PerfeITo Software Solutions...

Application Development and Testing

2011-10-31T14:37:00.001-04:00

Application development and testing consumes large quantities of your data center resources. The need for compute resources fluctuates throughout your application development lifecycle – for example, when 100 servers are needed for two weeks to load-test a new application, or when developers in multiple sites need servers for initial prototyping. You typically plan for these surges by provisioning for peak usage. The result: during downtime in the lifecycle, this expensive equipment sits idle in your data center. But under-provisioning is not an option, since the applications that are being built and tested, such as CRM, ERP and custom external-facing applications, are important to your business operations.

Moving this application development and testing lifecycle to the cloud lets you:

Provision your data center with only the resources needed for your steady-state operations, saving you substantial capital expenditure and moving non-production environments out of your production resources
Provide your development and QA organizations with the flexibility to “turn on” capacity when they need it
Maintain control over cloud usage and ensure enterprise security policies remain in effect

CloudSwitch makes it easy to use the cloud for application development. Not only does CloudSwitch allow your developers to build and test applications in the cloud as if they were in the data center, but with CloudSwitch it’s also easy to bring the applications back INTO the data center as you go into production. You have the control you need throughout the development process, with the capacity and flexibility you need so your data center resources are not impacted.

Windows 8 to tap heavily into Windows Live

2011-09-22T16:50:00.000-04:00

Windows 8 will let users more easily and seemlessly bridge the gap between online and offline by directly tapping into Microsoft's Windows Live service.

Some of the features and benefits of the new Windows Live integration in Microsoft's upcoming OS are;

Windows 8 prompts you to log in with your Windows Live ID. If you allow it to do so, Windows Live can then automatically store your Windows profile, settings, and other key files in the cloud. This gives you the ability to synchronize those settings with any Windows 8 PC in which you're logged in, ensuring that you retain the same preferences from one PC to another. Microsoft is also promising the same synchronization between PCs and mobile devices running Windows Phone 7.

Windows 8 will also integrate more smoothly with Sky drive, Microsoft's online storage site. Documents, photos, and other files that you create locally can be saved to SkyDrive, accessed from any PC, and even shared with other people that you designate. Microsoft will reportedly still limit SkyDrive users to 25 gigabytes of space for most files but offer unlimited storage for photos or Office documents.

The new operating system will further rely on the new Metro user interface to let you access and share different information, whether it's online or offline. Booting into Metro will show you tiles for key services, such as e-mail, calendar, and contacts. The e-mail feature can connect to multiple accounts, such as work and home. The Calendar can also display appointments for work and home as well as those of friends, family, or colleagues with Windows Live accounts.

People is Microsoft's new address book, which ties together all your contacts, including those from Facebook and LinkedIn. And the new Photos app in Windows 8 can show you photos from your local PC, another PC, SkyDrive, and other services.

The company is also opening up Windows Live and SkyDrive to developers who want to incorporate those services into their own applications or devices.

SharePoint Integration with Office

2011-09-19T21:07:00.001-04:00

Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services takes Microsoft Office beyond the desktop application and brings it online so that we can share and collaborate more effectively with other people in company, group or organization. SharePoint is a web site that can be displayed in a browser such as Internet Explorer, and includes an interface for displaying lists and libraries in a secure database.

SharePoint also contains various web-parts that can display sorted or filtered information in various ways, or can display some kind of custom functionality. SharePoint can be used for something as simple as a list of contacts, or for something as complex as a project management dashboard for a new store opening.

Document management and sharing are the most important features of Windows SharePoint Services. We can use these features to create, manage, and share documents easily. Because these features are integrated with Office 2007, and can easily find them and use them.

File Menu Integration

Document sharing is fully integrated into the File menu in most Office 2007 applications. You can use the File menu to open or save documents in a document library on a SharePoint site.

Document Check-in and Check-out

Windows SharePoint Services provides an intuitive, easy-to-use method for tracking the version history of a document. First, if you want to work on a document that is stored in a document library, you can check out the document. When you do this, other users cannot make changes to the document. This helps prevent the confusion that can occur when multiple users make simultaneous changes to the same document. When you finish working on the document, you can check in the document so other users can work on it. To check out a document, you must be a member of a site group with the Edit Items right for that SharePoint site.

Version Tracking

Windows SharePoint Services also handles version tracking for documents stored on a SharePoint site. Windows SharePoint Services keeps copies of previous versions of each document so you can go back and view the changes that were made to a document at any time.

Integrated Web Discussions

Windows SharePoint Services enhances the existing shared editing features in Office 2007 by providing inline discussion tools and by storing inline discussion comments on the SharePoint site. This means that reviewers can add their comments directly to the document and that reviewer comments are stored and managed centrally, so they are available whenever an editor or reviewer opens a document from the SharePoint site.

Document Workspace Sites and Meeting Workspace Sites

Windows SharePoint Services introduces Document Workspace sites and Meeting Workspace sites, which are innovative new tools for communicating and sharing. A Document Workspace site or Meeting Workspace site is a SharePoint site that you can quickly create from an Office 2007 application to share a particular task, document, or project.

Google Offers To Re-Write Your Webpages

2011-07-28T21:36:00.002-04:00

Google has long been obsessed with speed. It’s paramount in pretty much everything they do. Which is why the launch of Google+ with some — gasp — attention paid to design is even more surprising. But a new service Google is launching this evening very much puts the focus back on speed — an obsessive amount of focus, one might say.

Page Speed Service is the latest tool in Google’s arsenal to help speed up the web. This service is also their most ambitious yet. When you sign up and point your site’s DNS entry to Google, they’ll enable the tool which will fetch your content from your servers, rewrite your webpages, and serve them up from Google’s own servers around the world. Yes, you read all of that correctly.

“Your users will continue to access your site just as they did before, only with faster load times,” Google notes. They say that applying web performance best practices across these pages should improve speed by 25 to 60 percent. Google will allow you to test out how much they’ll be able to speed up your site before you commit to it, apparently.

“Now you don’t have to worry about concatenating CSS, compressing images, caching, gzipping resources,” Google says. Okay, but isn’t that a little freaky, giving Google the ability to re-write and serve your pages on the fly? Perhaps. But if they really can deliver on the results they’re promising, it may be worth it.

Google says that Page Speed Service will be offered for free to a limited set of testers right now. Eventually, they will charge for it, and pricing will be “competitive”.

8 Universal Principles of Success

2011-07-18T10:20:00.000-04:00

Success is not something that only a chosen few can achieve. Everyone can be successful in every area of his or her life. You just need to know how to do things in such a way as to make sure you succeed every time. Success comes as a result of forming certain habits, and continuing in them. Consistency is key. To succeed, you need to be a certain type of person. Don't be discouraged if you are not yet that type of person. With practice, anyone can become a successful person. The successful person thinks in a certain way, talks in a certain way, and acts in a certain way. The list below briefly outlines 10 of those ways (and a bonus tip!). Anyone who consistently applies these principles to any area of their life will experience success in that area.

Vision: Have a clear picture of what exactly it is you want to achieve or become. Keep this picture at the top of your mind at all times. Doing something you want to do, because you want to do it, will motivate you to succeed at it. Start with the end in mind.

Belief: Believe without a shadow of a doubt that you can do it. Believe that you will succeed. Believe in a Higher Power who is helping you get what you want. Stay away from negative influences (people, books/articles, anything negative), which make you doubt your ability to succeed. Surround yourself with things that remind you that you can, and will, succeed.

Responsibility: Realize that you alone are responsible for your future. You alone are responsible for the outcome of your efforts. Don't look for anyone to blame. Feel free to ask for help as you need it, but remember the final decision is up to you. It's your life, after all.

Affirm: Make a habit of saying out loud what you hope to achieve. Speak of it in the present tense, e.g., 'I am fit and trim', as opposed to 'I will be fit and trim'. If you feel awkward speaking out loud to yourself, write down the affirmation. Then look at it (or better still, rewrite it) several times each day. This helps your mind stay focused on the goal. It also builds your self-belief and confidence.

