In this free webinar, VMware vExpert and virtualization guru David Davis will help you understand VMware’s certification structure, identifying the top VMware certifications. David will also share his tips and tricks for preparing for and passing the VCP, VCAP and VCDX exams.

During this live webinar you’ll learn:

• VMware’s Certification Pyramid and Certification options
• What’s new inVMware Certification
• How to prepare for the VCP, VCAP and VCDX exams
• Best free and paid VMware study resources

>> Download the PowerPoint Slides for this webinar

About David Davis:
David is the author of the best-selling VMware vSphere video training library from TrainSignal. He has written hundreds of virtualization articles and presented at conferences including VMworld and TechMentor. He is a VMware vExpert, a VCP, VCAP-DCA and CCIE #9369 with more than 18 years of enterprise IT experience.

I like this cartoon because it demonstrates a very important point about job hunting. You could be a technical guru, but that won’t matter all that much if your coworkers find you intolerable. In fact, you might find that your career has a ceiling.

Think of it this way: most technical jobs aren’t done in isolation. You’ll be solving other people’s computer problems, answering their questions, manipulating and harnessing technology to meet their needs and objectives. Managers need to motivate and guide employees. Trainers need to approach novices on their level of expertise. Administrators need to communicate the strengths and values of what they’re, well, administrating. Many modern corporations are a shifting network of projects, goals, and meetings, where employees are expected to work and make decisions as a team, in addition to as individuals.

Put another way: since the function of technology is to enhance people’s lives, you better make sure that (as an expert in technology) people don’t find you too frustrating.

Here are some ways to make sure your resume shows that you are professional and pleasant, in addition to technically skilled.

Identify Your Most Appropriate People Skills

People skills, also known as soft skills, come in many varieties. Some involve problem solving, leading meetings, maintaining a friendly attitude towards coworkers, and working well with others. To the extent that it’s possible, try to identify the most appropriate people skills that are a match for your target company and position. Often, a well-developed ad will state the skills, soft or otherwise, a company seeks in an ideal candidate. If not, you can usually make educated assumptions based on duties described in the ad, or typically assigned to someone with that position title.

It might help to know some of the following major categories of soft skills:

• Interacting with coworkers
• Collaborating as a member of a team
• Self-motivation and improvement
• Communication and presentation skills
• Problem solving and creativity
• Integrity and morality

The more you can show off those traits on your resume, the stronger your position.

Emphasize Results and Deliverables

It isn’t usually very effective to rattle off a series of adjectives or traits on a resume. A bulleted list that reads “good communicator; strong leader; skillful problem solver” might help with the search engine results, but isn’t going to communicate much concrete data. Part of the problem here is that soft skills are inherently intangible, and therefore unquantifiable. Take Integrity, for example. Everyone would agree that it’s important, but how do you measure it? Can you have an integrity quotient of 83%? If so, is that sufficient? Tough to say. Many other soft skills present similar challenges.

The solution, usually, is to try and emphasize the results and deliverables that your soft skills produced. When teaching fiction, I talk about how the right physical and specific detail can reveal more about a person than pages of abstract description, and I think the same things apply to resumes. Consider the following examples:

Soft skill: Good communicator

Soft skill with result: Trained all office support staff and end users during transition to new company wide operating system, helping employees take full advantage of information resources.

Soft skill: Strong Leader

Soft skill with result: Guided team of twelve people tasked with setting up network infrastructure for new corporate headquarters.

Soft skill: Skillful Problem Solver

Soft skill with result: Identified and resolved numerous potential security breaches and reconfigured network topology to consist of two separate collision domains with a class 4-high end firewall.

Each of the above examples demonstrates the soft skill in question, but does so in a way that emphasizes the results of that attribute, which both makes the skill itself more vivid and provides evidence to support the assertion.

Recognize That People Skills are Optional

As discussed above, people skills and likeability are nifty bonuses in a candidate. They can set you apart in the interview process, and demonstrate good culture fit. To be fair, however, a description of people skills isn’t an essential trait for a resume, and certainly won’t compensate for a deficiency of technical background or experience. With that in mind, it’s an applicant category that’s not required to be fully demonstrated on a resume.

Partly, this is just a question of what can be verified on paper. There’s no way for a hiring manager to know whether the persona you’re creating for yourself holds true or not unless they meet you, so some applicants choose to just leave soft skills off entirely, and focus on quantifiable hard skills like technical expertise and accomplishments.

That’s a perfectly fine strategy in the end, but not considering how you demonstrate people skills at all feels like a missed opportunity to me.

Here’s a final thought about how this concept impacts job hunting: there are lots of people who can master a technology; far fewer can master working with people.

• misconfigured port settings
• missing or corrupted vlan settings
• inter-vlan routing not functioning
• more!

The SharePoint infrastructure is a multi-purpose platform that allows for the creation and managing of business websites, internal or private websites, and even public websites. It can be used for document and file management. It includes collaboration spaces. It even has social networking tools, enterprise search features, and business intelligence.

SharePoint can even be used as a web application development platform. But at its very heart, SharePoint is used for the collection and storing of information. Because it’s a web-based program, the only thing you’ll need to access your SharePoint is a supported web browser such as Internet Explorer.

SharePoint can help your project stay organized by providing one centralized location where you can access, work with, or collaborate on various parts of your project.

Your site can have things like a project calendar and a task list, which can help you keep track of those important deadlines and team member schedules.

You can also create discussion boards

and meeting spaces where people can share ideas and get problems solved together.

Team members can share the latest information about a project using announcements.

Using the extensive business intelligence tools, you can track, analyze, forecast, and report on many aspects of your business.

SharePoint also provides a central repository for any reference documents or other resources necessary for your project with its document and asset libraries.

What this all means is that everything is now in one place; one easy-to-access site that has everything you and your team need to manage and collaborate on that all-important project.

You’ll have instant access to most current versions of documents, up-to-the-minute news and information about the project, and easy access to your colleagues. That is, everything you need, right at your fingertips.

Now, let’s talk about the SharePoint Wheel. What is the SharePoint Wheel? Well, it’s what Microsoft uses to describe the functionality built into the SharePoint platform. The Wheel refers to 6 aspect functional abilities: Sites, Communities, Content, Search, Insights, and Composites.

Sites

SharePoint allows you to create any type of website for your business, whether it’s public or private. It can be an Internet, Extranet, or your full-public website. Whatever you need, you can create it in SharePoint. And the great thing about it is that it does not require specialized knowledge.

You don’t need to be a Web designer or developer to create these websites. They could be created very easily on SharePoint. SharePoint also allows centralized location and management of these sites. That’s really one of the great features of SharePoint.

Communities

Communities let people work together in ways that are most effective for them.

How? By providing great collaboration tools that anyone can use to share ideas. You can organize your SharePoint environment into teams, groups, communities, by project, by location, by office, by region, or any other division that is necessary.

Content

This is content management made easy. One centralized location for files. You can set up retention policies, check documents in and out, create a document version history that you can access, manage, and modify easily with your web browser.

In addition, SharePoint has seamless integration with Microsoft Office 2010 Web Apps. It allows for simultaneous co-authoring of documents in Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote.

Search

People can find the information they need easily and quickly with SharePoint’s powerful and enhanced search capabilities. SharePoint uses social clues. Meaning it is search that is people and expertise-specific when finding people and content. You can search for internal and external content types.

