results take time. A 2008 Technorati survey put the abandonment rate of blogs at about 95%.
Part of the reason for low blog success rate is that most of us have a hard time predicting what kind of return blogging will achieve. “If I blog every day for a month, will I get more leads?” Probably. But it may take six months, not one.
That doesn’t mean it’s not worth the fight.
Before the Internet put publishing and distribution tools in everyone’s hands for free, companies that wanted brand exposure paid for time and/or placement on a third party media property (radio ads, TV commercials, banners). Many still do, but a general shift is occurring online – away from outbound marketing and paid media, toward creating one’s own branded content and spreading that media across the social web.
According to the Content Marketing Institute, 68% of CMOs say they are shifting budget from traditional advertising to this type of content marketing.
But measuring the return on investment (ROI) on content is difficult, especially if you’re not judging success by ad revenue.
Nine out of ten organizations market with content, according to a recent B2B content marketing survey. Companies like Mint, American Express and Hubspot are now competing with “traditional” media companies for eyeballs with their own content. They’re seeing results -– not necessarily in the form of advertising, but rather, through leads, subscribers and brand awareness.
A recent study by Hubspot indicates that Hubspot customers who practice inbound marketing (of which content is a core element) increase leads an average of 4.2 times within a few months. Other studies have shown similar results, that consistent content output increases conversions.
Content costs money, and measuring the results of your content effort is important. But an effective content strategy is like planting a garden: it takes consistent work that eventually pays off in large quantities. However, failure to water or plow that garden will result in weeds, in other words, a blog post every three months whose only comments are spam.
So how do you convince your boss, your partners or even yourself that content is a good investment? Here are three steps to effectively measure your content strategy:
1. Understand What You’re Measuring
Traditionally media companies use readership and ad revenue as the yardstick for content’s success. In content marketing, however, the goal is typically to achieve some sort of conversion or to build “brand awareness,” a rather ambiguous metric.
A conversion can consist of a mailing list or an RSS subscriber, a user signup, a phone call, a sale or any number of user interactions. The first step to measuring ROI on your content strategy is to set a goal.
If your content goal is to increase user signups, you first need to know your baseline: how many signups are you getting now, and from what sources? Once you start your content efforts, you want to be able to measure the results against that baseline.
2. Use Proxies to Measure Initial Success
Unless you’re already starting with a large audience (huge mailing list, captive user base, etc), it’s going to take a while to build momentum, and even longer to start seeing conversions. However, several proxies can help you chart your progress.
These proxies present immediate signs of encouragement, more so than, say, search engine ranking, which can take a while to manifest. Here’s a quick list of proxies for measuring a blog’s ROI:
- Facebook likes
- Retweets
- LinkedIn and other shares
- Reblogs
- Links back
- Comments
- Time spent on page
- Average page views per visitor (especially if you’re effective at internal linking of your posts)
- Followers
- @mentions
These proxies will monitor how well your content is resonating, how you’re building trust in your brand. That trust will eventually turn into loyalty, advocacy and continued conversion.
It’s important to note that absolute measurements are rarely useful. What you’re looking for is a trend line. The number of retweets relative to previous content on your site or peer sites is a more useful yardstick than the total number of retweets.
Though it may not seem like much, an average of five tweets on a post today versus an average of one tweet three weeks ago is a great sign of progress.
Also, because some pieces of content will be outliers (whether spikes or duds), it’s important to pay attention to aggregate trend data rather than isolated post data. For example, the average number of retweets in June compared to April is a better measure of progress than the number of retweets on today’s blog post versus yesterday’s.
3. Measure Both Primary and Secondary Conversion Indicators
From a practical standpoint, measuring conversions can be as simple as installing Google Analytics, or keeping a spreadsheet of leads or even tick marks on a whiteboard.
While keeping track of the raw conversion numbers (How many leads are we getting this month versus five months ago when we weren’t blogging?) is important, it’s also crucial to measure secondary indicators. If you’re measuring leads, these might include the following:
- Quality of leads
- Retention period
- Lifetime value per lead
- Length of sales cycle
- Number of new customers referred by lead
“One way we try to quantify ROI is to track content users very closely,” says Sam Slaughter, a producer at Comcast.net. “That way we can tell if they went from consuming content to buying a product, or to bookmarking the page, or to digging deeper into the publisher site or any number of actions that the publisher might be able to monetize. From there, we can often come up with an actual dollar value from that piece of content.”
Patience Is the Secret
Content strategy for most businesses isn’t about instant advertising metrics anymore; therefore, clear ROI data can take a while to manifest. Once it does, however, returns will generally increase as you continue to consistently publish.
“When we talk about ROI for content we often use terms like ‘adoption,’ ‘time on site,’ ‘page views per unique’ and things like that,” says Slaughter. “The idea [is] that while you might not be monetizing the content on your site directly, you are using that content to attract new and better users who you can monetize down the road.”
In the end, planning, tracking and consistency will help you succeed. As Problogger founder Darren Rowse recently tweeted, “Building blogs is like building muscles.” Great content properties, like muscles, take patience.
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, pearleye
via mashable.com
The Social Customer Manifesto: How the Enterprise Can Use Google
« Steve Jobs Sales Pitch to the City of Cupertino - brilliant [video] | Main
How the Enterprise Can Use Google+
For the past few days, I've been neck-deep in Google+. There's a lot of potential here for business. Some thoughts, by enterprise function.