Commitment: Make a firm commitment to action. Decide to take whatever steps you need to take to help you achieve your goals. Then honour the commitment you've made. Too often we find it easy to keep our commitments to others while neglecting to keep our commitments to ourselves. This pattern has to change if you're to succeed in life.

Set a SMART goal: Now that you know what you want to achieve or become, you need to define it by making it a goal. Your goal has to be Specific, Measurable (you need a standard to help you know when you've achieved it) and Motivational (it's got to inspire you and keep you motivated), Attainable and Attractive, Realistic (no point setting an unrealistic goal such as "I want to be a millionaire this evening") and Timed (State when you hope to achieve it).

Plan and Take Action: Work out a plan of action. Break down the plan into baby steps. Take a step or two each day, reminding yourself that each step is bringing you closer to your goal. Perform each act to the best of your ability, filled with faith, determination and purpose to reach your goal. Most importantly, be consistent.

Persistence: Do not give up until you have achieved what you desire. In the course of things, be willing to change any part of your plan which turns out not to work, and try something else. Thomas Edison did not give up in his quest to invent the light bulb, even though he'd 'failed' 10,000 times. Now that's persistence! See every failure as a stepping-stone to success and as a temporary set back. Learn from it and push on towards your goal.

The Advantages of Using Cloud Computing

2011-06-28T13:22:00.000-04:00

A recent survey carried out by PEER 1 Network Enterprises found that of the 88% of key decision-makers that do not use cloud computing, 39% said it was because they don't know enough about it. So, for those who are still in the dark, what is cloud computing anyway?

Cloud computing enables users to store files and software remotely, rather than on a hard drive or server at their office. The fact is many people may already be using cloud computing without realizing it, whether through work or personal use. Examples include web-based email like Gmail and Hotmail, communication tools like Skype, video sites like YouTube and Vimeo and music-sharing sites such as SoundCloud.

Some examples of cloud computing applications include software as a service (SaaS), Customer Relationship Management, file storage, file synchronization and file back-up. It's now possible for businesses to have their own private cloud, which incorporates specific services and is only accessible to specific people.

The Benefits of Cloud Computing
There are lots of advantages to using cloud computing for international companies. One of the major ones is the flexibility that it offers. Cloud computing means that staff can access the files and data that they need even when they're working remotely and/or outside office hours.

As long as they can get on the Internet, staff can access information from home, on the road, from clients' offices or even from a smartphone such as a BlackBerry or iPhone. Staff can also work collaboratively on files and documents, even when they're not physically together. Documents can simultaneously be viewed and edited from multiple locations.

Cloud computing can be very quick and easy to get up and running. Consider, for example, how quickly you can set up a Gmail or Hotmail account and start emailing - it takes minutes and all you need is a computer and the Internet. Downloading and installing software, on the other hand, takes much longer.

Cloud computing is often cheaper and less labor-intensive for companies too. There is no need to buy and install expensive software because it's already installed online remotely and you run it from there, not to mention the fact that many cloud computing applications are offered free of charge. The need to pay for extensive disk space is also removed. With cloud computing, you subscribe to the software, rather than buying it outright. This means that you only need to pay for it when you need it, and it also offers flexibility, in that it can be quickly and easily scaled up and down according to demand. This can be particularly advantageous when there are temporary peaks in demand, such as at Christmas or in summer, for example.

A major advantage of using cloud computing for many companies is that because it's online, it offers virtually unlimited storage compared to server and hard drive limits. Needing more storage space does not cause issues with server upgrades and equipment - usually all you need to do is increase your monthly fee slightly for more data storage.

In addition, there is no need to take on specialist IT staff, and businesses don't have to worry about maintaining and upgrading software or fixing bugs, as all maintenance is done by the providers. This frees-up in-house IT teams to focus on technical issues specific to the business. Remote maintenance means it's easy for businesses to always have the latest and most powerful version of any particular software.

Automatic software updates can be especially useful for legal or financial compliance reasons. For example, consider accounting and bookkeeping software - when tax rates change the system will be automatically and centrally updated.

Many international businesses also choose cloud computing because of its green credentials. Microsoft recently claimed that cloud computing can reduce a business's carbon emissions by as much as 30%, as businesses don't need to power an entire server, they only use (and pay for) what they need online.

The Pros and Cons
There are some potential drawbacks to cloud computing, though, that are worth bearing in mind. One of the reasons many businesses choose cloud computing is because online storage and back-up means their data can't be lost or destroyed, but the flip side is that many are concerned about the security issues associated with storing their data on the web.

While some experts argue that cloud computing is more secure than traditional server methods, businesses are still concerned that outsiders (or insiders) could bypass security systems and access confidential data. A survey from IDC found that security was the main worry that businesses have about cloud computing, followed by availability and performance. However, it's worth weighing up the risks and remembering that traditional servers can also be hacked into, hard drives can fail and computers can be lost or stolen.

Privacy is another issue which businesses cite as a concern when it comes to cloud computing. Some wonder how much data and what kind of data companies are able to collect about them and their business.

Another concern for some companies when it comes to cloud computing is the risk of losing Internet connectivity. The risks associated with this are usually isolated and short-lived, but many companies' workflows are massively disrupted by any Internet downtime. Businesses that implement cloud computing need to take steps to reduce the risk of any Internet interruption or reduced speeds. However, these risks are comparable with servers or computers being out of action for a period of time, which is just as likely, or perhaps more likely to happen, than the Internet failing.

While there are a number of issues for companies to bear in mind, and cloud computing may not be ideal for every business, it can be an extremely cost-effective and beneficial way for large and small international companies to store data and access software - so it's well worth considering and researching in more depth. Because of the scalability of cloud computing, it's easy for firms to start small and try certain applications out to see how it works for them and their business before gradually expanding their use.

Offshore Software Development - Business challenges and How to overcome it?

2011-06-27T10:26:00.000-04:00

Here we are headed to discuss what is offshore ? what are the biggest threats in "Offshore Software Development" in India?

The biggest threats in "Offshore Software Development" in India are:
• People can be hired at lower rates from other parts of the world
• Lack of domain specific service providers
• The trend is to offer general services and not focus on a niche product

Some extremely useful solutions that may be effective for the Indian market and make it easy for the companies in getting future offshore work. The key to success, is a "laser sharp focus".It is very important to develop a trust factor between the customer and the service provider. A focused domain, honestly towards the customer by spending more time in research, and a consistent delivery of work are some simple tools to the success of offshore business.
Talked about reverse off-shoring. UK and Europe are way ahead when it comes to skills, talent and dedication of people. "10 persons in US", "is equivalent to a team of 50 people in India".
The challenge will remain immense if:
• Empathy is not shown towards the customers
• Smaller companies do not focus on a single niche domain
• Work is not delivered on time
It is very important to put the right person on the right job. An employee, who is technically very sound, need not be the project manager of a company, owing to his pay scale and experience. A company in such practice would only end up losing a good resource. To have a profound effect of the product developed on the customer an entrepreneur should make extreme innovation and creativity a habit.
Offshore Market Opportunities
It is important for any company to define their work process. This would help them in two ways:
• By fetching a monthly price
• By helping them get long lasting project
The biggest problem with smaller companies is that people, after a certain point of time, move out looking for jobs. What these young people don't understand is that they need a career and not just a job. Hiring policies for any SMEs or start-ups is thus very important. Entrepreneurs has to set a benchmark performance or expectation at the time of recruitment.
Some valuable points below can be very promising for any company:
• Generate empathy towards the customer
• Show your commitment and energy towards a project
• Maintain consistency
• Meet the deadlines
• Be upfront while you communicate
• Learn to say a "NO"
Delivering Work on Time
Time management is also very important for any company who mainly survive on offshore product development.When you promise a delivery date, make sure you meet the deadline. If there are holidays, make sure to inform the customer a day before.Proactive and upfront communication is always an added advantage to build trust with the client.
Payment on Time
A common problem faced by many SMEs is the struggle to get the payment on time.In smaller projects the payment is cleared on delivery. Therefore it is better to go for larger projects and negotiate on a phase wise or advanced payment. "If you are a newbie in the industry", "its better to start with local clients. It will help you to build your portfolio". A trust is a two way game. So when you go into a contract, make sure you have mentioned your terms and conditions clearly. Often it becomes difficult to get the signoff amount if it's a long-term project. In such a case a company can make a signoff checklist to monitor if the work has been delivered accordingly.