Microsoft tells us that there are now over 400 structured and unstructured content types that are supported using advanced content processing with strong link listings. And right now, there are 85 languages supported. There’s also a feature known as FAST search, which is only available as an addition to the SharePoint Enterprise edition.

FAST search allows for the addition of tags and metadata to unstructured content, like video and audio, using linguistic and text analytic technology.

Insights

SharePoint 2010 Insights lets everyone access the business information they need to make good decisions. In other words, it’s business intelligence. People can use the information in databases, reports, and business applications to address specific needs of the business.

With SharePoint, you can create interactive dashboards and support cards, giving users easy access to information in a familiar format that they are comfortable with.

Composites

Lastly, SharePoint provides an application platform that you can assemble, connect, and configure collaborative business solutions, allowing no-code solutions to complex business problems using SharePoint Designer. SharePoint also allows for custom code solutions to be deployed safely.

Before we end, let’s talk about Site Collections.

Site Collections

Every implementation of SharePoint starts at the top level or Root Site as part of that SharePoint web application. And the top-level site is just the first site. There’s nothing special or different about it, and it can be any type of site.

Each top-level site can have subsites below it. Now, just because it’s a subsite doesn’t mean that it’s any less important or that there’s anything special or different about it either. It’s just been created subsequently with the creation of that first site. And we can have as many subsites off of our top-level site as we need.

And you might have already guessed, but each of those subsites can also have subsites of their own. So as you can see, you can end up creating a pyramid of sites in your SharePoint environment.

All of these sites together are called a Site Collection.

Now, with each SharePoint application, we can have multiple site collections. They can be as big or as small as they need to be. I’m often asked, “Why would I need multiple site collections?” And the reasons for this are many and very, but a very common reason is to create a site collection for each individual team, department, or group in an organization.

Each one would have its own administrator, permissions, user groups, site services, and features.

Now, in a large organization, you might have dozens, hundreds, even thousands of SharePoint sites. And as the company grows, so will its SharePoint. And from an administrative perspective, creating new site collections is easier to manage than continually adding more subsites, which would ultimately make your site cumbersome and hard to administer.

It’s much easier to assign a site collection admin to each site collection rather than having one admin trying to manage every aspect of every site.

And that is SharePoint. To learn more about how you can use SharePoint in your organization, watch Bill’s webinar SharePoint 101: Intro to SharePoint Basics.

ACLs and Protocols

Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) ACLs are the most common types of ACLs in use in the networking world today, but there are several different protocols supported on Cisco routers for ACLs. In addition, each ACL utilizes a name specified by a numeric range as shown in Table 1.

In addition, IPv6 ACLs are not restricted to numerical ranges and can include alpha-numerical characters as well for the name of the list. It may be important to note that other routers like Juniper and Force10 allow for alpha-numeric names in most if not all ACLs, and that the ACL name convention is not a standard applied to all network routers.

Configuration Commands for Creating ACLs

Basing ACL names on the range of numbers may be confusing, but it is best to consider the way that the ACLs are created at the router configure prompt. ACLs are configured based on their protocol first. Some, but not all, ask for standard or extended qualifiers in their statements and then the numeric name is assigned. Here are some examples:

IP access-lists

• Router (config)# ip access-list standard 6
• Router (config)# ip access-list extended 185

IPX access-lists

• Router (config)# ipx access-list standard 810
• Router (config)# ipx access-list extended 915

VINES access-lists

• Router (config)# vines access-list 65 —this is a standard vines list
• Router (config)# vines access-list 140 —this is an extended vines list

Configuring IP Standard ACLs on Cisco routers

Cisco IP Standard ACLs are used to filter traffic based on a single or range of source IP addresses in the IP packet header. Destination addresses are not considered in a standard ACL.

Let’s look at the format of an IP Standard ACL:

access-list [access-list-number] [deny/permit] [source ip address] [ wildcard mask]

Looking at the format, you can see the configuration statement begins with access-list command and the ACL number. In this case, the range for IP Standard ACLs is 1 to 99. You must then declare if this ACL statement will deny or permit the IP addresses that follow. The final two parts of the statement are associated with the source IP address and a wild card mask that determine if the address is a single host or a range of IP addresses. The following an example of a valid IP Standard ACL:

access-list 6 deny 172.16.0.2 0.0.0.0
access-list 6 deny 172.16.1.0 0.0.0.255
access-list 6 permit 172.16.2.0 0.0.0.127
access-list 6 deny any

In the first statement of this ACL, IP traffic from a single host of 172.16.0.2 is denied. The second statement denies a range of IP addresses in the 172.16.1.0 network. The range covers 256 IP addresses, 0 to 255 for that subnet. A shorter range is shown in the third statement, which permits 128 IP addresses from the 172.16.2.0 subnet (0-127). The final statement in the ACL gives an implicit deny to all IP addresses.

NOTE: ACL Statement flow

It is crucial that you understand how ACLs are parsed for matches when compared with an IP packet. All comparisons start at the top of the list and work down. Once a match is made, the traffic is either permitted or denied and then comparison stops. You must be careful in the placement of your ACLs

Configuring IP Extended ACLs on Cisco Routers

Cisco IP Extended ACLs are more complex than the Standard versions. The IP Extended ACL adds the ability to filter on destination IP address and includes some additional layer 3 and layer 4 protocol support, in particular TCP, UDP, and ICMP. This additional functionality makes IP Extended ACLs very powerful tools for IT security and network professionals. Let’s take a look at the format of the IP Extended ACL:

access-list [access-list-number] [deny/permit] [protocol] [source ip address] [ wildcard mask] [source port] [destination ip address] [wildcard mask] [destination port] [statement flag]

As you can see from this format, IP Extended ACL statements can become rather long, but are very effective in filtering specific types of traffic based on address and ports. Below are a few examples of IP Extended ACL statements:

access-list 165 deny ip 172.16.1.0 0.0.0.255 172.16.5.0 0.0.0.255 log
access-list 165 deny ip 172.16.1.0 0.0.0.255 host 172.16.4.1 log
access-list 165 permit tcp 172.16.3.0 0.0.0.255 eq 80 any log
access-list 165 deny udp 172.16.6.0 0.0.0.127 172.16.5.0 0.0.0.31 eq 53 log
access-list 165 permit icmp any any host-unreachable
access-list 165 deny ip any any

What do we see happening in this IP Extended ACL? The first statement denies IP traffic from the 172.16.1.0 subnet to the entire 172.16.5.0 destination subnet and logs any matches in the router log. The second statement is similar, but denies traffic from the 172.16.1.0 subnet to a single host 172.16.4.1. It is important to note the difference that IP Extended ACLs use for identifying a single host compared to an IP Standard ACL. Single hosts in the Extended version utilize the host identifier before the IP address and no wildcard mask is required.

The next statements in the ACL show how TCP, UDP, and ICMP can be utilized in these ACLs. The third statement permits TCP traffic from the 172.16.3.0 subnet with a source port of 80 to any destination IP and then logs the traffic matches. Continuing down the list, the next statement denies the UDP traffic from the first 128 IP addresses in the 172.16.6.0 subnet to the 32 IP addresses in the 172.16.5.0 subnet with a destination port of 53, and then logs any matches.

These two statements utilize ports for both TCP and UDP as part of their match criteria. Cisco and other routers can associate well known ports for these protocols to acronyms for familiarity. In the TCP statement, port 80 is associated with HTTP traffic. A Cisco ACL would accept 80 or http in the ACL as a valid port. The UDP statement uses port 53, which is for DNS. Most routers will automatically translate the port number to these acronyms for you and you can see them in the ACL list when you perform a show ip access-list or show running config command.

