Why January could be a big month for Windows 10

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Date: Dec 7, 2014 7:31 AM
Subject: Why January could be a big month for Windows 10
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Notable deaths of 2014 from the worlds of technology, science & inventions New IT outsourcing model boosts bottom line Network World Daily News AM December 07, 2014 Why January could be a big month for Windows 10 While people are banging away at the Windows 10 technical preview, Microsoft is preparing for a real big month come this January, including major updates and a wider release product.Currently, Windows 10 Technical Preview is on build 9879, although there have been stories of build 9888 being out in the wild. This was described as an interim partner build of Windows 10, not meant for public consumption.In that build, people noted that Microsoft changed the kernel version number from 6.4 to 10.0. A whole lot of fuss was kicked up over this change, but for the end user it means nothing.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here READ MORE   Issue highlights 1. Notable deaths of 2014 from the worlds of technology, science & inventions 2. INSIDER New IT outsourcing model boosts bottom line 3. Remember when Cisco sued Apple over the iPhone name? 4. Full speed ahead for 802.11ac Gigabit Wi-Fi 5. 17% of adult Internet users couldn't pick Bill Gates out of a lineup 6. The cloud foils alleged police brutality coverup 7. Displaced IT workers are being silenced 8. Cloud upstarts: Too cheap to trust? 9. 5 great free Windows tuneup utilities you need right now 10. The Top 5 Opportunities for VMware EVO:RAIL Partners 11. In battle for sub-$200 smartphones, consumers will be the winners 12. Cisco slaps Arista Networks with patent infringement suit 13. How to speed up your network without replacing your AirPort Extreme Base Station 14. Apple to Host "Hour of Code" Workshops at its stores next week 15. IBM fixes serious flaw in Endpoint Manager for mobile device management WHITE PAPER: BMC Software Guide to Managing and Lowering Mainframe Software Charges Monthly license charges (MLC) are rising by 7% or more each year, and account for 30% of total mainframe costs. Yet managing MLC costs is an inexact science. This best practice guide provides a step-by-step process to reduce mainframe MLC costs up to 20% without compromising business critical services. Learn More Notable deaths of 2014 from the worlds of technology, science & inventions Remembering2014 has been a particularly tough year for those of us at IDG who mourn the loss of Patrick McGovern, founder and chairman of the company, this past March. Here's our tribute to Pat and others who contributed much to our lives but are with us no longer. (IDG News Service contributed to this report.)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here READ MORE INSIDER New IT outsourcing model boosts bottom line Faced with increased competition and pricing pressure, global service providers have been increasing their focus on their most lucrative business segments in recent years. And that restructuring is beginning to bolster their bottom lines. During the second quarter of 2014, IT outsourcing providers saw the highest growth in their operating margins in five years, according to outsourcing consultancy Everest Group.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story) READ MORE Remember when Cisco sued Apple over the iPhone name? Cisco Systems' General Counsel Mark Chandler, explaining Friday's blockbuster patent and copyright infringement lawsuits against switching rival Arista Networks (NASDAQ: ANET), emphasized that "I can count on one hand the number of times we've initiated suit against a competitor, supplier or customer."Chandler might be right, but he's probably pretty close to having to resort to his second hand for counting lawsuits. And when Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) does sue, it makes a splash. Remember when the company lawyered up vs. Apple seven years ago over the name of a brand new little device dubbed iPhone?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here READ MORE Full speed ahead for 802.11ac Gigabit Wi-Fi Last December customers were peppering wireless LAN vendors with questions about whether to upgrade to the pre-standard-but-certified 802.11ac products flooding the market or hold off until 2015, when more powerful "Wave 2" Gigabit Wifi gear was expected to become prevalent.A year later, even though Wave 2 products have begun trickling into the market, many IT shops seem less preoccupied with Wave 2 and more focused on installing the Wave 1 11ac routers, access points and other products at hand. After all, this first wave of 11ac is at least a couple times faster than last generation 11n, plus has more range, boasts better power efficiency and is more secure. And even Apple's new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus support it.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here READ MORE 17% of adult Internet users couldn't pick Bill Gates out of a lineup Oh, sure, he's not in the news quite as often as when he was running Microsoft day to day, but Bill Gates – richest man in the world – remains one of the most famous people on the planet.Yet nearly 1 in 5 adult Internet users were unable to identify Gates as the man pictured above, despite the multiple-choice format, according to a "Web IQ" quiz of 1,006 people conducted by PewResearch.I would have thought the question not worth asking. I was wrong.By the way, if you'd like to take the quiz yourself, you can find it here.