How to get your work noticed at your job

2011-06-22T14:08:00.000-04:00

This article is to give some tips to get your work noticed by your boss.
Imagine you have joined a new company and of course your team leader,project leader, manager everybody will be noticing how well you are performing.In a fast paced corporate environment,after a while,we are not sure whether our work are being noticed by our next level bosses.It is really important to put some efforts to boost your individual status and personal kudos for your work.

The best way is to step outside normal working routine.For example,if you have to process "X" number of transactions each day- and so does everyone else-then processing more wont do you that much good.
If you submit a report to your boss of how everyone could process more transactions , then you will get noticed.That makes you to stand out from the crowd.Also you should send the report occasionally and sticking to some rules.
Never stand still:
Most people go to work daily thinking about to return back to home at the magic time.Most of them think about next coffee breaks.But you should be busy in planning and executing next maneuver.Doing the job is not an end game for you-it is merely a means to an end. And the end is promotion,success, learning,more money, more contacts and experience.
Volunteer carefully:
A lot of people think that if they say "Yes" to everything , they will get praised, noticed.Not true.A clever manager will use this"i will do it" mentality and at last you will end up with more work.Before you put your hand up to volunteer for anything,think very carefully.Ask yourself various questions.
Carve out a Niche for yourself:
Carving out niche means spotting a useful area that no else does. It might be as simple as spreadsheets,report writing,company software,budgets or understanding the system.This makes you to stand out from herd and gives you independence and a superior quality.
Under promise and over deliver:
If you know you can do it by Wednesday,always say Friday. This is not dishonest,merely prudent.But don't be too blatant when you do this , it should be pleasant surprise not a frequently used tactic.

DNN for website design

2011-06-22T11:54:00.001-04:00

Do you want to redesign or create a new website? You do not need any programming skills to host or administrate your website.

Now creating website is not a tedious process . Also you can frequently change the skins and add/delete the module to make your website lively using DotNetNuke.

What is DNN?

DNN is a CMS platform that can be extended with modules to achieve desired functions in your website.It is like the operating system on your computer it really doesn't do much until you install programs on it.

DNN Design and Development:

DotNetNuke is a program that runs on Microsoft ASP.NET. It is also a framework, meaning, it is a program that is designed to be extended. One of the ways you extend the framework is to create modules. These modules are installed inside a DotNetNuke installation and when they run in that DotNetNuke installation they extend the framework to create a DotNetNuke website also called a portal.

What is CMS?

CMS is a content management system (CMS) is the collection of procedures used to manage work flow in a collaborative environment. These procedures can be manual or computer-based. The procedures are designed to do the following:
Allow authorised people to contribute to and share stored data
Control access to data, based on user roles (defining which information users or user groups can view, edit, publish, etc.)
Aid in easy storage and retrieval of data
Reduce repetitive duplicate input
Improve the ease of report writing
Improve communication between users

CMSs are frequently used for storing, controlling, enriching, and publishing documentation.

Uses:

Using DNN we were able to save considerable development time. With DNN content management a number of tasks can be performed in moments. It has multi-lingual support and provides a user friendly admin interface.

Numerous pre-installed Dot Net Nuke modules allow you creating an interesting, original and dynamic website absolutely free of charge.

These are just a few things of what you can easily do with a DNN-based website:

Manage site content: add announcements, events, blogs, feedback and contact forms etc.
Enrich your site with text, tables, pictures, links and more
Assign membership roles and security levels
Send bulk emails and submit the website to search engines
Set up banner advertising and customize page appearance

Contact us mail@perfeitosoftware.com to get a DotNetNuke Development Quote
If you need a robust, highly scalable and unique solution, our dedicated team of DotNetNuke developers is ready to implement your idea. We can provide programming services for new modules and exclusive skins and integrate them into the existing CMS.

Key Differences between Azure and EC2

2011-06-20T20:50:00.000-04:00

At the time of application design decision on Cloud , most of us get into this discussion at some point of time, “The Key differences between Windows Azure and Amazon EC2.

I thought of listing down the key differences of the both.Following comparison might be helpful.

Basic

Azure can be classified as Platform as a Service (PaaS): a cloud model that offers hardware, operating systems and application-support, effectively offering a virtual server on which to load software, which can be accessed and managed through a Web browser.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) EC2 allows users to rent virtual computers on which to run their own computer applications.Amazon EC2’s simple web service interface allows to obtain and configure capacity with minimal friction.

Application Support

Amazon EC2 running Microsoft Windows Server® (available in 2003 R2, 2008 or 2008 R2 editions) is a fast and dependable environment for deploying applications using the Microsoft Web Platform, including ASP.NET, ASP.NET AJAX, Silverlight™, and Internet Information Server (IIS). Amazon EC2 enables you to run any compatible Windows-based solution on AWS’ high-performance, reliable, cost-effective, cloud computing platform.

Microsoft Azure on the other hand is purely a Windows environment with Windows Server 2008 the primary environment and all languages/applications that are available on Windows Server is supported. It supports other languages like Java, PHP and Ruby to run on Azure.

Scalability

By using Windows Azure, we can quickly scale up to handle the heavy computational and storage needs it has for its online video platform. Whereas scaling up with Amazon EC2 required the company to add more virtual servers and manage its own scaling logic.

Pricing

Amazon EC2 changes the economics of computing by allowing you to pay only for capacity that you actually use. Azure require no up-front expenses, no long term commitment, and enable you to pay only for the resources you use.

Deployment/Setup Complexity

Setup for Amazon EC2 involves setting up an image and configuring a virtual instance of the instance to include the Operating System/Application. The setup and deployment activities are similar in nature to setup a virtualized environment. Amazon provides command line tools which would help support this.Azure provides an integrated approach of deployment directly from Visual Studio which would directly allow you to deploy the solution on Azure.

CRM and Social Media for Business

2011-06-13T16:14:00.000-04:00

There's no doubt that social media and social networking have changed the way people connect and communicate. As these technologies are being adopted by people of all ages, all over the world, a whole new audience is able to be reached by anyone with Internet access and an E-mail address. For businesses especially, social networking has changed the way they communicate with their customers - and find new ones.

Providers of Web-based customer relationship management (CRM) applications have worked hard to incorporate these new networks and technologies into their services, utilizing the power of the cloud to connect and integrate regular CRM tools with sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn; creating what has come to be known as social CRM. On the site, you'll find more in-depth information regarding social networks and how they can help you to grow your business, including:

How you can use social networking to track your leads
The right approach to doing business online
What cloud computing is and how it relates to CRM
Social CRM for small businesses
How you can maximize sales using the Internet and social networks

Customers are key to businesses' success. Customer relationship management (CRM) systems offer businesses a way to keep current customers satisfied, as well as a way of finding new customers. Social networking can play a huge role in both these endeavors.

Many companies incorporate CRM systems in order to manage and organize all the contact it has with both existing and prospective customers, through software or Web-based approach that supports these ventures. For example, customer data and interactions can be entered, stored, and accessed by personnel based on several categories. The data then can be used to encourage better customer service with comprehensive information, and to improve targeted marketing. Social networking offers yet another channel to accomplish both of these goals.