The next statement is slightly different. This statement permits icmp traffic, which is associated with network ping. The statement allows ICMP traffic from any source and to any destination, but uses the flag host-unreachable. This flag identifies ICMP traffic that is replied from a ping request, that the target host cannot be contacted. The final statement in the list is an implicit deny of all traffic that was not matched in previous ACL statements.

Implementation of ACLs on a router interface

Now that we have seen the structure of these ACLs, we need to be able configure them to a router interface. To configure the ACL to the interface, you must enter that interface’s configuration mode on the router. The command to associate an IP ACL to an interface is in the following format:

ip access-group [access-list-number] [in/out]

Note the difference in the statement as the command is ip access-group not access-list as in the ACL configuration. Let’s look at a quick example of assigning an ACL to interface FastEthernet 0/0 on a Cisco router.

Router#config t
Router (config)#interface Fast Ethernet0/0
Router (config-if)#ip access-group 165 in

This example configures the IP Extended ACL 165 to the interface and places it in on the ingress side of the interface. To place the ACL on the egress side, the final flag at the end would be changed to out.

What Have We Learned?

In this article, we covered the configuration of both IP Standard and Extended ACLs and how to assign them to a Cisco router interface. These topics are extremely important to understand for network security and for the Cisco network certification exams. This brief introduction to IP ACLs can start you on the journey to better understanding of this topic, but in-depth Cisco networking training can provide you with the tools you need to grasp these concepts and master them.

In future articles, we will look at ACL tips and best practices that will provide real world examples and valuable information for achieving your certification.

Top 3 Features in SQL Server 2012

Top three features in SQL Server 2012. Well, my personal passion is PowerShell, and SQL 2012 finally does PowerShell. Now, they kind of do it in a weird way and people should take some time to understand why they did it. I mean SQL is an extensible system. It’s designed to have different… you’ve got integration services, you’ve got reporting services, you’ve got analysis services.

All those things can be there or not be there. The PowerShell approach they took had to reflect that reality. But, you know what? It is there. It is PowerShellable, and that’s going to bring it in line from a manageability prospective with everything else.

Number two; let’s go with the new database mirroring. The SQL team, I think, took a really gutsy move and tore out the database mirroring that they’ve had, which was good. I don’t know a lot of my customers that were using it, but there were some scalability problems, and it’s all built on top of Windows Clustering now. They’ve done a really good job of hiding the fact that it’s Windows clustering. Some of the ugliness that you associate with clustering isn’t there anymore.

Gosh, what else is big. So much has been done in the way of improving business intelligence and big data. Those are going to be the database watch-words for the next decade. SQL server is not a slouch. It’s right up there.

I think that they’ve learned a lot from what they’ve being doing with Windows Azure. They’ve taken some of what they’ve learned and they’ve been able to apply that to the database engine.

I think it’s the platform to look at if you’re doing business intelligence. I think it’s a great platform to consider if you’re doing big data. I think those are probably some of their three biggest areas of investment. It’s going to pay off for people.

Like studying for any certification exam, it is important to come up with a general outline of the topics that are covered on the exam (along with the exam objectives) and prioritize which ones need the most review. Of course the content of this list is greatly determined on the experience of the candidate and what they have done in real life production and testing environments. The TSHOOT exam is one of these exams that is different to prepare for than some of these other exams, it is not as simple as just learning the base concepts of specific features or technologies.

The TSHOOT exam takes a format that is closer to the style of the CCIE (the troubleshooting part). This includes a base scenario and configuration and a number of trouble tickets that must be resolved. This article takes a brief look at five different topics, including three that are important for general troubleshooting and two that are specific to harder-to-troubleshoot features.

Troubleshooting Procedures

For any network engineer it is important to have an understanding of a troubleshooting procedure; there are a couple of different ones that exist but Cisco promotes the one covered here. Good troubleshooting is a process. The seven steps included in the Cisco troubleshooting process include:

Step 1: Defining the Problem – This step is as simple as it sounds, define what the actual problem is. For example, what causes the problem and/or how can it be recreated?

Step 2: Gathering Information – Gather as much information as is needed for the problem to be solved (the amount needed will vary as the experience of the candidate increases).

Step 3: Analyzing the Information – Take the information that was gathered and organize it.

Step 4: Eliminating possible problem causes – From the organized information gathered, eliminate all problem causes that are not relevant to the problem being reported.

Step 5: Formulating a hypothesis about the likely cause of the problem – Formulate a hypothesis as the cause of the problem.

Step 6: Testing the hypothesis – Test the solution to the problem outlined in the hypothesis, hopefully this step is done in the real world in a non-production environment.

Step 7: Solving the problem – If the hypothesis tested was successful in fixing the problem, the solution should be implemented on the production network.

Troubleshooting Approaches

After a base troubleshooting procedure, an engineer typically follows one of the common troubleshooting approaches; which one to use comes with additional experience and on the type of problem being reported. There are six of these common approaches; it is good for any engineer troubleshooting a problem to be at least familiar with these. As a candidate gets more experience, finding which approach to use will not be as formalized, and will be based more organically on the experience of the engineer. These approaches include:

Top-Down

This approach starts at the top of the OSI layer model (this is the application layer). Using this approach, an engineer will determine at which layer a problem is introduced starting from the top. For example, does the application display information from the network? If it does, then the network is working and no problem exists; if it does not, then move down the layers and find out where the network starts working, i.e. does it start working when using a basic ping. This proves layer 4 and below work correctly. This method requires access to the reporting client’s machine, which is not always easy or convenient.

Bottom-Up

This approach works the opposite as Top-Down by starting at the physical layer and working up. For example, start by ensuring that the physical layer is connected to the machine having a problem.

Divide and Conquer

Using this method, the troubleshooter will start the process in the middle of the OSI model layers, typically layer 3/4. For example, begin troubleshooting by testing if the client can ping a known active host; if it works then move up the layers to find the problem. If it does not, move down to find the problem.

Follow the Path

This technique finds the path between source and destination and tries to eliminate the devices that are not causing the reported problem. This technique is used in conjunction with the other common approaches described above.

Spot the differences

This technique compares a known good configuration with the known bad one and tries to determine the problem from the differences in the two.

Move the Problem

This technique is one of the simplest of the available approaches but can be very successful. For example, if a client is having a network connectivity problem, try to exchange the cables with a neighboring client and see if the problem moved. If it did not try to swap network jacks, and so on.

IOS CLI Troubleshooting Tools

Being familiar with basic IOS CLI troubleshooting tools is vital to any candidate trying to troubleshoot a Cisco IOS problem. The simplest of these tools includes ping and tracert along with a number of different show and debug commands specific to each feature. Common ones that are vital include:

• show ip route
• show process cpu
• show mac-address-table
• show ip interface brief
• show ip protocols
• show ip arp among many others.

Make sure to be familiar with the commonly used commands used for the features covered in the TSHOOT course outline.