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here READ MORE WHITE PAPER: Nexsan Technologies Hybrid Approach Rewrites The Rules For Backup Storage Exponential data growth and long-term retention requirements are putting tremendous pressure on IT professionals, and the constant pressure to reduce storage costs has led many IT departments to settle for the status quo when it comes to protecting their data. View more The cloud foils alleged police brutality coverup In the wake of the uproar over Michael Brown's death in Ferguson and the Eric Garner situation in New York City, Denver is now dealing with its own alleged police brutality scandal, and this one involves the cloud.Here's the situation: A witness named Levi Frasier recorded a video in August of police arresting a drug suspect named David Nelson Flores. Fraiser recorded police punching Flores multiple times during the altercation and it showed that when Flores's girlfriend - who is pregnant - approached the scene police tripped her, causing her to fall to the ground.+ MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: Imagine traveling in an airliner without access to any of your personal electronic devices +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here READ MORE Displaced IT workers are being silenced A major problem with the H-1B debate is the absence of displaced IT workers in news media accounts. Much of the reporting is one-sided -- and there's a reason for this.An IT worker who is fired because he or she has been replaced by a foreign, visa-holding employee of an offshore outsourcing firm will sign a severance agreement. This severance agreement will likely include a non-disparagement clause that will make the fired worker extremely cautious about what they say on Facebook, let alone to the media.ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: How to lure tech talent with employee benefits, perks On-the-record interviews with displaced workers are difficult to get. While a restrictive severance package may be one handcuff, some are simply fearful of jeopardizing future job prospects by talking to reporters.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here READ MORE Cloud upstarts: Too cheap to trust? Hosting provider Atlantic.net launched a $0.99 per month cloud server this fall, which is significantly less expensive than the $0.013 per hour starting price for market-leader Amazon Web Services' on-demand Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) virtual machines.SherWeb, another mid-size hosting provider that is pivoting into the Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) market, launched a Hyper-V/SSD-flash/InfiniBand-fabric/Intel-powered cloud offering that it says beats AWS on a variety of input/output capability benchmark tests. Providers like Digital Ocean, ProfitBricks and Concerto are among others attempting to differentiate their services from AWS, Microsoft and Google on price, performance and usability.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here READ MORE 5 great free Windows tuneup utilities you need right now Want a faster, cleaner, better-running PC? Then check out these five free downloads to clean up and speed up your computer.+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD 7 free tools every network needs +CCleaner 5.0The latest version of my favorite tune-up tool of them all is finally out, CCleaner 5.0, and it's a must-have for anyone who wants a faster PC, more privacy, and wants to degunk their PC. The same core tools are there, as in previous versions: It cleans out junk files, temporary files, unneeded files, and other files that could be privacy-invaders. And it still includes a solid Registry cleaner. So what's new? It's got a flatter-looking interface so that it looks more up-to-date, and it's faster. And you can manage Chrome plug-ins as well. If you've never used it before, you need it now. If you're a long-time user, you'll want to get this latest version.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here READ MORE The Top 5 Opportunities for VMware EVO:RAIL Partners In a recent survey, ESG found that more than one-third of research respondents have deployed Integrated Computing Platforms (ICPs). The results validate the idea that an alternative IT infrastructure consumption model other than DIY methods has tremendous value (note: I am an employee of ESG Research).What's responsible for driving this trend? All three points of the iron triangle: improved economics, reduced time, and predictability.VMware's announcement of its EVO line of offerings (RAIL and RACK) at this past summer's VMworld has added even more fuel to the market and further confirmation that IT has an improved means of procuring, deploying, and managing IT infrastructure. However, the EVO stamp is very prescriptive, so it's up to each partner to differentiate its own offering. The VMware EVO:RAIL configuration is standard across all partners:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here READ MORE WHITE PAPER: Riverbed Technology Riverbed Optimization System: Technical Overview The Riverbed Optimization System (RiOS™) powers Riverbed's unique line of SteelHead™ application acceleration appliances and Steelhead Mobile client software. RiOS is based on technologies that solve a range of problems affecting wide area networks (WANs) and application performance. View Now>> In battle for sub-$200 smartphones, consumers will be the winners If you plan to buy a cheap smartphone next year expect to get LTE, an HD screen and a good-looking device, as competing manufacturers