The Little Geeni

Bangalore, April 5, 2010: Microsoft has announced a slew of new and exciting releases that will help you take your code to the next level in 2010. As one of the longest running independent developer conferences in India, GIDS.NET at the Great Indian Developer Summit 2010 is uniquely positioned to provide a blend of practical, pragmatic and immediately applicable knowledge and a glimpse of the future of technology. At GIDS.NET, 0n 20 April 2010 in Bangalore, expert speakers will address a wide range of topics, including .NET 4.0, Silverlight 3, WCF 4, Visual Studio 2010, REST, Windows Workflow 4, Thread Synchronization, ASP.NET 4.0, SQL Server 2008 R2, LINQ, Unit Testing, CLR & C# 4.0, .NET Patterns, WPF 4, F#, Windows Azure, ADO.NET, Entity Framework, Debugging, T-SQL Tips & Tricks, and more. At GIDS.Web, on 21 April 2010, several more interesting topics such as Silverlight, SL RIA Web services, Microsoft AJAX, ASP.NET Ajax, tips and tricks for building Front-ends for ASP.NET and ASP.NET MVC, and so on. At GIDS.Workshops, on 23 April 2010, expert trainers hold intensive and interactive tutorials of 3 hour duration each on Silverlight, Ajax, JSON, Agile development and more. Read on for details on the Microsoft computing technologies addressed at GIDS.

On 20 April, Manuvir Das, who took Windows Azure from its first days as project Red Dog to its commercial launch and now heads MS’ Remote Desktop Virtualization team, will conduct a keynote on cloud computing paradigm and what it means for developers. In the second keynote of the day, Amazon Web Services’ Simone Brunozzi holds forth on the fundamental principles of Cloud Computing, and how they apply to work and business.

Stephen Forte, the Chief Strategy Officer of Telerik, will begin the day explaining how to build data driven, n-tier Rich Internet Applications (RIA) with Silverlight 4.0. In his second talk, he demonstrates how to properly architect and deploy a BI application using a mix of some exciting new tools and some old familiar ones — OLTP, OLAP, ETL, Microsoft Excel’s PowerPivot 2010, data analysis application and data visualization tools are all covered. Stephen’s third talk at GIDS 2010 delves into the various techniques of sharing code between the Silverlight client and its ASP.NET Web server and their pros and cons. Some techniques work better in C#, others in VB while others are simpler with a little extra tooling or code-generation.

In the workshop on 23 April, Stephen, who is also a certified Scrum master, gives attendees a jump start for taking a certified scrum master exam, introducing Scrum, stepping through real world applications of the Scrum methodology, negotiating with the business, estimation and team dynamics, how to use Scrum in small and large organisations and consulting environments, using Scrum with virtual teams and in off-shoring, and the tools we will use for Agile development, including planning poker, unit testing, and much more.

Venkat Subramaniam delves into what the functional style of programming offers and how it can be utilised using the F# language on the .NET CLR.  Mehfuz Hossain build a VS 2010 addin from ground up using the .Net 4.0 Features, Microsoft Extensibility Framework (MEF) and the Visual Studio 2010 Managed Addin Framework (MAF). In his second talk, Mehfuz shows how to access features like taskbar integration, jumplists, libraries, sensor platform to build a Windows 7 application.

Vinod Malhotra explains how Visual Studio 2010 helps testers quickly create complex multi-machine test environments, file rich actionable bugs faster and leverage test impact information to focus on right set of tests, developers replay the code execution to quickly reproduce a bug and find the root cause, and create automated functional tests and automate build-deploy-test automation to catch regressions. Sachin Vinod Rathi explain how VS 2010′s out of the box support for SharePoint templates makes it easy to design, develop and deploy SharePoint Applications, Web Parts from within Visual Studio.

In his session at GIDS.NET Bijoy Singhal shows how to create a service based application in VS 2010 using .NET 4.0 – specifically the advancements in Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and Windows Workflows Foundation (WF) targeted at the AppFabric, and covers how to package, deploy and manage the application in IIS/WAS using the new capabilities. Bijoys’s second talk is an in-depther on Windows Workflow Foundation (WWF) and how it can be leveraged to quickly build a system based on Workflows to handle the various business rules and processes.

Vinod Jagannathan explains the who, why how and what of SQL Azure and conducts live demo of applications running on the cloud and best practices while Ramaprasanna Chellamuthu explians further about Windows Azure AppFabric.

