Sorriest technology companies of 2015

A rundown of the year in apologies from tech vendors and those whose businesses rely heavily on tech.

Sorry situation
Despite all the technology advances that have rolled out this year, it’s also been a sorry state of affairs among leading network and computing vendors, along with businesses that rely heavily on technology. Apple, Google, airlines and more have issued tech-related mea culpas in 2015…

Sony says Sorry by saying Thanks
Network outages caused by DDoS attacks spoiled holiday fun for those who got new PlayStation 4 games and consoles, so Sony kicked off 2015 with an offer of 10% off new purchases, plus an extended free trial for some.

NSA’s backdoor apology
After getting outted by Microsoft and later Edward Snowden for allowing backdoors to be inserted into devices via a key security standard, the NSA sort of apologized. NSA Director of Research Michael Wertheimer, in writing for the Notices of the American Mathematical Society, acknowledges mistakes were made in “The Mathematics Community and the NSA.” He wrote in part: “With hindsight, NSA should have ceased supporting the Dual_EC_DRBG algorithm immediately after security researchers discovered the potential for a trapdoor.”

You probably forgot about this flag controversy
China’s big WeChat messaging service apologized in January for bombarding many of its hundreds of millions of users – and not just those in the United States -- with Stars and Stripes icons whenever they typed in the words “civil rights” on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. WeChat also took heat for not offering any sort of special icons when users typed in patriotic Chinese terms. The special flag icons were only supposed to have been seen by US users of the service.

Go Daddy crosses the line
Web site domain provider Go Daddy as usual relied on scantily clad women as well as animals to spread its message during this past winter’s Super Bowl. The surprising thing is that the animals are what got the company in hot water this time. The company previewed an ad that was supposed to parody Budweiser commercials, but its puppy mill punch line didn’t have many people laughing, so the CEO wound up apologizing and pulling the ad.

Name calling at Comcast
Comcast scrambled to make right after somehow changing the name of a customer on his bill to “(expletive… rhymes with North Pole) Brown” from his actual name, Ricardo Brown. The change took place after Brown’s wife called Comcast to discontinue cable service. The service provider told a USA Today columnist that it was investigating the matter, but in the meantime was refunding the Browns for two years of previous service.

Where to start with Google?
Google’s Department of Apologies has been busy this year: In January the company apologized when its translation services spit out anti-gay slurs in response to searches on the terms “gay” and “homosexual.” In May, Google apologized after a Maps user embedded an image of the Android mascot urinating on Apple’s logo. This summer, Google has apologized for its new Photos app mislabeling African Americans as “gorillas” and for Google Niantic Labs’ Ingress augmented reality game including the sites of former Nazi concentration camps as points of interest.

Carnegie Mellon admissions SNAFU
Carnegie Mellon University’s Computer Science School in February apologized after it mistakenly accepted 800 applicants to its grad problem, only to send out rejection notices hours later. The irony of a computer glitch leading to this problem at such a renowned computer science school was lost on no one…

Lenovo Superfish debacle
Lenovo officials apologized in February after it was discovered that Superfish adware packaged with some of its consumer notebooks was not only a pain for users but also included a serious security flaw resulting from interception of encrypted traffic. “I have a bunch of very embarrassed engineers on my staff right now,” said Lenovo CTO Peter Hortensius. “They missed this.” Lenovo worked with Microsoft and others to give users tools to rid themselves of Superfish.

Apple apologizes for tuning out customers
Apple apologized in March for an 11-hour iTunes service and App Store outage that it blamed on “an internal DNS error at Apple,” in a statement to CNBC.

Blame the iPads
American Airlines in April apologized after digital map application problems on pilot iPads delayed dozens of flights over a two-day period. The airline did stress that the problem was a third-party app, not the Apple products themselves.

Locker awakened
The creator of a strain of ransomware called Locker apologized after he “woke up” the malware, which encrypted files on infected devices and asked for money to release them. A week after the ransomware was activated, the creator apparently had a changed of heart released decryption keys needed by victims to unlock their systems.