Social media has revolutionized the way people communicate. At the onset of the social media craze, it was usually thought that only young people and those who knew their way around a computer could use these tools. However, businesses and individuals of all kinds have jumped on the social media bandwagon to find new and innovative ways to use these tools.

For businesses, social media presents a whole new way of connecting and building relationships with customers. From a Facebook wall post to a friendly Twitter reply, you can now create personalized conversations with individual customers over the Internet.

Do you treat your customers as your top priority? If not, you should! Customer relationships are reliant on sales management and the forecasting of sales by representatives who derive their client knowledge from experience and what is provided to them. Sales management is a means by which all sales are tracked and organized in a variety of ways. Sales management is there to ensure that sales force goals are achieved by individual sales personnel and the sales team, as a whole.

Companies today are incorporating customer relationship management (CRM) programs that place the emphasis on satisfying customers and finding new clients. In order to keep existing customers happy, companies must find ways to be innovative in connecting with them. Businesses are finding ways to utilize social media to reach customers in effective and convenient ways.

Social networking allows customers to be an interactive part of the business process. Though social media customers can share suggestions, ideas, ask questions, inquire about other products, and communicate about countless other topics.

Cloud computing is one of those buzzwords that everyone seems to be bandying about these days, but no one seems to agree on a definition. If you have been hearing about cloud-based this and cloud computing that, and are wondering how these concepts might apply to your business, pull up a chair. We have got some good, solid answers for you.

At its most basic, cloud computing is a network-based model for supercomputing over the Internet, instead of using on-premises software, hardware and servers. In fact, you are probably already using consumer cloud computing applications. If you have ever uploaded a video to YouTube, or photographs to Flickr or Snapfish for your friends and relatives to view; if you have ever opened a Web-based email account through Yahoo!, Gmail or Hotmail; or if you are a member of a social networking site such as Facebook or Twitter, then you have used cloud computing.

Enterprise cloud computing takes the concept to a corporate level. With cloud-based business applications, a company can access information technology resources from a shared data center. The cloud aims to provide tens of trillions of computations per second – compared to the most powerful desktop PCs, which process only a few billion computations per second – by networking large groups of servers that often use low-cost consumer technology and utilizing specialized connections to enable them to complete the large-scale data-processing chores.

Cloud computing is billed either on a utility model, like electricity, or on a subscription model, whereby the company pays a monthly fee. Either way, the company pays for only the resources it uses.

It is important to understand that cloud computing is still a developing paradigm, just as the Internet itself was ten years ago and continues to be today. As consumer tastes and trends change, and workforces evolve, cloud computing will adapt in response. Yet, it is already clear that cloud computing is no flash in the pan, but a technological concept worth learning more about.

Running IT as a business

2011-06-09T13:35:00.034-04:00

Seven steps to aligning IT with the business

The massive growth in IT over the past decade has moved it from being a backoffice support function to a critical business unit. IT now ranks among the top five expenditures of most companies.CIOs have to show how the money is spent, the returns they are getting for their investments, and how IT is driving corporate performance. This increased role requires focus, vision and, above all, transparency – into services, costs, demand, processes and impact on corporate performance.

The benefits of aligning IT with the business
• Improve management control.
• Understand and communicate the financial and non-financial value of each IT project and operation.
• Comply with legislative requirements.
• Reallocate IT resources to projects of most importance to the business.
• Facilitate the elimination of IT projects that are not delivering.

Cost management and transparency
For the CIO to compete for resources, the IT function needs to operate as a business within a business – providing valuable services to the rest of the organization. The CIO must effectively educate the organization and provide clearly articulated and relevant cost information.

A detailed understanding of the cost within the IT business provides clear and positive advantages to the CIO and the wider organization:
• Ensuring optimal resource allocation to areas of greatest value.
• More effective allocation of resources to “areas of need.”
• Reducing complexity within IT and simplifying internal processes.
• More informed budgeting (capital and operating) and pricing of new projects.
• Greater understanding of IT capacity and ability for delivery.
• Ability to link IT investments to overall organizational benefits.
• Facilitating practices and tools such as total cost of ownership (TCO) and return on investment (ROI).
The importance of chargeback

It is difficult to maximize returns from IT when the product appears to be free to customers. Ideally, IT operates as a service provider with a catalog of products and services that are aligned with customer needs and corporate goals. For this, IT needs:
• Accurate pricing for its services that reflects the cost to provide them.
• An understanding of what drives both demand and cost.
• An equitable, repeatable and accurate method to track and invoice customers based on their usage of
the services.
• To encourage end-user accountability for the return on investments.Cost control is the greatest benefit that comes from IT chargeback.Chargeback gives clear transparency into the benefits and the value that IT brings, and the impact on the bottom line means better relationships with the rest of the organization.

Budgeting and planning
IT financial management processes are often resource-intensive, involving the manual collection of financial data that is scattered across the enterprise. With a lack of data to support accurate forecasts, the resulting budget is often based on political biases.This reduces the time and effort involved while increasing the accuracy of forecasts and simulations, and forms the basis for the financial budget, aligning organizational objectives, requirements, volume and cost.

Resource optimization
To maximize returns from new and existing infrastructure, IT needs a consolidated, end-to-end view of use of its applications and infrastructure, both physical and virtual, to understand how all IT components interact. IT organizations have made substantial cost savings through re-purposing underused infrastructure and combining server workloads.

Summary
Managing IT as a business is now an imperative. No longer can IT be seen as a technology supplier – it must be seen to be adding value to the organization and providing corporate strategic capability. IT business performance allows IT to change the focus from technology and production to customers and services. It enables IT to become service-oriented, aligning itself with the organization to provide customer-driven solutions to business problems

Unruly USB: Devices Expose Networks to Malware

2011-05-30T13:25:00.000-04:00

The news today is chock full of stories about sensitive information being carried out the institutional perimeter on ‘simple’ USB devices. These powerful portable drives rightfully worry IT as a means for devastating data loss at the hands of malicious insiders. But it’s pretty easy for organizations to get so wrapped up about what goes out on USB drives that they forget to protect against what comes in their environments via
USB.And with attacks inflicting increasingly greater damage following uncontrolled connection, it’s time that organizations got serious about this threat.Recently the US Army admitted that an infected USB stick was responsible for causing one of the biggest cybersecurity breaches in military history.

In order to keep organizations secure from threats, IT departments must bring greater scrutiny and control over how the network is exposed to potentially infected portable payloads. But let’s get real: they can’t do so by gluing USB ports shut. Portable devices as business tools are here to stay. IT leaders who refuse to recognize that fact will be seen throughout their organizations as inhibitors to success. The key to USB
security is balancing productivity with protection.
It’s Not Just USB

While we’ve focused much of our attention on the ubiquitous USB flash drive, organizations need to
think about threats that extend from all forms of removable media in use today. These include:
» CD drives
» DVD drives
» Blu-ray drives
» FireWire
» eSATA connected devices
» Consumer products such as picture frames

Evolution of USB as an Attack Vector

The more users depend on USB and portable devices to store and move data, the more tantalizing a target these devices become for hackers looking for an easy way to infect a large number of machines. And as the USB format becomes more complex with a greater number of features to exploit, the bad guys are finding increasingly creative ways to use USB against their victims.
USB Security Best Practices

So what exactly does it take to change our trust models? It starts with smart policy development.
Some key policies that organizations should consider to reduce their risks right off the bat include:
» Ensuring common PC and laptop configurations have AutoRun features disabled, limiting the efficacy of USB malware that depends on this feature to run and to propagate.
» Requiring timely installation of security updates
In order to minimize the risk of USB-borne malware taking advantage of unpatched endpoint vulnerabilities.
» Limiting access of USB and portable devices to registered devices only, enabling better control over who, when and how devices are being utilized.
» Preventing the initiation of some or all executables from portable devices, blocking malware from running in the first place.
» Requiring strong passwords (and not allowing the use of default passwords) throughout your infrastructure to prevent worms such as Stuxnet from working their way further into systems.
» Requiring proper, up-to-date AV and firewall usage to prevent malware from gaining a foothold within the endpoint and spreading to other systems in the network.
Enforcement: Putting Teeth in Policies