and chip vendors lower prices.Smartphone manufacturers have always put effort into the development of entry-level smartphones. But growing competition will result in some real improvements for consumers in 2015.This year, it was disappointing to see that smartphones in the sub-$200 segment didn't get bigger upgrades. Motorola's Moto E and the new Moto G lack LTE, and droves of competing products like including the HTC 510 and LG G2 Mini still have low-resolution screens.But next year both LTE and high-res displays will become standard features on entry-level smartphones thanks to the availability of better systems-on-a-chip, the basic building blocks of smartphones. For example, Qualcomm's Snapdragon 200 family, which is used by devices like the Moto E and Microsoft's Lumia 535, is getting LTE for the first time next year with the arrival of the 210 model. It will start powering smartphones and tablets during the first half of next year.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here READ MORE Cisco slaps Arista Networks with patent infringement suit Cisco today filed two lawsuits against data center switch competitor Arista Networks for allegedly violating its intellectual property.One suit is for patent infringement, which charges Arista with violating 14 Cisco patents for 12 features in the Arista EOS operating system. The second suit is for extensive copying of Cisco's user manuals and command line structures, right down to the grammatical errors within them."This is not an accident but a strategy," says a source familiar with the matter. "It was a deliberate, brazen and blatant intellectual property violation in order to gain competitive advantage in the marketplace. Arista's shortcutting to get to market and win share."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here READ MORE How to speed up your network without replacing your AirPort Extreme Base Station Apple's AirPort Extreme Base Stations (AEBS) have never been a bargain, but they've always offered good speed and range. What's really set them apart, however, is ease of configuration and the ability to connect remotely using Back to My Mac. If your base station is more than a few years old, though, the performance gap between it and newer routers may tempt you to replace it. That could leave you in a bit of a quandary: Replace it with a newer but relatively expensive $199 AirPort Extreme Base Station or switch to a lower-cost (and potentially higher-performing) third-party Wi-Fi router. Choose the former, and you replace functionality that still works perfectly well and spend top dollar for what may not be the best performance available. Or choose the latter and you lose out on that easy configuration and remote access. (And if the router you're thinking of replacing is an AirPort Time Capsule, you would lose convenient network backups via Time Machine.)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here READ MORE Apple to Host "Hour of Code" Workshops at its stores next week Apple Apple on Dec. 11 will welcome to its stores around the world those wanting to take part in the Code.org Hour of Code programming initiative. If you're interested in taking part in an Apple Store workshop, act fast since slots are filling up already. Apple will be hosting engineers and developers to teach students at select stores around the world.The Hour of Code is the main event during the Computer Science Education Week (Dec. 8-14) that non-profit Code.org is spearheading to inspire K-12 students to take an interest in computer science. Code.org has sought to make the tutorials in its arsenal as engaging as possible for kids. For example, it has partnered with Disney Interactive to create a tutorial featuring characters from the movie "Frozen." To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here READ MORE IBM fixes serious flaw in Endpoint Manager for mobile device management A vulnerability in the IBM Endpoint Manager for mobile devices could allow attackers to execute malicious code on the servers used by companies to manage devices.The IBM Endpoint Manager Mobile Device Management (MDM) product provides companies with management, security and reporting functionality for mobile devices.Researchers from a German security firm called RedTeam Pentesting discovered that authentication cookies for several IBM Endpoint Manager components are protected with a hardcoded static secret token that can be easily obtained. The affected components are iOS extender, Self-service portal, Trusted Services provider and Admin Portal.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here READ MORE WEBCAST: IBM Corporation Reinventing the analytics experience on the cloud IBM Watson Analytics brings advanced analytical capabilities to business analysts who can conduct the kind of analysis that has been limited to highly skilled practitioners such as statisticians, data miners, and data scientists. Learn More SLIDESHOWS 14 go-to tools for Mac sysadmins Mac pro Gerard Allen shares his must-have sysadmin tools for enterprise Apple deployments. JOIN THE NETWORK WORLD COMMUNITIES As network pros you understand that the value of connections increase as the number of connections increase, the so called network effect, and no where is this more evident than in professional relationships. Join Network World's LinkedIn and Facebook communities to share ideas, post questions, see what your peers are working on and scout out job applicants (or maybe find your next opportunity). Network World on Facebook Network World on LinkedIn

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