Troubleshooting Route Redistribution

Route redistribution is a confusing topic for many people, as it requires knowledge of not just the routing protocols, but also the specifics as to how redistribution is configured for each routing protocol as well. To start with, the candidate must be familiar with the configuration of the routing protocols involved; these include OSPF, EIGRP, RIP and possibly BGP. Be familiar with the default metrics (some do not have defaults) that are used for each of these protocols when configuring redistribution along with the default administrative distances. Redistribution troubleshooting for multi-homed bi-directional redistribution will probably not be covered on the TSHOOT exam, but will probably be covered in some form on the CCIE lab so make sure to study it well if CCIE is the final destination.

Troubleshooting the Spanning Tree Protocol (STP)

Many new network-engineering candidates have a problem with understanding the purpose and function of STP. Without this knowledge it is of course almost impossible to successfully troubleshoot an STP problem. Keep in mind that by default on most Cisco switches a copy of STP is running for each configured VLAN, independently. A root switch will be separately selected for each of these and do not be surprised if different switches in the same network are the root switches for different VLANs. The easiest way to be a good STP troubleshooter is to get hands on experience with STP; this can be obtained through different simulation products and through the use of real Cisco switching equipment. Even the cheapest Cisco switches can run STP, make the small investment and buy some equipment if experience is not possible in a work environment.

The use of STP outside of the access layer is getting more and more uncommon with layer 3 links becoming common, from the access layer throughout the rest of the network being a preferred solution.

Summary

The TSHOOT exam is one of those exams that really require a great amount of experience coming into it. The candidate must not just be familiar with a few techniques but must know a wide variety. Along with this, the candidate must be well versed in the troubleshooting process. Make sure before going into this exam to have a defined troubleshooting process that will be used across the spectrum of technologies being tested. Take as much time as possible to break down correct configurations and use the show, debug and other commands to see what the effect is and how it can be spotted.

Before the Windows Phone 7 OS came into being, the last mobile operating system from Microsoft was called Windows Mobile 6.5. Here is how HardwareZone describes the transition from Windows Mobile to Windows Phone 7:

“The Windows Mobile platform has come a long way since its newest inception, the Windows Phone 7. Conceived to cater to the working class people who were frequently on the move, Windows Mobile in the year 2000 started out on personal digital assistants (PDAs) before taking a more serious stance by marking the rise of smartphones…

“Aside changes to its previous namesake, the Windows Phone 7 sports a completely different user interface, appearance and is completely not compatible with previous Windows Mobile platforms for third-party application development. The usage of a Windows Phone 7 device revolves around the concept of common hubs as the new OS concentrates on tight integration with Windows Live, Xbox Live and Zune alongside a heightened focus on social networking on Facebook.”

Because of the fact the OS was launched only in the past year and a half, Microsoft has still a lot of ways to go before catching up with Google and Apple in this market. However, in the beginning of 2012, there have emerged two competitors in terms of hardware that offer a competitive edge. These two smartphones run on Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7.5 OS and come from two different manufacturers. They are none other than the Nokia Lumia 900 and the HTC Titan II.

Nokia Lumia 900

According to a Nokia press release from January, the Nokia Lumia 900 was first revealed at CES 2012 in Las Vegas, NV. The handset comes with a 4.3” AMOLED and ClearBlack display; 4G LTE support for fast online access; 1830 mAH battery; and dual cameras.

This is Nokia’s third Lumia smartphone and it offers a lot of social media and Web features. Examples of these include a feature called “People Hub.” This allows users to connect with friends quickly using live tiles for quick updates. The handset also comes packed with Internet Explorer Mobile for Web browsing.

There are other software features worth noting as well that make this new Windows 7 Phone a challenger in the crowded smartphone market. Nokia provided something called “Nokia Drive” exclusively for Lumia that can be purchased from the Windows Phone Marketplace. This is a free voice-guided navigation app with an in-car user interface that turns the handset into a GPS navigation device. Nokia also partnered with EA to bring 20 games to the Windows Phone Marketplace and they will be available for Nokia Lumia devices first.

With all these features listed it is no wonder the phone received so much attention and media coverage. It has been getting rave reviews and some have been calling it Microsoft’s first true challenger to the iPhone.

According to a PCWorld review, it is the best Windows Phone 7 so far on the entire market. The review mentions other tech aspects that the press release omitted like the fact it comes packed with 16GB internal and non-expandable memory. However, you can add an additional 25GB of cloud storage for free via Microsoft’s SkyDrive.

It also comes packed with three touch-sensitive navigation buttons that include back, home and search. They are located on the glass of the display. Other buttons are also available that are positioned on the right edge of the handset. As you may have noticed, all these buttons present a contrast to the iPhone, which is based on touch anywhere onscreen (depending on app) – outside of the home button.

The phone was actually released on April 8. The handset is designed to be used with AT&T as its carrier and costs $99 upfront with a two-year contract. You can purchase it from AT&T, Microsoft’s stores or other outlets right now. This is not a shabby deal considering the newest entry-level iPhones cost $199 upfront.

HTC Titan II

Like the previously-mentioned Nokia Lumia 900, the HTC Titan II runs off of Microsoft’s latest version of Windows Phone OS, Windows Phone 7.5. It comes with a handful of AT&T and HTC apps installed on it already. This is a much larger handset in terms of form factor than the Lumia 900. Also like the Lumia 900, it was introduced at CES 2012. However, it was released earlier on March 18.

The phone’s hardware specs include a 4.7” Super LCD screen; dual cameras; 16GB of built-in storage that includes about 12GB usable storage; and a 1.5GHz Snapdragon CPU (source: Mashable). It also comes with the three navigation buttons of back, home and search. For network connectivity, and like the Lumia 900, it features LG LTE support.

According to a review of the product from Engadget, the main thing that separates it from competition is its much larger size. As mentioned-above, it offers a 4.7” display. The other thing that makes it standout is its excellent rear camera, which is more advanced than any other current Windows Phone camera.

Software is standard to other Windows Phone 7.5 handsets except the inclusion of HTC Hub. This is a service that comes directly from HTC offering additional content to the standard OS. According to HTC, “Use the HTC Hub service to add more content for your phone. Browse apps, music, ringtones, wallpapers, and a whole lot of other cool stuff and send them to your phone.”

The HTC Titan II’s price tag is a bit heftier than that of the Lumia 900. It costs $199 with a two-year contract from AT&T.

Upcoming Windows Phone 8 Handsets

You may be aware that Microsoft is planning on releasing Windows 8 for tablets and PCs sometime at the end of this year. However, that is not the only OS the company will be revealing possibly this year. Microsoft’s upcoming smartphone operating system is called Windows Phone 8 and there is some information about it already available.

According to PC World, Windows Phone 8 is also going by the codeword “Apollo.” If you want a smartphone with this OS, you may want to hold off from any Windows Phone purchases right now. This is because existing Windows Phone 7 or 7.5 handsets may not be upgraded to Windows Phone 8.

However, the question still remains in the air and Microsoft still hasn’t ruled out an upgrade path despite these rumors. As PC World pointed out:

“The company is still trying to get Windows Phone off the ground, and finally has the hardware to do it in Nokia’s Lumia 900. From a business standpoint, now is not the time to tell customers that they’ll be left behind. Still, many customers — especially those who keep a close eye on technology — will surely feel burned by Microsoft if they don’t get any more major updates.”

Conclusion

As you can see, Microsoft has a bright future with this platform as long as there are manufacturers willing to produce good hardware to go along with it. Windows Phones offer certain aspects that are different than what Google and Apple are doing with Android and iOS handsets. However, Microsoft needs to offer something for the corporate world that the competition doesn’t offer. Right now the potential is there and it will be interesting to see what happens with more hardware coming out this year using the platform. Both Lumia 900 and HTC Titan II offer a lot of bang for the buck if you are looking for a smartphone right now and come highly recommended by all accounts when compared to other Windows phones.

