Design: The Galaxy S4 can be easily confused with the Galaxy S3 because the designs are indistinguishable to the non-specialist (despite Samsung’s claim otherwise). It continues to be made of polycarbonate (real plastic) that is slippery and hard to hold. The whole design has a cheap feel to it and doesn’t look or feel like a top-tier phone. Exactly opposite is the HTC One’s premium feel. It is made of machined aluminum and feels good in the hand. It just looks better than the Galaxy S4, with details such as the two-toned screen/edge design. For those who care about the design of their phone, the HTC One is a far better choice.

Image via http://www.flickr.com

Camera: The camera may not be the first feature considered when purchasing a new phone, but it is becoming more important as point-and-shoot cameras are quickly disappearing. There has been a megapixel race among smartphone manufacturers and HTC and Samsung have taken different routes here. Samsung has continued this race with a capable 13-megapixel camera that continues the Galaxy S3’s tradition of taking great shots in bright light but struggling in low light.

HTC has taken a different route by opting for a low-pixel count (4-megapixels) but argues that its pixels are larger and consequently produce a better picture overall. This strategy is intriguing, but it doesn’t produce the desired results. It does shoot better pictures than the GS4 in low-light situations, but with better lighting the Galaxy S4’s pictures are far better with more clarity and sharpness.

For those who take mostly low-light photos, the Nexus One will do better, but for the majority of uses, the GS4’s camera is the clear winner.

Battery: The growing consensus among smartphone users is that they are willing to sacrifice some hardware specs for longer battery life. The GS4 from the start has offered users a full-day of use without having to charge. The HTC One, on the other hand, started out with a slate of bad reviews stating the battery life was poor. Recently, however, a software update (LINK: http://www.techradar.com/us/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/htc-one-gets-battery-bump-become-s-techradar-s-third-5-star-smartphone-1149180) has alleviated those issues and now both phones are able to last a full day.

Speakers: If speakers don’t seem like a major make-or-break feature of a smartphone you’re buying, the HTC One may just make you reconsider. The GS4 has its speaker facing the rear of the phone, no change there. The HTC One now has two speakers and has moved them both to the front of the phone. These speakers won’t be replacing your need for headphones, but they certainly outshine those on the GS4. If you are someone who likes to watch YouTube videos with friends on your phone, these speakers make the listening part much more enjoyable.

Removable Battery and Storage: this category is simple. If you want a removable battery and space for a Micro SD card, the Galaxy S4 is the only choice.

These two phones have different strengths and each user will rate those with varying degrees of importance. Personally, I prefer the look and feel of the HTC One so I could forgo the better camera of the Galaxy S4. Besides, those speakers are sweet.

Based in Los Angeles, Seth Heringer is senior editor at aNewDomain.net and co-host of the Attack of the Androids podcast. Seth also is a PhD candidate in the humanities who, when not working on finishing his dissertation, loves to partake of all things tech. Email Seth at Seth@aNewDomain.net.

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Brandon Sweeney, VMware Vice President, U.S. Midmarket and Small Business

As I spend time with our customers who have virtualized or who are starting their virtualization and cloud solutions journey, I routinely hear them say …“Why did I wait so long?”  At VMware, this same trend is very evident, and we are definitely seeing more and more midmarket and small businesses using our virtualization and cloud offerings to help them become more agile, and help simplify their IT and grow their business. I wanted to share with you some relevant highlights.

Virtualization’s Foothold Increases

As reported by Spiceworks in the “State of SMB IT Report,” virtualization remains important to midmarket and small businesses as the number of respondents who’ve adopted server virtualization inches closer to two-thirds. And, fourteen percent plan to adopt server virtualization in the next 6 months, marking what could be a significant jump in adoption for the first half of 2013.

Businesses that start virtualizing will most likely grow virtualization deeper into their companies over time. This sets your IT and overall businesses up for success by establishing a foundation from which you can catapult into other adjacent apps to protect your data, easily manage your workloads and efficiently manage your IT environment.

Source: The State of SMB IT Report, November 2012, Spiceworks, Voice-of-IT

The Cloud Forecast

The adoption of cloud services has spiked, giving way to desktop virtualization as being the next logical step. We are experiencing this trend at VMware. We are seeing that midmarket and small businesses are adopting cloud computing either from a public cloud provider, through our VMware Service Provider Program (VSPP), or building a private cloud using our vCloud Suite offering to integrate a conveniently packaged cloud infrastructure solution that simplifies their IT operations and lets them realize the agility, efficiency and intelligent operations management they strongly need. As cited by Spiceworks in this report, Cloud services are now used by 62% of midmarket and small businesses, up from 48% in the first half of 2012. By early 2013, 73% of midmarket and small businesses plan to adopt cloud services.

Source: The State of SMB IT Report, November 2012, Spiceworks, Voice-of-IT

Today, midmarket and small businesses represent one of the fastest-growing segments of our customer base. And we’re seeing the transformation to, and adoption of, virtualization and cloud services first hand. Virtualization and cloud services are the building blocks that can help you to transform your IT infrastructure and move it forward.

VMware continues to innovate, and deliver technology advancements to give our customers the tangible benefits cited in this blog, and more. We are seeing these benefits extend to almost all midmarket and small businesses daily. Rest assured, VMware is not stopping there. Innovation and helping our customers is what drives us.

Do you have comments about how virtualization and cloud computing is transforming your business? What technologies are you implementing? We are interested to hear from you.

[This blog was first published on the VMware SMB blog]

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Headquartered in Portland, Ore., PBS specializes in capturing and hosting engineering and environmental data for schools, hospitals and other large companies. From early conversations, it was clear to John Prann, Service Solution Executive at Dell, that preventing data loss was PBS’s highest priority. He explained, “Through our initial discussions, we found that PBS had a very good grasp of the VMware technology. From a professional services standpoint, we had to decide how to fill in some of the gaps and then build an engagement around that.”

While PBS was initially looking at daily data replication for its disaster recovery ­facility in Vancouver, Wash., over the course of the conversation with John, the PBS IT team decided to use vCenter Site Recovery Manager instead, in order to gain the needed benefits of automation and simplicity. Doug Stephenson, Service Solution Executive at Dell, described the differences, “With replication, you have devices at two different locations holding the same data, and if something were to happen at one location, you manually flip some switches to direct users to the other location. With SRM, the replication is tightly integrated into an automated failover plan, which can be tested and verified prior to failover.”

SRM’s high availability and near-zero downtime are also added benefits. Doug continued, “This solution delivers business continuity and high availability. In the past at PBS, something might go wrong while someone was off work. Now, if there was to be an issue with a server, either virtual or even physical, everything would just automatically failover to another box and stay running. So now people can enjoy their time off.”

Creating this seamless disaster protection involves utilizing the combination of the Dell EqualLogic SAN and VMware vSphere with the vCenter Operations Management Suite. Doug explained how EqualLogic brings high availability and added peace of mind to uplift the IT environment and infrastructure at PBS, “All files and virtual server files are stored on the EqualLogic array, so if a virtual server or a physical host fails, those virtual machines will start up on one of the other physical boxes and still know exactly where those files are.”

The vCenter Operations Management Suite adds the ability to view the flow diagram of the entire IT infrastructure from a single screen, so PBS can see what’s happening with its IT operations in multiple locations, and manage all of its virtual servers and resources. From hard drive space to the amount of memory to the number of processors, vCenter Operations Management Suite will allow PBS to monitor its entire infrastructure and provide advanced analytics and capacity management for each datacenter, cluster, host and virtual server as needed.

The other benefit of vCenter Operations Management Suite for PBS is the addition of VMware’s vSphere Enterprise Plus to the disaster recovery facility. Enterprise Plus allows for multiple hosts, as well as high availability and load balancing, providing an integrated infrastructure with vCenter Operations Management. Doug described the advantages, “If a particular server gets much busier and uses a lot more resources than it’s intended to, then the Distributed Resources Scheduler (DRS) will offload that virtual server to another host that is not getting hit as hard. And it does it all automatically, behind the scenes, without anyone having to manually make that move.”

The transformation project timeline includes PBS racking and stacking the new servers and gear at the disaster recovery facility. Then the VMware/Dell team will implement the servers and SANs, and test to confirm the Protection Groups and Recovery Plans  work smoothly and the failover runs properly for SRM. Implementation will be complete by the end of March, so make sure to check back to see how things are progressing.

Are you debating between replication and SRM for your business? Would you like to share your experience with virtualization? Sound off in the comments below.

[This blog was first published on the VMware SMB blog]

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David Krafft, VMware Senior Partner Business Manager

I joined over a hundred IT leaders of mid-market and small size banks and credit unions to discuss answers to complex questions about the role of IT in their industry:

• How can IT help reduce development time for new financial products?
• How can IT help attract new customers and retain existing ones?
• How can IT help ensure data security and reliability, especially with the consumerization of IT (like bringing your own device to work (BYOD, etc.)?

And, most importantly, how can IT help reduce costs as margins continue to shrink and new regulations are cutting into revenue?

The event  gave all of us an opportunity to let our guard down and speak candidly about the IT issues mid-market and small business financial institutions are facing, and help attendees go back to the office with some actionable plans.

 The Dominant Topic- Virtualization, and Taking It Further

One technology that more and more banking/finance IT leaders are turning to is virtualization, which was very evident at this BIG conference.   This allows you to leverage existing hardware, keep IT operations and staffing costs under control, and bring new applications, products and services to customers faster, making your financial institution more competitive.

Attendees at BIG had come with the following perspectives:  “We haven’t virtualized yet,” or “We are on our way to becoming 100% virtualized.” When I polled the audience during our presentation, the people that were VMware users expressed a need to do more with virtualization and VMware offerings.  Attendees with the least amount of virtualization in their IT infrastructure was around 30% with a plan to get to 80% by the end of the year.

Those that were not virtualized at all frankly used the group interaction and quickly came to realize they needed to get on board.

Virtualization dominated much of the conversation at the BIG Conference, and for good reason: a recent Spiceworks study uncovered that nearly 2/3 of mid-market and small businesses adopted virtualization in 2012, with an additional 14% planning to adopt it in the next six months.

The reason?  For most of the financial institutions I work with, virtualization proves to be the single most effective way to:

• Reduce IT expenses while boosting efficiency and agility
• Run multiple operating systems on a single computer
• Consolidate hardware to get vastly higher productivity from fewer servers
• Save 50% or more on overall IT costs
• Speed up and simplify IT management, maintenance and the deployment of new applications.

Today’s banking IT leaders are in the midst of making critical infrastructure decisions as they attempt to bridge the gap between old legacy systems and new technologies to support their organization’s goals of reducing development time, maintaining top security and reliability, retaining customers and cutting costs.

With this in mind, my final thoughts on this BIG conference … almost everyone there took intense notes. Not just scribbling things on free hotel scratch pads… but there was genuine interest in engaging with this technology either to begin or expand their IT infrastructures from where they are today.  A must-have.

Here are some helpful links I provided during the BIG event.  I encourage you to review these and hope they accelerate a most imperative decision you can be making for your business in today’s environment:

• VMware vSphere Operations Management Suite
• VMware Horizon View Suite

I welcome your thoughts, comments and questions.  What role is virtualization playing in your current IT environment?

[This blog was first published on the VMware SMB blog]

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Although cutting costs remains a key driver of virtualization, companies that have already implemented virtualization are seeing plenty of additional benefits.

Demands on IT departments are changing, from increased pressures to implement BYOD policies for users to scalability issues, and expanding on virtualization remains a key step for laying a foundation for a small to midmarket organization’s infrastructure

Download this free eBook to get the top 4 reasons why you need to expand virtualization in your IT environment  and what your midmarket or small business stands to gain – beyond cost savings:

• Learn how to prevent outages with a resource-constrained environment
• Discover how you can be among the 73% of companies that have reduced significant time investments in routine administrative tasks.
• Hear from other companies on how expanding virtualization has improved their business.

What were your top reasons for expanding virtualization? Share them with us here.

[This blog was first published on the VMware SMB blog]

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Two-factor authentication is when you use your password in conjunction with something else – like generated passcode – to log into a website. Recently Google’s own Matt Cutts pleaded for users on his blog to enable two-factor authentication to be safe.

Sites like Google, Dropbox, Facebook, Paypal, Yahoo Mail, Microsoft, WordPress (with the help of a little plugin magic), and hopefully soon Twitter will all offer two-factor authentication to further protect user data. Two-Factor authentication would have been a good idea for Wired writer Mat Honan back when he had his run in with hackers over a three letter Twitter account they wanted. The AP/Twitter hack could have also been prevented had Twitter been using two-factor authentication.

Remember Firesheep? It was a Firefox plugin a while back that basically hijacked a users session, granting the hijacker basically full control of an account on Facebook, Twitter, and a few other social networks. The reason this worked? The social network sites were not using SSL by default. Guess what? After the Firesheep plugin came out and made it quite elementary to hijack a session, most, if not all of the sites affected forced SSL.

My point? Sometimes people and sites need to be hacked and exploited so those in charge realize there’s a problem. We know Twitter started putting together a team to work on two-factor authentication shortly after the AP news account was hacked.