By enforcing usage policies for removable devices such as USB flash drives and other removable media such as CDs / DVDs, you can control the flow of inbound and outbound data from your endpoints.
Devices that are not authorized should simply not be allowed to execute. Ideally, organizations should look for tools and develop processes that enable them to quickly establish and enforce device control policies as simply and as methodically as possible. Policies should be manageable by user or user group as well as by computer, and organizations should look for capabilities that enable user groups to be immediately associated with devices “on-the-fly.” The goal is to dramatically simplify the management of endpoint device resources through improved tracking of who, when and how devices are being used. By validating removable devices as they are used within the enterprise, you can prevent malware from being introduced into the network. This includes assigning permissions for authorized removable devices and media to individual users or user groups and controlling the uploading of unknown or unwanted files from removable devices.
By developing policies and implementing solutions that enable a more flexible but easily trackable
environment, IT departments become partners in security and business success rather than technology mall

cops to be disregarded at all costs. Enterprises with such forward-looking technology decision-makers will
gain a decisive productivity advantage while protecting their organizational endpoints.

Customer Service Management

2011-05-17T16:42:00.000-04:00

The explosion of social media has changed the business-to-consumer landscape. A couple of points will elucidate this fact. 34% bloggers post opinions on brands and products on their blogs and 78% consumers believe them. It’s a fact that Facebook knows more about your customers than you do.
So, what are you doing about it? If customers are talking about your brand on social networks, shouldn’t you be listening to them carefully?

Customer support management in the new age is all about being proactive and creating cases for quick resolve. There are four clear steps for proactive online social customer support.

1. Keep an ear to the ground and listen to what they say and wherever they say.
2. Address customer’s problems using data captured and collected through various sources and analyze it using data analytics technique. Salesforce.com CRM provides resources like dashboards and real time service reports which provide these insights.
3. Relate if the problem is regarding the product, service or end user support.
4. Act, if possibly, real time and through the social networking medium of the customer’s preference.

Benefits

Track customer satisfaction in real time in order to address problems immediately and enable better customer retention
Provide support teams anytime, anywhere access to customer information—ideal for remote support employees
Link sales, service and fulfillment organizations to drive more revenue
Accelerate case resolution times by providing support reps with complete customer visibility
Increase response accuracy and reduce response times with an integrated knowledge base
Use case escalation rules to ensure that your most valued customers always receive the proper levels of support
Key Features
- Case Management
  - Cut costs and improve workflow by automating the business processes associated with customer support case assignment, management and escalation
  - Route cases intelligently, enabling fast, efficient prioritization
  - Respond to customer cases across a variety of mediums, including e-mail, phone and fax
  - Log and analyze e-mail communications in order to better serve current and future customers
  - Route and track support cases according to product, issue, case type, partner or customer, giving customers a specialist in each area to address their concerns
  - Enable online case creation and self-service case updates.
- Knowledge Base Software
  - Build an effective online knowledge base to help customers get the answers they need, when they need them
  - Give customers and partners 24/7 access to customer service at a much lower cost than staffing your phone lines around the clock
  - Organize and publish information into different types and levels of topics and solutions
  - Give service reps access to a complete knowledge base, enabling them to respond faster to customer issues and reducing the learning curve when bringing on new reps.
- Customer Portal
  - Give customers real-time access to such data as order status, order status tracking and return authorizations
  - Drive more return visits and greater customer loyalty
  - Give customers the ability to enter trouble tickets online
  - Customize content to create a true one-to-one marketing platform, letting you publish information to specific prospects, customers or entire groups.
- Time Tracking
  - Automate and streamline the time tracking process, consolidating it quickly for reporting and billing
  - Keep accurate customer records by managing time within your CRM system rather than in separate systems
  - Get complete visibility into how your service and support teams are apportioning their time
  - Track time more accurately and use real-time metrics to improve time management practices.

E-Learning- Is it a substitute?

2011-05-17T16:32:00.000-04:00

With the rapid pace of technological advancements, the field of education also could not remain untouched and unaffected. The technology had cast a revolutionary impact on the way education could be imparted and also made available to the millions of students across the globe.

E learning is considered the next big revolution and IT holds a big promise in the way education can be made available to a large number people, thereby overcoming the barriers of language, nationality, distance and time.

With better study material, better teaching techniques, efficient and cost effective means of imparting education, e learning is fast catching pace. More and more nations are investing in technology to significantly increase the rate of Literacy and provide more avenues to people to enhance the knowledge base and skill sets. IT companies are investing in softwares and more and more focus is given to make people competent to learn the basics of computers and harness the benefits of IT.

E learning no doubt has been fast catching pace with growing sections of society but my opinion is that the real time class room education can never be substituted with e learning. The one to one interaction with the teacher and interactive class room sessions with peers, go way beyond in influencing the over all growth and development of an individual. The chanellizing of ideas and direction given by a teacher is incomparable to any IT solution that can be provided. Even in the words of Henry Brooks Adams- A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell, where his influence stops.The type of atmosphere that is provided by the regular teaching and the exchange of ideas and inculcation of values and team work that happen, go way beyond in shaping the personality and intellect of a person.

In my opinion e learning can be a supplement to teaching and to an extent, a necessity for the ones for whom education is a distant dream, but it can never be a substitute for regular education. Some argue that present day teaching is below standards and class room sessions are boring, but this does not effectively substantiate the argument in favor of IT learning.Even today the very first option should always be regular class room teaching and efforts should be made to improve the standards of teaching.

Desktop virtualization

2011-05-03T15:43:00.000-04:00

Desktop virtualization (sometimes called client virtualization), as a concept, separates a personal computer desktop environment from a physical machine using a client–server model of computing. The model stores the resulting "virtualized" desktop on a remote central server, instead of on the local storage of a remote client; thus, when users work from their remote desktop client, all of the programs, applications, processes, and data used are kept and run centrally. This scenario allows users to access their desktops on any capable device, such as a traditional personal computer, notebook computer, smart phone, or thin client. In simple terms, virtual machines are running on the server (for each client) and clients can connect to their "computers" using remote desktop software.
Virtual desktop infrastructure sometimes referred to as virtual desktop interface. (VDI) is the server computing model enabling desktop virtualization, encompassing the hardware and software systems required to support the virtualized environment.

VDI
Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) is the practice of hosting a desktop operating system within a virtual machine (VM) running on a centralized server. VDI is a variation on the client/server computing model, sometimes referred to as server-based computing (SBC). The term was coined by VMware Inc.

Advantages and disadvantages
The shared resources model inherent in desktop virtualization offers advantages over the traditional model, in which every computer operates as a completely self-contained unit with its own operating system, peripherals, and application programs. Overall hardware expenses may diminish as users can share resources allocated to them on an as-needed basis. Virtualization potentially improves the data integrity of user information because all data can be maintained and backed-up in the data center. Other potential advantages include:

simpler provisioning of new desktops
reduced downtime in the event of server or client hardware-failures
lower cost of deploying new applications
desktop image-management capabilities
longer refresh cycle for client desktop infrastructure
secure remote access to an enterprise desktop environment

Limitations of desktop virtualization include:

potential security risks if the network is not properly managed
some loss of user autonomy and privacy
challenges in setting up and maintaining drivers for printers and other peripherals
difficulty in running certain complex applications (such as multimedia)
increased downtime in the event of network failures, which can be prevented by the use of a clustered file system
reliance on connectivity to corporate or public network
complexity and high costs of VDI deployment and management

Emerging Tech

2011-05-02T16:14:00.000-04:00

Thunderbolt Successor to Come Out in 2015

Tags:

intel, thunderbolt

Intel may have just released the first generation Thunderbolt this spring, but Intel is already planning it for long term. Intel is already working on the Thunderbolt's successor, even before the original really takes off. Here is what the director of Intel Research labs had to say:

We see them as complementary. It's the evolution of these connectors and protocols as they move forward.   [Besides], Thunderbolt is more than a cable. It's a router chip that aggregates DisplayPort and PCI-Express.

