Hiring for the data centre: What you need to know

Lenovo servers display all the qualities of a top-tier data administrator.

Finding somebody - anybody - to get the job done in the data centre isn't exactly a walk in the park. Sometimes your server network will throw you curve balls and you kind of need someone who can hit them back. But fear not, we're here to help you find the right sluggers to join your team.

Lenovo servers display all the qualities of a top-tier data administrator.

Finding somebody - anybody - to get the job done in the data centre isn't exactly a walk in the park. Sometimes your server network will throw you curve balls and you kind of need someone who can hit them back. But fear not, we're here to help you find the right sluggers to join your team.

Sponsored

Organisational skills

Server playing up? Is it hard-disk related, or a CPU issue? Who knows because Kevin is swimming in paperwork and missed phone calls - he can't recall anything. Come on Kevin, keep it together. We all know that human error remains one of the major causes of downtime. In fact, it was responsible for 49% of server outages in 2015/16, according to one report. A well-organised data centre manager, combined with quality hardware, can keep you protected against human muck-ups.

Self-motivated

When problems arise, you can always try turning it off and on again, but a good data centre employee seeks out ways to prevent server issues before they happen. While we all enjoy drinking coffee and scanning Reddit for the next best cat pictures, proactive work ensures unplanned downtime never occurs.

Just ask Lenovo’s Servers, which use advanced predictive failure analysis to help prevent downtime before it hits.

Read More

Snowden withdraws Russia asylum petition as options dwindle

Former Booz Allen Hamilton employee-turned-fugitive document leaker Edward Snowden withdrawn his request for political asylum in Russia as his options for shelter in other countries appear to be dwindling.

Former Booz Allen Hamilton employee-turned-fugitive document leaker Edward Snowden withdrawn his request for political asylum in Russia as his options for shelter in other countries appear to be dwindling.

Numerous media outlets reporting from Moscow say that a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed that Snowden withdrew his request for asylum in that country less than two days after submitting it.

The spokesman did reiterate that Russia has no intention of extraditing Snowden back to the United States.

Snowden has been in the transit area of Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport since arriving there from Hong Kong about 10 days ago.

On Sunday, a lawyer from Julian Assange's WikiLeaks organization, who is traveling with Snowden, had submitted a formal request for asylum in Russia.

Snowden apparently decided to withdraw the request after Putin said he could only remain in Russia as long a he did not leak more information that could harm American interests.

Read More

Activists release Detekt tool that finds surveillance malware

A free tool released Thursday allows users to scan their computers for surveillance malware that has been used in attacks against journalists, human rights defenders and political activists around the world.

A free tool released Thursday allows users to scan their computers for surveillance malware that has been used in attacks against journalists, human rights defenders and political activists around the world.

The open-source tool is called Detekt and was developed by security researcher Claudio Guarnieri. It was released in partnership with Amnesty International, Digitale Gesellschaft, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Privacy International.

Detekt scans computers for infection patterns associated with several families of remote access Trojans (RATs): DarkComet RAT, XtremeRAT, BlackShades RAT, njRAT, FinFisher FinSpy, HackingTeam RCS, ShadowTech RAT and Gh0st RAT.

Some of these malware programs have been used in attacks by cybercriminals, but also in cyberespionage campaigns against non-governmental organizations, human rights activists, journalists and religious or ethnic minority groups.

Some tools, like FinFisher FinSpy and HackingTeam RCS, were created by commercial entities and are sold to law enforcement and other government agencies around the world. They provide a wide range of surveillance capabilities including reading emails and instant messaging conversations, listening in on Skype calls and even remotely turning on a computer's camera and microphone.

Even though the companies that create these tools, Gamma International and Hacking Team, claim to carefully screen their customers and only sell to legitimate law enforcement agencies, independent reports suggest that such tools have been used against journalists and political activists in countries where human rights are poorly protected.