I won’t explain how to enable two-factor authentication on your favorite sites, because there are already a ton of great How To’s online. All you need to do is Google how to enable two-factor authentication. Dropbox has a help page on how to enable it, and Google has a great app in the Play Store called Google Authenticator. This is the app I’m using, and it works perfectly with Google, Dropbox, and the WordPress two-factor authentication plugin. Microsoft also has its own authenticator if you live in the Windows Phone ecosystem.

Sites like Facebook, Dropbox, and even Google also support sending a text message in order to obtain the second factor number.

If you don’t want to use an app like Google Authenticator or the Facebook code generator, having a number sent via SMS is your next best option. Plus, when you enable this on Facebook for example, it will not only send you a text message with a security code when you try to login from a new computer, but you will also be notified if someone else is trying to get into your account. Of course, they shouldn’t be able to assume you follow proper password protocols, or that a hacker didn’t clone your cell phone when you were out of the room.

The bottom line? Sure, two-factor authentication adds another layer of security to your most-precious sites and data online. It’s also a pain when you start using multiple devices across multiple platforms. But that pain is quite minimal compared to getting your online life hacked and destroyed.

Losing control of your password is akin to losing your wallet, only worse. Most of the above sites don’t make it easy to contact a human being to get your problem fixed. It’s almost like you have to suck it up and start over. Either that, or operate your own cloud, where you store your own information, but even that can be vulnerable to attack or destruction. Two-factor authentication is our best option for now. A strong password is a great start, but even the best password is no substitute for two-factor authentication.

Based in Kalispell, Montana, Mat Lee is a Senior Editor and Podcaster at aNewDomain.net. Email Mat at Mat@aNewDomain.net and follow him on Google+, where he is +Mat Lee

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An advantage of virtualization: Freeing up terminals in campus computer labs. Credit: rex libris via Compfight cc

Describing the tech overhaul that made Indiana University a virtualization vanguard among public institutions can get pretty technical.

Explaining its impact on the more than 130,000 students, faculty and staff across two main campuses can be summed up in one word — freedom. That’s freedom for students to study anywhere, staff to work anywhere and faculty to teach anywhere.

The transformation at IU is one of several stories that Dell will share about its customers this week at Citrix Synergy 2013, the industry’s premier conference on desktop virtualization. The four-day event starts tonight in California.

Representatives from both Indiana University and the Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System in Louisiana will speak at Dell’s conference booth about how Dell hardware and Citrix software can simplify the delivery of IT services.

The presence of Indiana University and another public college — Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Canada — are particularly noteworthy considering how their embrace of desktop virtualization defies the stereotype that public institutions are slow adopt innovative technologies.

Businesses in the healthcare industry have also emerged as forerunners in desktop virtualization as the Franciscan health system and another Dell customer, Mater Health Services in Australia, have demonstrated by ditching PCs for zero clients.

Anywhere, Any Device

The hub of cloud-based computing at Indiana University is appropriately named IUanyWare, which allows students, faculty and staff to connect to software, cloud storage and printers from all kinds of devices.

IUanyWare has been particularly beneficial for nontraditional students, including those on regional campuses, who face time and logistical challenges related to childcare and employment.

The virtualization project at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in greater Vancouver involved replacing 1,600 desktops that struggled to handle today’s rich multimedia applications with zero-client workstations.

Feedback from students has been positive and the new setup may even lead to better grades, said Sukey Samra, the university’s associate director for information and education technology.

“At exam time, every second counts for students, and they will walk out of computer labs if machines run slowly,” Samra said. “A PC takes minutes to boot up, but students and staff can log on to a Dell Wyse zero client in a few seconds, helping them maximize available study time and achieve better academic results.”

Improving productivity also drove the Franciscan Missionaries health system, which runs several hospitals, to invest in zero clients equipped with a special log-on platform that minimizes the time it takes practitioners to access key patient files.

The network of hospitals covering 1.8 million people achieved its goal of providing doctors with the data they needed without requiring them to load the same files as they moved from room to room.

Mater Health Services in Brisbane, Australia also gave clinicians more time with patients with its rollout of a virtual desktop environment.

Saving money on energy costs — an estimated $104,000 annually is anticipated — was another factor that helped change how this operator of seven hospitals looks at IT, said Mal Thatcher, Mater’s chief information officer.

“Power consumption was definitely one of the drivers for moving to a virtual desktop infrastructure,” he said.

Nick Clunn is an award-winning journalist who has worked for several websites and daily newspapers, including The Record in New Jersey. He teaches journalism as an adjunct instructor at Montclair State University. Follow him @NickClunn.

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Technology has come to the aid of golfers everywhere with a specialized golf glove, called the SensoGlove. It is an interesting high-tech twist on the old game of golf — a golf glove combined with a mini-computer.

The SensoGlove is made of cabretta leather and looks and feels just like a regular golf glove. There is a mini-computer that pops into a thin plastic casing that rests on the top of your hand. This device is lightweight. At 1.25 inches square and less than .5 inches thick, the SensoGlove controller doesn’t interfere with your swing. There are built-in sensors in the fingers of the glove that constantly read the pressure of your grip, providing instant feedback.

The screen on the glove’s computer numerically displays the pressure that you are exerting, and shows an image of the fingers that are pressing too hard. The SensoGlove also has an audio feedback that warns you when your grip becomes too tight.

The SensoGlove has a range of pressures that you can set from 1 to 18. The heaviest pressure setting is 1, the lightest is 18. You can set these pressure readings and adjust them as you need to so you can progressively increase or decrease your grip pressure. This helps you to find the right amount of pressure for your specific needs. Setting the pressure initially is a bit of a trial and error experiment. You can expect to take a test of several different grip pressures to decide what works best for you. The included instruction manual is a good guide, and a practice session on the driving range should get you going.

When used consistently, the SensoGlove will have a positive effect on your game. And it makes a great present for the golfer on your list. It’s available in men’s and women’s sizes in both left- and right-hand versions. If the glove wears out, you can purchase a new glove and just transfer the mini-computer.

Manufacturer: SensoSolutions
Retail Price: $89

Based in Pinehurst, North Carolina, Sandy Berger is a veteran tech journalist and senior editor at aNewDomain.net covering tech tips and tricks, apps, gadgets, and consumer electronics. Email her at Sandy@aNewDomain.net. Follow her on Twitter @sandyberger, +SandyBerger on Google+, and www.facebook.com/sandyberger on Facebook.

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Adobe’s announcements and demos indicate that its approach to creative software is undergoing significant changes. Here are some of the most interesting developments to emerge from Adobe MAX 2013.

The end of Creative Suite as we know it.

That’s right. There will be no CS7.

Adobe plans to make its Creative Cloud subscription service the only point of access to Creative Suite software. That means that individuals and businesses will no longer purchase individual licenses — or cereal-box software as it’s known at VentureBeat. The good news is that users won’t have to wait for the next CS release to receive updates, since these are applied automatically in the Cloud. And rather than paying up to $2,000, individuals and organizations will be required to pay between $20 and $70 per month.

Creative Cloud is a harbinger of things to come since its debut in 2012, but many attendees were surprised by Adobe’s decision to end the CS model so quickly. Some users are outraged. At the time of this writing, more than 11,000 supporters have already signed a Change.org petition. The petition is requesting that Adobe “eliminate the mandatory Creative Cloud subscription model.” These angry users argue that the previous, pay-per-license model was more cost-effective for businesses.

However, PC Magazine ran the numbers in a recent article and found that the Creative Suite Master Collection would cost $2,644 over the course of three years. Creative Cloud, on the other hand, would cost only $1,800 over the same amount of time.

Those alienated by the Cloud may change their minds upon closer inspection of the costs and benefits involved. In addition to seamless, continuous updates, the Creative Cloud offers a range of services that focus more on the web, collaboration and the crossover between development and design.

Adobe hardware. Seriously.

Personally, I am excited about the Project Mighty stylus and Project Napoleon ruler prototypes, which Michael Gough, Adobe’s VP of Experience Design, demoed on stage at the conference. Produced in collaboration with renowned industrial design firm Ammunition, both products are fully integrated with the Creative Cloud.

The Project Mighty stylus has an aluminum body and a pressure-sensitive, plastic tip that produces expressive lines in an array of drawing styles. It can also access cloud-based content from the tablet application in use and distinguish between stylus and finger—so you can draw with the pen, erase with your finger, and step forward or backward using multi-touch commands.

The compact Napoleon ruler works in tandem with the pen to produce perfectly straight, vector-based lines. It also assists in the creation of other basic shapes and is fully cloud-integrated.

Gough said in a recent blog post that, “although we spend many hours a day behind the keyboard and mouse, we still often start the creative process as we did thousands of years ago with pen and paper. But with tablets and new input methods like Mighty, this is going to change—I am confident.”

I couldn’t agree more. This is the sort of hardware/software unity that I’ve been waiting for. Adobe seems to have its stylus on the pulse of analog design trends, and I can’t wait to see how these prototypes will affect the way we think about design technology.

Project Context: Designing magazine layouts on massive touch screens.

Claudia de Almeida, who is design director of Wired magazine, demonstrated the Project Context approach to designing magazine layouts at the MAX conference.

The Context system is a cloud-integrated hardware prototype that reflects Adobe’s focus on recreating the analog experience. It uses two 1080p, high-definition touch screens and a smaller, tablet-like screen to enable collaborative layout design. The current prototype supports 30 touch points, which means that up to 30 users could collaborate on the same project simultaneously.

The Context interface allows you to do pretty much everything that’s possible with desktop applications like Adobe InDesign. You can scroll, move and resize images or pages, add text from a keyboard or draw directly on the touch screens.

Watch this YouTube video of Project Context in action:

It’s an exciting time in the world of design technology. Adobe has yet to announce when it will release its hardware prototypes as products, but states that Projects Mighty and Napoleon are definitely slated to be made available for sale at some point.

One thing is certain: Like many software companies, Adobe is headed for a cloud-based future, whether users want it or not.

Image credits: Madison Andrews for aNewDomain.net

Madison Andrews is a writer, editor, and designer living in Austin, Texas. She is founder and editor of madskillsvocabulary.com. Email her at madison@anewdomain.net, find her on tumblr, or follow her @madskillsvocab.

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Leading CIOs and academics will converge for the MIT Sloan CIO Symposium this week.

CIOs from top enterprises will be converging on Cambridge, MA, this week for the 10^th Annual MIT Sloan CIO Symposium. The agenda will cover the latest technology trends in big data and the cloud alongside leadership issues such as how to drive innovation and make the most of your power and influence in the enterprise.

The May 22 MIT Sloan CIO Symposium, themed “The Transformational CIO: Architecting the Enterprise of the Future,” offers a day of interactive learning and thought-provoking discourse on the future of technology, best practices, and business. More than 700 attendees are expected to participate in the daylong event, held on the MIT campus.

Keynote topics include:

The use of power and influence during the process of innovation. Today’s CEO is likely to see their IT organization as a tool with which they are able to guide and change their organization. On this panel, CEOs will share ways in which they have driven change throughout their organizations, how they have worked to retain the original vision and gain buy-in, and how they have also been influenced by their teams to change the vision at times.

The reality of big data: Like most technologies —and the management revolutions they bring with them — it is not the output that makes for disruption, it is how you align your company to gain real value. This all-MIT panel of experts will explore a variety of aspects in big data, including management, disruptive applications, operations research, and innovation.

The successful CIO — driving innovation and managing expectations: This panel will explore what leadership skills CIOs need to manage an apparently conflicting situation…to change or stay the course? The session will also reveal results from a recent survey conducted by executive search firm, Russell Reynolds Associates, which explores how CIOs assess their peers and their potential successors on the leadership question.

The evolving cloud agenda: As businesses begin to leverage virtualization and move a variety of mission critical and secondary applications to the cloud, how do they manage, secure and optimize their virtual infrastructure? In today’s world corporations expect benefits that extend beyond cost savings and efficiency but also fuel sustained growth. This panel will analyze the changing value proposition and usage scenarios for cloud services and will help CIOs and other key decision-makers understand what value contribution cloud computing is going to deliver in the foreseeable future.

This year’s CIO speaker roster includes:

• Annabelle Bexiga, EVP/CIO, TIAA-CREF
• Scott Blanchette, SVP Information & Technology Services, Vanguard Health Systems
• Keith Collins, SVP/CIO/CTO, SAS Institute
• John Halamka, MD, CIO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
• Mojgan Lefebvre, SVP/CIO Liberty Mutual Global Specialty
• Georgia Papathomas, VP/CIO, J&J Pharmaceuticals
• Michael Relich, EVP/CIO, Guess? Inc.

These speakers will be joined by faculty from MIT and Harvard, including:

• Prof. Dimitris Bertsimas, Professor Operations Research/Statistics, MIT Sloan School of Management
• Prof. Erik Brynjolfsson, Director, MIT Center for Digital Business
• Prof. Tom Davenport, Visiting Professor, Harvard Business School
• Prof. Andrew Lo, Professor of Finance, MIT Sloan School of Management
• Andrew McAfee, Principal Research Scientist, MIT Sloan School of Management
• Prof. Glenn Urban, Chairman, MIT Center for Digital Business

The MIT Sloan CIO Symposium will also include the sixth annual 2013 MIT Sloan CIO Leadership Awards, honoring CIOs who lead their organizations to deliver business value and innovative use of IT. An innovation showcase will feature the 10 b2b technologies selected by MIT Sloan as representing the cutting edge for enterprise IT.

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Susan Nunziata is Director of Editorial for EnterpriseEfficiency.com, a UBM Tech community.