No reason was given for the upgrades being developed so early on. Somecompanies outside of Apple have shown interest, but by no means have we seen anything big for it yet. Intel appears to be living more in a dream than a reality.
Via TG Daily

Pepsi Unveils Social Vending Machines

Tags:

Pepsi, PepsiCo, social media

You're out at a concert and you're about to buy a drink from a vending machine. You think about your friend who couldn't make it, and want to send them a quick text to let them know you're thinking of them and wish they were there.

With Pepsi's new social vending machines, you can not only send them a message, but you can buy them a drink at the same time.

Pepsi's new machines come with a fancy touch-screen UI that makes selecting a frosty beverage a more technical experience than perhaps it needs to be, but also include a social component that will take your friend's name and cell phone number and send them a text message with a code they can redeem for a free drink.

The code has to be redeemed at one of the new social machines. If you want, you can also give a random customer a gift at the vending machine through what Pepsi calls a "random act of refreshment," meaning someone will walk up, select their drink, try to pay, and be told that they're getting their drink for free. You can even record a quick video message to include with your free drink so the recipient knows who just made their day.

Pepsi has no plans for a rollout of the new machines; the current model is just a prototype. Still, it'll be on display at the National Automatic Merchandising Association Show in Chicago at the end of the month for everyone to see. Check out a video of the machine behind the jump.

Coming Soon: Glasses-Free 3D TVs in Airplanes

Tags:

Perhaps one day watching movies on an airline won't be a completely disappointing experience. A company called MasterImage 3D is leading the charge to bring 3D displays to airlines around the world.

MasterImage also wants glasses-free 3D technology to come to in-car entertainment systems. In other words, it will become a ubiquitous medium for when you don't really want to watch TV but have nothing better to do because you're stuck in a vehicle of some sort.

"We weren't looking at (airlines and car makers) initially. We were focusing on smartphones and tablets, but there turned out to be strong interest," said company VP Roy Taylor.

Potentially Landmark Ruling Bans Debt Collector From Facebook

Tags:

facebook

A Florida judge has ruled in favor of plaintiff Melanie Beacham in a harassment lawsuit against debt collector MarkOne Financial. In it, Beacham says she received 23 phone calls per day about a debt she owed, and then at one point MarkOne was able to track her down on Facebook. Representatives then not only sent online messages to her but also to everyone on her friend list.

In a preliminary ruling, the judge declared MarkOne is barred from contacting Beacham or any of her friends on any social networking site.

The legal order is the first of its kind, and a big victory for Beacham's lawyer Bill Howard. Howard, who focuses on consumer protection cases at firm Morgan & Morgan, said a ruling against using social networking to harass debt owners is "something we've been fighting for, and we finally got a court ruling on that."

Beacham's case remains ongoing, but some could say she already scored a victory

5 Things you need to know about videoconferencing

2011-05-02T15:38:00.000-04:00

1. Your office is now optional. A recent study from Infonetics Research projects that enterprises will spend $5 billion on videoconferencing and telepresence by 2015. To accommodate the need for instant connectivity and information sharing at the office, CIOs need to coordinate IT investments with physical space. Vendors like Polycom and Steelcase are teaming up to integrate audio, video and file sharing using multiple ports and display screens at office meeting tables. KKR, a private equity firm, has been using HD videoconferencing for four years among its 14 global offices. "We prefer to do a video call because it adds another layer of interaction," says CIO Ed Brandman. "You have everyone's undivided attention."

2. One window shows all your applications. Companies are using unified communications (UC) platforms like Microsoft Lync and Avaya Flare as videoconferencing catchalls. These platforms consolidate all the windows workers have on their computer screens at any time, including videoconferences. They also integrate social media, so employees can video chat with anyone from their social networks. The trade-off, experts say, is that users must abandon preferred chat clients and adapt to using UC for everything.

3. You can access video on the go. FaceTime on the iPhone 4 offers only one-on-one chat, and you may have to sacrifice quality with other free options, like Tango. Skype Mobile, which works with Wi-Fi and 3G, can handle multiple parties at once, but the connection can be unreliable and not all smartphones support video calls. Until more sophisticated networks are introduced, such services are best suited for informal calls.

4. Free options offer limited quality. Free solutions like Skype and Google are not always suitable for the enterprise-you don't want to be fussing with the connection at an important board meeting. Many chat clients have video options, so for one-on-one conversations, free video chat may work fine. But a recent Forrester report by analyst TJ Keitt says 72 percent of workers still don't want desktop videoconferencing, adding that companies need a clear idea of what they will use video for: "Businesses distribute it with no sense of how it should be used."

5. Live feeds are the next frontier. Live streaming can be a helpful tool for sharing events with people who can't attend or who want to watch them later. Applications such as Video Center from LifeSize or free downloads like Ustream let users upload a videoconference so they can watch it anywhere. The United Kingdom's National Health Service is planning to use a live-feed video application to broadcast surgeries to new doctors.

How to Sell an Idea to Your Boss

2011-04-19T15:33:00.000-04:00

Make sure top executives are on board and receptive all the time, not just when a revelatory thought bubbles up.
"My problem is not how to be innovative. My team often comes up with interesting ideas. But when we introduce them to top executives, they always turn them down. How can I convince my boss to invest in our ideas?" The question—asked at the end of a seminar on innovation at a major IT firm.
One of the hardest challenges for creative people—especially those working in units such as R&D, design, or marketing—is how to win top management's support for their ideas. Many feel that their proposals are killed not because they have poor potential but because their boss simply does not understand them or does not even listen to the presentation. They feel frustrated and dream of working with CEOs.
The solution to this problem is to have your boss onboard long before the idea comes up. Top executives who successfully promote innovation hardly invest in unexpected breakthroughs. They are actively involved upfront.
Therefore, avoid situations in which you have to sell an innovative idea to your boss. You might succeed, but the outcome will depend on factors that have nothing to do with the merits of your idea (e.g. how you presented the idea and the mood of your boss).
start the interaction with senior executives earlier in the innovation process:
1. Get an endorsement to investigate a business challenge. For example, if you work in the R&D department of a food company, a challenge could be coming up with new products that are healthier and provide a better experience by eating less. It's more likely that you will gain support for investigating such a challenge than suddenly selling an idea for a new valuable cheese that people will buy in smaller quantities. So even if you already have an idea for solving a problem, don't immediately pitch it.
2. Design the innovation process together. Once you have top management's support to tackle the challenge, come to an agreement on how to come up with ideas for tackling it.
3. Update top executives frequently. Keep feeding them information on how the investigation is developing along the way. When you do so, don't talk about the emerging possible solutions; instead, provide information on how you are interpreting the challenge. In this way, executives will more easily grasp the solution once you present it.
4. Involve top executives in the creation of the solution. By doing so you will not only receive precious insights but also stronger support, because executives will feel they own the idea. (This implies that your boss will put his or her name on the idea. Are you ready to sacrifice your ego for the sake of the innovation?)
I'm not implying that if you follow these steps, the idea that you ultimately propose will or should be accepted.But your boss will definitely have a better understanding of your proposals, your company's decision-making processes will substantially improve, and you will feel more supported and less frustrated.

Cubicle wars: Best and worst office setups for tech workers

2011-03-31T13:45:00.000-04:00

Consider the modern office layout: Open floor plan, lots of common space flooded with natural light, clusters of "pods" with low partitions (or none), all designed to encourage teamwork, boost productivity and -- management hopes -- improve the bottom line.That type of office layout looks great on the company's Web site, and most likely the creative team loves it, but does IT? After all, many high-tech employees prefer to work in solitude, or at least in an environment quiet enough to foster intense concentration for significant chunks of time. Are these trendy open office layouts torture to the techie brain?Web designers and developers, project managers, system architects, even some software developers are embracing office layouts that encourage interaction.