HTC wants to be Hero
Phonemaker HTC’s CEO Cher Wang, according to the Taipei Times in June, apologized to investors in June after the company’s new One M9 flagship phone failed to boost sales. “HTC’s recent performance has let people down,” said Wang, pointing to better times ahead with the planned fall release of a new phone dubbed Hero.

Ketchup for adults only
Ketchup maker Heinz apologized in June after an outdated contest-related QR code on its bottles sent a German man to an X-rated website. Meanwhile, the website operator offered the man who complained a free year’s worth of access, which he declined.

Livid Reddit users push out interim CEO
Interim Reddit CEO Ellen Pao apologized in July (“we screwed up”) after the online news aggregation site went nuts over the sudden dismissal of an influential employee known for her work on the site’s popular Ask Me Anything section. Pao shortly afterwards resigned from her post following continued demands for her ouster by site users.

Blame the router
United Airlines apologized (“we experienced a network connectivity issue. We are working to resolve and apologize for any inconvenience.”) in July after being forced to ground its flights for two hours one morning due to a technology issue that turned out to be router-related. United has suffered a string of tech glitches since adopting Continental’s passenger management system a few years back following its acquisition of the airline.

Billion dollar apology
Top Toshiba executives resigned in July following revelations that the company had systematically padded its profits by more than $1 billion over a six-year period. “I recognize there has been the most serious damage to our brand image in our 140-year history,” said outgoing President Hisao Tanaka, who is to be succeeded by Chairman Masashi Muromachi. “We take what the committee has pointed out very seriously, and it is I and others in management who bear responsibility.”

---

Best Microsoft MCTS Certification, Microsoft MCITP Training at certkingdom.com

Top 5 factors driving domestic IT outsourcing growth

Despite insourcing efforts, the expansion of nearshore centers is not necessarily taking work away from offshore locations. Eric Simonson of the Everest Group discusses the five main drivers responsible for the rise in domestic outsourcing, why Indian providers dominate the domestic landscape and more.

IT service providers placed significant focus on staffing up their offshore delivery centers during the previous decade. However, over the past five years, outsourcing providers have revved their U.S. domestic delivery center activity, according to recent research by outsourcing consultancy and research firm Everest Group.

The American outsourcing market currently employs around 350,000 full-time professionals and is growing between three and 20 percent a year depending on function, according to Everest Group’s research.

Yet the expansion of nearshore centers is not necessarily taking work away from offshore locations in India and elsewhere. Big insourcing efforts, like the one announced by GM, remain the exception. Companies are largely sticking with their offshore locations for existing non-voice work and considering domestic options for new tasks, according to Eric Simonson, Everest Group’s managing partner for research.

We spoke to Simonson about the five main drivers for domestic outsourcing growth, the types of IT services growing stateside, why Indian providers dominate the domestic landscape, and the how providers plan to meet the growing demand for U.S. IT services skills.

Interest in domestic IT outsourcing is on the rise, but you say that that does not indicate any dissatisfaction with the offshore outsourcing model.

Simonson: This isn’t about offshore not working and companies deciding to bring the work back. That’s happening a bit with some call center and help desk functions. But, by and large, these delivery center setups are more about bringing the wisdom of global delivery into the domestic market. The fundamental goal is industrializing the onshore model vs. fixing what’s broken offshore.

Can you talk about the five main drivers behind their increased interest in locating stateside?
Simonson: The first is diversification of buyer needs. As buyers have to support new types of services, certain types of tasks may be better delivered nearshore rather than offshore.

Secondly, there may be a desire to leverage the soft skills of onshore talent. This occurs when you need someone with a certain type of domestic business knowledge or dialect or cultural affinity.

Thirdly, domestic sourcing can be a way to overcome the structural challenges associated with offshore delivery, such as high attrition and burn out in graveyard shifts.

Fourth, companies may be seeking to manage certain externalities like regulatory requirements of fears about visa availabilities. To some extent, these reasons are often not necessarily based on true requirements, but are a convenient reason to give for choosing to outsource domestically rather than the potential risks of offshore.

Finally, there may be client-specific needs that demand domestic solutions—a local bank that wants to keep jobs in the community or a company with no experience offshore looking to start the learning curve.