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The D-Wave quantum computer, where temperatures inside approach absolute zero. Credit: Steve Jurvetson.

Researchers say they are closer than ever to creating a practical quantum computer, a device that would clear the way for potentially unbeatable security and computing speeds that are hard to imagine.

It also could allow us to probe microscopic things like individual cells in the same way we create detailed, three-dimensional images of the human body using magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI.

The science underpinning quantum computing is so ridiculously bizarre that even explanations of advances in the area can make you doubt your grasp on reality. So, hold on tight.

Quantum computers, which still exist largely as theoretical devices, use the actions and properties of individual atoms to perform calculations.

The “digital computer” you are no doubt using to view this story stores and manipulates information in the form of bits, each of which is either a zero or one. Quantum computers store and manipulate information as quantum bits, or qubits, which can hold an infinite number of values.

A quantum computer not hobbled by binary data would be capable of solving stunningly huge calculations and storing caches of data thousands of times faster than digital computers.

The applications include nearly impenetrable data encryption. Simulations at the atomic level would lead to a new age in medicine and pharmaceuticals.

Researcher and Princeton University physics professor Jason Petta co-wrote a report in the journal Science outlining two “game-changing” developments that have pushed quantum computing closer to reality.

Qubits are highly sensitive and had only been able to function at very low temperatures, a costly condition but one that limits atoms from vibrating and being disturbed.

Petta said researchers have found a way of controlling qubits at room temperature.

“This is a big practical advance,” he said.

Quantum scientists also have begun experimenting with silicon–28, a stable isotope found in silicon, to run quantum computers. This is important because silicon–28 can be controlled better than other atoms used in similar experiments.

Silicon-28 isotopes are capable of “operating” together for seconds at a time before being disturbed and collapsing. Previous records were measured in nanoseconds, he said.

Yet quantum computing, despite these and other advances, is likely to remain a lab project for the foreseeable future. 

“That’s the elephant in the room,” he said. “When will we scale up to a real processor, with millions of qubits interacting together?”

Jim Nash is an award-winning business, tech and science journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Economist Group and Scientific American.

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The same has happened with online education. Most online courses employ the same textbooks, lectures, and PowerPoint presentations used in the classrooms. They put electronic versions of these materials online using a course management system and substitute threaded discussion for in-class discussion. It’s porting old material to a new medium—the Internet. It’s putting old wine in a new bottle.

Researchers at Columbia University’s Community College Research Center have released a working paper entitled “Adaptability to Online Learning: Differences Across Types of Students and Academic Subject Areas”. It is based on a study of nearly 500,000 courses taken by over 40,000 community and technical college students in Washington State. The study evaluated traditional online courses, which typically have about 25-50 students and are run by professors who interact with them online.

Here’s the bottom line—the study concluded that “the online format had a significantly negative relationship with both course persistence and course grade, indicating that the typical student had difficulty adapting to online courses.”

Let’s drill down a bit.

The study found that the negative results for online classes held across the board, but the effect was stronger for some subgroups. The study reads: “males, Black students, and students with lower levels of academic preparation experienced significantly stronger negative coefficients for online learning compared with their counterparts, in terms of both course persistence and course grade.”

It also notes that “performance gaps between key demographic groups already observed in face to face classrooms (e.g., gaps between male and female students, and gaps between White and ethnic minority students) are exacerbated in online courses.”

The study found that older students adapted more readily to online courses than did younger students. This is consistent with the anecdotal reports of my colleagues who teach online—they have better experiences with Master’s-level classes than undergraduate.

The study also found that “the relative effects of online learning varied across academic subject areas … two academic subject areas appeared intrinsically more difficult for students in the online context: the social sciences (which include anthropology, philosophy, and psychology) and the applied professions (which include business, law, and nursing).”

The authors of the study went on to suggest policies to cope with the problems they identified:

• Screening: Only allow certain students to take online classes, for example those with a 3.0 or better GPA or those who successfully complete a workshop on online learning skills.
• Scaffolding: Incorporate the teaching of online learning skills into online courses in which less-adaptable students tend to cluster.
• Early warning: Identify and intervene with students who are having difficulty adapting.
• Wholesale improvement: Improving the quality of all online courses taught.

The first three feel like fingers in the dike to me, but how about wholesale improvement? At the start of this post, I noted that these were traditional online courses—derived from classroom courses. This is understandable when there are only a few students in a class. There is no time for “wholesale improvement.” However, if the online class is very large, we can afford to innovate, to create new wine for our new bottle.

This is the hope of massive, open, online classes (MOOCs). MOOCs typically feature modular, interactive presentations created specifically for online delivery, peer interaction, instrumentation of material, crowd-sourced feedback from students, high production values, frequent revision of teaching material, etc. In short, MOOCs will drive innovation in online teaching.

Innovation is not affordable if we are teaching sections of 25 students, but what about a class of 2,000-3,000 students? If you have been following the discussion of MOOCs, you have noted that they often start out with ten times as many enrollees as people who finish the course. But, all those enrollees are not really enrolled, they are browsing. Still, several thousand often finish MOOCs. Some are seeking college credit, but most are curious, lifelong learners of all ages.

If those people are motivated to spend around five hours a week on a class, they would clearly be willing to pay a few dollars, and that could easily mean annual revenue of $200,000 or more per course.

With that kind of revenue, we could afford support staff and a full time person teaching and maintaining a single course. Hey, with 20,000 students we can afford Disney Studios.

Based in LA, Larry Press is a professor of information systems at California State University at Dominguez Hills and a senior editor covering tech issues at aNewDomain.net. Check his Google+ profile to contact him or see what else he is up to: http://bit.ly/viXqr4.

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“We are excited to be hosting industry leading Venture Capitalists, key technologists in and outside of Bitcoin, and top-tier regulatory thinkers at Bitcoin 2013,” said Peter Vessenes, Chairman and Executive Director of the Bitcoin Foundation, in a press release.

The conference is a reflection of heightened interest in the digital currency. Bitcoin exchange rates skyrocketed this year, prompting a surge of public interest. But Bitcoin is still in its infancy. Conference attendees will address key issues and best practices for driving widespread user adoption by both businesses and consumers.

“Bitcoin has a long way to go before it will be a truly mainstream currency, if by mainstream we mean comparable to the US Dollar in terms of ease and breadth of use,” said Garrick Hileman, a PhD candidate and economic historian at the London School of Economics, who will be speaking at the event.

Hileman has been invited to present his research on parallel and alternative currencies (e.g., Bitcoin), black markets, sovereign debt, and financial repression at a number of international conferences. In the current market, he said, Bitcoin appeals primarily to people who want to engage in relatively anonymous, decentralized digital transactions. Silk Road—the online marketplace for drugs and other illegal goods—is one Bitcoin community that appeals to people who want to stay off the grid.

Still, says Hileman, “anonymous online transactions aren’t enough to propel Bitcoin into becoming a mainstream currency, given how comfortable consumers are with paying for most things with credit and debit cards, which offer relatively limited privacy. In short, convenience trumps privacy.”

Familiarity also plays a key role in consumer spending habits. Most people are creatures of habit, especially in terms of personal finance. There would have to be a highly compelling reason for the average consumer to choose Bitcoin over traditional forms of payment.

“If a better price can be had by using Bitcoins on a highly desirable good or service,” said Hileman, “especially if it can only be acquired with Bitcoins, then this could help drive adoption.”

So how would a thriving alternative currency impact the global financial system? According to Hileman, a currency like Bitcoin would introduce sorely needed competition. He cited two examples to illustrate his point—banks and credit card companies. Both industries, he said, get away with charging outrageously high fees on merchant transactions.

“Two to three percent may not seem like a lot, but a small number multiplied against a big number (trillions of dollars in purchases) equals a big number. If you’re a banker this is a great thing, but if you’re a consumer or business these fees are costly and also reduce commerce.”

The UK’s five-day waiting period on check clearing further illustrates the downside of a market insufficiently regulated by competition. This waiting period made sense prior to online banking, when physical checks had to be sent from one bank to another. The system remains in place today mainly so that banks can earn interest on what is known as float—the waiting period during which money changes hands.

“There are no good regulatory or technological reasons for keeping the 5-day check clearing rule,” said Hileman. “Perhaps competition from relatively instant Bitcoin transactions will drive increased financial efficiency and lower costs.”

The whole concept of Bitcoin sounds like something straight out of science fiction. But Hileman pointed out that alternative currencies are nothing new. Though Bitcoin is often compared to Napster and BitTorrent, similar kinds of trade existed long before then.

“London merchant tokens were quite popular in the 17^th and 18th centuries. They addressed what Nobel Prize winning economist Thomas Sargent and Francois Velde describe as the ‘Big Problem of Small Change’, meaning a lack of coins to conduct small value transactions,” said Hileman. 

“Merchant tokens ultimately disappeared when policymakers figured out how to prevent small coin shortages by introducing fiat money. Here, the advent of a new technology (fiat money) ultimately proved lethal to merchant tokens.” Shown below, a Freigeld note, the alternative currency created in Austria, which was shut down by the government in 1933.

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

Historically, alternative currencies have relatively short life spans. Several previous attempts to circumvent traditional payment systems have ended in failure, and are often stamped out by the regulating powers that be. During the Great Depression, for example, an Austrian town created a currency called Freigeld, which is the inspiration behind the Bitcoin competitor Freicoin. In 1933, Freigeld was shut down by the Austrian Central Bank.

It will be interesting to see how Bitcoin fares in the current global marketplace. Given the historical precedents for non-standard currency, it seems unlikely that it will survive the decade. Then again, there’s no shortage of enthusiasm for Bitcoin. The very existence of a conference like Bitcoin 2013 may indicate that this particular trend will last longer than its historical antecedents.

Visit the Bitcoin 2013 site to learn more about Garrick Hileman and the impressive list of panelists who will be joining him at the event.

Madison Andrews is a writer, editor, and designer living in Austin, Texas. She is founder and editor of madskillsvocabulary.com. Email her at madison@anewdomain.net, find her on tumblr, or follow her @madskillsvocab.

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“I have no cell reception,” she cried.

“We’re camping,” I said. “We’re not supposed to have reception.”

“But we’re car camping,” she wailed, as if our wimpyness allowed us special exemptions. “And this is 2013!”

A few minutes later, some bars appeared on her screen and she exhaled as if she was lost in the desert but had just spotted water.

We entered the park and Wendy’s eyes remained glued on her phone. She narrated the  reception like an auctioneer: onebarttwotwotwoholditnonenowone… until I told her that it was getting on my nerves. In fact, I was disappointed. I had been sure that our tablets and our phones would be useless. We were supposed to be immersing ourselves in nature. Technology had no place in a National Park.

We took our first photo, and Wendy reflexively tried to send it out on Instagram. No reception again. She began to pace along the road, holding her phone to the sky, hoping it would connect to the roving satellite somewhere above. Nothing.

I gave her a sympathetic face, but secretly I was glad.

We drove toward our campsite, Wendy sulking next to me. We passed soaring mountains, rushing waterfalls, and bright green meadows.

“Beautiful” I murmured.

“Bars!” Wendy shouted.

She made me pull over. Clearly there was reception in National Parks, and I was going to have to accept it. But Wendy was also going to have to accept that the days couldn’t be spent glued to the screen. We needed to come up with a plan.

We scoped out places with good reception. We agreed to go there once a day, so that emails could be read and phone calls returned. We did this for four days with great success. We were able to spend our time fully immersed in the landscape, and a few minutes fully immersed in the web, but never at the same time.

As we were leaving Wendy said that we should do this more often. I agreed and gushed about Nature being restorative to the soul. “Yes, it is,” Wendy said, when I’d finally stopped. “But what I meant is that I don’t have to look at my phone every ten minutes. Everything will be there waiting for me when I decide to access it.”

We’ve returned from Yosemite National Park. We’ve slipped back into our busy lives and Wendy has slipped back into her checking habits. What were we expecting? A miracle? Those happen only in movies. But at least we’ve learned to enjoy limited cell reception out there in Nature, where it really counts.

Caroline Paul is the author of “East Wind, Rain” and “Fighting Fire.” Her latest book is “Lost Cat, A True Story of Love, Desperation and GPS Technology,” an illustrated collaboration with Wendy MacNaughton.

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Put aside Google for a moment (but only for a scintilla of a second), it is coming. The buzz of the moment is “peer-to-peer rental marketplace,” where travelers do deals directly with the owners of small hotels, private homes, a couch in an extra room and even, in one instance, a child’s playhouse in the back yard. Years ago the web created new opportunities for mom and pop hotels and condo owners that had been off-the-grid of the traditional travel supply chain. Great for a few but, until recently, most were drowned out by the high-decibel racket of big online travel agencies, hotel chains and William Shatner’s bluster.

Airbnb, VRBO (Vacation Rental By Owner), HomeAway, and HomeExchange.com aggregate the little guys and are now making some in the hospitality industry apoplectic.

Photo Credit: Russ Johnson

Airbnb has been around since 2008, but last December CEO Brian Chesky sent shock waves through the travel industry when he announced that his web site and app, where anyone can rent out what are described as spaces, ranging from palatial homes to spare couches, would surpass the giant Hilton hotel chain in bookings. Listings have grown to more than 300,000 across 192 countries.