Vineet Bhatia’s focused session covers what is new in WCF 4.0 and how to configure communications across different protocols and platforms through the use of WCF. Vinod Kumar teaches writing and tuning queries and programming with T-SQL in SQL Server 2005 and 2008. Chaitra Nagaraj explains how to leverage the ASP.NET AJAX Library Beta, jQuery and AJAX Control Toolkit in ASP.NET applications.

Harish Ranganathan demonstrates how to take an existing ASP.NET Application that uses a SQL Server backend and migrate the application to Windows Azure. His second session, on 20 April, focuses on creating a 3 tier application with Data Access Layer using ADO.NET Entity Framework, Middle tier using WCF RIA Services and UI layer using ASP.NET Webforms.

Alok Jain presents an overview of the Windows Phone 7 application platform, developer tools, application frameworks, toolsets to rapidly build impactful applications for Windows Phone 7 series, and support for Silverlight and XNA. Reddy Duggempudi delves deeper explaining the functionality for Silverlight applications that is unique to the Windows Phone application platform, what it takes to build phone apps using Visual Studio 2010 and Microsoft Expression Blend, and the new input paradigms including multi-touch, software keyboard, accelerometer and microphone.

Janakiram MSV explains how a Java developer can leverage the Windows Azure Hosted Services and Storage Services for deploying and running applications on the cloud platform and utilising the storage using Windows Azure storage SDK. Praveen Srivatsa focuses on architecting and designing Java applications to leverage the cloud metaphor and the benefits of cloud hosted services and, perhaps more importantly, where it does not benefit.

Pandurang Nayak shows how to use Silverlight Web Services to build rich Internet apps. He conducts another session on using jQuery and Microsoft AJAX to build rich user experience for ASP.NET Webforms and ASP.NET MVC based web applications. Nahas Mohammed holds a demo-intensive session on how to consolidate hosting infrastructure by providing a single environment to host ASP.Net and PHP applications side-by-side in IIS.

If you are a developer, programmer, software engineer and/or architect who creates applications, write code, or develops websites leveraging the Microsoft .NET Framework, Visual Studio, SQL Server, jQuery, Visual Studio Team System, ADO.NET, Silverlight, WCF, WPF, RESTful Services, and more, Great Indian Developer Summit is one event you don’t want to miss. Attend Great Indian Developer Summit to gain the information, education and solutions you seek. From post-conference workshops, breakout sessions by expert instructors, keynotes by industry heavyweights, enhanced networking opportunities, and more. for more information, visit: http://www.developersummit.com.

About Great Indian Developer Summit

Great Indian Developer Summit is the gold standard for India’s software developer ecosystem for gaining exposure to and evaluating new projects, tools, services, platforms, languages, software and standards. Packed with premium knowledge, action plans and advise from been-there-done-it veterans, creators, and visionaries, the 2010 edition of Great Indian Developer Summit features focused sessions, case studies, workshops and power panels that will transform you into a force to reckon with. Featuring 3 co-located conferences: GIDS.NET, GIDS.Web, GIDS.Java and an exclusive day of in-depth tutorials – GIDS.Workshops, from 20 April to 24 April at the IISc campus in Bangalore.

At GIDS you’ll participate in hundreds of sessions encompassing the full range of Microsoft computing, Java, Agile, RIA, Rich Web, open source/standards, languages, frameworks and platforms, practical tutorials that deep dive into technical skill and best practices, inspirational keynote presentations, an Expo Hall featuring dozens of the latest projects and products activities, engaging networking events, and the interact with the best and brightest of speakers from around the world.

For further information on GIDS 2010, please visit the summit on the web http://www.developersummit.com/

A Saltmarch Media Press Release
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.htaccess 2010, Azure, Center, Conference, Definitive, India's, Jquery, Microsoft, More, Silverlight, Stage, Take, Technology

Copyright (c) 2008 Titus Hoskins

One of the most problematic and confusing issues most webmasters have with Google concerns linking. How your links are ranked? How you should link out? How you should construct your internal links? How you should get more inbound links? How many links should you have on a page? And the list of questions goes on…

Perhaps, the most annoying aspect for the struggling webmaster, has been Google’s secrecy in how it actually ranks links and pages. Google’s whole PageRank and Ranking Algorithm is so complex that no one can fully boast they understand how the whole system works.