Within IT services, what types of work currently dominate the domestic landscape?
Simonson: Application development is most prominent, with 123 domestic delivery centers in tier-one and -two cities serving financial services, public sector, manufacturing, retail and consumer packaged goods clients. Just behind that is IT infrastructure in similar geographies focused on those verticals as well. There are 80 consulting and systems integration centers and 68 testing centers as well.

It’s interesting to note that while U.S.-based providers tend to operate larger IT service centers domestically, it’s actually the Indian providers that dominate the landscape.
security tools 1

Simonson: Traditional U.S.-based multinationals have captured more scale in individual centers and have been able to grow them, in some ways, more strategically. They’ve been able to set up shop in smaller tier-4 cities like Ann Arbor or Des Moines and have more proven local talent models.

But the majority of domestic centers are operated by India-centric providers. Part of that is driven by their desire to get closer to their customers. With application and systems integration work, the ability to work more closely with the client is increasingly valuable. And with infrastructure work, concerns about data and systems access have encouraged Indian companies to offer more onshore options.

In addition, some of the bad press they’ve received related to visa issues is encouraging them to balance out their delivery center portfolios.

But Indian providers are not necessarily staffing up their centers with American workers.
Simonson: Indian providers are more likely to use visas to bring citizens of other countries (predominantly India) into the country to work on a temporary or permanent basis in a delivery center. About 32 percent of their domestic workforce working in delivery centers is comprised of these ‘landed resources.’ Across all providers, landed resources account for six percent of domestic service delivery employees. However, tightening visa norms and higher visa rejection rates are making it more difficult for providers to rely on foreign workers.

You found that approximately 43 percent of the delivery centers are located in the South, with almost half of those concentrated in the South Atlantic. And Texas has more than fifty. Is that
simply due to the fact that it’s cheaper to operate there?

Simonson: Cheap helps. But equally important are overall population trends. The South is growing, while regions like the Northeast or Midwest are either stable or on the decline. If you look at where people are going to school or moving and where corporations are relocating their headquarters, it’s taking place from the Carolinas down through Florida and over through Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas. Those states are also more progressive about attracting services businesses (although there are some exceptions outside of the south like North Dakota and Missouri).

Do you expect the domestic IT outsourcing market to continue to grow?
Simonson: Yes, service providers expect an increase in demand for domestic outsourcing services by new and existing customers, and plan to increase their domestic delivery capabilities by adding more full time employees to their existing centers and establishing new delivery centers. In fact, 60 percent of delivery centers are planning to add headcount over the next three years with India-centric service providers expected to lead the expansion.

Tier-2 and tier-3 cities, like Orlando, Atlanta and Rochester, are poised for the greatest growth, with tier-1 and rural centers expecting the least amount of growth.

Will the supply of domestic IT talent keep up with this increased demand?
Simonson: The pressure to find IT talent has led service providers to adopt a range of approaches to extend their reach and develop ecosystems of talent. Many have developed educational partnerships, creating formal and informal relationships with colleges and technical institutes. They’re also basing themselves in cities known for their quality of life and recruiting entry-level and experienced talent from elsewhere. It all impacts what communities they decide to work in.

All service providers will have to expand their talent pools, particularly in IT. Automation of some tasks could increase capacity, but doesn’t provide the higher-complexity skills that are most valued onshore.

---

Best Microsoft MCTS Certification, Microsoft MCITP Training at certkingdom.com

The Apple Watch disrupts, but is that enough?

For some it's a must-have, but others may want to wait before committing

Disruptive technology doesn't come along often, and is often initially dismissed because it's easy to ignore something you've lived an entire life without. But every once in a while a bit of tech comes along that makes it easier to do what you're already doing.

This is the Apple Watch.
I wasn't always sold on the concept. Aside from issues related to appearance/style, functionality, personalization, fitness tracking, and useful interaction methods, my big concern was this: What real-world problem would an Apple watch solve? Knowing the obstacles was one thing; solving those problems was something else entirely. I was skeptical.