Airbnb’s major issue has been one of trust. But fears of ending up in “The Bates Motel” or renting to a Freddie Krueger have been largely unfounded. Case in point: Last week I visited friends, well-known in the hospitality industry, who are using Airbnb to rent out their own luxury home while they are away. No problem. Airbnb is now addressing fears with a $1 million guarantee, insured by Lloyd’s of London, to cover guest damage and about a week ago introduced a verified ID system, which can require parties to give up quite a lot of personal information, including links to Facebook or LinkedIn pages and last four Social Security digits. I whine, but people are accepting it.

Years ago, Australia was hit with a big surprise when its number crunchers discovered that backpackers spend more money on a vacation than traditional travelers because they stay longer. According to a study commissioned by Airbnb, its San Francisco guests stayed an average of 5.5 days compared to 3.5 for hotel guests, often spending what they saved on their rooms on other attractions such as local restaurants. These alternative accommodations are often away from the tourist centers, in real neighborhoods, where guests can often engage with locals rather than rehearsed hotel staff. More than ever, travelers are seeking authentic experiences.

Other established sites such as VRBO (Vacation Rental By Owner) and HomeAway offer some good values on conventional condos and homes. HomeExchange.com features vacation home trades, but you must have a place worthy of trading. It may be peer-to-peer, but it is not couch-to-couch.

Hoteliers are sweating because there are now hundreds of competing rooms and spaces with free parking, free Wi-Fi, no resort fee or $5 bottled water.

Governments are kvetching because they can’t collect hotel tax. Where I live, it trolls Airbnb and other sites to scope out the scofflaws. New York City is dishing out big fines. Legit permits are difficult to come by, but people are flying under the radar and this train will be difficult, if not impossible to stop.

But let’s face it, peer-to-peer rentals are competition. They offer travelers more authentic experiences they are looking for while putting more money into local communities and neighborhoods. And—with apologies to my friends in the hospitality industry—that is good.

Based in Sonoma, California, Russ Johnson is the founder of Travelmedia and a senior editor at aNewDomain.net covering travel. Email Russ at Russ@aNewDomain.net and Follow him @connectedtravlr

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1)      Security will no longer be just an IT issue.  Considering the adage “You break it, you bought it” IT departments will demand business users carry the cloud security standard.  Taking greater control of the future means business leaders need to know more of access management, data privacy, and impacts of security breaches.  For those in marketing who do not take it seriously, failed data privacy practices and systems can damage a business reputation and can take 11.8 months, on average, to be fully restored.

2)      Greater expectations of IT role and function.  In a recent Economist Insight Unit study, almost 6 of 10 IT executives expect their function to change significantly in the next three years while some predict a ‘complete overhaul’ of IT.  Removing the ‘chains’ of legacy systems, IT will become a conductor in the assembly line of internal or external information and processes.   IT structures, roles, and cultures will transform to get closely aligned with innovation, experimentation, and outcomes.

3)      Everyone becomes a knowledge worker.  Coined by Peter Drucker, the term ‘knowledge worker’ is one whose main capital is knowledge.  There were a select number within a workforce; the few who think for a living.  The cloud model has spawned hundreds of inexpensive collaboration solutions and thousands of data sources whereby any worker can create and contribute knowledge.

4)      Every idea, product or service can go global (new generation of ideas).  There is no longer the need to hang-a-shingle or build a storefront in every country, but the imperative to create digital-first customer engagement is stronger than ever.  This is best exemplified by the software industry, forgoing legions of staff developing software for databases or operating systems.  The barriers to expanding and selling globally, once fraught with issues of localized staff, leases, legalities, and ownership are largely removed.

5)      Collaboration goes up, barriers go down. We’ve seen plenty of social media activity in our personal lives but collaboration within offices and the supply chains has been sluggish.  Collaboration beyond Electronic Data Interchange eluded supply eco-systems as no entity was willing to take on integration, risk and ownership. Partners, each with separate systems and data types, made collaboration a herculean task.   Now collaboration through community clouds has taken off, largely as the result of public clouds and easy cloud integration, merging data between on-premise and off-premise clouds.

Dell helps customers by challenging perceptions of cloud and making the cloud simple.  To learn more about cloud innovation and outcomes on business leaders, go here to download the white paper.

Visit Tech Page One next week for Part 2 of the ‘Ten Cloud Impacts and Outcomes” blog and learn how your career, capability, and office will transform in the future.

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Sr. Advisor - Global Cloud Messaging at Dell at Dell

Cloud Evangelist with Dell, providing leadership, customer support, and future perspectives for cloud computing. Worked over 20 years in software, alliances, and product marketing for global organizations. Previous to arrival at Dell, worked 15 years with analytics vendor SAS Institute in Cary, North Carolina in roles of product marketing for Small/Midsize Business, Managed Services, Software-as-a-Service(SaaS) and Alliances. Previous to arrival in North Carolina, I've spent five years as Director of Alliances & Channels in Heidelberg, Germany. During that time, I've formed alliances with integrators and resellers at all points between Spain to Singapore and Scotland to South Africa.

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Image credit: Mike Rothman

It comes with a belt clip, and a wrist band to hold the Fitbit while you sleep. Also included are a USB-powered charger and a tiny USB plug which receives the data sent by the Fitbit to your personal dashboard on the web.

Monitor your activity levels and set goals to encourage you to reach just a little further. Fitbit One adds badges earned as you hit milestones and a leaderboard to track your progress against your social network.

One also helps you track your levels of activity during the 24 hour day so you can see when you are least and most active.

If you choose to use One to monitor your sleep, it will also track your bed time, how long it takes you to fall asleep, number of times you awake during the night, your time in bed and sleep efficiency.

I need more sleep!

Fitbit One does so much more. Use it to log your food and calculate your calorie daily surplus or loss. Keep a Fitbit journal, track your water consumption, record your heart rate and blood pressure. Join in the active exchange of advice and tips in the Fitbit community forums or participate in its online coaching program.

Fitbit One really has it all. I like the fun engagement it offers. It spurs me on to be more active and take better care of myself. With a price tag of $99 Fitbit One is worth its price and much more.

Featured image credit: Wikicommons

Based in San Francisco, Mike Rothman is a tech evangelist and senior writer at anewdomain.net. Follow him @thatworksforme or email him at mike@anewdomain.net.

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Before you think about encryption, firewalls and authorization, think about your mobile employee culture. If your mobile users don’t secure your information, nothing else will. They can unintentionally endanger your data by:

• Using unsecured personal devices to access corporate data
• Misrepresenting your brand on social networks
• Creating weak passwords
• Infecting their PCs (and others)
• Allowing the confidential data on lost or stolen devices to end up in the wrong hands

All the “secure” devices in the world, surrounded by layers of protective technologies, don’t keep your information safe if security isn’t part of your employee culture. Sound fundamental? You might be surprised to learn the user awareness is probably the most overlooked of all security precautions. And the forklift of compliance training most of us plow through every year doesn’t pass for security education.

The focus needs to extend beyond policy and into the mindset of your mobile workforce to ensure corporate security.

Don’t make it hard to do the right thing

As BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) continues to spread to organizations across the world, companies are scrambling to create policies that will protect their intellectual property. One company in Seoul, Korea has asked employees to switch their smartphones to work mode during the day and back to personal mode when they leave the office.

Practical? Effective? Not, if you can’t count on your employees’ memory.

Create a culture of security

Even your most well-meaning employees can unwittingly expose your corporate resources to outside threats. Here are some examples and suggestions:

1. Nature hates a vacuum, as they say. If you choose to ignore the BYOD trend, your savvy employees will do what they think is best. Good luck with that (and don’t blame them).
2. The things people say on social networking sites can make or break your company. Help your employees understand how to represent your brand. With the right training, they can have a positive impact.
3. Employees may feel overwhelmed if they have to remember multiple passwords ― and change them at regular intervals. That doesn’t justify careless behavior. Encourage schemes for creating strong passwords and regularly emphasize the need for good password hygiene.
4. Few of us would knowingly allow a virus to infect our computers, and yet it happens all the time. Educate your employees about what to watch out for and how to react when they encounter suspicious email and file downloads.
5. Researchers found 8,016 lost devices in major airports last year, according to Credant Technologies. You can reduce those numbers by raising awareness about mindful behavior, such as:

• Know where your mobile devices are at all times.
• Allow enough time  in your travel schedule so you can relax and remain alert.
• Be particularly vigilant at security checkpoints and in restrooms. That’s where most people leave their devices.
• Labele your devices with your contact information.
• Ensure that all of your devices are password-protected.

Create realistic, rational practices and reinforce them regularly to make them part of your corporate culture. For hardware and software security solutions, try the Dell Connected Security portfolio.

This blog is part four of an eight-part Data at Risk 2013 series:

• Part One: 30 IT Security Risks Across the Enterprise
• Part Two: Top 5 Risks in Cybersecurity
• Part Three:  Social Media Risks for Businesses

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Site Editor at Dell

Ann Newman writes content for BYOD, desktop virtualization, Windows 8, and mobility on Dell.com. Send email to ann_newman@dell.com.

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There are several added features that boost this over other free text messaging apps. The options for personalization include hundreds of themes, notification icons, ringtones, LED light colors, vibration and SMS signatures. I particularly like the vibration option so when multiple devices are on the table during a meeting, it’s easy to tell when my device is receiving a text message by the pattern of the vibration.

If a text comes in while you’re using a different application on your phone, a popup window gives you a view of your incoming text. You can quickly reply or dismiss the message and get back to what you were doing. You can also opt to click into the GO SMS Pro app for more comprehensive reply options. The SMS blocker is essential as the only real downside of this free app is occasional junk texts. I’ve found the blocker very effective and can click in to delete the messages quickly and easily.

The auto-reply feature is a great addition, allowing for auto replies to texts received when you’re busy in meetings or driving in the car. Activation requires only a few clicks through the menu. The Auto Reply screen shows different options for your auto reply message so you can easily select the appropriate message and click the button to switch on the service.

After downloading this app, don’t forget to turn off your system SMS notification settings or you will receive double notifications when texts come into your phone. There are frequent upgrades based on user feedback, and the overwhelmingly positive reviews show users are pleased with the product. To learn more about the current news for GO SMS Pro, visit their blog.

Currently, GO SMS Pro is available for devices running Android 1.6 and up, and at a size of only 7.8MB, it’s definitely worth a download.

Becket Morgan is a writer and non-profit professional based in central Vermont. She chronicles her adventures living in a 120-square foot tiny home at www.tinyhouseadventures.com. Email her at tinyhouseadventures@gmail.com or follow her on Twitter @becketmorgan, +Becket Morgan on Google+ or www.facebook.com/tinyhouseadventures.

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A recent study shows that enterprises still have a long way to go when it comes to making the most of virtualization.

Enterprises are making considerable strides into server virtualization, but much work remains, as only 29 percent of companies surveyed consider their work to be completed.

The report comes from TheInfoPro, a division of 451 Research. The survey found that the majority of respondents are undertaking a major refresh of their compute, network and storage technologies that are required to optimize performance in virtualized, cloud-ready datacenters.

Customers are now looking at converged networks, which all of the major hardware vendors have adopted. In a converged infrastructure model, compute, storage and networking are all tightly integrated, with fewer Ethernet and SAS connections between them. The selling point is convergence reduces complexity and latency within the network. The cynical view is it eliminates mix-and-match and creates single vendor lock-in.

But that seems to be working. For example, of the companies polled, 78 percent said they would not change vendors and another 12 percent said maybe. Only 10 percent said yes, meaning the lock is in for most vendors. TheInfoPro found that vendors closely associated with the technologies required to build cloud-ready, virtualized datacenters are the ones getting the most of the business.

The survey found that virtualization is still in the deployment stages for many firms, but it also shows that most companies on the road to virtualization have made a clear decision, and now it’s just a matter of implementation. In the year since the last survey, the number of companies with a virtualized environment rose from 38 percent in 2011 to 51 percent in 2012.

From the software perspective, focus has moved from just getting virtualization up and running to now getting a handle on the automation tools required to manage production workloads in virtualized environments. Customers have learned how to deploy; now they are learning how to manage.

In fact, deployment is not the challenge for most IT firms. More than 80 percent said the roadblocks keeping them from moving to the next phase of deployment are politics, budget, time and staff. Organizational issues were the single biggest issue facing firms attempting to implement a greater level of virtualization, followed by issues around applications and budgeting.

This shows that virtualization isn’t just about consolidating boxes — it requires a restructuring of the organization that has to be planned as carefully as a hardware purchase.

With greater deployment, patterns are emerging — such as what is being virtualized and what is not. Unix and RISC-based virtualization is in decline while x86 is growing rapidly, both on Windows and Linux.

Windows-based virtualization is used primarily in productivity and collaboration, as well as for virtual desktops, development and testing and applications and communications servers. Where Unix is strongest is in ERP, OLTP and database/data warehousing.

Another interesting finding is the amount of spending per industry sector. Financial services are leading the pack with an average budget of $11 million. It’s followed by healthcare/pharma, manufacturing and telecom/tech. At the bottom is the always financially challenged education sector, with just $300,000 for virtualization, followed by materials/chemicals, transportation and energy/utilities.

The survey found virtualization is still maturing. Companies have a clear direction and idea of where they want to go and the technologies they want to use. The challenges now seem to be getting the company aligned behind the effort, because it is a disruptive process that impacts the entire company — something people appear to be learning the hard way as their deployments progress.