Google’s ranking secrecy and complexity has probably been well-planned mainly because there are millions of webmasters who would like to “game” the Google Algorithm and achieve high keyword rankings through manipulation with so-called “black-hat” SEO techniques and reverse engineering.

Wouldn’t it be ironic if this whole secrecy and complexity is more of a smokescreen rather than an actual deception on Google’s part. What if the keys to the kingdom are actually yours for the taking? What if the solution is hiding in plain sight for everyone to see? What if the secret to high rankings in Google is not a secret at all? Wouldn’t that be a hoot!

Actually, that’s not a far-fetched assumption to make, mainly because many of Google’s linking policies and recommendations are freely given by Google. Whether you can believe Google is actually giving you the goods is another issue that we’ll put on the back-burner for another day; but for now, Google’s advice on link building is rather generous and informative.

As a part of Links Week held recently, Google’s Maile Ohye gave some pointers on what Google is looking for and how it does its index ranking. No big surprise that content and inbound links are the two most important factors. This is what most SEO experts have been saying for years.

A site’s content is one of the main factors. Therefore, you should have a compelling site with interesting information and/or offer quality products, entertainment, opinions…

(Quoting Maile Ohye)

“One of the strongest ranking factors is my site’s content. Additionally, perhaps my site is also linked from three sources — however, one inbound link is from a spammy site. As far as Google is concerned, we want only the two quality inbound links to contribute to the PageRank signal in our ranking.”

“Given the user’s query, over 200 signals (including the analysis of the site’s content and inbound links as mentioned above) are applied to return the most relevant results to the user.”

“As many of you know, relevant, quality inbound links can affect your PageRank (one of many factors in our ranking algorithm). And quality links often come naturally to sites with compelling content or offering a unique service.”

(End Quote)

Then Maile Ohye explained further how to create unique and compelling content for your site:

(Quoting Maile Ohye)

- Start a blog: make videos, do original research, and post interesting stuff on a regular basis. If you’re passionate about your site’s topic, there are lots of great avenues to engage more users.

- Teach readers new things, uncover new news, be entertaining or insightful, show your expertise, interview different personalities in your industry and highlight their interesting side. Make your site worthwhile.

- Participate thoughtfully in blogs and user reviews related to your topic of interest. Offer your knowledgeable perspective to the community.

- Provide a useful product or service. If visitors to your site get value from what you provide, they’re more likely to link to you.

(End Quote)

SEO experts have been telling webmasters for years that creating valuable, unique, relevant useful content is one of the best ways to get your site and pages highly ranked in Google. If you create valuable content then other sites will want to link to you naturally.

Linking out to other sites should be done in a “common sense” manner and it’s a way of offering value to your visitor’s experience. We expect helpful relevant links when we visit other sites since it’s a natural way a good quality site should work; so be careful of linking out to spammy sites that only offer pages of links with very little or no unique content.

There are several things every prudent webmaster should be checking like making sure your site hasn’t been hacked and hidden links placed on your site without your knowledge; those with WordPress blogs should be installing the latest security measures and updates. Make sure you keep checking all your outbound links regularly since you may initially link out to a valuable resource, but over time this page may be closed or replaced with one of those spammy-links-holding pages. It can happen to the best of us.

What has confused things lately is all the “link buying” which Google greatly discourages and has shown its displeasure by de-ranking many paid directories. The size of your “wallet” shouldn’t be the determining factor in how pages and content are ranked. If you’re selling a link, it should have the “no-follow” tag so that it doesn’t pass PageRank along and confuse the system. Policing or deciding what is or what is not a “paid link” has become a major problem for the search engines, including Google.

You should not have more than “100 links on a page” as this can overload the search engine robots that regularly crawl the web, indexing pages. Likewise, your site’s “linking architecture” should be natural and easy for both your visitors and the robots to follow. Make sure your important pages are no more than a few clicks away from your homepage.

As to interior linking, the two main points being: Intuitive Navigation for your visitors and Crawlable Text Links for the search engine robots. Use descriptive anchor text links that explain your content to your visitors. The anchor text is the underlined clickable part of the link and many SEO experts suggest you place your keywords or variations of them in your anchor text.

Make sure your site is transparent. Do not use “link cloaking” on your site. Make sure what your visitor sees is what the robots are indexing. Use a 301 Redirect if you have permanently moved any webpages. Again, there is stressed the need for a sitemap as this can be very helpful for both your visitors and robots to see and find all your valuable content. Make sure you have a sitemap and all your important pages are listed on it.

