Automation begins with keeping track of your assets
Automating effectively requires you to know what is connected to your network and what patches it needs, and to be able to push patches on to the right device at the right time.
Before you can manage anything, you need to know what hardware and software you have and where it is. Then you need to take control of it, remotely and automatically.
Asset management is not just about checking whether you still have all the PCs you expect to have or whether you have the right number of licences (although that is worth doing, if only to check you are not paying for more licences than you need).
Knowing me, knowing you
It is also about knowing what you have to work with. You can’t really take control of the desktops in your business if you don’t and it is much easier to argue the case for more resources when you can show what they are for. Read more...
FTC probe could be hard, costly battle for Google
Google Friday acknowledged that it has received formal notification of a Federal Trade Commission review, prompting analysts to say the search company could be in for a long, tiring and expensive battle.
"These things are costly," said Geoffrey Manne, executive director of the International Center for Law & Economics, a global think tank.
"They'll have to come up with the usual millions of pages of documents," he said. "It's a costly ordeal. If [the FTC] decides they have enough of a case, they'll want to try it and not settle it. That is potentially very problematic for Google."
Earlier today, Amit Singhal, a Google Fellow, disclosed in a blog post that the company had received notification of an FTC probe into its business, including the search and advertising operations.
In the post, Singhal said the company would cooperate fully with the federal investigation. Read more...
Your next job: Mobile app developer?
As market demand surges for apps to run on iOS, Android and whatever operating system will power the next wave of smart devices, companies are facing a dearth of mobile development talent. For IT professionals with programming skills, that gap represents a fresh opportunity to embark on a career makeover.
To put the demand in perspective, consider that Apple racked up $1.78 billion in app sales in 2010, and global mobile app sales are forecast to hit $4 billion this year, according to market researcher IHS.
Just who is developing all of those apps? In its recent "America's Tech Talent Crunch" study, IT job site Dice.com found that job postings for Android developers soared 302% in the first quarter of this year compared to the first quarter of 2010; ads for iPhone-related positions rose 220% in the same time frame.
Elance.com, a website for freelancers, reports comparable demand: In the first quarter of 2011, there were 4,500 mobile developer jobs posted on the site -- an increase of 101% over the number of similar job postings in the same quarter last year. Read more...
iCloud: What’s in, what’s out for MobileMe users
Apple won't officially debut iCloud for months -- September is the bet by most -- but last week the company revealed more information about what the online sync and storage service will and won't include.
The news was especially welcome to customers already paying $99 a year for MobileMe, the 2008 service Apple launched to early teething troubles and poor press. MobileMe never attracted a wide audience, in part because so much of what it did could be cobbled together from free services and tools.
Earlier this month, Apple announced it would pull MobileMe's plug in 2012, months after it is to be replaced by iCloud. But until last week, Apple had left MobileMe users in the dark about what parts would shift to iCloud and what would be ditched. Read more...
LulzSec calls it quits after 50 days of ‘mayhem’
The computer hacking group LulzSec said Saturday it had ended its campaign of cyberassaults on government and corporate websites and that it was time for it to "sail into the distance."
Its announcement came three days after LulzSec released its latest trove of internal documents, stolen from the Arizona Department of Public Safety computer network, and four days after U.K. police said they had made the first arrest of a man allegedly affiliated with the group.
"Our planned 50 day cruise has expired, and we must now sail into the distance, leaving behind - we hope - inspiration, fear, denial, happiness, approval, disapproval, mockery, embarrassment, thoughtfulness, jealousy, hate, even love," the group said in a post on the Pastebin website. Read more...
Intel pushing subscription model for tablet app store
Intel hopes to make it easier for developers to make money by pushing a subscription model to sell applications through its tablet and netbook application store, a company executive said this week.
A subscription model would provide another revenue stream in addition to advertising and direct sales of applications hosted on Intel's AppUp store, said Peter Biddle, general manager of AppUp products and services at Intel.
AppUp, designed similar to Apple's App Store, hosts applications for netbooks and tablets running on Intel or x86 processors. Under the current revenue model, developers get a 70 percent cut on applications sold, and Intel and partners get the remaining 30 percent. Read more...
How to argue with the CEO — and win
Arguments with the CEO are an inevitable aspect of the CIO role, whether they're knock-down-drag-out battles or civil attempts to persuade the CEO on IT matters of importance. They arise in large part from CIOs' inability to communicate on the CEO's level and from CIOs' and CEO's diverging views on how best to spend the company's money.
CIOs who've never previously reported to CEOs may be particularly wary of arguing with their corporate commander in chief, and understandably so. Ending up on the wrong side of the debate could put a bullet in their careers.
But CIOs who think they should avoid any kind of confrontation with their CEOs are mistaken. Not every CEO wants to be surrounded by Yes Men; some encourage debate and dissention. Read more...
4 ways to manage your project management budget
In the big picture world of project management, ensuring the overall success of a project is a project manager's top priority. If a project goes wildly over-budget (as they often do), it will not be considered a success, even if it's delivered on time and meets end users' needs. That's why project managers need to meticulously manage their budgets.
Here are four strategies for maintaining control of your project budget and preventing massive cost overruns.
1. Continually forecast the budget. A project run without frequent budget management and reforecasting will likely be headed for failure. Why? Because frequent budget oversight prevents the budget from getting too far out of hand. A 10 percent budget overrun is far easier to correct than a 50 percent overrun. Your chances of keeping the project on track with frequent review of the budget plan is far greater than if you forecast it once and forget about it. Read more...
Report: Nokia CEO Will Kill MeeGo Even if N9 Succeeds
Not long after "leaking" Nokia's first Windows smartphone, codenamed "Sea Ray," CEO Stephen Elop told a Finnish newspaper that even if the new MeeGo-based N9, launched the day before, succeeds, it will be Nokia's last device on the Meego operating system.
"In Elop's words, there is no returning to MeeGo, even if the N9 turns out to be a hit," wrote the Finnish daily, the Helsingin Sanomat.
On Thursday, Elop stirred the blogosphere when he teased what he called the first Nokia Windows device, which is rumored to be launching this fall. Read more...
Hackers school next generation at DEFCON Kids
DEFCON hackers will share their skills with the next generation at a first-ever children's version of the infamous gathering of software renegades, lock pickers and social engineers.
DEFCON Kids will take place in Las Vegas on August 6-7 during the 19th annual DEFCON started by hackers such as "Dark Tangent" when they were young computer coding or hardware cracking rebels.
"Hackers are getting older and having kids," said Joe Grand, a DEFCON veteran known as 'Kingpin' who has wowed attendees with event badges made of circuit boards that could be hacked to serve as radios or other gadgets.
"It is interesting to follow the process of other people's backup units; how they are coming along." Read more...