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Susan Nunziata is Director of Editorial for EnterpriseEfficiency.com, a UBM Tech community.

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Windows has included a defragment utility since Windows 95 (except NT4) and it has gotten progressively better. While the defragmenter in Windows 7 and Windows 8 does a fine job, there are other things to consider with a defragmentation strategy.

On the corporate side, I’ve been a big fan of using PSTools, specifically psexec, to script defragmentation across Active Directory domains. Most people don’t know that there’s a command line defragmentation utility built into Windows XP, Vista, 7, and 8 Pro versions. This allows you to easily script the time and other options of defragmentation without shelling out for utilities like Diskeeper.

On the personal side, there are a number of tools that I like. Of course, the key to any strategy is automation. Windows Vista, 7, and 8 let you schedule defragmentation while Windows XP does not. Granted the integrated utility is quite good, but there are ways to do better.

I love MyDefrag for a single, simple reason—you can set it to defragment when the screen saver kicks on. This does two wonderful things; it makes sure not to steal resources when the computer might be in use and it keeps the user engaged about the performance of their computer. The first piece is obvious—we don’t want to slow down a computer when it is needed. The second piece is something I’ve come to learn over the years. When users can see something tangible about their computers, in this case that their files are not contiguous, they start to care. In my world, getting users to care about their tech is worth a lot.

When you need to clean up a single folder or file, you should consider Defraggler. This excellent utility is what Windows Defrag should be. It has all of the features of the standard utility, but adds more granular options. There’s a quick defrag, which will get back a good bit of performance on a fragmented drive. You can also defragment very specifically, including by file, folder or even file type.

Decades later, we still need disk defragmentation. Fortunately there are many defragmentation utilities to choose from. Some free, some paid, and I’ve found them all to be comparable to the options I’ve mentioned here. Do you know of a feature or program that I should have mentioned? Let me know in the comments below.

Based in Vermont, Jeremy Lesniak is managing editor at aNewDomain.net and founder of Vermont Computing, Inc. and whistlekick.com Follow him @jlesniak or email him jeremy@anewdomain.net

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Credit: iStockphoto 

Somewhere in Paris:

   Sporting the latest in this spring’s malware collection, Monique’s ensemble includes a rootkit and a virus, along with a whimsical zombie for good measure…

While you can’t actually wear malware, the fact is that everyone from runway models to plumbers is a victim of malware at some point.  And just as surely as their taste in clothing differ, Monique and her plumber probably have malware and don’t even know it.

But what is malware,  exactly?

The term malware is shorthand for “malicious software”, which means any computer program which is designed to do something bad to you or someone else, usually without your knowledge.  Signs that your computer might be infected by malware can include the appearance of mysterious pop-up windows, your computer running slowly, or a drained bank account.  On the other hand, some malware doesn’t give any outward signs of its presence.

There are countless ways in which malware can gain a foothold in your computer, and the scam artists who create malware are constantly thinking up new, insidious ways to spread it.  In Monique’s case, she may have opened an email from her dear Uncle Jacques containing a slideshow of cute, cuddly animals, but running the slideshow also installed malware without her realizing it.  Or, she may have been installing a free program that she downloaded from the Web and some malware was installed along with it.  Another possibility is that she transposed two letters when typing the address for a website, and this wrong address took her to a page that installed malware.

Malware flavors: viruses, zombies, botnets…

Malware comes in a dizzying array of flavors: viruses, zombies, worms, rootkits, trojans, botnets, spyware, extortionware, adware, and so on.  Some kinds are merely annoying to the victim, while others can be catastrophic.

The least destructive form of malware is adware.  Adware is software that shows you advertisements, typically in a pop-up window in your Web browser.  This can be very annoying, but adware generally isn’t destructive.  It is usually obvious when your computer has adware on it because the creator of the adware wants you to see it and buy their garbage product!

One of the sleaziest forms of malware is extortionware.  This form of malware masquerades as an anti-virus program.  Typically a pop-up window appears telling you that your computer has been infected with malware and informing you that you can remove the malware in question by purchasing their bogus virus-removal program.  In reality, the only malware is their own pop-up window.  Sneaky, isn’t it?

Other forms of malware are more sinister because they do their work behind the scenes without your knowledge.  One example of this is spyware, which is designed to steal information about you and send it to someone else.  The information being stolen might be relatively unimportant stuff like your Web-surfing habits, but it could include very serious things like your credit card number, Social Security number, or bank login information.

Getting rid of malware

Malware can be removed from your computer in various ways.  In the simplest cases it can be removed manually, provided that you know it’s there and the person who created it didn’t try to make it difficult to remove.  More often than not, however, malware must be removed either by a specialized program or an online service.  There are websites that can scan your computer to identify any malware present on it. Also, there’s malware-removal software can be downloaded from the Web, often for a free trial.  Another option is to use an online service to regularly scan your computer and remove malware from it, should it become infected.

How can you protect yourself from malware?

The best defense is a healthy level of paranoia.  That is, a recognition that there are unscrupulous folks out there who want to install that junk on your computer.  The people creating malware like to exploit the average person’s trusting nature.

By treating unsolicited emails, free downloads and questionable websites with skepticism, you can greatly reduce the chances of getting infected.  Anytime you receive an email from an unknown person — especially if it contains a link — assume that it’s a ploy to install malware on your computer.  If there is a link in the email, resist the temptation to click it.  If there is a program attached to the email, don’t bother to run it.  It’s just not worth the risk.  And avoid free downloads from shady-looking websites.

Ultimately, though, even the most vigilant person can have their computer infected with malware.  It’s not really a question of if, but when.  And if you end up with malware on your PC, a service such as Dell Tech Concierge can clean up the mess and ensure your anti-virus software is setup correctly, and show you how to prevent infection in the future, whether you’re a runway model or a plumber.

Author information

Cronus Dillard

Cronus Dillard is an applications engineer who escaped the Silicon Valley rat race to live in the boonies. When he's not writing about technology he can often be found feeding his pet chickens.

The post What is malware? appeared first on Tech Page One.

Some aircraft deployed by US Airways can receive broadband Internet signals from the ground. Credit: James Willamor via Compfight cc

A recent proposal that aims to provide faster and more reliable Wi-Fi connections for airline passengers has spurred debate among tech-industry heavyweights that control how information flows through the atmosphere.

At issue is a new rule being considered by the Federal Communications Commission that would carve out additional space in the radio spectrum for delivering broadband signals to aircraft from ground-based transmitters.

Commissioners have praised the proposal, saying that it would dramatically improve the quality of in-flight Wi-Fi by increasing competition among providers.

Other backers include wireless telecommunications giant Qualcomm, which petitioned the FCC for the rule change, and other companies with a vested interest in the “air-to-ground” method of sending broadband to aircraft.

But opponents of the commission’s intention to expand the “Ku-band” for mobile broadband are gearing up to protect the status quo, setting the stage for a feud in Washington over the likelihood of satellite interference.

The Satellite Industry Association, which represents Boeing, Panasonic and dozens of other companies, has filed detailed technical analyses that it says foreshadows the disruption of satellites used by media, corporations and governments.

These satellites are presently using the same spectrum the FCC wants to open up for aircraft broadband. This spectrum, like the FM radio dial, is limited in scope, giving the FCC power to decide which uses are in the public’s best interest.

“We urge the Commission to carefully consider the impact of its regulatory decisions on the satellite sector, which has invested tens of billions of dollars in satellites and earth stations and provides vital services to millions of Americans,” association President Patricia Cooper said.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski acknowledged in a public statement last week the “critical operations” of media, banking, retail and transportation that are facilitated by fixed-satellite service in the Ku-band.

But Genachowski and other commissioners said concerns over interference can be addressed by protective measures and making sure licensees already operating in the band have “primary rights.”

“These prospects are exciting, but we also have to be careful not to get ahead of ourselves,” Commissioner Ajit Pai said in a public statement.

Likely to benefit from the commission’s support of air-to-ground broadband is Gogo, a leading provider of aircraft broadband that is being used in planes operated by Delta, United and American Airlines, among others.

Air-to-ground systems deliver in-flight broadband through a ground-based network that communicates with antennas on the bottom of aircrafts. An onboard Wi-Fi system then broadcasts that Internet signal throughout the cabin.

Expectation among the flying public for in-flight connectivity that rivals in quality and price what is available on the ground is a main driver of the rule-making proposal, which will be subject to public comment for the next several weeks.

Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said the number of aircrafts offering broadband will continue to rise from about 3,000 in 2012 to 15,000 in 2021.

Results from a joint study released last week by the Airline Passenger Experience Association and the Consumer Electronics Association found that 69 percent of adult airline passengers who travel with a portable electronic device used their device during flight.

Four in 10 passengers reported a desire to use their devices during all phases of flight, including takeoff and landing, according to the survey.

“This study showed us that most travelers are using their PEDs as often as possible while traveling, and many would like even more opportunities to use their devices,” said Russell A. Lemieux, executive director of the passenger association.

Nick Clunn is an award-winning journalist who has worked for several websites and daily newspapers, including The Record in New Jersey. He teaches journalism as an adjunct instructor at Montclair State University. Follow him @NickClunn.

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aNewDomain.net—Bitcoin is the digital crypto currency that has been sweeping the Internet since 2009. It was created by the nebulous entity Satoshi Nakamoto, allowing Silk Road and others to transact millions of mostly anonymous dollars in sales each year. As with all technology, Bitcoin comes with a light and a dark side. Bitcoins are created by a process called mining, but if your wallet gets lost, they can also be destroyed.

To create Bitcoins, you first download a miner program, then start downloading the blockchain where Bitcoins are encrypted. Blockchains are almost 8GB currently and always increasing in size as transactions happen and blocks are added to it. You can opt for a DVD in the mail if you have data caps and don’t want to waste bandwidth downloading the entire blockchain. How nice.

After that, you turn your Central Processing Units (CPUs) and hopefully your Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) loose on solving cyphers and mining Bitcoins. GPUs do this much better than CPUs.

As Bitcoin mining becomes more popular, new tools with higher processing power have surfaced, such as Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) and Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs). Avalon is one company that sells such mining rigs, and its website guarantees each unit to be a 60,000 megahertz or greater power house. Compared to an Intel Core i7 processor, which performs at about 6.7 MHz or 6.7 million hashes per second, there is simply no contest.

At the rate these hashes are getting solved, you probably need Avalon’s top of the line miner to have any hope of scoring some free Bitcoins. But how free is it? Let’s look at the costs.

The top of the line miner box currently offered by Avalon goes for about $1,300, if you can get your hands on one. The power consumption of one of these boxes is 620 megawatt-hours at 120 volts AC. Of course you probably want to order a few of these to really make sure you get that return on your investment.

Keep in mind these are all estimates and constantly changing, but at the current rate, there is more than $188,000 being spent on 1,258.05 mwh doing 80,644.13 gigahertz. That is some serious money and electricity going toward mining about 4,000 BTC for a gross of more than $420,000, or just under $240,000 minus the cost of power. This is happening each and every day.

Is it worth it? Well, the more hashes solved, the harder it becomes to mine. Back in 2009, you could have had a decent chance at solving a block and winning yourself a free 50 BTC with just a normal computer. Now, that same computer and its new high end graphics card would take decades – if ever – to solve a hash. And you only get 25 BTC now.

Remember, the prize for solving a hash gets cut in half every four years. The only way to really get in on mining bitcoins now is to join a mining pool, or spend tens of thousands of dollars on a few dedicated mining rigs.

See my article how PCs are getting hacked to mine bitcoins.

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Compliance management is a complicated process for IT.

While everyone agrees compliance is crucial to protect customer data, there isn’t a single all-encompassing standard that everyone can follow.

The patchwork of state laws governing personally identifiable information, industry-specific compliance regulations and broad information security standards combine to make this difficult task even more challenging. Enterprise executives who cannot wrap their heads around compliance run the risk of making a mistake, and those mistakes can be costly.

There are many compliance requirements, and which ones the organization has to follow can vary depending on industry and nature of the business. If you are struggling to understand which regulations apply to your organization and how you can become compliant, here is a quick primer on what you need to be thinking about.

The most well-known information security standard may be Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS), which covers payment card data, including credit and debit card numbers, expiration date and the cardholder name, among others. PCI-DSS applies to all financial institutions, merchants, and online retailers — anyone who may have access to the data. Even if you outsource payments to a third party, you still need to be compliant.

In general, merchants should never store payment card data unless there is an urgent business need. Certain data, such as the security code on the back of the card and data written on the magnetic stripe, should never be stored. All saved data needs to be protected. Acceptable methods include strong one-way hash functions, truncating or masking the information so that only a segment of the information is visible or relying on strong cryptographic schemes to encrypt the data.

Another well-known standard is healthcare-specific. Most, if not all, healthcare organizations have to comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accessibility Act (HIPAA) and Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH). These two laws require organizations to establish formal processes and procedures to ensure PII and health records are protected.

Even if you aren’t in the healthcare space, it is a good idea to become familiar with HIPAA and HITECH requirements, as their emphasis on formalized procedures is good information security practice.

HIPAA/HITECH requires organizations to have:

• physical security policies in place that specify who can enter the facilities or use equipment;
• user access control policies to identify which users are allowed to access to which applications and systems; and
• processes to ensure data is properly removed from computers, peripherals and other equipment before they are disposed of.