One final note, many professional webmasters and marketers don’t worry about PageRank as much as they are concerned with SERPs. Getting those top rankings for their sites in the search engine results is what really matters. Again, quality content and building quality links play an important role in achieving those top spots and maybe Google has already given you the formula for getting them. Maybe, maybe not.

Google Google, Linking, More, Reveals, Secrets, Webmasters

VOIP telephone services and IP telephony are fast-becoming leaders in global communications processes. Many large companies are using VOIP telephone systems to lock down international customers and to open international product discussions without any extra long-distance cost. Many VOIP telephone personal users are finding the ability to get in touch with their family comes a lot easier over VOIP telephony and are starting to learn more about family that they had in distant lands. The world is increasingly becoming a more friendly place again because of VOIP telephony and its related technology, giving us the ability to branch out our arms of communication to the world and, possibly someday, beyond.

Having a VOIP phone may make you the most popular person in the office. Imagine having the capability to use your VOIP anywhere in the world and still get excellent rates, possibly even pay no money at all, for long distance phone calls. Incoming calls can be automatically moved to your VOIP phone, regardless of where you have decided to connect to the VOIP network. This gives the VOIP phone user a great deal of mobility and functionality, on the road or abroad. The VOIP telephone is certainly the thinking person’s communication device, enabling the entire world to draw closer as the user continues to move through it.

Business VOIP is one of the most popular services available from VOIP providers. Most providers offer free VOIP telephone numbers to use nearly everywhere in the world. These numbers are arranged through organizations that compile and connect people on VOIP networks. VOIP User is one of these organizations and it enables customers the ability to connect to any network and at time anywhere in the world for free. This mobility makes VOIP telephone systems the wave of the future for corporate users and for business VOIP plans.

There are also VOIP call center programs at work that enable people to connect to a call center for customer support twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and so on. These call center agents can work from anywhere on any network, much like other VOIP users, and can connect and answer queries any time of the day from around the world. All that type of functionality requires is a relatively quick and stable internet or network connection. The VOIP call center programs are especially popular among new users with a lot of questions about VOIP technology.

Many VOIP systems or providers also provide a series of bundled extras for no extra charge. This PSTN features include great items like 3-way calling, call forwarding, call waiting, automatic redial, and the ever-popular caller ID. The services VOIP call centers provide are also bundled with these great features, making VOIP an even more popular choice among people looking for a great deal with great service features as well. It is a program that seems too good to be true to many people, but the technology is real and the programs work just as they say they will.

The future in terms of VOIP telephone systems is here. Without a doubt, VOIP telephone technology is on its way to taking over the communications work and establishing new trends within a matter of mere years. As systems change and evolve to offer even more capabilities to customers, the customer base of companies like Vonage VOIP will grow significantly and people will flock to VOIP providers to upgrade their existing telephone services to something better. VOIP will change the way we communicate once again.

Information Technology Features, Money, More, Save, Telephone, VoIP

PHP means Hypertext Preprocessor Programming; it is basically server side scripting language. Server side means the scripts will be in HTML but server processes on it first before sending that applications to browsers. You cannot see PHP coding in source of that particular web page because the code is not visible, it only gives output. PHP is used to create dynamic web pages for internet business.

Why programming in PHP:

PHP is very helpful in content management system PHP can be used for command line scripting It can be used in relational database management systems Provides design structure to promote rapid application development It allows developers to write extensions in C It can be used in all major operating systems including Linux, Microsoft Windows and RISC OS It permits users to transfer specific files from their client computers to a web server It is flexible in database connectivity

PHP Programming Protection:

While it is not entirely possible to protect your site, yet there are few precautions that you can incorporate for better protection with PHP programming. Some of these are:

You should check the referrer, for being sure that the information sent is from your website and not an outside source. Since, there are maximum chances of the information is being fake. Restriction of the type of extension files being uploaded on the website is yet another method of security check. Renaming files is another way in which the program can be secured. This procedure involves the checking of double-barreled extensions like file.php.gif. Changing the permission command for the upload folder so that files within it are not executable. All the alterations created by the user should be allowed only when they ‘Login’ into the database. On the other hand the owner of the site should always keep a close watch on all files being uploaded and then make them live.

PHP development services have many advantages like low cost and high performance. The other advantage is that the code is simple and easy to understand. PHP is widely used for frameworks and to design a structure. PHP is mainly used for the small business with limited budget.