In this on-demand webinar, Exchange MVP J. Peter Bruzzese, shows you how cloud archiving combined with High Availability in Exchange Server 2010 can eliminate the need for a backup restore while providing better results for you and your users. During this free webinar, Peter will help you understand:

• The value of a hosted archive solution
• DAG (Database Availability Group) in Exchange 2010
• How to eliminate the word “disaster” from disaster recovery

Exchange High Availability is the future of recovery, and it’s becoming essential knowledge for Exchange Admins. See how you can get rid of your medieval disaster recovery plan and move towards a better solution.

>> Download the PowerPoint Slides for this webinar

About J. Peter Bruzzese:
Peter is a Microsoft MVP for Exchange with over 15 years of experience in Exchange and SharePoint. He is a regular contributor to Redmond Magazine, WindowsITPro, SharePoint Pro, TechTarget and InfoWorld and has presented at TechMentor, TechEd, IT360, the TEC Conference and Connections.

Growing Demand for Cloud Computing

According to eWeek, more than 5,000 cloud computing job ads were posted in February of 2012. This number just reflects the job postings in the United States. What also makes this figure interesting is it shows just how expansive the field has become:

“Hiring demand for cloud skills has grown drastically, up 92 percent, versus February 2011 and 400 percent compared with the same time in 2010. With the demand for cloud skills growing so quickly, the gap between hiring demand and talent supply across the United States is getting larger and causing more difficulties in sourcing candidates,” the report indicated.

This means there are more jobs in cloud computing available than there are technicians right now. The occupations that cloud computing job postings target include software engineers, system engineers, and network administrators. Keep in mind that working in a software role related to cloud development is much different than working with servers at data centers. The cloud field is very dynamic and expansive. There are many roles and positions all working in sync when it comes to the cloud.

However, the aspect that most job ads had in common, according to the report, is they required tech talent of some sort. More than 3,400 of the ads mentioned above were tech related, and this number is reported to be a growth of 99 percent from the previous year. The growth for cloud is not slowing down and may actually totally consume IT as a whole.

The report also mentioned some other fields that companies have been targeting with cloud computing job postings. They include marketing managers, sales managers, management analysts, and financial analysts. As cloud grows you can bet to see other positions open up as well. These fields combined were responsible for roughly one-third of the postings when compared to tech jobs.

Silicon Valley is the Most Common Area of Cloud Job Ads

The one thing that may be a downside or upside depending on the way you look at it, of becoming a cloud technician is that you may need to move to the Bay Area if you don’t live there already. The single largest providing city of the jobs that were posted in February is none other than San Jose.

According to eWeek, “Cloud computing skills are most frequently advertised for jobs located in the San Jose, Calif., metropolitan area. During February, more than 900 job ads in San Jose included requirements for cloud computing, growing 144 percent over the past year.”

However, some other areas of note that also saw a need for cloud computing skills included Seattle; Washington, D.C.; San Francisco and New York. Of course, San Francisco is still in the Bay Area, and often times associated with the region. The whole area is filled with tech opportunities. San Jose, however, is the number one provider of the jobs that cloud technicians were targeted for.

The eWeek report also pointed out that San Francisco employers are very likely to heavily compete with one another over potential employees. This is because in San Francisco, companies may experience a longer time to fill the positions available than in other areas in the U.S.

Other Statistics Worthy of Notice

The Wanted Analytics’ results showed that the lowest hiring demands when compared to the talent supply are in Tucson, Ariz.; Madison, Wis.; and Charlottesville, Va.

According to eWeek, “Lower hiring demand compared with the talent supply in these areas means that recruiters are likely to fill job openings in as few as 5.5 weeks, faster than the national average, research showed.”

The entire Wanted Analytics report is openly available and is titled “The Sky is the Limit for Cloud Hiring.” Here is a graphic chart of the Wanted Analytics hiring demand when looking at cloud computing job ad postings over a four year time span:

Source: Wanted Analytics

As you can probably tell, the demand skyrocketed in the past year and a half. Right now is really the perfect time to learn cloud computing skills if you haven’t learned them already. The Wanted Analytics report mentioned San Francisco, by name, as the city where cloud computing skills are probably the most attractive. Job ad postings stay up for eight weeks on average in San Francisco while in the rest of the country they only stay up for six weeks on average.

Also of note, if you want to start learning more about the cloud and what the field can offer you, a report, from Business News Daily, indicates some key cloud-based software applications you should familiarize yourself with. They include:

• Tradeshift
• TalentWise
• SkedgeMe
• NewVoiceMedia
• Peer Software
• Dropbox

Each of these services is quite different. The one thing they share is they are free or inexpensive to get yourself familiar with cloud software, without much or any IT training required.

Conclusion

Right now, for any tech professional, cloud computing is probably the hottest field to get into. There are more jobs being posted than tech professionals available to fill them. This means the negotiation rights will be on your side, and you may have the pick of the day when it comes to choosing what company you want to work for. Do you want to work in one of the big firms in Silicon Valley? How about a tech startup embarking on a journey with cloud in mind? The grass is green and open to pasture as some would say.

The CCNP Training Package contains three full-length training courses: ROUTE, SWITCH and TSHOOT. The course material and corresponding exam objectives do not require a specific order to learn the Cisco networking concepts. With all 3 courses, students can reference exam-specific material as they prepare for their Cisco exams, while also having the option to look at concepts such as VLANs and IP services from a design & deployment phase, all the way through troubleshooting.

Cisco Networking All-in-One Package

CCNP Training is a combination of superior hands-on training and insightful veteran experience. Under each CCNP exam rubric you’ll get instruction for each individual exam that still keeps the big picture in front of you.

Joe Rinehart gained his professional Cisco experience while deploying routing, switching, unified communications, and other technology systems for Fortune 500 companies over the past 14 years. In addition to training in business and collegiate environments, is a regular speaker at conferences, published author, and author of CCNA Voice and Wireless training.

In the SWITCH course, you’ll focus on spanning tree protocol (STP), virtual LANs, switch-based security, and 802.11 wireless. In the ROUTE course you’ll focus on, OSPF & EIGRP, and advanced IP routing and addressing. In the TSHOOT course you’ll learn how to troubleshoot all of those things in a real, support ticket environment.

CCNP ROUTE

Most network engineers that are just beginning to study for the CCNP exams begin with the ROUTE section. This course is an opportunity to explore IP routing topics and apply them in a multiprotocol routing environment, allowing for a complete knowledge base in Cisco routing concepts. Here are some of the topics:

• Route Redistribution
• Policy-based Routing
• IPv6 Routing
• Advanced OSPF and BGP

Watch this overview of IPv6 Routing and understand the benefits of using IPv6 instead of IPv4.

CCNP SWITCH

Joe’s training on Cisco switching covers a wide variety of topics ranging from the basics of Cisco switching and virtual LANs, to security considerations and support for voice & video. You’ll study in detail virtual trunking protocol (VTP), STP, layer-3 switching and high availability.

Knowledge Check: How does Multiple Spanning Tree Protocol work? Watch Joe explain the principles of MSTP.