Administrators need to monitor workstation usage to ensure users are following password policies, no one is sharing account credentials and all security software is installed and kept up-to-date. HIPAA/HITECH also emphasizes regular security awareness training and frequent reminders to ensure employees are aware of the policies and how to recognize threats.

A complete governance, risk and compliance strategy

A complete governance, risk and compliance strategy also includes disaster recovery and business continuity policies and procedures in the event of emergencies and disruptions. The important thing about compliance is to have a clear audit trail so that everything can be verified. This is why having formal procedures in place is so important.

Organizations need to run regular risk assessments to understand the risks, find existing controls, and identify gaps that need to be addressed. Security experts frequently recommend following information security best-practices, instead of focusing on a single compliance checklist.

Many of the frameworks offer self-assessment tools to get started. The National Institute of Standards and Technology also offers information on how to identify risks and executing action plans in response.

The easiest way to be compliant, regardless of the standard, is to work with a third-party provider that is compliant with the regulations you need to follow. However, that doesn’t absolve you of all responsibility, as you need to make sure the contractor or provider is actually following the regulations.

Here is to being —and staying — compliant!

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Susan Nunziata

Contributor at Tech Page One

Susan Nunziata is Director of Editorial for EnterpriseEfficiency.com, a UBM Tech community.

The post Compliance 101 appeared first on Tech Page One.

The Dell Social Innovation Challenge recognizes promising young student entrepreneurs whose visionary ideas address some of the world’s most vexing problems. Not only do winners receive start-up capital, they’re also supported by world-class teaching and training, as well as access to a network of mentors.

Food for thought

Solar Conduction Dryer is a solar-based initiative for agro-processing that strives to improve the economic condition of Indian farmers.  The problem? India produces about 50 million tons of fruits and 85 million tons of vegetables per year, but only a scant 2 percent is processed. Moreover, 20-30 percent spoils before it reaches the market due to improper handling and storage. That means low market value and higher losses for many farmers already living in poverty.

To tackle this, Solar Conduction Dryer developed low-cost, simple food processing dehydration technologies that can be managed by all farmers, regardless of literacy level.  The technology delivers many benefits, including reducing food waste, developing a sustainable business model for farmers and encouraging women entrepreneurship. And it runs without the need for electricity, important for rural farmers who may not have access to an energy grid.

Winning ideas

Solar Conduction Dryer was one of five esteemed finalists for the award. The complete list of 2013 winners include:

• Grand Prize – Solar Conductive Drying ($60,000)
• Second Place – Foot Soldiers ($40,000)
  
• Third Place – Good Benefits ($20,000)
• Finalist – Semka Biomedical Technologies ($10,000)
• Finalist – Citizen Power | Sunriding ($10,000)
  

Since the Dell Social Innovation Challenge was started, more than 15,000 students from 105 countries have proposed more than 4,500 ideas. Over $450,000 has gone out to more than 50 student teams from around the world. And this year’s event was held in conjunction with the Dell Social Innovation Think Tank ― a half-day, collaborative event featuring an influential group of entrepreneurs, financiers, academics and students raising awareness about social entrepreneurship.

Here’s a recap of the 2013 awards ceremony. You can follow them on Twitter@DellSocialInnov.  

Author information

Ann Braley

Content Editor (Contract) at Dell at Dell

Ann Braley Smith works for Dell and she writes about healthcare, the relationship of IT to government, and other topics

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While social media is great, business men and women know that face-to-face interactions can make or break a business deal. CanWeNetwork adds that functionality to social networking as it recommends people nearby who you should meet for networking and business opportunities.

The app has a clean and crisp interface. Matches are shown with percentages.

When CanWeNetwork gives you a match, it also gives you an idea of how that match was made. There are scores for Social, Skills, Proximity, Biomatch and Composite.

CanWeNetwork continually runs in the background to gather potential connections. You can set it to alert you to new connections or can view them at your convenience. CanWeNetwork uses the significant-change location service which uses cellular radios. This allows the app to run in the background with a very low-power location service so it won’t drain the batteries as quickly as some location services do.

There is a convenient messaging feature to reach your connections. You can also keep track of events that you are attending so you can connect with others before or during the event. Privacy controls allow you to share as little or as much as you choose.

The potential for this app to become a good business tool depends on the users that it can attract. CanWeStudios, the creators of CanWeNetwork say that it has tens of thousands of users joining each month and the app is now available in 10 languages in more than 100 countries. If that growth continues, this will be a breakthrough business tool.

CanWeNetwork is currently available for free in the Apple iTunes store (iOS) and the Android Marketplace. It is scheduled to release in both the Windows and Blackberry platforms in the coming months.

Based in Pinehurst, North Carolina, Sandy Berger is a veteran tech journalist and senior editor at aNewDomain.net covering tech tips and tricks, apps, gadgets, and consumer electronics. Email her at Sandy@aNewDomain.net. Follow her on Twitter @sandyberger, +SandyBerger on Google+, and www.facebook.com/sandyberger on Facebook.

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Antivirus software is a notable exception to the statement I just made. While there are a number of free antivirus programs that perform adequately, there is nothing of the caliber of paid products. I constantly evaluate and test this software, and I’m still recommend Norton Antivirus and ESET NOD32. If you absolutely refuse to pay for antivirus software, my preferred free product is Microsoft Security Essentials. This is as much for the integration as it is for the effectiveness.

There are a wide number of anti-malware products. Most antivirus programs claim to be effective at preventing non-virus infections, but I haven’t found that to be true. I spent years creating a toolkit for preventing and removing infections on my computers. All of these programs are free, though you may receive more functionality with a paid version.

1. Combofix

Combofix is the single most effective spyware removal tool I have found. The single downside is that it won’t run on Windows 8 yet. Don’t try and run it in compatibility mode, either! For Windows XP, Vista and 7, though, there is nothing more efficient at removing infections. I suggest running Combofix on a monthly basis to help keep things clean. You can even run it in Safe Mode if your system has a nasty infection. Download it from http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/combofix/

2. Spyware Blaster

Spyware Blaster is one of the few preventive malware applications available. Rather than an active, or always-on scanner engine, Spyware Blaster operates by “immunizing” your system against known infections. It’s not a perfect method, but it is quite effective. I suggest updating and immunizing every two to four weeks. You can download it from http://www.brightfort.com/sbdownload_free.html

3. Spybot Search and Destroy 2

Spybot Search and Destroy has long been a favorite in the IT community. Combining an immunization function and removal tools, Spybot is very effective at what it does. Paid versions add some handy features like scheduled functions and command line options, which I’ve used for scripting in the past. I recommend immunizing every two weeks and scanning every month. Download it from http://www.safer-networking.org/dl/

4. Super AntiSpyware

I’ve found that Super AntiSpyware is incredibly comprehensive, removing things that other programs just don’t find. This is especially true of the Full Scan, which can take quite a long time. The interface is user-friendly and the program is quite effective. Run this program every four weeks. Download it from http://www.superantispyware.com/

5. Spyware Terminator

Spyware Terminator is probably the least known of the products I’m mentioning. That’s too bad, because it’s one of the best. I’ve had numerous infections that go undetected with the other programs that Spyware Terminator finds. The quick scan isn’t so effective, but the full scan is incredibly thorough. The downside, though, is the time it takes. I’ve seen the scan take 12 hours or more on even a newer computer. If you think you have an infection that the other programs didn’t catch, give this one a try. Due to the time it takes, run a full scan every six to eight weeks. http://www.pcrx.com/spywareterminator/

6. Malwarebytes Anti-Malware

This program has long been the standard by which others were judged. The free version has a capable quick scan and a very comprehensive full scan. While it doesn’t offer the same proactive protection as Spyware Blaster or Spybot, the paid version does offer active protection. I find it similar to Spyware Terminator, but much faster. It’s a great tool to have and everyone should use it, at least once a month. Download it at http://www.malwarebytes.org/lp/malware_lp_form/

There you have it. Six free anti-malware programs to keep your computer running and clean. Except for Combofix, they should run on Windows 8 without problems, and they definitely run on older versions of Windows. I generally run them all at the same time, which has never created a problem (other than the computer running very slowly.) Three of these programs are even part of the Ninite utility offerings I discussed a while ago.
The Internet is crawling with malware, be safe out there!

Based in Vermont, Jeremy Lesniak is managing editor at aNewDomain.net and founder of Vermont Computing, Inc. and whistlekick.com Follow him @jlesniak or email him jeremy@anewdomain.net

The post Build your own free anti-malware suite appeared first on Tech Page One.

Tablets that could bend without cracking would provide parents with more durable tools for their children. Credit: aperturismo via Compfight cc

The technology of the future will mostly be defined by curves, not the squares and rectangles that have given form to most screen-based devices since they were invented.

Key to this design-change taking root is the wholesale adoption of touch screens that won’t break or crack when bent and twisted.

This is what happens with indium tin oxide, or ITO, the thin but brittle layer on touch screens that communicates actions based on taps and swipes.

The fragility of this material is why it needs to be surrounded by a rigid framework that limits what can be accomplished in terms of product design

But researchers are developing flexible transparent conductors that will someday significantly alter the look and feel of all kinds of devices.

The technology at minimum will allow manufacturers to produce smartphones and tablets that are thinner, lighter and curved for the best ergonomics.

The applications are nearly endless, said Bill Jackson, CEO of Sinovia Technologies, an early-stage company that is working in this area.

Jackson envisions mobile devices that can fold in half, a feature that would make smartphone screens twice as large when opened up.

There are also efforts underway to provide the military with five-inch squares that can unfold like a map and function as a portable solar panel that soldiers can use to charge devices on the battlefield, he said.

Sinovia, which is based in California, is backed in part by the National Science Foundation, which awarded the company a grant to develop a highly efficient light based on the flexible film it is trying to take to market.

The company’s technology uses silver nanowires that are invisible to the human eye and one one-hundredth the diameter of a human hair.

It’s one of several different approaches to creating a transparent conductor that is also flexible.

“There are a number of companies chasing this opportunity,” Jackson acknowledged.

Some scientists are experimenting with graphene, which is composed of pure carbon and is just one-atom thick.

Sinovia, however, believes it’s on the right track.

“We’re really believing that silver nanowires are the best process for this short and long term,” Jackson said. “Silver is a highly conductive material.”

Cambrios Technologies Corporation, which bills itself as “the leader in nanotechnology-based solutions for the transparent and flexible conductor markets,” is also banking on those little silver strands.

It’s already partnered with LG to create an all-in-one touch-screen computer that’s available in Japan and Korea.

Sinovia is seeking similar partnerships that will take its lab project to a wide audience.

Jackson and company President Whitney Gaynor, who began developing Sinovia’s technology while perusing her doctorate at Stanford University, have been staffing booths at tech conferences to find the right deal.

The work isn’t easy. Jackson said he hasn’t been paid in a year and a half, but he’s looking forward to payoff — financial and otherwise.

“The biggest benefit will be the satisfaction of taking a piece of technology and growing a company from scratch,” he said.

Nick Clunn is an award-winning journalist who has worked for several websites and daily newspapers, including The Record in New Jersey. He teaches journalism as an adjunct instructor at Montclair State University. Follow him @NickClunn.

The post New touch screens hold key to revolutionary devices appeared first on Tech Page One.

Prototype of the OHDI, a device that one inventor says will replace the qwerty keyboard. Credit: OHDI.

Early typewriters sported different designs, but they all had one thing in common — keys that forced “striking heads” to jump out and leave ink impressions on paper.

Anyone who has ever toiled with a manual typewriter knows the faster you type, the more frequently those heads become tangled.

Then typewriter maker Sholes & Glidden in 1874 introduced the qwerty layout, which was designed to make tangles less likely as a result of where commonly used letters are positioned.

Qwerty today remains the ubiquitous standard that has withstood the test of time — a constant amid dramatic evolutions in technology.

But should it remain? Innovators believe there are faster ways to input text that would boost productivity and may lead to fewer mistakes.

Alternatives to qwerty have come and gone, but there are two projects in development today that may forever change the way we type.

An Internet entrepreneur says he is creating the keyboard of the future — a mouse-like device with just five keys. Researchers, meanwhile, are proposing a keyboard revamp that is rooted in open-source software.

Mediocre Solutions

Qwerty is particularly cumbersome on mobile devices. We generally use what is arguably our clumsiest appendage — the thumb — on a speed-limiting keyboard many times smaller than those on compact laptops.

Scottish researcher Mark Dunlop, a senior researcher at the University of Strathclyde’s Computer and Information Sciences Department, said early touch-screen research done by Nokia recommended using far bigger keyboards.

Nokia researchers “suggested buttons of no less than 9 millimeters across for thumb typing. With 10 keys on the top row of qwerty, that would be a 10 centimeters-wide phone. That is pretty big,” said Dunlop.

The keyboards displayed when phones are held vertically, meanwhile, are less than 6 centimeters.

Smartphone manufacturers have tried to compensate with software solutions.

Most common are programs that suggest words as you type, but these can offer bizarre, embarrassing or even offensive guesses. Voice-to-text software requires a lot of concentration to avoid infuriating corrections.

The Future of Typing?

Dunlop is part of a small movement to create an open-source software alternative to QWERTY that he said is more accurate and has unique features.