Therefore, the successful development of a website through PHP web development is complete only when the site owner consults a professional programmer.

There are lots of service providers in India who provide outsourcing PHP programming services with highly qualified and skilled IT professional. They are providing best services at affordable rate and always ready to fulfill all your requirements. If you’re getting good service provider then you can fulfill all your requirements and you can also earn long profit form that because the future of PHP is very amazing.

php Benefits, More, Security, Website

In today’s world the biggest craze are computer games and the systems that are needed to play them. They have set this market on fire because all the kids want to own them. Most kids will talk amongst themselves about what games they have played and the scores that they have made. If an older person would happen to walk up and hear some of this conversation they might not know what they are talking about.

Most of these people will spend almost all of their spare time playing these games and trying to win them. When this happens they will either keep this game and go out and buy another one, or they might sell it to a friend. Either way someone else will be playing this game. These companies are always putting new games and game systems into the market place because as long as there is a market for this system, it will stay. Once the market for this one system starts to drop they will put something else in its place.

These games have their good points and their bad points. The good ones are that some of these games will teach your child skills and keep them at home and out of trouble. The bad points on these games, with this one point being the worst, is that your kids don’t want to do anything thing else with their time or they never want to go outside.

When some of these game systems first came out over time they would destroy your T.V. sets. If your television set was colored, it would strip the color right out of the set. A lot of parents found this out too late, and they would have to buy new ones. Most of them would just give that child the television to put in their rooms. Now most of the families in this country have more than one television because of this reason. You don’t want their game systems on your new televisions. For one thing you might not like these games, and then when you come home you are going to want to watch regular shows.

If the kids have a television in their rooms they can play their games in the room without disrupting the rest of the family. I, for one, don’t know the first thing about these games, but my children do. My son has several that he plays on my computer. I have seen some of them and still don’t see the fun in them, but kids do.

Computer Games Computer, Ever, Fire, Games, Market, More, Than, Todays

Managed appliances:

security solutions that do more

The complexity of dealing with enterprise security continues to grow, placing increasingly heavy

demands on the IT department. Vendors have attempted to meet the challenge with solutions

that strive to let the IT administrator do more with constrained resources and less time. But these

have turned out to be at best only partial solutions. This paper introduces the concept of the

managed appliance, highlighting how they serve a specific purpose (i.e. email or web security),

and how they free up time while providing improved security, visibility and peace of mind better

than any other type of security solution available today. It explains how managed appliances score

over conventional appliances in the fundamental principles of efficient security management:

reduced daily administration, an enhanced overall user experience, and proactive vendor support.

Managed appliances: security solutions that do more

Managed appliances:security solutions that do more

In today’s increasingly connected world, the challenges to maintaining business continuity

seem never-ending. Shifting operational priorities, complex and evolving networks, and mounting

internal and external security risks have led to an increasingly volatile environment. Nowhere is this

more evident than in the IT department where success is expected despite daunting project

scopes, tight timeframes, and perpetually strained resources – money, staff, and most significantly,

time.

So how are today’s IT administrators addressing the challenge of providing cost-effective, fullscope

security while ensuring that administrators have time for other, more strategic priorities? The answer is that they are increasingly choosing appliance-based security solutions on the assumption (based on vendor promises) that appliances are easier to set up and use than software.

Easily adaptable to any network infrastructure, and built on a maintenance-free operating system,

appliances are, indeed, a natural form-factor for security solutions. But do they actually fulfill the promise of effective security with less effort?

Do they enable better strategic management by providing better visibility and control? Or are they

simply software on a box, offering no realizable benefit beyond a hardened operating system? Are

they, in fact, simply a modern-day version of the emperor’s new clothes?

Appliances defined

According to Gartner, an appliance is “a computing entity that delivers predefined service(s) through

an application-specific interface, with no accessible operating software.”2

True appliances require a high level of integration between the hardware and software on a

dedicated device. An appliance is not simply pre-installed software imaged onto a generic or

re-branded server. It is a single package that is straightforward to acquire and deploy, minimizes

the degree of configuration required during installation, requires minimal IT support and

alleviates the need to manually patch, configure, and maintain the underlying operating system.

Just 7.91% of the overall IT budget in North

American and European enterprises will go

to security in 2007. 48% of respondents

also identified security initiatives as a major

theme for the IT organization.