Read More

The Internet of Things is already transforming industries in the present

Shutterstock.com

 

The Internet of Things, which connects more and more electronic devices, is often talked about in terms of its potential. But while pondering science fiction scenarios, it’s easy to ignore the real-world applications of IoT that are in the world today.
Many examples were provided at Technicity, co-hosted by IT World Canada and the City of Toronto in downtown Toronto on Thursday.
The Internet of Mining
The mining industry, for instance, connects workers and machines through wifi… while 250m below sea level.
“For us, IoT is a game changer. Dundee Precious Metals is looked at as a global leader on how to change the industry,” Mark Gelsomini, corporate director of IT for Dundee Precious Metals. “We actually coined the phrase ‘Take the lid off the mine’ where everything is visible in three dimensions where data is given in real time underground.”
The information can be used to help the mine produce things better, faster, and quicker. And real-time data means that problems are notice as soon as they happen and can be dealt with immediately, instead of getting information as a report from the shift boss at the end of their eight-hour shift.
Gelsomini said IoT generally provides more predictability and efficiency, which is crucial for mining companies dealing with slumps in commodity prices and turmoil in the industry in general.
Reducing Transit Fuel Consumption
Kathryn Willson, director of Microsoft’s CityNext program, shared an example from The City of Helsinki.
The city’s goal was to reduce the fuel consumption of their metro bus network and increase rider satisfaction. “They already had GPS devices on their buses, so they knew where their buses were moving through the community, but they didn’t understand how their buses were moving through the community,” she said. “They added sensors to the accelerator and the brake and inside the engine compartment to measure temperature so that they could understand how that bus was moving, where were the points of massive fuel consumption.”
Some things burning more fuel were traffic and poor road conditions.
After collecting and analyzing the data, they implemented two programs: a driver training program to make sure they were driving being as efficiently as possible, and also identified areas where road construction would really help with the flow of buses. They were able to reduce their fuel consumption for their fleet by 5 percent, which is millions of Euros.
The Internet of Parking
Tracy Fleming, the CTO for Avaya’s Americas operation, noted that universities are experimenting with his company’s technologies by providing smart parking services that send a text message when their parking is about to expire. It also gives them the option of extending the time by texting back.
As for Toronto, Tracey Cook, executive director of the City of Toronto’s municipal licensing and standards division, said she’s hopeful about Rover, a Toronto-based startup aimed at connecting people with open parking spots with people who need them. Earlier this year, the startup went up against regulations that make its “person-to-person” business model impossible.
“It’s not easy for the small guys starting out…especially for the P2P guys because it’s a real challenge because they’re challenging entrenched and established business models,” Cook said, noting that this is something the city has to change. After all, leveraging private parking spots could mean more available on-street spaces, and people spending less time driving around looking for a place to park.
A smarter city is here, but there’s more to come if the benefits outweigh the risks
Willson noted in her presentation that there are many examples of IoT projects that collected peoples’ data without them knowing, and this fuels an inherent suspicion of new technologies. It’s important to build trust and transparency, and to show how these IoT services are about the people they help, not just the machines.
 

Read More

11 cyber security tips for businesses: How businesses can combat malicious advertising and security breaches

With cybercrime becoming almost unavoidable, "it's time to take security seriously", says Malwarebytes' CEO. We explore what businesses can do to protect themselves from hacks, data breaches and malicious advertising.

Cyber security is at the forefront of most UK businesses' minds and according to the Malwarebytes CEO Marcin Kleczynski "there is always a way in". With companies such as TalkTalk, Moonpig and Marks and Spencer making headlines this year, we take a look at the threats facing UK companies of all sizes and reveal 11 cyber security tips to help combat security breaches.

© iStock/KyKyPy3HuK

Cyber security tips for UK businesses: Assess the risk

Making sure you know your businesses security needs inside and out is extremely important and will enable you to create the most effective risk management plan possible.