CCNP TSHOOT

Let this course be your guide through the realm of troubleshooting problems in Cisco networks. When we say this course shows you how to troubleshoot any bug, we mean EVERYTHING. Learn how to strategically address all of the problems in your network in a hands-on support ticket environment in areas such as security, high availability, and voice & video.

Learn how to troubleshoot a ticket for a large routing table in this BGP troubleshooting lab.

Master Cisco Networking with Expert Instruction

If you want to master Cisco networking, get certified, and achieve the professional opportunities that come with a CCNP certification, get your practice with Cisco CCNP Training from CCIE Joe Rinehart.

Don’t miss your chance to prepare for all 3 CCNP exams with a top networking expert, and you’ll save some money buying ROUTE, SWITCH and TSHOOT together.

It’s one thing just to understand something. It’s another to really be able to apply it and that’s what we want to do. We want to make it a practical and very helpful experience for you that stays with you literally throughout your career.

-CCNP Instructor Joe Rinehart

Where it gets tricky is the application side. If you want to apply an OWA policy to a single user, the GUI is your best bet. Open the Recipients Configuration node, select Mailbox, find the mailbox you need and go into the Properties. From the Mailbox Features tab you can select Outlook Web App and click Properties to enable the use of a policy and then select the policy you need. Not too difficult.

If you have a few users in mind, you can do the same thing. Select them all in the GUI and set the policy for all at once. If you have filter settings that you can use to narrow your list of mailboxes down to just want you need, you can do that as well.

But in some cases it may be more work than necessary to use the GUI. If, for example, you have created a policy that is focused on users in a specific location, and let’s say those users are all in a single OU, the shell is the better, faster approach. And it isn’t as painful as you might think.

Using Exchange Management Shell to Apply OWA Policy

Open the Exchange Management Shell and type the following:

Get-CASMailbox –OrganizationalUnit  | Set-CASMailbox –OWAMailboxPolicy "Name of OWA Policy"

So, for example, let’s say you have created an OWA policy for all your users in Dallas (and they are all located in the Dallas OU). Dallas has a slower connection and so you decide to turn off the Premium Client for those users and have them only use OWA lite. You create the policy and call it “Dallas OWA Policy.” To apply it quickly and easily through the EMS you open a command prompt and type:

Get-CASMailbox –OrganizationalUnit "Dallas" | Set-CASMailbox –OWAMailboxPolicy "Dallas OWA Policy"

That’s it! Go back to your EMC and check out a mailbox to see that the policy has indeed applied.

Remember, the shell is there to make your life easier. Knowing when to use it and how to use it is the key.

And that’s one to grow on!

What are Access Control Lists?

ACLs are a network filter utilized by routers and some switches to permit and restrict data flows into and out of network interfaces. When an ACL is configured on an interface, the network device analyzes data passing through the interface, compares it to the criteria described in the ACL, and either permits the data to flow or prohibits it.

Why Do We Use Access Control Lists?

There are a variety of reasons we use ACLs. The primary reason is to provide a basic level of security for the network. ACLs are not as complex and in depth of protection as stateful firewalls, but they do provide protection on higher speed interfaces where line rate speed is important and firewalls may be restrictive. ACLs are also used to restrict updates for routing from network peers and can be instrumental in defining flow control for network traffic.

When do we use Access Control Lists?

As I mentioned before, ACLs for routers are not as complex or robust as stateful firewalls, but they do offer a significant amount of firewall capability. As an IT network or security professional, placement of your defenses is critical to protecting the network, its assets and data. ACLs should be placed on external routers to filter traffic against less desirable networks and known vulnerable protocols.

One of the most common methods in this case is to setup a DMZ, or de-militarized buffer zone in your network. This architecture is normally implemented with two separate network devices.

An example of this configuration is given in Figure 1.

The most exterior router provides access to all outside network connections. This router usually has less restrictive ACLs, but provides larger protection access blocks to areas of the global routing tables that you wish to restrict. This router should also protect against well known protocols that you absolutely do not plan to allow access into or out of your network. In addition, ACLs here should be configured to restrict network peer access and can be used in conjunction with the routing protocols to restrict updates and the extent of routes received from or sent to network peers.

The DMZ is where most IT professionals place systems which need access from the outside. The most common examples of these are web servers, DNS servers, and remote access or VPN systems.

The internal router of a DMZ contains more restrictive ACLs designed to protect the internal network from more defined threats. ACLs here are often configured with explicit permit and deny statements for specific addresses and protocol services.

What Does an Access Control List Consist Of?

Regardless of what routing platform you utilize, all have a similar profile for defining an access control list. More advanced lists have more distinct control, but the general guidelines are as follows:

• Access control list name (depending on the router it could be numeric or combination of letters and numbers)
• A sequence number or term name for each entry
• A statement of permission or denial for that entry
• A network protocol and associated function or ports
• Examples include IP, IPX, ICMP, TCP, UDP, NETBIOS and many others
• Destination and Source targets
• These are typically addresses and can be defined as a single discrete address, a range or subnet, or all addresses
• Additional flags or identifiers
• These additional statements request additional functions when a match is found for the statement. These flags vary for each protocol but a common flag added to statements is the log feature that records any match to the statement into the router log

What Types of Access Control Lists Are There?

There are several types of access control lists and most are defined for a distinct purpose or protocol. On Cisco routers, there are two main types: standard and extended. These two types are the most widely used ACLs and the ones I will focus on in this and future articles, but there are some advanced ACLs as well. Some of the advanced ACLs include reflexive ACLs and dynamic ACLs and they are defined as follows. Reflexive ACLs, also known as IP Session ACLs, are triggered from an outbound ACL for traffic initiated from the internal network. The router will identify this new traffic flow and create an entry in a separate ACL for the inbound path. Once the session ends, the entry in the reflexive ACL is removed.

Dynamic ACLs or lock-and-key ACLs are created to allow user access to a specific source/destination host through a user authentication process. Cisco implementations utilize IOS Firewall capabilities and do not hinder existing security restrictions.

Implementation of ACLs on a Router Interface

Placement and understanding of the traffic flow is important to understand up front before you configure an ACL on a router interface. Understanding of the placement and impact of ACLs are frequent questions in CCNA and CCNP exams and mistakes in ACL placement are some of the most common ones network administrators make during security implementation. Trust me, it happens to us all and I am not immune to that one. Figure 2 provides a good example of the traffic flow when it comes to ingress and egress on a router network interface.

As you can see from this diagram, ingress traffic flows from the network into the interface and egress flows from the interface to the network. IT network and security professionals must pay close attention here. ACLs start with a source address first in their configuration and destination second. As you configure an ACL on the ingress of a network interface it is important to recognize that all local network or hosts should be seen as sources here, and the exact opposite for the egress interface.

What makes this most confusing is the implementation of ACLs on the interface of a router that faces an external network. Look back at Figure 1. In that example, the ingress side is coming from the outside network and those addresses are considered to be sources, while all internal network addresses are destinations. On the egress side, your internal network addresses are now source addresses and the external addresses are now destinations.

As you add ports in extended ACLs, confusion can mount. The best advice I have before any implementation is to document your flows and note your source/destination addresses. We will cover more of these implementations later in ACL configuration articles.

Summary

Access control lists are a principle element in securing your networks and understanding their function and proper placement is essential to achieving their best effectiveness. Certification training covers ACLs and there are several questions on exams that concern them. As we continue in this series, it would be wise to test some of the concepts on network simulators or unused router ports to gain a better perspective using ACLs and how they may be represented in actual implementations and on the exams.