The engineers at Apple not only understood those issues but figured out solutions. By the time Apple execs finished unveiling their vision for the modern watch last September, I was ready to give the technology a shot. As someone who's built a career around tech, I couldn't remember the last time a watch of any type inspired an emotional reaction.

Much of my excitement stemmed from the new technologies, especially the Digital Crown and Force Touch, both of which work wonderfully in the real world.

Crowning achievement
With the Digital Crown, Apple engineers turned a feature already present in watches into a scroll wheel for selecting options and quickly sliding through list views. It's used to access apps, very much like an iPhone's Home Button, when pressed. Double-pressing it switches between the last-used app and the Clock app; holding the Crown down activates Siri; and when you use it to scroll to the end of a list, it even becomes harder to turn. (That last feature shows the obsessive level of detail that's characteristic of Apple.)

Apple
Handing off scrolling and button-like functionality to the crown is so obvious -- in retrospect -- that it's amazing no one came up with the idea beforehand. This is typical Apple.

With Force Touch, the Apple Watch's Retina display can respond not only to touch and gestures, but can sense when additional force is applied to the screen. That extra pressure brings up additional options in supported apps: It can call up app settings, dismiss notifications, pause or end workouts, select audio and video sources in Remote, and customize Watch faces. The cleverness of Force Touch is that these actions would otherwise need their own onscreen icons, using up precious space in a device with limited screen real-estate.

Force Touch works so well in the real world that the technology has started spreading to other Apple products, like the latest MacBooks and MacBook Pro laptops. It's only a matter of time before iPads and iPhones get this, too.

Uniting and adding to these new technologies is a tried-and-true method that underpins the success of the Watch: Siri. On the Watch, Siri is used for all sorts of voice commands, like setting timers, checking weather, launching apps -- as well as for dictating messages. The Apple Watch relies on Siri for functions that would normally require a keyboard; without Siri, the Watch would fail.

These three technologies allow the Watch to stand above competitors' offerings. Physically, though, the Watch has the distinction of actually looking like a Watch -- and a nice watch at that. It's not embarrassing to wear, regardless of the occasion. Watch Bands can be removed and swapped out easily and the number of Watch/band combos continues to rise.

Apple Watch makes technology as fashionable as possible, more so than any previous attempts in the category from anyone else. But, while it (debatably) looks great -- especially for a wearable computer -- the key to usability (and success) is software: the Watch operating system, apps and ecosystem.
Fitness and notifications

When I got my Apple Watch in April, I was looking for it to do two things: be a fitness accessory/advisor and a notification system for important alerts. However, I underestimated the importance of apps. There are well over 4,000 now available, with more coming. Currently, apps have flaws -- many are still slow to load, and the display will often turn off before they load fully -- but that should improve significantly with native app support, which is coming this fall with the Watch OS 2.0 update. That update promises faster app launches and developer access to features not available to them now, including the accelerometer and the heart rate monitor. There will also be support for non-Apple Complications, and Night Stand mode (which works wonderfully with my favorite stand from Nomad).

In 2007, when the first iPhone was released, I wrote about a digital future where data is at your fingertips. That future is now; We're living the mobile dream, with devices like the iPhone designed with portability and instant access to all sorts of information. That also means a world in which our devices never shut up. In practical use, this is one of the areas the Watch truly shines: filtering digital noise.

The Watch is clearly the type of product that grows on you. I'm still using my iPhone; the Watch hasn't made it obsolete, especially because it relies on the phone for so much backend work. But when I pull the iPhone out, it's for different reasons now. I can quickly respond to texts, control music, check my calendar for upcoming events, track packages, check on the order status of Apple Store purchases, and get directions via the Watch without getting sucked into other apps -- which happens when I pick up the iPhone.

This is a big deal for me. The iPhone, with all it can do, is a gigantic time-suck, and it's easy to fall into the trap. The Watch is designed for short bursts of interactions, without the distractions inherent to a device that does just about everything.