Forrester Research, Jan 20071

Managed appliances: security solutions that do more

Conventional appliances: a promise broken

In response to the growing demand for simpler security solutions, vast numbers of appliances have

flooded the market. However, most are not fulfilling the promises of overall time and resource savings.

Further, not all devices marketed as appliances are actually appliances. They fall short of Gartner’s

definition offering neither the predefined service(s) through an application-specific interface nor the

vendor-maintained infrastructure – in many cases, the vendor simply pastes the software onto the

hardware. These appliance-like solutions in reality require substantial time to install, configure and

manage.

Those solutions which try to solve non-specific

problems or pull together non-integrated fragments

of solutions, frequently lack simplicity. As vendors

work to get product to market quickly, they invest

little thought in developing solutions that will

reduce administrator effort, bringing together

disparate functionality, delivering it on a single

server and calling it an appliance. The absence of

integrated design impacts the manageability of the

device and usability suffers dramatically.

However, the ultimate criticism of today’s

appliances is their failure to build confidence that

they are doing what they should. So although the

burden of installation might be reduced to some

degree, and although some appliances do offer

some flexibility if traffic, quarantining, or archiving

requirements change, this does not constitute a

promise fulfilled. Unless the administrator can also

have confidence in the appliance’s performance

and availability, it has not delivered its true

potential.

The managed appliance: the ideal solution

Into this field of incomplete solutions enters the managed appliance, bridging the entire spectrum

of IT concerns and delivering clear benefits in measurable time savings and peace of mind.

It adds value in critical areas such as system health monitoring, tracking of and assisting with

anomalous traffic behavior, and one of the most time-consuming administrative tasks – internal

help desk support.

The ‘managed’ part of a managed appliance becomes apparent when one looks at two

aspects of its design: how it reduces day-to-day administrative overhead and saves time, and how

it is supported by the vendor both proactively and reactively.

Day-to-day administration

Determining the time saved in any IT process

can be difficult to measure. Yet such assessment

becomes important when evaluating the added

value of a security solution. All aspects of an

appliance’s design contribute toward its overall

impact on administration and an experienced

security vendor’s insight into the latest network

security issues can translate into more effective

policy creation and deployment and better overall

user experience.

Streamlined installation

An appliance should be ready to perform within minutes of being taken out of the box, without the administrator having to read tomes of documentation. A well-designed managed appliance provides easy access to an array of

features that makes this possible. For example:

Configuration wizards can save a great deal of time and effort, minimizing data entry and

offering access to targeted help topics when relevant.

Automatic verification of network settings will ensure that the appliance is configured

correctly the first time.

Automatic detection of user authentication systems such as Active Directory® servers

help pre-configure the appliance for the local environment and reduce the amount of time

needed for installation and configuration.

Finally, many administrators want clear confirmation that the appliance is indeed in

regular, scheduled contact with the vendor’s security and software update services.

Instant policy set-up

Security policy optimization is a balance between efficiency and control. Achieving the right

balance should be the vendor’s challenge, not the administrator’s. Vendors with extensive expertise in

dealing with threats and who truly understand the challenges currently faced by IT departments will

offer the optimal combination of powerful default settings and easily accessible (but not excessive)

customization options, available through a wizard-based interface.

Task automation/elimination

There are myriad tasks and events that

administrators should never have to do manually:

download threat definition updates, back up

configuration data, archive logs, upgrade software,

synchronize with LDAP servers for authentication

and policy enforcement, and many more. Yet

most security solutions, including appliances,

fail to deliver even these most basic time-saving

functions. One of the key differentiators of

managed appliances is that they are designed

to reduce or eliminate as many of these tasks as

possible, without forcing compromises in other

areas, such as acceptable use policies, protection

of confidential business data and overall visibility

and control.

Easier access to information

Easy access to relevant, actionable information is the critical foundation to any appliance interface.

The administrator should only require a single graphic user interface (GUI) to manage all

functions of the appliance, and should never need command line access for any task. Frequently

accessed information – such as protection status, traffic patterns, throughput and system health –

should be visible from a central dashboard. When more detail is required, the administrator should

also be able to navigate the interface quickly using as few clicks as possible, regardless of the starting

point or desired destination.

By providing quick, intuitive access to information, through a point-and-click interface with drill-down

capabilities, and separate off-box archiving, a managed appliance makes it easy to carry out

in depth investigation.