 

Read More

Best smartphone for business 2016 : Android vs iPhone vs Windows Phone vs BlackBerry - what phones should I buy for my business?

What is the best smartphone for business? We examine cost, value, security and more, to uncover the best phone for business users - from the perspective of the IT pro. It's Android vs iPhone vs Windows Phone vs BlackBerry to uncover the best business phone for 2016. Here is how to choose a phone for your business. (See also: Best tablet for business 2016.)

Best smartphone for business: iPhone - what's good

Almost certainly the choice of your CEO, still holding firm in the mistaken belief that Apple is cool and everything else inferior. This isn't true, but iPhone remains the benchmark in terms of high-quality hardware, and app- and media store support. iPhones do what iPhones do - they offer a quality smartphone experience, and no-one is likely to complain if you hand them a work Apple phone.

Read More

YouTube reveals the 10 videos Canadians watched most in 2015

The world’s largest repository of cat videos has released its annual top 10 list, with YouTube dividing its viewing statistics for 2015 both by country and by type (though regrettably, none of this year’s top videos actually focused on cats).
Unsurprisingly, a music video – Wiz Khalifa’s “See You Again,” from Furious 7 – came out on top both globally and in Canada, with more than 1.2 billion views worldwide since premiering in April.
In fact, all 10 of YouTube’s most watched, both globally and in Canada, would have been music videos, which is why the Google-owned website gave them their own category. We’ve embedded Canadian users’ 10 favourite music videos below.
It’s worth noting that only five of the 10 most-watched non-music videos in Canada were also on the global list, with a super bowl ad, lip sync battle, and one of Jimmy Kimmel’s patented “Mean Tweets”, featuring Barack Obama, among the top 10 global videos which didn’t make the cut for the Canadian version. Instead, we Canucks can take pride in knowing that our list featured two science videos, two brothers coming out to their father, and two with uniquely Canadian content in their place.
The global and Canadian music video lists were identical except for two songs, one by (sigh) Justin Bieber.
Google did not release Canadian viewership numbers for any of the videos.
And so, without additional ado, here are the top 10 (non-music) YouTube videos that Canadians watched in 2015:
With more than 116 million views worldwide, the top video is admittedly a bit of a cheat: five-year-old Heaven King and her friends dancing in New York City (with choreography by Heaven’s mom, Tianne) to Silentó’s “Watch Me” (Whip/Nae Nae).
Number two, with more than 56 million views: Prankster Roman Atwood helps his sons take the phrase “having a ball at home” literally.
Third, with more than 40 million views: The Slow Mo Guys place a six-foot man in a six-foot water balloon.
Fourth, with more than 37 million views, is another cheat of sorts: A lip-synch video to Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off,” (which came out in 2014) courtesy of Delaware’s Dover Police.
Fifth: Science and engineering channel Veritasium’s “Surprising Applications of the Magnus Effect,” which finds out what happens when you drop a basketball from the 126.5-metre Gordon Dam in Tasmania, has nearly 28 million views.
Sixth: Los Angeles-based twin models and YouTube personalities Aaron and Austin Rhodes recorded coming out to their Ohio-based father in January, in a tear-soaked video which has since racked up nearly 21 million worldwide views and earned the brothers a guest spot on horror-comedy Scream Queens.
Seven is another science-based video, this one from ASAPScience, analyzing the photo of a dress that and broke the Internet in February by dividing viewers into camps that either believed it was black and blue or white and gold. It’s currently amassed more than 20 million views.
The viewership for number eight might be more Canadian than others: Nearly 10 million users have seen “containerman2″‘s three-minute video of a CN rail train plowing through snow in Salisbury, New Brunswick.
Nine is another uniquely Canadian video: Adam Jesin’s tribute to the Blue Jays, “First Place,” a parody of Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space”.
Finally, number 10, with more than 38 million views, was an audition from this year’s season of Britain’s Got Talent: contestant Calum Scott’s cover of Europop star Robyn’s “Dancing On My Own”.
Incidentally, the 10 music videos seen by the most Canadians on YouTube were:
1. Wiz Khalifa Feat. Charlie Puth – See You Again
2. Maroon 5 – Sugar
3. Major Lazer & DJ Snake Feat. MØ – Lean On
4. Adele – Hello
5. Ellie Goulding – Love Me Like You Do
6. Taylor Swift – Bad Blood
7. Sia – Elastic Heart
8. Silentó – Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)
9. The Weeknd – The Hills
10. Justin Bieber – What Do You Mean?

