Network monitoring: A Day in the Life of an IT Pro
Sometimes I feel a bit sorry for the network administrator.
End users who don’t really know much about technology always lay their problems at their door first -- "I can’t access my emails, is the network down?", "My Word document is typing really slowly, is the network down?" "I’ve forgotten my password, is the network down?"
The keys to a successful BYOD policy
The BYOD trend is something that often creeps up on companies as employees take the initiative in using their own kit. That can leave businesses with a BYOD environment but no proper policy.
There are many potential benefits to BYOD in terms of employee efficiency and morale, but that's of limited use if it puts the safety of commercial data at risk.
Microsoft EMET blocks 'VBScript God Mode'
Microsoft has updated its exploit blocker Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET) to version 5.2 with some welcome tweaks and enhancements.
The Attack Surface Reduction mitigation has been extended to stop processes running malicious scripts via IE’s script engine. That’s good news as it’s a particularly powerful hack, and the basic "VBScript God Mode" idea has been around for quite some time.
Google Apps leaks Whois data for over 280,000 protected domains
Private information relating to more than 280,000 domains registered via Google Apps has leaked, leaving the registrants open to risk of identity theft or spear phishing.
The ability to buy domain names from one of Google's partners is a feature offered by Google Apps to allow easier access to and management of services.
Apple's App Store outage cost $25 million in lost revenue
Apple’s App Store went down for over 11 hours on Wednesday, alongside iTunes, iBooks, iCloud and even its Mac App Store.
It is the single largest outage Apple has faced, and happened due to an internal issue with its DNS [domain name system].
'Anonymous' targets Kanye West
Anonymous is a very loose collective of hackers. In the video setting the record straight on #OpISIS, it is described as a family that is as "divided and fractional as any more traditional, not so Anonymous family in any city, town, or isolated rural village in the world".
Almost anyone can claim to be in Anonymous, and launch their own attacks or operations, and proving the point, someone claiming to be from the hacktivist collective has released a video targeting Kanye West and his wife Kim Kardashian.
The 80's called and they have a smartwatch for you
For those who grew up in the 80's there are many things that stand out, and some we wish we could forget. There were Polo shirts worn with the collars up, Members Only jackets and the dreaded parachute pants -- leg warmers as well if you are female. But one thing from that era has endured -- Swatch. The company never went away, it just lost favor among the "in" crowd. But that piece of hardware on your wrist back then meant everything.
Call it retro or nostalgia, but the company is enjoying a bit of a resurgence. So much so that, apparently, the watch maker feels emboldened to jump into the smartwatch market. Swatch has a unique take on things -- a mechanical version of this latest craze.
Microsoft update KB3033929 possibly causing problems for Windows 7 users
Over the years Microsoft has managed to break computers with updates, though not intentionally of course. However, it's generally wise to wait just a bit after Patch Tuesday and keep an eye out for reports of any problems that other customers are experiencing. It's generally safe, but you can never be too cautious.
Now those who have stayed behind, clinging to Windows 7, seem to be on the receiving end of just such an incident. If users of the TechNet forums are to be believed, and there's no reason to suspect otherwise, then KB3033929 could wreak a bit of havoc with Windows 7 systems.
Apple releases a public beta of iOS 8.3 -- here's how to get it
With Microsoft we've become used to the idea of publicly available preview builds of Windows 10 for desktop and phone. Now Apple is following suit and making iOS 8.3 available as a public beta. This is the first time a public beta of iOS has been released, although Apple has tried the same tactic with betas of OS X.
The beta is in the process of rolling out at the moment, so you may not be able to grab yourself the bits just yet, but you can get yourself in line. What is there to look forward to? Not much at the moment, apart from wireless CarPlay and new emoji. Here's how to grab the beta.
WhatsApp Call rolling out to all Android users -- here's how you can get it
A year after announcing its plan to add a voice calling feature to its instant messaging client, WhatsApp began to test the feature in late January. The feature -- as we noted last week -- was rolling out to users on an invite basis. But the company is finally easing up on that as now it is allowing anyone to get the call feature provided they have an Android phone with the v2.11.561 installed on it, and a friend with the feature willing for you to call them. BetaNews is able to report and confirm that the aforementioned trick is working worldwide.
WhatsApp isn’t the first messaging client to get the internet voice calling feature. Rival apps such as Viber, Hangouts (it charges for international calls), Skype, and even Facebook’s Messenger offer a similar feature. But what makes WhatsApp triumph over competing apps is the voluminous amount of users it has attracted since its launch in 2009. WhatsApp -- which Facebook acquired last year for a whopping sum of $19 billion -- has more than 700 million users as of earlier this year, and just this week, the messaging app become the second non-Google app (after Facebook) to be downloaded 1 billion times on the Google Play Store.
Anonymous sets the record straight regarding its battle with ISIS
Hacktivist network Anonymous has been taking down ISIS related sites and Twitter accounts in a bid to prevent the terrorist organization from spreading its message online. Anonymous has declared ISIS a virus, and itself the cure.
However, cyber blog Krypt31a has described Anonymous's recent actions as Whack-a-mole without a plan, spurring a representative of the hacktivist group to issue a video reply setting the record straight.
Windows 10 builds will be released faster to Windows Insiders
The chances of getting a new Windows 10 build this week are starting to look a little thin, but releases are going to be made available more frequently. Writing on Twitter, Gabe Aul said that "we've decided to try to increase pace of Fast", promising that more details would be forthcoming.
Earlier in the week, Aul responded to complaints that new builds were not appearing fast enough, joking that a new release ring called Ludicrous Speed was being considered. Now we've learned that "a good build candidate with some new features" is very close to release.
Apple Pay is the reason Apple Watch won't fail
If you watched the Apple keynote, then you got a great view of the Apple Watch. While I’m definitely not one of the few who will buy the $10,000 version of the watch, I do believe it will be a success, largely due to one feature: Apple Pay.
Samsung, Motorola, and Pebble already have watches with similar features to the Apple Watch. In fact, I thought it was funny to listen to Apple employees talk about how they can’t live without their Apple watch because of all the notifications the watch sends to their wrist.
Time to migrate to GitHub as Google Code closes
After nine years, Google Code is closing down. Starting today, it is no longer possible to create new projects, and over the course of the coming ten months, the service will be mothballed. Google Code was Google's attempt to help the open source community by offering somewhere to host projects, but the growth of the likes of GitHub and Bitbucket has taken its toll and Google Code has filled up with spam and abuse.
Competition in the world of project hosting has become fierce, and Google feels it's time to pass on the baton rather than fighting for attention. Google has itself moved many of its own open source projects to GitHub. Don't panic if you’re not quite ready to jump ship -- there's still a little time to play with.
Did Google taint 12-inch MacBook news coverage?
Bias in the media is inevitable, and any news gatherer who denies this fact is a liar. Companies seek favor or to influence in countless ways. It's the nature of the beast, which cannot be tamed. So I wonder how Chromebook Pixel embargoes impacted reporting about Apple's newest laptop. If so, Google pulled off one hell of a marketing coup.
The search and information giant provided many tech blogs and news sites with the new Pixel about a week before the laptop launched yesterday and the first reviews posted—that was also days before Apple's well-publicized media event where a new MacBook was rumored. Both computers share something in common: USB Type-C, which is bleeding-edge tech. The connector received much media attention on Monday and Tuesday two ways: Buzz about it being the next great thing, and MacBook having but one port (Pixel has two, and others).
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