Elias is committed to helping individuals out with their Citrix questions and learning and seems to find extra time in the day to make it all happen. In addition to holding the position of CTO at Sigma Solutions he has multiple regular blog gigs including Information Week, Forbes, and Virtualization Review. He’s authored multiple books and speaks at many conferences including Citrix Synergy. And I can’t forget about the really great Citrix and VMware training he creates here at TrainSignal!

Beside all the great work he does to help others, Elias is a great person. If you haven’t had an opportunity to meet or see Elias speak or watch any of his training you can see him at Citrix Synergy in San Francisco May 9-11, at a Chicago Virtualization User Group, any of the TrainSignal Citrix training courses, or follow him on twitter @ekhnaser.

Here at TrainSignal we’re really glad to work with Elias to bring award winning training to everyone. If there is a Citrix topic you’d love to see from us please feel free to leave a comment. We’d love to know what you’re all looking for.

Pursuing the Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP) certification has never been an easy task, with the different changes that have occurred over the years the focus of the exam has changed (albeit minor). With the latest iteration of the CCNP, the number of courses and tests to pass has been consolidated into three with different technical focus areas for each. With this iteration of the switching coverage, the SWITCH course and exam not only cover the features traditionally associated with a switch but also cover features that are associated with more modern switches including layer 3 switching capabilities, security, voice/video services and high availability. This article discusses a few tips and tricks that have been followed by this author for successfully talking switching exams.

Switching Equipment Recommendations

One hard part about switching topics as opposed to routing topics is that there is no real cheap way to get hands on experience; with routing equipment it is possible to use an emulation product like dynamips/dynagen/gns3 and get a good amount of hands on work. With switching equipment this is much harder to replicate without actually buying switching gear or having a job where hands on is possible. At the professional level and higher it is almost a given to most candidates that some amount of equipment investment will need to be made to cover all of the area that will be tested on an exam.

For the most part a large amount of the topics currently covered on the SWITCH exam can be covered running a Cisco 3550 or 3560 switch; these switches are not cheap but they are also not that expensive and can be easily obtained from sources like eBay. Make sure when buying this equipment to do the research on what completed listings have been going for, there are a large amount of sellers that are just trying to get a premium from people who have not done this research. Another solution which will cover a limited number of the switching topics is to use a switching module in a modular routing platform. These modules provide a limited switching feature set, but should give a basic understanding of how the most basic switching features work.

Switching Exam Differences

If the different courses and exams that have been used to cover the switching functionality would be reviewed it would show that a good amount of the core content has been the same over the years. What changed are the features that are available and the different technologies that are commonly deployed. The newest iteration of this switching exam cover this same core switching knowledge and adds additional coverage on common layer 3 switching features. The thing to remember here is that with modern switching equipment both the routers and the switches are running IOS. The configuration of a layer 3 switch is very similar to the configuration of a standard router. Since the majority of candidates take the ROUTE exam first this material should be fresh on the candidates mind already.

Another commonly seen thing on the exam is coverage of switching features that are used with both voice/video and wireless technologies. The amount of content will in most cases be specific to what is handled by the switch and not by technology specific features. For voice/video, be familiar with Power over Ethernet (PoE) and Voice VLANs. For wireless be familiar with basic wireless fundamentals.

And the last thing that has been changed across all of the CCNP tests is a focus on the more typically associated design tasks, this includes implementation and verification plans. For most old school engineers this is done already, but was never called anything specific, Cisco has made it a more important feature of the exams so that new candidates know the importance of these documents. With a thorough plan both the implementation and the later verification of the network will be much easier to complete.

Summary

As with any exam, the Cisco SWITCH exam is not one to be considered lightly; for those with experience on this equipment in their real life it should be rather easy to study for. For those without any significant switching equipment experience, take the time and invest the money to purchase used switching equipment and test every feature mentioned in the blueprint and covered in the certification guides. The knowledge that comes from this studying will not only help in passing this specific exam but will also make the candidate a better rounded engineer and more valuable asset.

Windows Phone was launched in the second half of 2010 and first half of 2011 depending on what region of the world you live in. It is a successor to the Windows Mobile platform that was geared to enterprise users who wanted to use traditional Microsoft software on their handsets as if they were sitting in front of tablets, PCs, and notebooks. However, mobile phones are different devices entirely and Microsoft is learning this with the Windows Phone platform. Microsoft originally partnered up with Nokia as the main hardware manufacturer for the platform, as reported by PC World – although now there are other vendors also utilizing Windows Phone.

The User Interface and Features

The OS comes with a user interface, Metro, that the upcoming Windows 8 for tablets will also feature – although modified for larger displays and Windows 8 features. This means Microsoft is targeting ease-of-use over technical functionality and made the OS as consumer-friendly as possible. Tiles, central to Metro, are kind of like apps you come to know and expect on iOS, but look and feel much different.

An innovative search function – also sometimes referred to as a Web search engine– that is also included in Windows Phone 7, is called “Bing.” This feature allows users to search for things using audio, voice and vision. For instance, you can find a song and let the phone figure out what it is by allowing it to listen to it playing in the room. Bing Vision allows you to use your handset’s camera to look up product information by bringing the object to view. This is the type of unique interaction that Windows Phone really excels at, and separates itself from the competition, including the iPhone despite Siri now being available.

Windows Phone 7 also includes organization and social network integration through a service called “Hubs.” The Hubs combine local and online content and allow for users to have integrated content to social networks. A “People Hub” is used to organize contacts. This service allows contacts to be imported from social networks such as Facebook, Windows Live, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Microsoft launched a piece of hardware in 20009 called Zune HD that was a multimedia device designed to compete with Apple’s iPod. However, it didn’t catch on with consumers. There were also previous Zune products including a Toshiba-branded 1089 that was created in 2006 with Microsoft’s cooperation. These devices were more similar to early iPod models pre-touch. Despite this, Microsoft has continued to support Zune software for Windows Phone handsets. This is an entertainment and synchronization software akin to iTunes in a way and allows users to have integration between PCs and Windows Phone handsets. Windows Phone hardware is seen as the successor product line to the Zune HD by many sources and Microsoft is said to have encouraged the transition in late 2011.

There are a couple different versions right now of Windows Phone 7 OS. One of them is called the Mango and is also referred to as Windows Phone 7.5. This is really the second version of Microsoft’s consumer operating system geared for handset users – or an update to a first-generation OS depending on the way you want to look at it. This means that Microsoft still is behind Apple and Google related consumer-based mobile OS experiences – remember Microsoft has traditionally been an enterprise-focused company. However, Mango takes many standard features Android and iOS users come to expect and integrates them into the Windows Metro environment. According to an Engagdet review of Mango, it was released in late 2011 and comes with over 500 new features.

How Windows Phones Compare to Android and iOS Devices

Like Google’s Android OS, one of the many complaints you may hear related to the Windows Phone platform is the lack of apps and developer support. This is obvious when drawing comparisons to the iPhone. However, Microsoft is providing some great incentives to developers including providing financial backing and giving away devices to get development support for the platform. This should continue as Windows 8 enters the scene with tablets and Windows Phone 8 handsets. Remember, this is Microsoft’s first consumer-based platform and it has only been out for a couple years.

According to CNET, “Microsoft has eagerly contributed money to developers, anywhere from $60,000 to $600,000, to help build apps. That’s the type of cash the developers themselves could never raise on their own.”