OpenAdaptxt, which is available for a wide variety of Windows and Android keyboards, boasts smarter word completion than its competitors, he said. It also predicts next words based on context and writing style. These and other features make OpenAdaptxt faster on mobile, laptop, desktop and specialty keyboards, Dunlop said.

Assuming it operates as claimed, OpenAdaptxt will still have to overcome broader market indifference to open-source software for it to become a success.

Inventor Philip Jepsen proposes a more fundamental change in his patent-pending, one-handed, digital interface that goes by the acronym OHDI.

“You can’t touch type on a smartphone. You can’t. You don’t know where your keys are so you are stuck looking at your fingers and the screen,” Jepsen said.

His device requires only one hand and uses only five buttons to type all the keys on most desktop and laptop keyboards, which have more keys than those on handhelds.

He said he has gone through nine versions of the keypad and has started to think about finding outside development money. Jepsen to date has funded his invention from the revenue he’s earned running a mobile-app and site-building business.

Users of Jepsen’s device would rest their palm on the OHDI and curl their fingers over the side to reach the keys.

There is only one key for each fingertip, but each one can be pushed forward, backward, side-to-side and downward to produce characters and perform functions. Place the OHDI on a flat surface and it will act as a mouse.

It’s still a product in development.

“I’m using the thumb to shift letters to capitals,” Jepsen said. “That slows you down a little bit, so I’m looking for software ways to use just the four fingers as much as possible.”

Jepsen said the OHDI is easy to learn and faster to use than a qwerty keyboard. He said that he and his daughter have been measuring their typing speed on a prototype.

“It took her 20 hours to get to 50 words per minute,” Jepsen said proudly.

Jim Nash is an award-winning business, tech and science journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Economist Group and Scientific American.

The post Working Smarter: Putting an end to QWERTY appeared first on Tech Page One.

But these days people have more than one mobile device. We’ve got laptops, tablets, and Kindles. Even iPods are making a surprising comeback. You can’t just toss these pricey toys in a brown paper bag and carry them around like a sack lunch. Until we start wearing our tech on our bodies, read Google Glass and Pebble watches, we’ll need an all-purpose tote that is both serviceable and stylish.

Credit: Wikimedia Commons

The era of the ubiquitous backpack is over (although the Ralph Lauren Nylon Utility Backpack ($298) is quite nice). After all, if you’re swimming with silicon sharks, you don’t want to look like you’re ready for a day hike in Carmel-by-the-Sea.

If you like the backpack concept, perhaps the Vans Goleta Backpack ($126) might be a good option for you. It’s a spiffy suede construct that works well as a messenger bag and/or a tote. Added bonus: it’s durable and will undoubtedly survive many years of transit bumps.

The ever-changing technological lifestyle demands something more functional than a simple backpack, however. The bag you chose needs more utility, more organization—more multiplicity. You don’t want to be stranded out there without options.

Hideo Wakamatsu is a designer from Japan who knows a thing or two about long commutes and the needs of high-tech salarymen. The right bag, he says, is an extension of you in both function and style. His attaché cases are terrific, but continually out of stock. However, the Chester Brief ($229) is functional, versatile and always handy.

Other options include bags from Want Les Essentiels de la Vie. They are perfect for business travel with pit stops to the grocery store, the zoo, and Starbucks. Launched back in 2006 by a couple of Montreal-based designers, the totes from this boutique are urban classy and tech savvy.

The Trudeau 17″ Briefcase ($1,250) is a marvel of utility and style. It looks great and provides a total of seven organizational pockets for a variety of mobile devices. Not quite as pricey, the Heathrow Cotton-Canvas Messenger Bag ($450), is an excellent companion for anyone caught in transit. And for casual Fridays, the O’Hare Leather-Trimmed Cotton-Canvas Tote Bag ($325) won’t ever let you down. No matter the price range, the bags from Want Les Essentiels de la Vie will make sure you never leave home unprepared again.

The post Got mobile bag, will travel appeared first on Tech Page One.

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Her MySpace home business, called WhateverLife, was spotted by ValueClick’s Ian Moray when he saw how much traffic and business she was generating from her basement. He brokered a deal for her to sell ads. Her business: creating MySpace layouts for fellow teens.

After the ads appeared and the data tabulated by Google Analytics, her booming biz was pulling in 7 million plus individuals and 60 million page views a month.

Qualls subsequently received many offers for her company, which she turned down.

If you spent much time online in those days, and had a hobby, home business, baby pictures, or were a teen, you had a MySpace page.

Facebook came to our social consciousness on April 16, 2007, on the day of the Virginia Tech Massacre. It was the event that changed Facebook from an insider college club to a globally-recognized platform.

On April 16, every news station in the country displayed screenshots of Facebook pages—a student looking for her classmates, the shooter and his comments and photos, the university staff posting security alerts, parents desperately begging for a response from their Virginia Tech kids, and finally condolences and a new system of university-wide Facebook based alert-system.

It was all shared virtually.

Before this, Facebook was primarily used by college-kids and their families or stay- at- home moms. The massacre gave it a real- world test-run. Five years, one month and 2 days later, Facebook goes public. Zuckerberg becomes as eponymous as Gates or Jobs.

Today tweens and teens are backing away from Facebook and migrating to Tumblr. Tumblr is not perfect, it’s a place for public opinion and there are vocal disputes. However, the cadence of responses is much less than that on Facebook.

Young people need room to expand their minds, have a virtual sit-in with people their age and be themselves and they find this with Tumblr. Mom and Dad may not look at Tumblr, but teachers know and check in on student accounts.

Some of the teen-friendly features on Tumblr are:

• Customizable and intuitive interface
• Security because of the absence of a native comment feature for posts
• Culturally cooler, subversive
• Commercial-free
• Smaller, intimate friend groups
• Site is rarely down
• Light, fast, and easy

Tumblr is for kids who run to their smart device or desktop before school, right after, and then count sheep with their Tumblr blog. They just want to dive into themselves and be people like them and celebrate their interests. They want friends who act like friends. There is some bullying on Tumblr but not to the level perpetuated on Facebook.

Tumblr has a setting which encourages you to upgrade to get your post or blog seen by more eyes but you’ll never see it unless you know it’s there.

Facebook is simply too big. Every home business, major corporation, media entity, socio-political group, and political faction has a Facebook page.  With a reach so broad it’s hard to be seen as an intimate universe. Tumblr, on the other hand, adds a layer of kinship and fan-club enthusiasm to the lives of those who do have armies of living breathing friends.

Last I checked, Ashley Qualls is doing just fine with her own clothing-line, replete with a Twitter account and Facebook biz page.

She doesn’t have a Tumblr blog, but then maybe she’s too old. She’s 23 now.

The post Why Tumblr speaks to teens appeared first on Tech Page One.

In part, the same constraints apply equally to email. Many teachers don’t have much emailing time. And some simply don’t like email, even now. As an English professor for 27 years at a community college, I can tell you that between class time, hundreds of school-wide emails, and stacks of papers littering coffee tables, dining room tables and even the bed, sometimes teachers can’t get back to students right away.

Anne, a community college instructor says, “It takes me up to 24 hours to answer email just because of the sheer volume. If we were always on email, we would never get anything else done since such a large part of our job is off the computer.” Rhianna, a middle-school teacher, says she sometimes receives 20-30 emails from parents per day with requests.

A 24-hour delay might be workable in some cases, but if a college student needs an urgent financial aid form ASAP, or a parent needs to talk right away about a more serious issue like bullying, time could be critical. Parents and students need to check with teachers to find out their communication preferences and make a plan for urgent needs that might include calling the principal or administrator.

Even teachers who welcome email can have an uneasy relationship with it. Tone can easily be misinterpreted, and parents can become understandably paranoid. Cynthia, mother of ten-year-old twins, received an email from a teacher that said, “Please set up a conference.” She immediately thought something was terribly wrong. It wasn’t. The teacher was just reaching out and getting to know parents before the scheduled parent-teacher conferences.

Email can also fall short in the area of “nuance.” You can’t see a raised and arched eyebrow, concern in the eyes, a wide smile, finger-tapping impatience, or pride. When my daughters were in elementary school, I taught poetry through Poets-in-the-Schools in their classes and was also fortunate to have time to go on some field trips. I could see my children in action, and sometimes I would have a quick chat with the teacher: “Do you think Sarah is making friends?” I could see their facial expressions — those “blink” moments of intuition when I could really tell what was going on.

It may be that when it comes to the parent-teacher relationship, nothing beats in-person interactions, however brief. My friend Leah, mother of seven-year-old twins, uses the moments at drop-off and pick-up for mini-chats with the teacher if she’s concerned about something. Phone calls also have more nuance than emails, and provide opportunities for bonding that help a teacher remember you and your child.

Quick chats on the phone can have a similar effect. My friend who is head of the PTA at a San Francisco school says it’s important to remember that conferences can be set up at any time. Parents don’t need to wait for conference week to voice concerns about their sons or daughters.

While email is now a part of our DNA and is often essential as the first round of communication, phone calls and face-to-face meetings add the depth of the human voice and the human face to what may be one of the last arenas where email can’t cover all bases.

When does emailing teachers work? For missed homework assignments, clarification of a detail for a field trip, or to set up a conference—yes. But it’s important to clarify your teacher’s relationship with email and not to overwhelm a teacher with multiple emails about an issue that might be better discussed over the phone or in person. Texting is next and is already happening in some schools.

“Dog ate homework.”

Louise Nayer is a community college professor and the author of Burned: A Memoir.

The post Home & School Matters: Why email and teachers often still don’t mix appeared first on Tech Page One.

Goggles can be used only on mobile devices. It is available for devices including Android, iPhone, and BlackBerry.

Actually, Google Goggles is not a separate app, but it is built into Google’s mobile search application. As shown below, you just bring up Google search and you will see an icon for Goggles.

Goggles is pretty easy to use. After you press the Goggle’s icon, the camera starts automatically. You simply fill as much of the screen as possible with the object of your choice and take a picture.

Goggles is good at recognizing some items, but not others. If you take a picture of a landmark, a painting by a well-known artist, or a bar code, you will have pretty good luck. In fact if you open Goggles and hover over a barcode or QR code, the phone will zero in on the bar and capture it before you even press the camera button. It then presents you with search results like product reviews and also allows you to shop for that item by checking availability and comparing prices.

Goggles is pretty handy for recognizing print ads from major US newspapers or magazines. I had great luck with print ads as well as bar codes from electronic devices, but I had difficulty with some other things.

For instance, Goggles will recognize business cards and will let you add the information it finds right into your Gmail contacts. The problem is that the results are erratic. Goggles seems to do well if the information on the card is all in one block, but poorly if it is scattered about on the card. The idea, however, is so great that I can’t wait until they improve it.
Goggles has some special features. It translates texts for you, reading in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, and Turkish. I used it to translate the text on a stop sign and a French menu and it did well with both of those.

Goggles can also solve Sudoku puzzles and it seems to excel at that. When I printed some puzzles from the Internet, it was not only able to solve the puzzle, but could also identify the Web site it came from.

If you are logged into your Google account, Goggles will save your searches.

Goggles will also let you copy contact and text results to the clipboard. I found this to be really useful for saving things like names of stores and street locations.

All-in-all, if you take the time to learn what you can do with it, Goggles is a useful tool. I am hopeful that even with Google Glass, its new augmented reality effort, Google will continue to develop Goggles. Its potential is unlimited.

Screenshots: Sandy Berger for aNewDomain.net

Image credit: Wikicommons

Based in Pinehurst, North Carolina, Sandy Berger is a veteran tech journalist and senior editor at aNewDomain.net covering tech tips and tricks, apps, gadgets, and consumer electronics. Email her at Sandy@aNewDomain.net. Follow her on Twitter @sandyberger, +SandyBerger on Google+, and www.facebook.com/sandyberger on Facebook.

The post Google Goggles: Searching with Pictures appeared first on Tech Page One.

The more than 900 respondents from nine cities who participated in the research also identified professional organizations as the most crucial support pillar for the small business community, topping all levels of government.

Dell and Intel commissioned the study to gain a deeper understanding of the small-business experience in the United States and released the results as part of a comprehensive report that suggests ways to overcome obstacles to growth.

Expert opinions contained in the report were compiled by Dell during a nine-city “Think Tank” Tour that attracted entrepreneurs, small business owners and local leaders from each of the metro areas.

Scott Case, CEO of Startup America Partnership, called for collaboration among policymakers, academics, nonprofits and private-sector companies to maintain the advantage that U.S. entrepreneurs have over their counterparts abroad.

“Entrepreneurs are by nature optimistic, but they can’t succeed all on their own,” said Case, the founding chief technology officer of Priceline.com.

Dell and Intel found that 56 percent of entrepreneurs and small business owners expect finances improve over the course of the next year. Three quarters of respondents said they expected better prospects for sales.

That optimism exists despite 91 percent of the survey group expressing concern about the national economy’s effect on small-business growth.

Professional organizations, meanwhile, were identified by 68 percent of decision-makers as the “most crucial support pillar” for the small-business community.

The findings, taken as a whole, appear to align with Dell’s policy initiatives. The company wants to improve access to capital, talent and technology for entrepreneurs on the state and federal level.

Ingrid Vanderveldt, the entrepreneur in residence at Dell, said lawmakers need to support entrepreneurs and their varied needs.