On the other hand, asking programmers or network administrators to do their jobs in an open space where noise, distractions and interruptions abound can be akin, for some of them at least, to departmental decimation.

IT managers at a range of companies, from giants like Google to small consultancies, to get a sense of which office layouts are better for which types of high-tech workers -- and which, emphatically, are not. Here's what we found about IT's likes and dislikes and why office layout is not a decision to make lightly.

open vs. office, the eternal debate

The IT profession attracts people who multitask in the extreme, declares a tech manager who oversees a staff of 15 at a U.S.-based grocery chain. These types of workers need some privacy to stay on task without interruptions sending them off in even more new directions, she says.

"Most people I [manage] are high-functioning multitaskers who can't stand to sit still; they're always doing something. They want offices so they're not disturbing others," says the manager, who asked not to be named.

She has twelve years of experience in management, and she says that every IT worker she has managed has jumped at the chance to move from a cubicle to an office when given the opportunity. And yet these workers still want their offices to be located close together, so they can easily bounce ideas off people who understand what they're talking about. "When they have a problem, they can quickly explain it to someone to get an answer," she says. "But they also like to be able to withdraw."

Walter says he believes Ally strikes a good balance between open and private. It offers IT workers a large open area filled with aisles of cubes divided by low partitions, with a variety of conference rooms -- ranging from ones large enough to fit about 30 people to small ones that accommodate just three or four -- scattered around the edges.

What's really best for IT?

The current trend in office design is to offer open space that fosters collaboration while still offering some workstation definition -- that is, some kind of physical boundary between one worker and the next.

For example, opening out traditional L-shaped cubes, where the two legs of the L form a 90-degree angle, to a configuration where the two sides form a 120-degree angle, increases workers' space while still giving them some boundaries.Whereas another employer says,the best setting is a cube with high walls located in the same area as other people who are working on the same project, regardless of job function.That way he can have the privacy to focus on his work, but also be able to stand up, take a few steps and ask questions of his co-workers when needed.

Six Mistakes Companies are Making today

2011-03-24T15:22:00.000-04:00

Is your Company Making the same mistakes?
Take the time to find out.
Mistake 1: Taking Existing Customers for Granted
When demand slows, the last thing you want to do is to take your customerbase for granted by assuming existing customers will remain loyal through tough economic times.Instead, customers may be faced with their own financial difficulties or could be lured away by incentives from the competition. Staying in tune with the needs of your customers and reacting appropriately can help shore up loyalty and maintain sales.
You need a simple and effective way to identify top customers based on profitability, size, or potential. But if
customer and sales data is located in multiple software applications, it could be difficult to access the information and build an overall picture needed for valuable insight into customer behaviors.
Mistake 2: Failing to Capitalize on Market Opportunities
Even with limited investment funds, you still have to make fact-based decisions about short- and long-term opportunities to grow top-line revenues – whether you’re trying to expand into new markets or extend a successful product line.Many great brands were launched during recessionary times and yet able to
capitalize on unique market opportunities.To invest in and seize market opportunities with confidence, you need a solution that helps you see trends and variances, analyze scenarios, and select the right combination of initiatives to maximize your returns.
Mistake 3: Allowing Operational Inefficiencies to Persist
To keep the cost of delivering goods and services in line, you must continually find ways to reduce waste
and eliminate inefficiencies.If operational wastefulness persists, you can lose control of your cost
structures – and that puts pressure on your gross margins. economic woes and restricted cash flows
are forcing companies to analyze cost structures by delving deeper into the information already at their fingertips.
Mistake 4: Letting Problems Go Undiagnosed and Uncorrected
In today’s business environment, an organization needs to address all outstanding issues – but you must
first identify and prioritize existing problems, then focus your time and energy on the most crucial. no organization wants to wait until a product is drastically behind schedule or a department significantly over budget before taking action. However, if you manually track project or program status, you risk not only wasting time and money on an ineffective approach but also delaying your ability to identify and then
correct problems.
Mistake 5: Driving the Wrong Behavior in the Organization
If your corporate goals aren’t clearly defined, communicated, and measured, you’re missing out on an opportunity to encourage beneficial behaviors. You may improve performance in one department or
division at the expense of overall company performance. Gartner suggests that organizations “show how
performance management efforts will benefit the enterprise if metrics and reporting align to corporate goals.
You need a solution that supports greater alignment, accountability, and performance at both the individual and the corporate level.s. But companies often find their strategic initiatives disconnected from daily operational goals, leaving employees confused about individual priorities. By clearly assigning accountability for goals and timelines, you can communicate explicit performance expectations throughout the company
and develop incentives that drive needed cultural and behavioral changes.

Mistake 6: Failing to Offer Transparency for Stakeholders
The global economic crisis is leading business stakeholders and governments to demand greater transparency into company finances, operations, decisions, and core performance metrics. However, many organizations find that overly complex reporting hampers their ability to demonstrate compliance or fiscal
health. According to Gartner analyst Bill Hostmann, “most organizations find they do not have the information, processes, and tools needed by their managers to make informed, responsive decisions. Too many enterprises underinvest in their information infrastructure.

2011-03-19T16:25:00.000-04:00

1)IBM Is Said to Pay $10 Million to Settle SEC Foreign-Bribery Allegations.
2)Rising costs in Bangalore, the center of India’s software industry, are prompting some in the U.S. to look more favorably on Hyderabad and other smaller tech hubs there.
3)Microsoft announced today their latest version of Internet Explorer 9 reached 2.3 million downloads in 24 hours.
4)Facebook blamed for eating disorders among girls
5)A former Goldman Sachs Group Inc computer programmer was sentenced to eight years in prison for stealing secret code used in the Wall Street bank's valuable high-frequency trading system.
6)Google employees' '20% time' goes to Japan to crafting Digital Age tools for handling the crisis.
7)Japan's next nightmare-serious health problems if too much radiation is released into the atmosphere.
8)United Kingdom which has one of the world's most reputed educational institutions is also looking forward to send its students to study in India in the areas of science and technology and software development.
9)IBM said it has bagged a 10-year outsourcing deal from Caparo India to provide enterprise resource planning and data centre infrastructure services.
10)HCL Infosystems has bagged an order from the IAF to deploy Wideband CDMA-based portable wireless network at a cost of over Rs 300 cr.
11)Four days into Japan's crisis, India's top tech firms have started bringing back employees and moving work to their centres outside Japan.

Internet Explorer 9 is out today, but can it contain Chrome?

2011-03-15T14:49:00.000-04:00

Microsoft today released the final version of its Internet Explorer 9 web browser, which has been available in Beta form for the past six months (accruing more than 40 million downloads in that time). Coming almost exactly two years after its predecessor IE8, IE9, now dubbed "Windows Internet Explorer 9", is touted as being the only fully hardware-accelerated HTML5 browser, promising to offer a "faster, richer and more immersive web experience".

Microsoft is hoping the new features will be enough to stem the slow but steady stream of browser users defecting to Google's Chrome, which has rocketed to a strong third position in the market (behind IE and Firefox) in just two and a half years (and which received a comprehensive update itself just one week ago).
Microsoft is presenting IE9 as the most standards-compliant browser it has ever released, with a strong focus on open HTML5 compatibility from the outset. It's also designed to offer a minimalist UI, so as not to get in the way of the user experience. As Microsoft puts it, "ideally, browsers melt into the background and allow websites to come forward and shine".