Marketing
There's going to be plenty of punditry by the social media echo chamber over the coming days and weeks that will mirror the things we saw regarding Facebook ca. 2007-2009 or so. The summary: the same folks who are doing things to promote their schtick using Facebook will do the same thing on Google+. There will be brand pages and the like, someone will figure out how to do contests, there will be a host of activity metrics ("how many people have added your brand to their Circles?") and the like. While this area is going to get the most noise out of the gate, this is _not_ where the value is going to be found.
Demand Generation / Leadgen
Here things start to get interesting. Google Analytics already has brilliant tools for tracking things from "first interaction" all the way through the time someone engages in a transaction. That's the state of the art today. With tweaks in a couple of directions, G+ and Analytics start to get very compelling. First off, being able to track posts and their resulting activities in G+ and have those show up in Google Analytics is a no-brainer. Secondly, this starts to really be a graceful foray toward the enterprise side of Social CRM. Today, an organization's lead generation metrics might stop at "conversions," where a prospect turns into a customer. With an integration between G+ and Analytics, however, that historical funnel (which oftentimes ends at the transaction) can actually turn into a way to understand the long-term interactions with an individual, all the way from first contact (she +1'd a post or left a comment), through a host of conversations over days, weeks or months, through a transaction, and then *beyond* into ongoing conversations that take place _after_ the transaction. There's a lot of potential here.HR
If you're an HR pro, especially on the recruiting side, the opportunity to set up Circles is a means to connect up with the individuals with whom you'd like to develop a closer relationship is a great opportunity. If you have a number of open positions, you could even set up a Circle for each one, and, as you identify potential candidates for each position, include those individuals in the appropriate Circles as a means by which to start to get to know them better.Design and Innovation
This is a place where I think Sparks may come in to play, as well as Circles. If there are topics of interest that may spark (see what I did there?) expanded thinking in an area, setting up a Spark for that topic to get an evergreen feed of ideas and inspiration. More tactically, you can set up as wide or as targeted a group of counselors/advisors/folks-to-bounce-ideas-off-of as needed that contains folks from both within and outside the organization. Then, when you have a few candidate ideas to solve a design problem, share the options with that Circle to get feedback.Sales
This one is a no-brainer. Set up a Circle with your customers and prospective customers and partners in it. Call it "Customers." Check it at least once a day to keep a true pulse of when the individuals who are most important to you are saying. Engage in conversations.General internal collaboration
I think this is going to be a killer app for the organizations that have the foresight to use G+ in this way. Set up a Circle that just contains the members of your team, or (depending on organization size) perhaps your entire organization. Keep a Hangout open for that Circle for serendipity. Share items and links of _internal_ value that you've found externally with that Circle.Additionally, you can always choose to _only_ share a post with a single individual, as well as easily fire up a chat session. In this mode, G+ becomes a very viable means of setting up an IM session between members of the organization.
Bottom line
I think there's a lot here for the enterprise beyond social media marketing. So what did I miss? How else might enterprises use the G+ capabilities as they progress further along the social engagement journey?July 4, 2011 | Permalink
Comments
Irony is that current enterprise customers of Google Apps can't use G+ because Google does not allow Profiles to be enabled on paid accounts and G+ requires a Profile.
Posted by: Amanda | Jul 4, 2011 4:24:56 PM
I have to think that Google will fix that issue within the next quarter at most.
Posted by: Christopher Carfi | Jul 4, 2011 9:36:09 PM
Post a comment
Why I disagree with Yishan Wong [ htt... by Arik Beremzon - Quora
It makes me consider their roll-out strategy. They roll out to a tech crowd, we understand that there are issues, we understand that the product is unfinished but at the same time journalists will jump at it for having issues. Every advantage has its disadvantage I guess. The advantage is that you have known brand and you get traction pretty fast. The disadvantage is that you have a known brand and people have expectations.
As far as circles go, I simply think it's going to be too complex for the casual user. FB is black and white, either you are part of my friends or you are not. As has been said, basically noone uses the lists. Anyone I remotely know has access to my profile because I trust them enough that they won't do anything really nasty. People I don't know I simply don't know. G+ offers you options and I don't think that will fair well with non technical users. I already noticed it when "Gee, this sorting thing is fun" changed to "Sorting my 200 contacts into circles was so tedious".
People are already crying out for meta-circles which add another layer of abstraction on top of the existing models. Some want to have full boolean function control with the ability to create Venn diagrams.
It doesn't matter if they fix what we've told them to fix. It won't matter if I get an option to view my stream in a chronological order rather then posts being bumped to the top. What matters is that there are cheatsheets circulating on G+ which hints that even the tech savvy crowd needs assistance to figure out the product, now imagine teenagers trying to figure out G+? I remember reading that the main reason why Twitter is not massively booming in user adaption like FB is because teenagers indicate that it's too complicated. I see the same thing happening here. G+ could take a bite out of twitter, skype and maybe even foursquare (although foursquare has attractive game mechanics which lacks in G+ to my knowledge) but it does not offer the same idiot-proof system that fb does.
Arik Beremzon • Insert a dynamic date here
via quora.com
Why I disagree with Yishan Wong [ htt... by Arik Beremzon - Quora
It makes me consider their roll-out strategy. They roll out to a tech crowd, we understand that there are issues, we understand that the product is unfinished but at the same time journalists will jump at it for having issues. Every advantage has its disadvantage I guess. The advantage is that you have known brand and you get traction pretty fast. The disadvantage is that you have a known brand and people have expectations.