One Windows Phone aspect that has been gaining fans is the clean and functional Metro interface. It comes with mainly two home screens to toggle between and makes it hard for users to get lost looking for specific apps.

There is a lot more variation in terms of carriers, sizes, shapes, and looks when picking a Windows Phone over the iPhone. The iPhone comes packed with a standard size and you can expect certain features. However, this isn’t the case with the Windows Phone platform. Right now, Windows Phone is a lot more similar to Android than it is to iOS.

Conclusion

Even though Microsoft failed with the Zune, and hasn’t been supporting smartphone hardware themselves, some latest players have finally come around to using Windows Phone 7 to the fullest. One of these is the Nokia Lumia 900. Whether the Lumia can pose a significant threat to the iPhone or Android handset remains to be seen. It seems Microsoft finally understands the consumer market. It will be a gamble for them to be able to catch up to Apple anytime soon, but it is good seeing a variety of competent smartphones on the marketplace at once. This will force Apple and Google to continue innovating features in their smartphone operating systems. It also gives consumers more choices, which is always a good thing.

Web browsers have become ubiquitous in most jobs and companies. They’re the portal that exposes users to unknown and untrusted entities every day. To make things worse, most users don’t consider the risks of clicking on a suspicious link or downloading harmful software, and they’re willing to take additional risks to enable extra features or improve functionality of software without considering the consequences of their actions.

Unfortunately, web browsers don’t come configured securely and they’re usually not updated quickly enough to resist attacks. Because attackers know this, threats against vulnerable browsers will continue to increase and success rates will keep climbing.

In this webinar, security experts Mike Danseglio and Lisa Szpunar will help you master browser security and show you how you can teach your users safe web browsing. This webinar covers:

• Major browsing threats and vulnerabilities
• The evil secrets of browser toolbars
• How InPrivate browsing can keep your information private
• Examples of drive-by downloads and how to prevent them
• Group Policy based browser security solutions

Attackers will continue to exploit browser vulnerabilities; arm yourself with practical tips and solutions for keeping your users’ internet experience secure.

About Mike Danseglio:
Mike has worked in the IT field for more than 20 years. He is an award-winning author, public speaker, and instructor on a variety of technology topics including security, virtualization, cloud computing, wireless and wired networking, and IT lifecycle processes. Mike has published several books and numerous papers. He is a frequent conference speaker and classroom instructor on IT operations, computer security, and technology frameworks. To learn more about Mike visit www.nextdirectiontech.com.

About Lisa Szpunar:
Lisa started her career in education as an elementary school computer teacher and librarian, but as the most technically savvy person in the school she also took over the helpdesk and network administrator roles, concurrently launching her career in IT. Lisa specializes in systems design and security, and holds a M.S. in Computer Science degree as well as a B.A. in Education.

If you think that you merit more than the across-the-board increase or performance-based raise that your company is giving, then negotiate.  Here are some tips to help you get the salary increase you deserve.

1. Be confident.

If you are asking for additional benefits or an increase in your salary, then be confident that you do deserve it and do not second-guess or doubt yourself.  During the job offer, the cardinal rule is that it does not hurt to negotiate, when it comes to raise negotiations, it does not hurt to ask.

2. No appeal to pity please.

ChangingMinds.org defines argumentum ad misericordiam as trying to gain agreement by empathy or sympathy.  Most people make the mistake of going through pity tactics or ad misericordiam when asking for a raise.  They detail personal problems, which are more or less irrelevant, as a justification for getting a raise.  Having too many bills to pay or getting a second mortgage is never a basis for getting a raise.

Instead, talk about how much you deserve and why you deserve it.  Be sure to tell your boss about your achievements, the things you have accomplished, what professional certifications you have pursued, and yes, you could tell your boss about what other people in your position are getting.

3. Is it the right time?

It would be difficult to get the salary you want if your employer is suffering from financial setbacks.  You should be aware of how well your employer is doing financially by checking out business news or the company’s financial reports.

Another important thing to look at is how you are contributing to the company’s bottom line.  Sales people have this easy because they work with dollars.  It may be more difficult for IT professionals to quantify just how much money they have saved by implementing systems and infrastructure, but you should be able to pinpoint a dollar value to the work that you do.

Furthermore, you might want to take your cue from the experts as to the right timing for a salary negotiation to help you get a raise.  Cindy Perman at CNBC.com writes that January might be the right time to ask for a raise when the IT department has a fresh budget.  If you have missed that, then your next best bets are in June and July.  It really depends on when the business year starts in your company, or when it’s after your busy season.

4. Always set an appointment to talk about your salary.

It is a good practice to show your boss that you do mean business when negotiating for a higher salary.  Set up an appointment and treat the negotiation as a business meeting.  Face to face negotiations always work better than those coursed through e-mail or telephone.

5. Be ready to prove your worth.

If your boss says that you are not yet ripe for a raise, then be ready to prove him wrong.  If you have consented to a lower salary than what you expected when they gave you the job offer, but you agreed on set conditions that should happen for you to get your desired salary, then show your boss that you have met these conditions.

If you have been in your position for quite some time or it is time for an annual review, then review all the achievements, certifications and skills you’ve acquired starting with the most recent going backwards.

6. Treat salary negotiations as a magic 8 ball.

If you do not get the salary that you want, there are a lot of options that you could take.  You could wait for a while then ask for a raise again, or you quit your job.  When the boss says no, try to figure out if the reasons are valid or not.  If it is, you might want to wait it out and correct the criticisms leveled against you, and then ask for a raise.  If it is not, then it might be time to find a new job.

7. I.T. professionals might benefit from a little bit of psychology.

It may be a good idea to take a look at what your boss thinks is important rather than what you think is important.  You may have achieved a lot of things but these might not be in line with the goals your boss has for your department.  For example, you might have completed a Microsoft certification, but your boss puts a premium on Internet security certifications.  Know your boss’ priorities. This will make it easier for you to negotiate for a higher salary.

8. Avoid these common salary negotiation mistakes.

• Talking to your boss unprepared.
  The worst thing that you could do to sabotage your getting a raise is to talk to your boss about it without first preparing what you are going to say and how you are going to support it.  For example, you go to your boss telling him or her that you deserve this much because you helped the IT department.  When asked how your actions helped or when asked for more quantitative proof of your achievements, you have nothing to show for it.
• Thinking that you deserve a higher salary just because you have been in the company for far too long.
  Do not make the mistake of saying that you have not gotten a raise for so long.  It does not matter how long you have been employed in the company, but how well you did during the last rating period.
• Not preparing for a “no.”
  Not every employee who asks for a raise is granted one every time.  There are various reasons for raise requests getting turned down, so you must be able to handle a NO.
• Giving an ultimatum.
  Telling your boss that you’d quit if you don’t get a raise is a sure fire killer to the negotiation table.  It may work for some because their bosses need them at that particular time, but you might find yourself having to follow through on your threats.
• Not going beyond the “no.”
  Sometimes people settle just to end the salary raise negotiations right there and then.  But doing so, you are losing out on knowing just what is keeping you from getting that raise and how to get one in the future.

Salary negotiations don’t need to be a nerve-wracking and emotional affair.  Done right, salary negotiations could help you get the salary you deserve, whether you are just being offered a job, or when you are asking for a raise.  These tips would equip you with the necessary know-how and preparations to enter into a salary negotiation in the right way.