Read More

Security of Interactive and Automated Access Management Using Secure Shell (SSH)

Users and hosts must be able to access other hosts in an interactive or automated fashion, often with very high privileges. This is necessary for a variety of reasons, including file transfers, disaster recovery, privileged access management, software and patch management, and dynamic cloud provisioning. Accessing other hosts is often accomplished using the Secure Shell (SSH) protocol.

The SSH protocol supports several mechanisms for interactive and automated authentication. Management of this access requires proper provisioning, termination, and monitoring processes. However, the security of SSH key-based access has been largely ignored to date. This publication assists organizations in understanding the basics of SSH interactive and automated access management in an enterprise, focusing on the management of SSH user keys.

The attached zip file includes:

• Intro Page.pdf
• Terms and Conditions.pdf
• NIST.IR.7966.pdf

IT Downloads help you save time and money while executing essential IT management tasks. Download this useful resource now and put it to work for your business.

Read More

“Which Programming Language Should I Learn First?”

tl;dr: start with whichever language your best friend is most comfortable with.

When a person sets out to learn programming, two outcomes are possible. Either they succeed, or they give up. If you don’t give up, you’ll eventually succeed.

People usually give up on learning to code either because they get bored, or because it takes too much effort (i.e. they keep getting stuck). The former problem is easy to avoid: pick a language (and/or project) that‘s really interesting to you. Most people get this part right. The latter one is where I think people mess up — people fail to learn programming because they get stuck and give up.

With this in mind, I now tell all my friends to learn Ruby. Why Ruby? It’s not really easier to learn than, say, Python. The difference is that I know Ruby really well. If a friend of mine has a question about Ruby at 3 A.M. on a Saturday night, they can call me and I’ll probably still be able to give a helpful answer.

If you want to learn how to code, start with whatever language (or framework, etc.) your best friend is most comfortable with. You’ll be able to get help easily, and you won’t get stuck as often.

Read More

Student Team Wins Grand Prize at Facebook Global Hackathon

By Joe Lyons / 412-268-7298 / jwlyons@cmu.edu

A Carnegie Mellon University student team won the $10,000 grand prize at the 2015 Facebook Global Hackathon by creating a new digital product that supports breaking news 24/7 with real-time eyewitness videos from around the world.
During the course of 24 hours, Team Tartanium developed Onreel.news, a website designed to respond to how news distribution has changed. With the rise of social media platforms like Instagram, news can be spread more quickly than ever before.

Sumanth Pandugula, Nikhil Choudhary, Tiffany Jiang and Avi Romanoff (l-r)) were proud to bring top honors home to CMU from Facebook's Global Hackathon.