As far as circles go, I simply think it's going to be too complex for the casual user. FB is black and white, either you are part of my friends or you are not. As has been said, basically noone uses the lists. Anyone I remotely know has access to my profile because I trust them enough that they won't do anything really nasty. People I don't know I simply don't know. G+ offers you options and I don't think that will fair well with non technical users. I already noticed it when "Gee, this sorting thing is fun" changed to "Sorting my 200 contacts into circles was so tedious".
People are already crying out for meta-circles which add another layer of abstraction on top of the existing models. Some want to have full boolean function control with the ability to create Venn diagrams.
It doesn't matter if they fix what we've told them to fix. It won't matter if I get an option to view my stream in a chronological order rather then posts being bumped to the top. What matters is that there are cheatsheets circulating on G+ which hints that even the tech savvy crowd needs assistance to figure out the product, now imagine teenagers trying to figure out G+? I remember reading that the main reason why Twitter is not massively booming in user adaption like FB is because teenagers indicate that it's too complicated. I see the same thing happening here. G+ could take a bite out of twitter, skype and maybe even foursquare (although foursquare has attractive game mechanics which lacks in G+ to my knowledge) but it does not offer the same idiot-proof system that fb does.
Arik Beremzon • Insert a dynamic date here
via quora.com
Blessing of Kings: Zaroua on Holy Paladin Mastery
Zaroua of Premonition made a really interesting post on the official forums discussing Holy Paladin Mastery today:
I'm creating this thread hoping to greatly reduce the influx of PMs and tells I get regarding our mastery. Keep in mind that is pretty much only for 25 man raids; I see some potential uses for this in 10 man, but for the most part it probably won't be as useful in a 10 man scenario.The Firelands fights come in two categories: sustained AoE damage stages and no AoE damage/AoE damage that Holy Radiance isn't suited to heal. Beth'tilac, Lord Ryolith, Domo and the ground phase of Alysrazor are all mostly based around AoE healing for sustained amounts of time while while Alysrazor air phase, Shannox, Baleroc and Ragnaros are fights where Holy Radiance isn't even worth casting.
For the AoE fights, all we really have going for us is Holy Radiance and Light of Dawn, while all of the other healers are able to pump out AoE heals nearly non-stop. Now the way I look at it is that someone still needs to heal the tank and that since Paladins are pretty horrible at sustained AoE healing, a 25 man raid may as well put one or two Holy Paladins on full time tank healing and just have them Holy Radiance on cooldown.
For the non AoE healing fights, Paladins have the choice to choose between tank healing or... tank healing. Casting Holy Lights and Lights of Dawn on the raid simply doesn't compare to Chain Heal/Wild Growth/Circle of Healing/Prayer of Healing.
My guild's healing team is flexible enough to allow for a Paladin to have a weaker Holy Radiance in order to have more powerful tank healing. This translates in the AoE healers having to spend less time on the tank and more time doing what they're good at.
How does this relate to mastery? The golden rule of tanking and healing is that when it comes to handling damage, the best to worst order to do it in is this: completely avoiding the damage, mitigating the damage, healing the damage with a very large amount of fast heals, healing the damage with slow and large heals. Mastery helps mitigate damage and in some cases, completely avoid it. The reason why mitigating damage is so good is because it leads to reduced frequency of spikes in the tank's health and when spikes do occur, it makes them less pronounced, which in turn means that other healers don't panic and waste cooldowns or inefficient heals on the tank. Before the 4.2 change to make Mastery shield stack, the stat was mostly useless because such a huge portion of the shield was wasted on any given heal that gearing for Haste for faster reaction times was something pretty much every Holy Paladin agreed to being the better choice. But now we're in a position where Mastery is finally viable for a Paladin who wants to focus on tank healing.The most important thing to note about healing with a Mastery set is that you sacrifice throughput in order to become a more effective tank healer. [Emphasis mine.] Your Holy Radiance (and mana regen) will be weaker than a Paladin who is going for a more balanced approach to gearing or a Paladin going for Haste. But in turn, you'll be putting a downright overpowered shield on the tank every time you heal him directly. And don't kid yourselves: if you're able to reduce the average hit the tank takes by 10k because of the Mastery shield, what you're doing is very nearly game breaking. The shield simply is that good for keeping tanks alive. What a full set of mastery comes down to is your guild's capacity to support one of its healers focus less on raid healing and more on tank healing.
Even if your guild can't (or won't) support a Paladin will a full mastery set, every Paladin should try to get off pieces with mastery on them so they can use them for Shannox, Baleroc and Ragnaros at the very least.
If you look at his gearset, he's gemming and reforging according to the following priorities:Mastery > Intellect > Spirit > Haste > Crit
This has a lot of drawbacks. It's hyper-specialized for tank healing, and possibly even single-tank healing (no off-Beacon healing).
Now, you probably shouldn't run out and switch to this right away. But any time someone from a top Royalty guild like Premonition or Paragon says something that contradicts common wisdom, it's worth taking a good long look at the situation.
