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Good business continuity planning
needs to take a broad view, embracing people, human behavior, customers and
other factors that lie outside the data center. It is also important to secure
the vision and endorsement of executive management. A properly funded,
well-prioritized business continuity plan, combined with a regular program of
testing and recovery drills, will help to safeguard the organization. Read this
white paper to understand the key elements of a successful business continuity
plan, see how to develop a plan that clarifies what is critical, and set
specific recovery requirements.
Recession
or not? That is irrelevant to you. You need a plan based on facts, not
frightening words. Start collecting them.
Because they free users from the need to be cabled to a physical
network, wireless LANs are being used as an access vehicle to help businesses
better collaborate. Wireless LANs can improve business process efficiencies,
provide scalability, improve infrastructure costs, contribute to customer and
employee satisfaction, and help resolve business continuity issues. When
considering a wireless LAN implementation, users should address security,
bandwidth, roaming, and interference issues.
Google began allowing its users to edit locations on Google Maps in November as part
of an effort to ensure that homes and businesses are marked in the correct
location. While Google restricted access to some listings like hospitals,
government buildings and businesses whose listings have been sited through
Google's Local Business center, other users could move arrows marking locations.
Some edits like moving a marker more than 200 yards from its original location
requires a moderator's approval before they show up on Google.
The new viewer lets users "just sit back and watch the world's information improving bit by bit, edit by edit," Charles Spirakis, software engineer at Google Maps, said in a blog post. "I warn you, though, it's highly addictive (almost as addictive as helping make the improvements yourself!)."
Adam Ostrow, a blogger at Mashable, wrote that Google Maps is evolving to become Google's best homegrown social product.
"Although more of a 'that's cool' feature than something incredibly useful, the visualization does highlight the growing importance of social features in Google Maps," Ostrow wrote in a blog post. "They've also recently released collaborative maps, community maps, and in Google Earth, you can now see geo-tagged YouTube videos."
Ostrow said that Google's efforts to ramp up Google Maps seem to be paying off, citing a Hitwise report last week showing that Google is quickly narrowing the gap between its traffic and that of MapQuest. While 426% more users visited MapQuest than Google Maps in 2006, the lead was cut significantly last year as MapQuest pulled in only 126% more traffic than Google Maps.
With the
explosion of technology into every facet of the day-to-day business environment
there is a need to define an effective infrastructure to support operating
environment; have a strategy for the deployment and technology; and clearly
define responsibilities and accountabilities for the use and application of
technology.
Applications,
operating systems, storage, networks and databases need to support high
reliability and availability. IT managers need a view across all components of
the application infrastructure to maintain service quality. Legacy systems must
be brought forward and enabled for XML, Web services and other new technology.
Tools crossing middleware, EAI, message brokers, applications servers and
database gateways must be combined to meet todays requirements.
The list of natural and manmade disasters with which
businesses have had to contend early in the 21st century is long. Many
organizations have felt the devastating effects of the September 11 terrorist
attacks, acts of bioterrorism involving anthrax, and bombings in London, Madrid
and Bali. The severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak, the South Asian
tsunami and Hurricane Katrina also have had costly, far-reaching impacts on
businesses. 
Disruptions resulting from these and other disasters
have rippled across supply chains, shaken entire industries and taken their toll
on employee, customer and partner relations. Not surprisingly, organizations of
all types and sizes are making crisis preparedness and response a key focus of
their business continuity planning. Chances are, your organization is taking a
proactive approach and continually looking at ways to minimize the impact that
potential crises can have on your business processes and technology systems.
Yet, even though your companys business continuity plan most likely serves to
protect your companys physical assets, such as its data, network(s), core
business applications and facilities, how well does it address the human side of
disasters?
On
December 28, 2007 AOL announced that it stopped development of the Netscape
browser, saying the respected brand that launched the commercial Internet in
1994 had little chance of ever regaining market share against its archrival
Microsoft. AOL spent $4.2 BILLION dollars in 1994 to
Eventhough Microsoft
owns the OS market in the commercial marketplace, the market share of Vista is
still only a little over 9% after one year. Currently almost 95% of all
systems that browse the internet are some form of the Windows OS.
In is Browser and OS Market Share
study, which is to be release on January 3rd,
Janco found that most users are not really interested in the OS. Rather
they are interested in the way that they can use the systems to meet their
needs.