Fitness tracking is still a huge deal for me, but as someone who uses the Watch to track running, basketball, and especially weight lifting, I'm not very impressed. While the Watch has excellent heart rate monitoring sensors, they only work well if you're using it to track an activity in which your arms wave about. In those cases, the Watch is spot on.
Weightlifters need not apply

Tracking activities like lifting weights or pushups is another matter, and here is where the Watch falls on its proverbial face. If you're an active weight-lifter and are in the market for a fitness tracker, this isn't it. When lifting weights, the heart monitoring is the worst feature of the Watch. It's supposed to monitor your heart rate every 10 minutes in normal mode, and every 10 seconds during a workout. But when Apple released the 1.0.1 update, it changed that behavior so that if the Watch senses movement in normal mode, it skips the heart rate reading. This is absurd. The opposite should occur: if the Watch senses sustained, increased movement, the correct response is to instantly check pulse rate to gauge exertion levels. (The inaccurate readings while lifting weights is a known issue and is supposed to be resolved with a future software update, but who knows when.)

Apple Watch BPM
What isn't disappointing, though, is that the Watch is more water proof than I thought. I've used the Watch in showers, hot tubs, and while swimming. I didn't dive beyond 15 feet, but I wore it while playing basketball in a pool, and I was in the water for hours. Do I recommend getting it wet? Not really, and neither does Apple. But you can. (The Watch is rated to survive 30 minutes at one meter's depth.)

The technology in the Apple Watch will, of course, improve with each successive software update (and each new generation of the Watch itself). Even so, the Watch already marks the first time technology as fashion has sold in large numbers. When I wrote my first iPhone review, I said that breakthrough products like this really leave an imprint in time, in which we can literally see the pivot point: before and after. Even though I'm disappointed in tracking an activity like lifting weights, the Watch is that kind of product.

The more people purchase and use the Watch, the more attention the device will get from third-party developers and service providers. There will come a point when the number of wearers will be hard to ignore forcing businesses and third parties to support the services those wearers expect, especially something like Apple Pay.

But is that today?

So, should you get one?

I'm in an interesting position regarding whether I recommend the Watch. At this point, you likely know whether or not you want a Watch. Apple has already sold more of them in a few weeks than all of the competition sold in years, and I'm clearly a fan (as are other Watch owners I know). But it's still too soon to know whether the functions and fashion it offers -- or will offer in future iterations -- will be enough to lure the hoards of new users that follow early adopters.

Two years ago I figured if an Apple Watch were ever released, it would be because Apple leaders were confident of its impact. I said then that I'd have to see it to believe it.

Well, I've seen it, I've used it, and I'm a believer: Despite the first-generation problems, you can have my Watch after you pry it from my cold, dead wrist.

---

Best comptia A+ Training, Comptia A+ Certification at Certkingdom.com

Software-Defined Networking will be a critical enabler of the Internet of Things

SDN will support IoT by centralizing control, abstracting network devices, and providing flexible, dynamic, automated reconfiguration of the network

This vendor-written tech primer has been edited by Network World to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note it will likely favor the submitter’s approach.

Organizations are excited about the business value of the data that will be generated by the Internet of Things (IoT). But there’s less discussion about how to manage the devices that will make up the network, secure the data they generate and analyze it quickly enough to deliver the insights businesses need.

Software defined networking (SDN) can help meet these needs. By virtualizing network components and services, they can rapidly and automatically reconfigure network devices, reroute traffic and apply authentication and access rules. All this can help speed and secure data delivery, and improve network management, for even the most remote devices.

SDN enables the radical simplification of network provisioning with predefined policies for plug-and-play set-up of IoT devices, automatic detection and remediation of security threats, and the provisioning of the edge computing and analytics environments that turn data into insights.

Consider these two IoT use cases:
* Data from sensors within blowout preventers can help oil well operators save millions of dollars a year in unplanned downtime. These massive data flows, ranging from pressure readings to valve positions, are now often sent from remote locations to central servers over satellite links. This not only increases the cost of data transmission but delays its receipt and analysis. This latency can be critical – or even deadly – when the data is used to control powerful equipment or sensitive industrial processes.