Monday, July 4, 2011
Telco Moves Into Cloud Services -- InformationWeek
Telco Moves Into Cloud Services
Dimension Data, a unit of Japan's NTT, picks up operational expertise and a software stack by acquiring infrastructure as a service and managed hosting services provider OpSource.Dimension Data, a subsidiary of Japanese telecom giant NTT Holdings, is acquiring Opsource as the core of a new Cloud Solutions Business Unit.
OpSource is a nine-year-old infrastructure as a service and managed hosting services provider with 150 employees in Santa Clara, Calif. Under CEO Treb Ryan, OpSource has become a proponent of "enterprise cloud," where its infrastructure services can be purchased with extra security features and virtualized network characteristics for running enterprise applications.
More Cloud-computing Insights
White Papers
- Confidently Maximize Virtual Investments with IBM Integrated Service Management
- Gain IT Asset Visibility, Control and Automation
Analytics
Webcasts
Videos
Sponsored by:
HP's new TouchPad tablet is a bit bulkier than the iPad 2 and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, but it is fast and its WebOS operating system is easy to use and powerful, with some innovative features. Here's our hands on demo, including some fun apps.Dimension Data is buying "operational expertise as well as the software stack" for infrastructure as a service, Ryan noted in an interview Thursday. OpSource's infrastructure is currently located in NTT data centers in Virginia and California, with another NTT data center location to be added in Europe in the third quarter.
It has served as the host service for several independent software vendors offering their applications as a service and it supplies consulting to other telecommunications companies that wish to establish their own infrastructure services, Ryan said. As part of Dimension Data, OpSource will continue to be a cross-teleco service supplier, not a captive, in-house NTT service supplier, Ryan said.
OpSource cloud operations know-how and software could accelerate the trend that's bringing telcos, with an established set of worldwide data centers, into the infrastructure as a service business. The pioneer of IaaS was Amazon Web Services, which now runs the retail operation of Amazon.com in its infrastructure.
Dimension Data is a Johannesburg, South Africa-based systems integrator and integrated communications technology supplier founded in 1983. It had 11,000 employees and revenues of $4.7 billion in 2010 and operates in 49 countries.
As part of Dimension Data, "We now have the leverage. The cloud is a game of scale," said Ryan.
Dimension Data's purchase of OpSource represents another sign of how determined the large telecommunications companies and their subsidiaries are to get into cloud services. Verizon Business purchased an enterprise and government cloud supplier, Terremark, in January for $1.4 billion. CenturyLink acquired Savvis for $2.5 billion at the end of April.
In addition to being an "enterprise cloud" supplier, OpSource is also a managed services provider. Companies turn over their applications to it to run in its facilities. Ryan said the line between infrastructure as a service and managed services is beginning to blur. In the former, companies used to initiate workloads and monitor and manage them remotely. Now, in some cases, "it's funny but some customers are establishing their applications in our infrastructure, then buying managed services to manage their cloud servers," he said.
OpSource can supply disaster recovery services that are 70% less expensive than traditional disaster recovery services and sit atop strong networking resources in the NTT data centers to supply quick recovery. It can also supply services that are Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard Level 1 compliant, and it can meet SAS 70 Type II requirements.
Security concerns give many companies pause as they consider migrating portions of their IT operations to cloud-based services. But you can stay safe in the cloud, as this Tech Center report explains. Download it now. (Free registration required.)
4 Tips: Make Your SMB Website More Secure -- InformationWeek
4 Tips: Make Your SMB Website More Secure
Consider this expert advice on how small and midsize businesses can build websites that are well-protected from attacks--and keep them safe.There are many facets of a complete security plan, but smaller businesses that rely heavily on their websites for revenue need to pay particular attention to protecting them.Strategic Security Survey: Global Threat, Local Pain(click image for larger view and for full slideshow)You need look no further than recent hacking headlines to understand why. Alan Wlasuk, CEO of 403 Web Security, offers four key areas for SMBs to consider when building and maintaining secure websites.
More SMB Insights
White Papers
- Confidently Maximize Virtual Investments with IBM Integrated Service Management
- Gain IT Asset Visibility, Control and Automation
Analytics
Webcasts
Videos
Sponsored by:HP's new TouchPad tablet is a bit bulkier than the iPad 2 and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, but it is fast and its WebOS operating system is easy to use and powerful, with some innovative features. Here's our hands on demo, including some fun apps.Make Security Part of Web Development
If you're now building a site, include security as a part of the project plan. In an interview, Wlasuk recommended doing an automated vulnerability scan of your site before it launches to identify potential holes. He distinguishes this from antivirus or other types of security software. Instead, it's like launching a simulated attack--thousands of them--on your site to see if any of them work. (There are security firms like Wlasuk's that offer free versions of these scans.)
"They don't cover the entire world of security for the website, but they'll give you a clear indication of whether you've got a relatively solid site or if you're in deep trouble to start off with," Wlasuk said. "It's a must for anybody putting together a new site."
Wlasuk advises SMBs that are planning to hire an outside Web development firm to make security part of the selection process; interview potential vendors on their security approach in the same way that you'd ask about design or functionality.
If you've already launched? It's not too late--you should still run a vulnerability scan to check for leaky code. If you find problems, Wlasuk said, resolve the biggest ones first and work your way down the list.
"Make sure that you're not opening yourself up for the kiddie scripters to just walk in and have a good time because they can," Wlasuk said. "Make it hard for someone to get into the site--if you're not the low-hanging fruit, they'll go after someone else."