Janco found they are
basically two types of Vista users:
Many users are waiting for Vista Service Pack 1 to be
delivered before they will install it on more workstations.
Email today presents a serious risk to security, business
productivity, and compliance with government and industry regulations. As the
use of email for legitimate business purposes continues to trend upward, so does
its use as a tool for unwanted, illegitimate, and occasionally dangerous,
business activity. There are three predominant sources of risk that every
organization faces: spam, information leakage, and compliance as it relates to
email.
Service-Oriented
Architecture (SOA) is creating a lot of
buzz across the IT industry. Propelled by standards-based technologies like XML,
Web Services, and SOAP, SOA is quickly moving from pilot projects to mainstream
applications critical to business operations. One of the key standards
accelerating the adoption of SOA is Business Process Execution Language (BPEL)
for Web Services.
Back in April 2006, Microsoft made a change to how Internet
Explorer handled embedded controls used on some webpages.
This was frustrating to users of IE and did not really offer any addition security that was not already in place.
Some sites required users to click to activate before they could interact with the control.
Microsoft has now licensed the technologies from Eolas, removing the click to activate requirement in Internet Explorer. Because of this, Microsoft is removing the click to activate behavior from Internet Explorer!
It is important to note that this change will require no modifications to existing webpages, and no new actions for developers creating new pages.
Microsoft is reverting to the old behavior. Once Internet Explorer is updated, all pages that currently require click to activate will no longer require the control to be activated. They will all just work.
|
Before April 2006 |
After April 2006 IE Active X update |
After April 2008 Removal | |
|
Controls Injected Via JavaScript |
No Click to Activate |
No Click To Activate |
No Click To Activate |
|
Controls loaded Direct In HTML (<object>, <embed>, <applet>) |
No Click to Activate |
Click To Activate Required |
No Click To Activate |
Best Places for Business and Careers
(Forbes) The
news on the economy in recent months has been uninspiring. The subprime lending
mess threatens to accelerate the housing slowdown. Gas prices are at their
highest in eight months. Gross domestic product growth this year is expected to
be less than 3% for the first time since 2003. But one part of the country
consistently manages to produce strong economic growth and still keep costs
down. For the second straight year the Southeast placed 5 metros in the Top 10
of our Best Places for Business and Careers. While most economies in the West
have also outperformed their peers in the Northeast and Midwest over the past
four years, living costs there have risen dramatically. Housing prices in
Phoenix, spurred in part by easy lending, are up 57% in the past two years,
knocking it off our Top 10.
The
overall rank for the best places to live according to Forbes is:
|
Rank |
Metro
Area |
Cost
Of Doing Business |
Job
Growth |
Educational
Attainment |
Population
(thou) |
|
1
|
Raleigh
NC |
27
|
35
|
12
|
978
|
|
2
|
Provo
UT |
67
|
17
|
30
|
465
|
|
3
|
Boise
ID |
19
|
19
|
84
|
560
|
|
4
|
Des
Moines IA |
49
|
64
|
50
|
531
|
|
5
|
Knoxville
TN |
14
|
49
|
88
|
662
|
|
6
|
Albuquerque
NM |
34
|
56
|
53
|
813
|
|
7
|
Durham
NC |
33
|
124
|
6
|
462
|
|
8
|
Fayetteville
AR |
11
|
8
|
140
|
417
|
|
9
|
Nashville
TN |
42
|
47
|
82
|
1,438
|
|
10
|
Olympia
WA |
113
|
21
|
40
|
233
|
|
11
|
Ogden
UT |
58
|
33
|
96
|
499
|
|
12
|
Gainesville
FL |
52
|
67
|
13
|
243
|
|
13
|
Naples
FL |
79
|
3
|
46
|
317
|
|
14
|
Richmond
VA |
26
|
72
|
64
|
1,193
|
|
15
|
Lincoln
NE |
15
|
114
|
24
|
284
|
|
16
|
Edison
NJ |
174
|
93
|
25
|
2,323
|
|
17
|
Tallahassee
FL |
81
|
68
|
16
|
339
|
|
18
|
Mercer
County NJ |
156
|
46
|
20
|
368
|
|
19
|
Omaha
NE |
69
|
113
|
60
|
821
|
|
20
|
Spokane
WA |