Onreel.news lets users track developing stories around the world in real-time through videos taken by direct witnesses. The site, which is live, currently simulates what Onreel.news users would see the night of the Nov. 13 Paris attacks.
“This hack idea came out of the frustration of not knowing where to find raw, unedited footage taken by those who were experiencing world news first-hand,” said team member Tiffany Jiang.
The competition, which took place over three days in late November at Facebook’s Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters, featured 78 finalists representing 21 teams from 11 countries.
Members of Team Tartanium represented four of CMU’s colleges and schools. In addition to Jiang, a sophomore design and human-computer interaction major, team members were Avi Romanoff, a sophomore psychology and human-computer interaction major, and Nikhil Choudhary, a junior electrical and computer engineering major. Sumanth Pandugula, a graduate student at the University of Illinois at Chicago who spent the fall 2014 semester as an exchange student at CMU, also was a member of the team.
The students earned a spot to compete in the finals after winning the Facebook API award at TartanHacks, CMU’s student-run hackathon, in February.
As Instagram videos are uploaded, Onreel.news users see markers on a world map in their Web browser. Hovering over the markers allows users to see recent hashtags people have used at that location. Clicking on a hashtag brings up a gallery of relevant Instagram videos, in order of most recent upload, in an easy-to-view 3x3 grid format.
“We made it easy to send important videos that feature built-in social share functions. We want to empower the user to go ahead and turn videos viral by sharing through Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, email and more,” Jiang said.
The team’s hope is to expand Onreel.news in the future to include videos from other social networking platforms like Vine.
“I feel immensely proud to be able to bring home glory for CMU,” Choudhary said. “This was an event where competition was fierce. It was not just limited to the best in this country but from all over the world.
“It’s truly humbling for Facebook to recognize the merits of our hack idea,” he said.
In addition to the $10,000 grand prize, each team member received an Oculus Rift developer kit.
Find out more and watch video on the Hackathon's Facebook page.

Read More

WTF is a hackathon?

Sounds scary, right? Don’t worry, it’s not that type of hacking.

Over the past year, hackathons have taken the country by storm. You might have even seen a small one in “The Social Network.” No, we don’t break into your school’s computers. Yes, we do sometimes drink beer.

“A hackathon, a hacker neologism, is an event when programmers meet to do collaborative computer programming.” -Wikipedia

Hackathons provide a venue for self-expression and creativity through technology. People with technical backgrounds come together, form teams around a problem or idea, and collaboratively code a unique solution from scratch — these generally take shape in the form of websites, mobile apps, and robots.

A notable example of a hackathon “hack,” GroupMe is a group messaging app that was acquired by Skype for over $50 million. Other notable examples include the Facebook “Like” button and Facebook Chat which were both first demoed at internal company hackathons. Tess Rinearson has a great list of “The 8 Kinds of Projects You Meet at a Hackathon.”

Hackers Hacking

Take PennApps and MHacks, the two largest student hackathons, for example. They bring together over 1000 student hackers from universities across the globe for one of the most high-energy weekends of their lives. Students get to the hackathon, and, within a couple hours, are working furiously on a project with a motley group of people that they may have just met. Over the course of the weekend, they learn how to work with new technologies, throw together tons of code, and hopefully finish what they set out to build.

Despite the complete lack of sleep, these events are addicting, and the community building around them is growing faster than ever. Instead of meeting at a coffee shop or conference to discuss the world’s problems every weekend, you’ll find many of these students at a hackathon tackling them head on. To facilitate this fast-growing tidal wave of hackathons, Mike Swift started Major League Hacking which aims to be the NCAA of Hackathons.

Whether we are building a website, mobile app, or even hardware hack, the goal is to start from scratch and end with a working prototype. Generally, these events last from 24-48 hours and are filled with food, caffeine, prizes, and, you guessed it, more caffeine. After time runs out, teams demo what they’ve built and compete for prizes.

To sum it up, at a hackathon, people come together and use technology to transform ideas into reality.

---

“The word hackathon is a portmanteau of the words hack and marathon, where hack is used in the sense of playful, exploratory programming, not its alternate meaning as a reference to computer crime.” -Wikipedia

---

Aside: With an emphasis on finishing something before the deadline, hackathons have received some criticism for their encouragement of poorly-written code and unhealthy sleeping and eating habits.

Thanks to Dan Friedman, Torehan, Nancy Xiao, Geoffrey Vedernikoff, Kyle J. Summers, Nate West, Seth Kontny, Brian Cloutier, and Daniel Borowski.

Read More