Keep Employees in the Know
Time and again, human beings are the most volatile threat vector, whether it's a social engineering scam, a phishing attack, or simply an employee who thinks they're doing the right thing--when in fact they're turning over the keys to the corporate castle.
Invest in educating employees on current security threats and best practices; you can't completely eliminate human error, but you can mitigate it. In terms of website security, Wlasuk recommends the "trust but verify" approach with employees--don't be paranoid or undermine your company culture, but ensure that your trust is well-placed. To that end, if some staffers don't need access to your content management system or other databases, don't give it to them. Treat website administrative credentials like valuable company assets.
"Minimally, gather up your staff and tell them what social engineering's all about," Wlasuk said, adding that there are plenty of examples that function as entertaining cautionary tales for presentation purposes. "Have a casual conversation, do a lunch-and-learn--do something so that people aren't totally unaware."
Treat Your Physical Office Like an "Attack Surface"
Much like your website itself can have backdoors beckoning to the bad guys, so too can your physical office. Wlasuk advises to treat your physical office as an entry point to your website--and, of course, to your entire corporate network. No Post-it notes with passwords; no lonely LAN cables inviting just any laptop to plug in and take a digital stroll through the network.
"We all know our offices are often in disarray," Wlasuk. This makes SMBs particularly prone to social engineering attacks. "The cleaning people are going to let anybody with a tie in that says they work for the company, and those people are going to sit down and try to figure out where your vulnerabilities are."
Wlasuk poses a question for SMB owners and managers to ask themselves: "Is silly stuff just hanging out there for anybody to pick up on and use against you within your office?"
Have a Long-Term, Calendared Plan
Website security isn't a set-it-and-forget-it proposition; the threats change on a regular basis. Automated vulnerability scans should be a part of an ongoing security plan, according to Wlasuk; he advises running checks at least every three to six months.
"The world will change," he said. "The hackers get more clever, or your website changes."
Like other security pros, Wlasuk is adamant that SMBs stay on top of security patches for their operating system and other business-critical applications; if you use a commercial (or even free) content management system to administer your website, don't fall behind on software updates.
Periodically review employee authorization for website management, too.
"Make sure the people who have access are the people who really need it," Wlasuk said. "You do not want your entire staff to have the ability to update your website because they can unknowingly introduce all sorts of flaws--or sometimes, unfortunately, knowingly can. Only allow your most trusted people into places where they can cause security risks."
Small and midsize businesses are falling prey to cyberattacks that cost them sensitive data, productivity, and corporate accounts cleaned out by sophisticated banking Trojans. In this report, we explain what makes these threats so menacing, and share best practices to defend against them. Download it now. (Free registration required.)
Are You Ready For An FBI Server Takedown? -- InformationWeek
Are You Ready For An FBI Server Takedown?
The FBI's recent scareware-busting raids and server seizures knocked 120 unrelated companies' websites offline--a scenario that most hosting customers don't anticipate.
Dear customer: The FBI has taken our servers, hence your website--among about 160 others, including our own--is offline. And we don't know when they will be restored.
That's the gist of what happened on June 21, 2011, when FBI agents seized hardware in an early morning raid on data center space in Reston, Va., leased by Switzerland-based DigitalOne.
More Security Insights
White Papers
- Two-Factor Authentication: A Total Cost of Ownership Viewpoint
- JBoss Operations Network: Measuring Business Impact and ROI
Analytics
Webcasts
Videos
We spoke with Chris Sather, Product Management for Network Defense at McAfee about McAfee's next generation firewalls that analyze relationships and not protocols.According to DigitalOne, the agents were supposed to remove only three servers, but many more were seized. "For reasons that we do not understand and have not yet been explained, the investigating authorities also seized 59 unrelated servers, although these were returned to our company within 24 hours," reads the statement released by DigitalOne (translated from German). "During this seizure, however, various modules and cable connections and also our company's backup system were affected, resulting in massive disruptions to a considerable number of client servers, our email system, and our support system."
An FBI spokesman declined to comment on the DigitalOne outage, or the purpose of the raids. An unnamed source told The New York Times that the raids related to an investigation into the LulzSec hacker group. However, the day after the raids, the FBI issued a press release announcing its breakup of two international scareware rings.
The FBI-led operation, dubbed Operation Trident Tribunal, involved searches, seizures, and arrests--apparently occurring from June 20 to June 21--not only in the United States, but also in 11 other countries: Ukraine, Latvia, Germany, Netherlands, Cyprus, France, Sweden, Lithuania, Romania, Canada, and the United Kingdom. In and of itself, that level of cross-border cooperation, especially given the lack of widespread cybercrime treaties, is impressive. But in the DigitalOne raid, FBI agents apparently did remove more servers than needed, although DigitalOne said the FBI returned the 59 other servers within 24 hours.
This incident poses two interesting questions. First, why didn't the removal of DigitalOne's servers trigger any automatic disaster recovery protocol, for example, from an offsite facility? The short answer is that DigitalOne didn't have offsite redundancy, although that could change. "After these events, we will probably begin to offer to the clients the backup of their data in [another] independent data center," DigitalOne's CEO, Sergej Ostroumow, told me via email.