Both these problems will intensify as falling prices lead to the deployment of many more sensors, and technical advances allow each sensor to generate much more data. Processing more data at the edge (i.e. near the well) and determining which is worth sending to a central location (what some call Fog or Edge Computing) helps alleviate both these problems. So can the rapid provisioning of network components and services, while real-time application of security rules helps protect proprietary information.

* Data from retail environments, such as from a customer’s smartphone monitoring their location and the products they take pictures of, or in-store sensors monitoring their browsing behavior, can be used to deliver customized offers to encourage an immediate sale. Again, the volume of data and the need for fast analysis and action calls for the rapid provisioning of services and edge data processing, along with rigorous security to ease privacy concerns.

Making such scenarios real requires overcoming unprecedented challenges.
One is the sheer number of devices, which is estimated to reach 50 billion by 2020, with each new device expanding the “attack surface” exposed to hackers. Another is the amount of data moving over this network, with IDC projecting IoT will account for 10% of all data on the planet by 2020.

Then there is the variety of devices that need to be managed and supported. These range from network switches supporting popular management applications and protocols, to legacy SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) devices and those that lack the compute and/or memory to support standard authentication or encryption. Finally, there is the need for very rapid, and even real-time, response, especially for applications involving safety (such as hazardous industrial processes) or commerce (such as monitoring of inventory or customer behavior).

Given this complexity and scale, manual network management is simply not feasible. SDN provides the only viable, cost-effective means to manage the IoT, secure the network and the data on it, minimize bandwidth requirements and maximize the performance of the applications and analytics that use its data.

SDN brings three important capabilities to IoT:
Centralization of control through software that has complete knowledge of the network, enabling automated, policy-based control of even massive, complex networks. Given the huge potential scale of IoT environments, SDN is critical in making them simple to manage.

Abstraction of the details of the many devices and protocols in the network, allowing IoT applications to access data, enable analytics and control the devices, and add new sensors and network control devices, without exposing the details of the underlying infrastructure. SDN simplifies the creation, deployment and ongoing management of the IoT devices and the applications that benefit from them.

The flexibility to tune the components within the IoT (and manage where data is stored and analyzed) to continually maximize performance and security as business needs and data flows change. IoT environments are inherently disperse with many end devices and edge computing. As a result, the network is even more critical than in standard application environments. SDN’s ability to dynamically change network behavior based on new traffic patterns, security incidents andpolicy changes will enable IoT environments to deliver on their promise.

For example, through the use ofpredefined policies for plug-and-play set up, SDN allows for the rapid and easy addition of new types of IoT sensors. By abstracting network services from the hardware on which they run, SDN allows automated, policy-based creation of virtual load balancers, quality of service for various classes of traffic, and the provisioning of network resources for peak demands.

The ease of adding and removing resources reduces the cost and risk of IoT experiments by allowing the easy deprovisioning and reuse of the network infrastructure when no longer needed.

SDN will make it easier to find and fight security threats through the improved visibility they provide into network traffic right to the edge of the network. They also make it easy to apply automated policies to redirect suspicious traffic to, for example, a honeynet where it can be safely examined. By making networking management less complex, SDN allows IT to set and enforce more segmented access controls.

SDN can provide a dynamic, intelligent, self-learning layered model of security that provides walls within walls and ensures people can only change the configuration of the devices they’re authorized to “touch.” This is far more useful than the traditional “wall” around the perimeter of the network, which won’t work with the IoT because of its size and the fact the enemy is often inside the firewall, in the form of unauthorized actors updating firmware on unprotected devices.

Finally, by centralizing configuration and management, SDN will allow IT to effectively program the network to make automatic, real-time decisions about traffic flow. They will allow the analysis of not only sensor data, but data about the health of the network, to be analyzed close to the network edge to give IT the information it needs to prevent traffic jams and security risks. The centralized configuration and management of the network, and the abstraction of network devices, also makes it far easier to manage applications that run on the edge of the IoT.

For example, SDN will allow IT to fine-tune data aggregation, so data that is less critical is held at the edge and not transmitted to core systems until it won’t slow critical application traffic. This edge computing can also perform fast, local analysis and speed the results to the network core if the analysis indicates an urgent situation, such as the impending failure of a jet engine.