Managed appliances do more than simply

cut down on administrative overhead – they

engender the sense of confidence that comes

from knowing that they are operating as

expected and will continue to do so.

Managed appliances: security solutions that do more

Better reporting and visibility

When done properly, a good reporting system helps paint a clear picture of network traffic and

enables better enforcement of security policies. A good reporting system also helps administrators

plan for the future, by watching and predicting the impact of traffic on the overall network, not just

the appliance. A managed appliance goes beyond the narrower scope of functionality addressed by

traditional appliances by providing visibility into how it is affecting or being affected by upstream

and downstream components.

Ongoing vendor support

A key area in which managed appliances score over other solutions, whether hardware- or

software-based, is in the redefinition of the role of the vendor as an extension of an organization’s IT

department. Managed appliances do more than simply cut down on administrative overhead – they

engender the sense of confidence that comes from knowing that they are operating as expected

and will continue to do so. This is achieved by the vendor committing to both local and remote monitoring, and offering high standards of proactive and reactive support – offering an

agreed service level that provides the clearest differentiation between a traditional appliance and

a managed appliance.

Local monitoring and alerting

In order to focus valuable time on other more

mission-critical activities, administrators should be

able to avoid interacting with non-strategic systems

such as security appliances unless a condition exists

that cannot be resolved automatically.

To achieve this goal, the role of the managed

appliance is clear:

Keep track of what’s going on – a comprehensive array of built-in sensors will monitor system

performance and availability and should cover traffic anomalies, security updates and hardware

performance (e.g. temperature or capacity), and more.

Try to fix the problem if one arises – e.g. initiate an FTP backup of logs or quarantine to make

space for new traffic.

Alert the administrator to take some action if necessary – e.g. investigate downstream mail

servers for queue delays, or isolate a spywareinfected client computer for cleanup.

Proactive support

Where managed appliances really stand apart from the crowd is in the domain of proactive support.

With alerts being sent to the vendor as well as the administrator, the vendor is able to confirm that

appliances are being updated on schedule and remotely monitor the health and performance of the

appliance.

In addition, the ability to initiate contact and offer high-quality technical support even before the

customer is aware there might be a problem, means that the vendor is able to prevent costly service

interruptions, stop important data from being lost and avert critical failures that might occur at a

later time if the condition were to go unnoticed. For example, if the FTP server that archives log and

configuration data becomes unavailable, the vendor can contact the administrator directly.

appliances: security solutions that do more

Similarly, if a condition occurs that can fatally interrupt system performance or availability (e.g.

failing hard drive or defective power supply), the normal operating environment can be

rapidly restored with the vendor dispatching a replacement part or unit as soon as possible.

Reactive support

As well as looking for proactive support, appliance

users will have many occasions where they look

to the vendor to react quickly to specific requests.

Changes to the network infrastructure, evolution of

policy, or training a new administrator unfamiliar

with the appliance, might lead the administrator

to want help and guidance from the vendor and it

is in the response to this type of request that the

vendor of a managed appliance again differs from

other appliance vendors.

Traditional support can come in different forms: built into the appliance and accessible via the

GUI, in an online knowledgebase on the vendor’s website, via email, or via live online or telephone

contact with support engineers. But for a managed appliance vendor, there is an additional layer of

reactive support that surpasses the speed and quality of support associated with traditional

appliances and represents the responsibility assumed by the vendor for ensuring appliance

uptime and availability.

This extra layer involves on-demand remote assistance, through which the vendor can log

onto the customer’s appliance and troubleshoot it remotely. Naturally, this service should be heavily

guarded by security, leaving the customer with ongoing control over the remote session and giving

them access to detailed logs of any modification made by the vendor.

Summary

The challenges faced by organizations in maintaining network security while protecting

business information and client confidentiality have become increasingly complex and timeconsuming.

Dealing with emerging security issues while trying to accomplish more strategic

initiatives is an increasingly fine balancing act for IT administrators. Organizations that seek reduced

administrative effort without compromising security or business practices now have a new

choice: managed appliance solutions. Retaining insight and control, avoiding costly down-time,

and ensuring efficient, effective and reliable security can only be achieved by working with

vendors that understand the challenges facing IT departments, and offer solutions that add real

value beyond security.