Second question: If the FBI raids a data center, seizes servers, and knocks unrelated customers of that data center offline, would DigitalOne--or its customers--have any recourse against the feds? "Assuming that the seizure was undertaken pursuant to a properly issued order, there is little recourse available to DigitalOne as to restoration of data," attorney Kenneth K. Dort, who specializes in IT and intellectual property law issues for Drinker Biddle & Reath in Chicago, told me.
"In particular, I would have to assume that the underlying hosting agreement DigitalOne has with the hosting entity--i.e., the entity actually visited by the FBI, and from whose facilities the servers were taken--has clear backup or disaster recovery provisions protecting the data," Dort said. "The reason this point is relevant is that all responsible agreements should have such protections in place--and the FBI seizure is operationally no different."
In other words, hosting providers need to plan for the possibility that their facility may be rendered inoperable by an earthquake, hurricane, or law enforcement raid. "Any decent agreement should operationally contemplate and address the current situation [i.e. the FBI raid]--thus eliminating any 'damage' from the seizure," Dort said. That's the hosting side of things. But legally speaking, any DigitalOne customers with data on the seized servers would likewise have no recourse against the bureau, "as long as the seizure was reasonable, within the scope of the seizure order," he said.
"In this case, the order likely permitted the taking of servers housing the DigitalOne data, so that unless that data was segregated from any other companies' data, it would be reasonable to expect such servers to include that data," he said. "Thus, the FBI would not be expected to download the data onsite." But the bureau would be required to return the data or servers--after having downloaded the required data--in a timely manner, and indeed it did return the other servers within 24 hours.
In other words, assuming that the seizure order holds up--and really, who wants to take bets here?--the outage is down to DigitalOne. "As noted above, they should not suffer any operational problems if they had the proper disaster procedures in place," Dort said. "Therefore, the only real concern they should have would be over the FBI's preservation of confidentiality of that information, which the FBI usually observes very carefully."
DigitalOne apparently didn't envision that a law enforcement raid might seize so many of its servers, likewise when it came to crafting its service-level agreement with customers. "As the SLA was created, nobody thought of such an event," said DigitalOne's Ostroumow. Asked if the FBI's raid counted as an unforeseen event that fell outside the DigitalOne SLA, he said, "Yes, it can be qualified as an 'unforeseen event,' but we are working on compensation measures."
Security monitoring, incident response, and forensics are essential, even in the cloud. But the cloud by definition implies relinquishing at least some control, which can make these practices problematic. In this report, we identify the challenges of detecting and responding to security issues in the cloud and discuss the most effective ways to address them. Download our report now. (Free registration required.)
Google+ Face Off: Android App Vs. iOS Browser -- InformationWeek
Google+ Face Off: Android App Vs. iOS Browser
When Google+ launched this week, Google also released an application for Android devices. iOS devices have to make do with the browser version for now. Is it any good?
Pitting the Android Google+ application against the iOS browser version of Google+ side-by-side to see just how well the two experiences compare reveals some surprising results.
The Google+ application, which has already been updated once, opens to a stark main page with but a few simple controls available. From this page, it is easy to jump into a user's stream, photos, profile, circles, Huddles, or check notifications.
More Personal Tech Insights
White Papers
- Two-Factor Authentication: A Total Cost of Ownership Viewpoint
- JBoss Operations Network: Measuring Business Impact and ROI
Analytics
Webcasts
Videos
Sponsored by:HP's new TouchPad tablet is a bit bulkier than the iPad 2 and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, but it is fast and its WebOS operating system is easy to use and powerful, with some innovative features. Here's our hands on demo, including some fun apps.When Google+ users navigate their iPhone to the Google+ home page, they see a similar access panel that includes all the above-mentioned options save for Huddles.
Selecting the stream in both opens up the string of posts that have most recently filtered into a user's main feed. From both the dedicated Android app and iOS Safari browser app, it is easy to add comments or +1s to friends' posts. It is also easy to check-in and compose brand new posts yourself. As far as I can tell, the features available to both platforms in the stream are identical.
Switching to the photos stream, albums and photos appear in the exact same order in both platforms. It is just as easy to access and sift through photos from the iOS browser as it is in the Android application. The Android app has one major leg-up on the iPhone, however: It allows users to shoot and upload images directly from the application. With iOS, there doesn't appear to be a way to upload images directly from the handset, at least not yet. That's a major feature missing from the iOS version of Google+ for now. This is something Google will likely fix when it debuts a dedicated iPhone app for Google+.
The other major advantage the Android app has over iOS is that it works with the Huddle. Huddle is the group messaging tool that is meant to help small groups coordinate with one another. Without it, iPhone users can't use Google+ to send messages to circles. Instead, they'll have to resort to old-fashioned text messages, emails, and (gasp) phone calls.
Both means of accessing Google+ provide users with essential tools, such as managing and interacting with circles, posts, photos, and your own profile. While making some of the adjustments from the confines of a smaller screen is awkward, at least it is possible. The full Web browser version of Google+ is far superior to the mobile versions, and offers a more full experience.
That aside, Google has done an admirable job of making the Web-based version of Google+ nearly as capable as the stand-alone Android application, with only a few features missing. Google said an iPhone app is on the way, but until then, iPhone users won't miss out on (too much of) the mobile fun.
Virtual Event: Business Mobility Unleashed. Zero in on the top mobile technologies and techniques to ensure your organization thrives in the wireless world. Learn about strategies and products that offer remote user applications support, Wi-Fi management, security features, and device management. Our virtual event happens Thursday, July 14. Register now.