Microsoft is also emphasising with its new release the tight integration IE9 shares with the Windows OS - and your PC hardware generally - in order to bolster the browsing experience, claiming IE9 browsing becomes "as fast and responsive as native applications installed on your PC".And, in a sign of times, IE9 does not offer support for Windows XP. It will be a significant let-down for many users, but yep: only Vista and Windows 7 (and Server 2008) users need apply. Purportedly this is due to the graphics hardware acceleration features of IE9,which are optimised for newer operating systems.

Predicting the Impact of Large Magnitude Earthquakes

2011-03-15T14:12:00.000-04:00

Situation
It may be scientifically impossible to predict the specific day and time of an earthquake,
but researchers at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) aren’t taking
no for an answer. They’re just asking a different question.
Instead of looking for “when,” the UNAM researchers are asking “what if.” “We’re not
predicting that an earthquake will actually happen,” says lead researcher Mario Chavez.
“We’re posing ‘what if’ type scenarios such as, if an earthquake of a given magnitude
does hit a specific area how much and how fast will the earth surface move and what
is the probable impact of the earthquake given the region’s existing or projected
infrastructure.”
Using a 3D seismic wave propagation code, the researchers have studied major historic
earthquakes, modeling how seismic waves move through the earth’s crust. As well
as accurately modeling past events, this simulation technology will enable scientists
to study ground motions from hypothetical earthquakes and identify where groundshaking
shocks would be centered in the event of an earthquake.
“Our research means that governments, developers and planners could soon have
access to vital earthquake ground motion data that will enable them to assess the impact
of large or extreme magnitude earthquakes in their own region,” says Dr. Chavez. “This
kind of information could play a major role when working on risk assessment for a
facility site or when designing homes, hospitals, schools.”
Challenge
While realistic 3D modeling of the propagation of large subduction earthquakes has
vast potential, it also poses a numerical and computational challenge, particularly
because it requires enormous amounts of memory and storage as well as an intensive
use of computing resources. At UNAM, the team only had access to a small cluster
that limited them to runs on tens or hundreds of processors for a few hours at a
time, and producing only coarse simulations. For their code to be effective, they
needed finer resolutions only obtainable with more powerful parallel computing.

Solution
Through a collaboration made possible through the Scientific Computing
Advanced Training project (SCAT), a European Commission-funded project
bringing together researchers from six countries, Chavez connected with
computational scientists at the Science & Technology Facilities Council’s (STFC)
Daresbury Laboratory. With access to the Cray XT4 supercomputer HECToR,
the UK’s largest, fastest and most powerful academic supercomputer,
the Daresbury and UNAM teams worked together to optimize the code
for high performance computing and scale it up to more than 8,000
simultaneous processes. “For this project we have made use of the
highest levels of performance on parallel machines, allowing Chavez to
perform one of the few high resolution simulations to an accuracy and
magnitude that has not been done before for this kind of research,”
says Mike Ashworth, associate director of the computational science
and engineering department at STFC Daresbury Laboratory.
Using HPC to model seismic waves

Capturing earthquakes in high-resolution 3D
The research team led by Chavez from UNAM’s Institute of Engineering
set out to study the propagation of seismic waves through the earth’s
crust during major earthquakes, including the devastating magnitude
scale 8 events in Mexico City in 1985 and Sichuan, China in 2008.1 Their
main objective was to produce 3D models of the low-frequency wave
propagation of the particular earthquake and compare the synthetic
seismograms with actual observations.
To do this they applied a 3D parallel finite difference code to simulate synthetic
seismograms. The code is highly suitable for parallel execution on a distributed
memory parallel computer like HECToR that uses explicit message passing
parallelization. In fact, the Cray XT™ systems are designed to optimize MPI
message passing; the SeaStar2+™ chip combines communications processing
and high-speed routing on a single device.
The cluster system, on the other hand, didn’t have the scalability to maximize
the code. “On a cluster computer you can only get a coarse simulation,” says
Dr. Ashworth. “We took it onto the HECToR Cray XT4 system and scaled it up to
thousands of processors. We got very fine resolutions of the Sichuan earthquake.”
The high resolutions only obtainable on an extremely scalable system like the Cray
XT machine give a much finer, detailed view. “The results are much more realistic and
plausible and do a much better job of convincing people that the results are right,”
says Ashworth.
Exploiting the Cray XT4 system’s extreme processor counts did take a few intermediary
steps, however. The code required some optimizations in order to take full advantage of
the machine’s scalability, including vectorization, halo exchange, boundary conditions
and function inlining. But the work paid dividends. “The ultra high resolution we were
able to achieve enables simulations with unprecedented accuracy,” says Chavez.
Still, the resulting high-resolution simulations would be for naught if the results weren’t
satisfactory. The observed and synthetic velocity seismograms need to show reasonable
agreement both in time and frequency. In other words, for the code to be useful as a
damage-predicting tool for future earthquakes, the models and actual results of the
past seismic event being studied need to match. Ashworth reports success in modeling
both the Mexico City and Sichuan earthquakes: “The experiments we’ve done are in
hindcast. We’ve run the model and compared it to actual results and it has matched
up.”
The work of fine tuning the code, scaling up to even larger problems and achieving
finer resolutions continues. It’s a process that will be helped along by recent Cray XT6
upgrades to HECToR. The new Cray XT6 components are contained in 20 cabinets
and comprise a total of 464 compute blades each with two 12-core AMD Opteron
processors for a total of 44,544 cores.
“This research is leading stuff,” says Ashworth. “What this model allows to do is to
show if an earthquake happens in the region, where the potential damage would
be most likely to occur. We think that’s pretty useful in informing policymakers and
governments.”

Battle between the browsers

2011-03-11T13:38:00.000-05:00

The battle of the browsers is heating up this week, with Microsoft for the final version of Internet Explorer 9, Firefox of Firefox 4 and Google releasing Chrome 10 .

Switching browsers is not a decision to take lightly, and as Chrome has improved over the last couple years, had a harder time considering other options.

The most noticeable change in Chrome 10 is the Options settings, and they'll be welcomed by tweakers and anyone who ever changes Chrome options. When you click the gear icon in the upper-right corner and select Options (Preferences on a Mac), the menu now opens in its own tab rather than in a relatively small window, as with previous releases, making it easier to find the options you want to change.

More important is that you can now search through Options, so you don't have to hunt around for the feature you want to change. For example, if you want to make changes to any settings related to downloads or passwords, type in one of those terms, and you'll be sent directly to those settings.

As you use Options, the Omnibox (Google's name for the address bar) displays a local URL for your location -- for example, chrome://settings/advanced for advanced settings and chrome://settings/browser for basic settings. In some instances, an individual Option feature or setting will have its own URL, such as chrome://settings/passwordManager for the Password Manager. You can add this to your bookmarks if it's a feature you frequently use, which I found very convenient.

Web Store and Web Apps
Since Google in December, people taken a liking to the whole concept. It's part a discovery tool for new web services, part and part quick launch tool from Chrome's home screen. The Web Store is a case where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and now it's something we can't do without. We'll see if when it releases its own web apps platform.

Pinned Tabs
Although IE9 lets you pin tabs to the taskbar in Windows 7, it doesn't let you pin tabs within the browser itself. Both Chrome and Firefox allow this, so your favorite websites can hide in a tiny corner at the top of the browser. The difference is control: Firefox doesn't give you a way to automatically open certain websites as pinned tabs, but with Chrome, any web app can be pinned whenever you launch it from the home screen.

Real Estate
Technically, Internet Explorer 9 affords the most screen real estate for web pages, but it only does so by squeezing tabs and the address/search bar onto the same line. This feels too claustrophobic, and moving tabs down to a separate line consumes a lot more space. Firefox 4 comes close to Chrome, but it's not quite equal.

Bookmarks Bar
I visit a lot of websites on a regular basis, such as news sources and blogging tools, so the bookmarks bar in Chrome is essential. Again, this is a feature that Firefox also offers, but it takes up a little more space than Chrome and lacks a shortcut to toggle the bar on and off (in Chrome, Shift-Ctrl-B).

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