“To compete in today’s global landscape, they need technology to innovate, but it’s not the only thing they need,” Vanderveldt said. “Turning a great idea into a successful business also requires access to financing, networking and knowledge.”

Nick Clunn is an award-winning journalist who has worked for several websites and daily newspapers, including The Record in New Jersey. He teaches journalism as an adjunct instructor at Montclair State University. Follow him @NickClunn.

The post Entrepreneurs See Potential for Strong Growth appeared first on Tech Page One.

David Kirkpatrick. Credit: Eirik Solheim

The days of thinking of technology as a distinct aspect of the modern-day world have long passed.

Its effects have been called disruptive, transformative and revolutionary too many times for pundits and business leaders to box it in.

Making sure the world understands this new paradigm has become a life’s mission for David Kirkpatrick, a tech journalist and commentator who founded a company called Techonomy several years ago to help people engage technology.

The ethos is simple and straightforward — that technology can make the world a happier, healthier, wealthier and more peaceful place.

“Technology is itself a neutral force,” Kirkpatrick writes in the Techonomy Manifesto. “If we actively engage with it, we can direct it, mold it and apply it productively for our organizations and for society.”

This idea is espoused almost daily through the work of journalists, who write stories and produce videos for the Techonomy website.

But attempting to make sense of a world in transformation is a Herculean task, and to improve the flow of ideas, Techonomy each year pulls together an invite-only conference for thought-leaders. Last year’s list comprised 250 guests.

“We invite a select few to our retreat in the desert, but broadcast the proceedings to the world because we think anyone can benefit from hearing the thinkers convene,” Kirkpatrick said in an article about the most recent conference in Arizona.

Techonomy launched its inaugural conference in 2010 with a guest list that year after year resembles a Who’s Who of tech, including Steve Case, the former chief executive officer and chairman of America Online.

Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, talked about an explosion in the amount of information produced by humankind during the first Techonomy conference in Nevada. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates joined him there.

“It’s amazing to think that the framework that we exist in has been so changed by innovation,” he said during a panel discussion. “Some magic combination of the marketplace and research has made the past 200 years pretty special.”

The 2012 conference in the desert near Tucson continued the discussion with panels on the end of offline, the insurgent influence of robots and the Facebook effect, among others.

Techonomy 2012 opened with a bold discussion about a world where everyone — eventually all 9 billion inhabitants — is networked together with mobile tools.

Robert Hormats, under secretary of state for economic, energy and agricultural affairs at the U.S. State Department, predicted a political sea change with the expansion of the LTE wireless standard to half the world’s population by 2018.

“It empowers people politically,” Hormats said. “Even if they can’t vote, they now have the opportunity to use cell phones…to hold their leaders accountable. Leaders cannot fail to pay attention to what these people do.”

John Markoff, a journalist for The New York Times who moderated a discussion on robotics, elicited an intriguing outlook from Rodney Brooks, founder and chairman of Rethink Robotics, which makes robots for manufacturing.

“I think we will be having people and machines working closely together. Robotic machines. That’s what happened,” he said. “The computer didn’t get rid of the office worker. The total number of office workers may have gone down, but it changed the nature of work office workers did.”

Kirkpatrick closed Techonomy 2012 with a first — two top Facebook executives together on one stage, one from the product side and one from advertising, for a revealing conversation about how they work together.

One evolving partnership is centered on marketing.

Sam Lessin, project manager at Facebook, said friends — “the people you have kind of asserted are important in your life” — comprise a large percentage of news feeds.

“But it’s not the whole story,” he said. “There are plenty of brands and companies that I want to interact with that are part of who I want to hear from and the conversations I want to be having.

Of course, that wasn’t the end of the Techonomy conversation. The company, in addition to its annual conference, organizes other discussions throughout the year.

The next event — TE Lab in Menlo Park, Calif. — will probe an emerging Internet age in which software and apps begin to catch up with the loads of data that are produced and stored. Registration for this event on May 16 is open to the public.

Nick Clunn is an award-winning journalist who has worked for several websites and daily newspapers, including The Record in New Jersey. He teaches journalism as an adjunct instructor at Montclair State University. Follow him @NickClunn.

The post Seeing the World Through the Lens of Techonomy appeared first on Tech Page One.

A screen shot from Outbox, which dispatches “unpostmen” to retrieve mail that is later sent to users digitally. Credit: Outbox

A new service claims that it can make the process of snail mail less of a pain.

It’s called Outbox, and the company is essentially billing itself as a junk-mail screening service to gain a following.

But privacy concerns and lag time surrounding how Outbox obtains your mail may deter some from signing up.

Outbox works by charging customers $4.99 a month to retrieve mail from their physical mailboxes three days a week. The mail is then taken to a warehouse, where it’s opened, scanned and stored in the cloud.

Customers can access images of their mail through a website or tablet app, and request actual copies, which are delivered back twice a week. All unrequested mail is shredded and recycled after 30 days.

There are definite advantages to Outbox, which include having digitized records of correspondence, a great boon if you receive a lot of important mail.

But there’s already been a huge consumer outcry over inefficiency.

A downside to the U.S. Postal Service, a staggering giant that lost almost $16 billion last year, is wait time in this age of email. Outbox only collects mail three times a week, further extending delivery times.

Some people don’t feel comfortable with Outbox looking through their mail.

Abraham Thomas, a startup founder in the UK, calls it the “most innovative service I’ve seen in a while,” but warned on Twitter that “privacy issues would put most off.”

“Looks like a cool idea but I can’t seem to get over some(one/thing) going through my mail,” Ashish Dixit, a programmer, tweeted in February.

Outbox responded to Dixit that users’ mail is kept under lock and key, 256-bit encrypted, shredded and recycled. Still, that response is not enough to convince the masses about its system.

This issue will undoubtedly flare up the moment an Outbox user’s mail is found to contain illegal activity.

Outbox recently reached an agreement with the Postal Service to intercept mail before it is delivered to your home, and redirect it to its warehouse.

That will save time, but not enough to make Outbox more efficient than email — or even postal workers.

Adam Popescu has covered social media, green business and eco-travel for a variety of news outlets, including Marketplace, LA Weekly and Los Angeles Times Community Newspapers.

The post Should You Trust Outbox to Open Your Snail Mail? appeared first on Tech Page One.

The San Francisco-based company, itself a startup, has rolled out its flagship product, Foundersuite, in private beta. According to the company’s founder Nathan Beckord, the app should be available to the public in three to four weeks. So long as everything goes smoothly, he cautioned. With 51.2 percent of new businesses failing within five years of launch, entrepreneurs can use all of the help they can get.

Foundersuite has five modules: Concept, Corporate, Capital, Captain’s Log, and Connections/Counsel. Each of the five modules is designed company founders to tackle various aspects of launching a successful fledgling enterprise.

The five modules are fairly intuitive and operate as their names suggest. The concept module, for example, helps entrepreneurs build an Idea Summary for each new company or concept. Included in the module is a mechanism that helps solicit feedback from advisors, potential customers, and others—even offering a way to A/B test ideas.

The corporate module offers a number of necessary business tools such as finance templates, human resource planning, and operations. The capital module is a combination of Salesforce, paired with a database of potential investors and coupled with a number of pitch deck templates.

The Captain’s Log module has three parts. First, it helps entrepreneurs measure progress against goals. Second it offers a visual tool to keep everyone involved with a startup updated on progress. Last, according to the company, it helps solicit advice, and “optimize the feedback and iteration loop.”

The Connections/Counsel is an address book that entrepreneurs can use to control communications and segment information distribution. For example, with Connections/Counsel, idea-related messages would be sent to a certain group of people, whereas financial data might go to another group.

One of the more intriguing potential features is the Foundersuite API. According to the company the API will let developers build plugins, wizards, and widgets, and make them available for sale in the yet-to-be-launched Foundersmarket.

Foundersmarket will have much more than developer content. The company says designers will be able to market pitch decks, as well, and from the looks of it, have the ability to work with Foundersuite on the user experience.

Max Cherney earned his writing chops gathering field intelligence and reporting on international finance and investment banking. An ad industry veteran, he has extensive experience using emerging technology in interactive marketing projects. His byline has appeared in BYTE, the SF Appeal, Indiewire, TechHive, Film Maker Magazine, and others. Max also directs commercial and documentary films. His first documentary due in summer 2013. Max holds a Master’s Degree in Writing from the California College of the Arts.

The post Foundersuite Helps Entrepreneurs Start Up appeared first on Tech Page One.

Both Refresh and Reset are available in the Settings menu of Windows 8.

Refresh is a completely new feature in Windows 8. This excellent tool can get your computer back into a workable state faster than was previously possible. It is quick and can usually be completed in less than one hour. If your PC isn’t running well, you can refresh it without losing your photos, music, videos and other personal files. Refresh will also keep settings that you have personalized like energy settings, screensavers, lock screens, wireless network connections, mobile broadband connections, and BitLocker settings.

Refresh erases and formats the hard drive partitions on which Windows and personal data reside. It installs a fresh copy of Windows and reboots to the fresh Windows 8 installation. You can even sign in with the same account and password after the Refresh. Microsoft makes Refresh easy to use. A wizard will walk you through the process, you just follow the prompts. You will need the Windows 8 disk or flash drive that you used to install Windows 8 or the copy that you made after you purchased the PC.

Refresh, however, does not preserve file associations, display settings, or Windows firewall settings. Most importantly, while Refresh will reinstall apps from the Windows store, any other apps or programs that you have installed will be removed. A list of removed apps is saved in a file on your desktop, but that doesn’t do much good if you don’t have a copy of those programs. So before you use the Refresh option, make sure that you have a copy of all your installed programs.

The Reset option in Windows 8 will completely reinstall Windows. All personal files, programs, and apps are removed and your PC is reset to its factory settings.
Like the Refresh option, the Reset wizard will walk you through the reset. During the process you will be asked if you want to “Just Remove My Files” or “Fully Clean the Drive”. The second option should be used to completely erase everything in case you are selling or giving away the computer. To perform the system Reset, you will need your Windows 8 disk and product key.

Although Microsoft suggests that you can perform a Refresh without first backing up your data, as a computer professional, I would not recommend that. Whether you are performing a Refresh or a Reset, it is always good insurance to have a backup of your important data and to keep a copy of your Windows product key.

Screenshots: Sandy Berger for aNewDomain.net

Featured image: Wikicommons

Based in Pinehurst, North Carolina, Sandy Berger is a veteran tech journalist and senior editor at aNewDomain.net covering tech tips and tricks, apps, gadgets, and consumer electronics. Email her at Sandy@aNewDomain.net. Follow her on Twitter @sandyberger, +SandyBerger on Google+, and www.facebook.com/sandyberger on Facebook.

The post Windows 8: Refresh and Reset Reinstall Windows appeared first on Tech Page One.

• Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in women affecting about 1 in 8 women in the U.S. 
• 40% of women have dense breasts and a five times greater risk for breast cancer
• Five states have laws in place and a dozen others have pending legislation around breast density notification
• Using 3D Digital Breast Tomosynthesis (DBT) with conventional 2D mammography finds 50% more cancers than 2D imaging alone and also reduces the false-positive rate
• Tomosynthesis images are 15X the size of conventional 2D mammography images

Though guidelines and mandates for breast cancer screenings vary, we know that early detection of cancer can save lives.  Conventional mammograms, however, have their

Radiology technician checks conventional mammogram.

limitations. A study by the Mayo Clinic in 2011 found that 75 percent of cancers in women with dense breast tissue were missed by mammography alone. Many women with dense breasts are unaware of this condition, hence the push toward breast density notification, potentially leading to increased demand for alternate tests. Some of the other tests that may help find cancers not seen on mammograms include ultrasound, breast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and tomosynthesis.

What is breast tomosynthesis? Also known as a 3D mammogram, it is a technique that is able to reconstruct multiple slices of the breast using different projections to create a 3D image.  A new study by Lancet Oncology reports: “Using 3D digital breast tomosynthesis with conventional 2D mammography finds 50% more cancers than 2D imaging alone and also reduces the false-positive rate.”

The availability of 3D imaging may factor into a patient’s selection of a particular provider, so many healthcare organizations are looking at 3D imaging to improve diagnosis and quality of care, as well as to become more competitive.

But what is the impact on IT platforms supporting these new devices? Consider that an uncompressed tomosynthesis study is 1.2GB compared to 88MB for a conventional 2D mammogram and that this data must be stored for 10+ years as per the Mammography Quality Standards Act (MQSA).  That means an imaging center doing 20,000 mammograms each year historically requiring less than 1TB to store two copies will now need more than 12 TB of long-term storage. Talk about a data explosion!

Without adequate planning healthcare providers often scramble for storage solutions after acquiring a 3D imaging device.  There are several options ranging from scaling existing storage and IT staffing based on projected growth to leveraging Archive-as-a-Service model through a trusted service provider. A hybrid approach is also an attractive option whereby 3-5 years of studies are managed onsite while the long-term archive is moved to a cloud-based service.  A managed service model can also provide one-time pay-per-study pricing that makes it easier to forecast and budget as operating expenses while reducing the need for up-front capital investment.

It’s time to get prepared for the new wave of imaging technology and legislative mandates. For more information on technology options to address clinical data growth, please visit Dell’s Unified Clinical Archive.

The post How Data Helps: 3D Mammograms Aid Breast Cancer Fight appeared first on Tech Page One.