Energy Sipping Technology: Solar Electronics
I’ve been traveling a lot lately and trying to work most efficiently with limited power sources. It has meant I’ve needed to be creative about maximizing my power supply across various devices in order to get things done. Soon, it may get even easier to go green with innovations in solar electronics.
T-shirt charges your phone by absorbing ambient sound, by Bryan Nelson at Mother Nature Network — T-shirts made of high-tech fabric enables music festival attendees to test capability to charge their phones via t-shirts.
The End of the Power Cord: Solar and Typing Powered Laptops, by Sarah Laskow at Good Magazine — Highlights how laptops are going to be powered by solar electronics and not just be recharged via solar power.
Solar Panels You Can Make With an InkJet Printer, by Scott Cameron at The Thin Green Line — Researchers have discovered how to print solar cells with ink-jet technology, which Scott supposes will lead to many solar-powered small electronics and gadgets.
How Wasteful is it to Keep My Chargers Plugged in When Not Connected to Their Devices? — In an Inhabit Ask a Tech Geek series, Peter Rojas responds to this question with recommendations on how you can make a difference in your power usage.
If you want to keep your finger on the pulse of other innovative topics, you might check out this inspiring summer reading list at Brain Pickings: Summer Reading List: 10 Essential Books for Cognitive Sunshine and An Optimist’s Tour of the Future.
As I was looking for posts to include in this article, I came across The 30 Most Underrated Innovations of 2010 at HuffPost. It’s still a timely article if you’re wanting to catch up on technology innovations.
Flickr Photo Credit: ePsos.de, Green Leaf of a Bio Plant in Nature
-->Related Posts
- Getting Energy Smart Using Today’s Technology
– Ken Kaplan- 10 Best Technology Books
– Marcia Hansen- The Geek Travel Guide: Stop 1 – California Bay area science and technology museums
– Marcia Hansen- Hiding behind technology: Technology as a safe keeper for all your secrets
– Alison Wesley- The Imminence of CES 2011 (Consumer Electronics Show)
– Mike Armstrong
via scoop.intel.com
Nokia Windows Phone 7 apps to work on rivals' handsets - Pocket-lint
1 July 2011 14:02 GMT / By Stuart Miles
Nokia will do all it can to enhance the Windows Phone 7 experience when it comes to software as well as hardware, Marco Argenti, senior vice president of Developer and Marketplace at Nokia told Pocket-lint in a one-to-one briefing in London:
“Windows Phone 7 doesn’t need us to add more layers," he said. "But we will work hard to enhance areas like mapping, commerce and discovery.”
The move will see the company create a number of dedicated apps for the platform - and not just for use with its phones, but, surprisingly, others from HTC, Samsung and LG too.
It’s something that, so far, other phone makers have steered away from, having their own dedicated area within the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace in order to encourage consumers to buy their phones over other models. Nokia, however, is breaking away from that model:
“Every Nokia App will be available on every phone,” insisted Argenti.
But surely there will be exceptions? A pause is followed by the acknowledgement that while the apps will work with any phone, some will be exclusive for Nokia users for a set time. Or, when it comes to things like mapping, they will be heavily built into the OS, making it hard for a HTC user to nab it.
Maps is going to be one of the key battlegrounds for Nokia.
In our meeting in a quirky hotel in Victoria, just a stone's throw from Microsoft’s London headquarters, Argenti talked up the company’s mapping solution, promising much, but sadly giving us little detail to share.
What does appear apparent though, is that the experience will be akin to what mobile Ovi Map users have now, with a big play on discovery, 3D mapping, and getting the information you need out of the OS. Bing maps will be playing second fiddle on the Finnish company’s devices.
“Maps is one area we really want to improve,” added the man in charge of 700 staff around the world and responsible for managing everything from the creation of apps to the selling of them on not only Windows Phone 7, but MeeGo and Symbian.
“I won the lottery on that one,” he claimed, after we comment that it sounds like a tough job. “But it’s got a lot easier since the announcement.”
That “announcement” refers to the agreement signed between Nokia and Microsoft in February, which will see the operator adopt Windows Phone 7 as well as Symbian.
“Since the announcement, developers have really embraced Windows Phone 7. The app store is now growing by over 1,000 apps a week and we are actively going after companies that already have a good Symbian offering to get them to create a Windows Phone 7 app,” said Argenti.
His job has got simpler too: “It’s much easier to get an audience, especially in the US.”
It seems Microsoft has a new friend. It’s certainly not something we’ve heard Samsung, LG or HTC doing.
But, it’s not just about getting plenty of apps in store to stack those shelves. Nokia is keen to help people buy them, and help people discover them too.
On the commerce side of things, Nokia is going to be implementing the ability to buy apps through the operator.
It already has deals in 191 countries to do just that and, combined with NFC technology (a virtual given for the new phones it makes), Nokia hopes the idea of not only buying apps but also a cup of coffee, and having them all charged to your monthly operator bill will be something that people are keen to enjoy.
That’s a move that is going to make the operators very happy, and open up a whole market of new shoppers who don't have credit cards, or don’t want the extra hassle of providing details to Microsoft.
On the discovery side, Argenti is keen to help developers get seen. Nokia will use a dedicated area on the phone to highlight local developers:“We don’t want to branch the experience, but there are many cases where a local app might be the best in that country, but doesn't get the coverage it deserves because it’s not big globally,” he said.