The Sophos solution

Sophos managed appliances for email and web

security provide the performance, reliability,

insight and support that IT administrators need,

freeing up time to focus on their business and not

on their infrastructure. Every Sophos appliance

is built on a robust, easy-to-install platform

that features a highly intuitive, easy-to-use

management console for quick access to relevant,

actionable information. They include timesaving

features such as automated installation

and configuration, automatic updates to threat

definitions and software every five minutes, an

advanced alerting system, remote heartbeat

monitoring and on-demand remote assistance. In

addition, all appliances come with 24/7 proactive

technical support.

This article was provided by Sophos and is published here with their full permission. Sophos provides full data protection services including: security software, encryption software, antivirus, and malware protection.

Computer Security appliances, Managed, More, Security, Solutions

The reason why wireless networks are more vulnerable than wired networks is that because the data is transmitted through the broadcast radio technology that works on the same microwave radio band (2.4 gigahertz) as cordless phones, instead of a dedicated cable.

It is possible to be intercepted by hackers, especially if there is not a firewall installed because the networking transmissions are broadcast indiscriminately. Drive by hackers and casual intruders can pick up the radio signal 20 to 50 meters and as much as 500 meters if there is sensitive equipment. It is estimated that 30 percent of all wireless networks have already had a hacking attempt made, even though it is illegal.

Your wireless network can become contaminated with a virus, if another wireless computer taps into the network and has it, contaminating your server and the other computers on that network.

When wireless networks came out, they were more convenient and often a higher speed access than traditional wired networks. It soon became evident that they were easier to be compromised since multiple users were using the same broadcast signals. If a server is not secure, encrypted and firewall protected, it can cause data loss of confidential information and virus attacks that can make a system vulnerable to crashing.

Many government agencies are no longer using wireless networks because of the security issues. For most other usages, a wireless network is suitable, as long as it is firewall protected properly, but you may want to consider the additional security of a wired network, if you handle sensitive information.

The safest thing is to have an IT or network security audit done to evaluate the multiple computers on your network, whether wireless or wired, for security and firewall needs. Businesses that transmit data, store crucial customer information like credit cards and other confidential information need to be especially aware of the consequences, should the information fall into the wrong hands.

By having an IT security audit done on your system, you can discover any vulnerabilities and protect against them. Typically, they will do audits that involve external penetration tests and internal management tests to uncover any possible threats, intentional or by ignorance of protection on the part of users.

Not only can security be compromised through wireless networks that are not properly secured, but wired networks need to have proper security software and firewalls working on their server to assure protection, on an internal, physical basis.

An IT security audit will evaluate the environment of the server, whether wireless or wired and any weak links in the security including the physical location and access to the server and settings for anti-virus and firewall programs.

Wireless networks have gained in popularity due to the ease of installation, especially in older buildings and the cost is less to install than cabling a wired network. The chances of contamination of data, information loss and virus or hacking by intruders may not be worth the cost savings, due to the vulnerability of wireless systems.

Computer Security More, Networks, Than, Vulnerable, Wired, Wireless

You’d get to use the very latest techniques available – and in computer game development, as in other areas of computer animation and design, new ideas and techniques are becoming available all the time. When Andrew Adamson directed the 2005 movie of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, he said he was using techniques simply not available just a few years before. The same is true of computer game design. Every year, games are more realistic, more innovative, more gripping to play.

You might love to play computer games but never imagined you could design them. After all, playing games takes no special skills, but developing them surely takes many skills and lots of know-how, right? True; but you can acquire those skills through distance learning.

With distance learning, you can take game courses from the comfort of your own home. That’s a lot easier, and a lot cheaper, than attending a college to study computer game development.

It’s also likely to be more use to you. Because it is such a fast-moving industry, conventional college courses can be at a real disadvantage. They can be effectively out of date before they’ve even been introduced to the syllabus. A home-based study, on the other hand, can be updated far more easily, keeping you abreast of developments as they happen.

Another big advantage of home-based game courses is, if you choose the right one, it will be put together by games developers for future games developers. In other words, it will have been designed by people who have been trained up in the industry and know exactly what games companies are looking for.

Good course providers, again, will be fully recognised and accredited by the key games industry bodies. They will give you access to trained professional tutors, who will guide you, assess you and help you at every stage as you progress to an industry-recognised exam in computer game development.

And there are no formal entry requirements; you don’t have to have qualifications in maths, science or computer design, for instance. All you need is a real love of your subject, a willingness to learn – and that sense of wonder.

That’s what makes playing computer games lots of fun – and makes being games developers even more fun!

Computer Games Computer, Game, More, Playing, Than, What’S