If that does work, and there’s no reason to think that it wouldn’t as Nokia has employed the same tactics for its music service in the past, developers could get the extra push they need.
Apple, Google and Microsoft know how hard it is to get people to discover new apps and this might just be the ticket.
As for whether or not the Nokia Windows Phone 7 device will ditch the hardware keys altogether, Argenti isn’t telling. He did, however, hint that the N9 [and therefore “Sea Ray” leaked prototype] shows off plenty of ideas and features that the company is working on and that each device they create will look at what is needed for the task at hand.
What is certain, is that Argenti is very much the man in charge of how Nokia will create it’s Windows Phone 7 software offering, and that the company isn’t just leaving it all up to the hardware boys to tempt you into switching to the Microsoft platform.
- First Look: Windows Phone 7 Mango review
WIN: Retweet this story with the hastag #plplaybook to be in with a chance to win a 16GB BlackBerry PlayBook Tweet To find out more click here.
<p>“Windows Phone 7 doesn’t need us to add more layers," he said. "But we will work hard to enhance areas like mapping, commerce and discovery.”</p>
<p>The move will see the company create a number of dedicated apps for the platform - and not just for use with its phones, but, surprisingly, others from HTC, Samsung and LG too.</p>
<p>It’s something that, so far, other phone makers have steered away from, having their own dedicated area within the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace in order to encourage consumers to buy their phones over other models. Nokia, however, is breaking away from that model:</p>
<p>“Every Nokia App will be available on every phone,” insisted Argenti.</p>
<p>But surely there will be exceptions? A pause is followed by the acknowledgement that while the apps will work with any phone, some will be exclusive for Nokia users for a set time. Or, when it comes to things like mapping, they will be heavily built into the OS, making it hard for a HTC user to nab it.</p>
<p>Maps is going to be one of the key battlegrounds for Nokia.</p>
<p>In our meeting in a quirky hotel in Victoria, just a stone\'s throw from Microsoft’s London headquarters, Argenti talked up the company’s mapping solution, promising much, but sadly giving us little detail to share.</p>
<p>What does appear apparent though, is that the experience will be akin to what mobile Ovi Map users have now, with a big play on discovery, 3D mapping, and getting the information you need out of the OS. Bing maps will be playing second fiddle on the Finnish company’s devices. </p>
<p>“Maps is one area we really want to improve,” added the man in charge of 700 staff around the world and responsible for managing everything from the creation of apps to the selling of them on not only Windows Phone 7, but MeeGo and Symbian.</p>
<p>“I won the lottery on that one,” he claimed, after we comment that it sounds like a tough job. “But it’s got a lot easier since the announcement.”</p>
<p>That “announcement” refers to the agreement signed between Nokia and Microsoft in February, which will see the operator adopt Windows Phone 7 as well as Symbian.</p>
<p>“Since the announcement, developers have really embraced Windows Phone 7. The app store is now growing by over 1,000 apps a week and we are actively going after companies that already have a good Symbian offering to get them to create a Windows Phone 7 app,” said Argenti.</p>
<p>His job has got simpler too: “It’s much easier to get an audience, especially in the US.”</p>
<p>It seems Microsoft has a new friend. It’s certainly not something we’ve heard Samsung, LG or HTC doing.</p>
<p>But, it’s not just about getting plenty of apps in store to stack those shelves. Nokia is keen to help people buy them, and help people discover them too.</p>
<p>On the commerce side of things, Nokia is going to be implementing the ability to buy apps through the operator.</p>
<p>It already has deals in 191 countries to do just that and, combined with NFC technology (a virtual given for the new phones it makes), Nokia hopes the idea of not only buying apps but also a cup of coffee, and having them all charged to your monthly operator bill will be something that people are keen to enjoy.</p>
<p>That’s a move that is going to make the operators very happy, and open up a whole market of new shoppers who don\'t have credit cards, or don’t want the extra hassle of providing details to Microsoft.</p>
<p>On the discovery side, Argenti is keen to help developers get seen. Nokia will use a dedicated area on the phone to highlight local developers: “We don’t want to branch the experience, but there are many cases where a local app might be the best in that country, but doesn\'t get the coverage it deserves because it’s not big globally,” he said.</p>
<p>If that does work, and there’s no reason to think that it wouldn’t as Nokia has employed the same tactics for its music service in the past, developers could get the extra push they need.</p>
<p>Apple, Google and Microsoft know how hard it is to get people to discover new apps and this might just be the ticket.</p>
<p>As for whether or not the Nokia Windows Phone 7 device will ditch the hardware keys altogether, Argenti isn’t telling. He did, however, hint that the N9 [and therefore “Sea Ray” leaked prototype] shows off plenty of ideas and features that the company is working on and that each device they create will look at what is needed for the task at hand.</p>
<p>What is certain, is that Argenti is very much the man in charge of how Nokia will create it’s Windows Phone 7 software offering, and that the company isn’t just leaving it all up to the hardware boys to tempt you into switching to the Microsoft platform.</p>' } , {button:false, embeds: true}).attachButton(document.getElementById('shareButton'));
Recommended articles
Full tagsPhones, Windows Phone 7, Nokia, Microsoft, Nokia Sea Ray, windows phone 7 apps
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. blog comments powered by Disqus
via pocket-lint.com