Prepare Now
IT organizations can become key drivers in capturing the promised business value of IoT through the use of SDNs. But this new world is a major change and will require some planning.

To prepare for the intersection of IoT and SDN, you should start thinking about what policies in areas such as security, Quality of Service (QoS) and data privacy will make sense in the IoT world, and how to structure and implement such policies in a virtualized network.

All companies have policies today, but typically they are implicit – that is – buried in a morass of ACLs and network configurations. SDN will turn this process on its head, allowing IT teams to develop human readable policies that are implemented by the network. IT teams should start understanding how they’ve configured today’s environment so that they can decide what policies should be brought forward.

They should plan now to include edge computing and analytics in their long-term vision of the network. At the same time, they should remember that IoT and SDN are in their early stages, meaning their network and application planners should expect unpredicted changes in, for example, the amounts of data their networks must handle, and the need to dynamically reconfigure them for local rather than centralized processing. The key enablers, again, will be centralization of control, abstraction of network devices and flexible, dynamic automated reconfiguration of the network. Essentially, isolation of network slices to segment the network by proactively pushing policy via a centralized controller to cordon off various types of traffic. Centralized control planes offer the advantages of easy operations and management.

IT teams should also evaluate their network, compute and data needs across the entire IT spectrum, as the IoT will require an end-to-end SDN solution encompassing all manner of devices, not just those from one domain within IT, but across the data center, Wide Area Network (WAN) and access.

Lastly, IT will want to get familiar with app development in edge computing environments, which is a mix of local and centralized processing. As network abstraction to app layer changes and becomes highly programmable, network teams need to invest in resources and training that understand these programming models (e.g. REST) so that they can more easily partner with the app development teams.

IoT will be so big, so varied and so remote that conventional management tools just won’t cut it. Now is the time to start learning how SDN can help you manage this new world and assure the speedy, secure delivery and analysis of the data it will generate.

---

Best comptia A+ Training, Comptia A+ Certification at Certkingdom.com

Can’t find all the tech people you need? The Blind Institute of Technology can help

The fledgling organization says there is a large untapped pool of talent waiting in the wings

Mike Hess is the founder and Executive Director of the Blind Institute of Technology, a Colorado-based nonprofit transitioning to be a national outfit, whose goal is to find tech roles for the chronically underemployed visually impaired community. Hess, who runs the organization with 40+ volunteers, including eight C-level executives on his board of directors, recently outlined his goals for Network World Editor in Chief John Dix.

Why did you start this organization and what is it about?

Mike Hess is the founder and Executive Director of the Blind Institute of Technology

I started in technology 18 years ago in the mid-90s and most of my career was in telecommunications. I started with US West as a mainframe developer and when US West Wireless started I thought that sounded fun so I moved over and that’s when I started expanding my technical skills. In the mid-2000s when VoIP became the latest craze I went and got Cisco certified and learned how to overcome those challenges, and then ultimately I ended up at Level 3 Communications.

Through all of that I noticed I was always the token blind guy in the organization, so I started doing some digging and came to realize the unemployment rate for the vision-impaired (VI) ranged from 70% to 80%. I found the numbers just staggering and I thought, I can make a difference by bringing awareness to executives here locally in Denver.

The first six to eight months was all about proof of concept. I kept knocking on doors, talking to executives, telling them about how I was able to overcome visual obstacles in environments just like theirs, so I was bringing credibility to the story. I was talking to them about the amazing candidates they were overlooking even as they were struggling to find talent. In Denver, unemployment within IT is less than two percent.

Was the focus to encourage employers to hire visually-impaired people or were you also out to encourage visually impaired people to pursue technology careers?

My initial focus was on awareness with a mission to impact unemployment. I didn’t start out to build a staffing or placement organization. That’s kind of evolved over the last two years.

Today BIT offers multiple programs designed to enable success in the workplace for both employers and the VI community. Our Education and Outreach Program (Art of Blinders) teaches organizations the true power of listening. These workshops help educate organizations about the innate assets a vision-impaired person brings to the workplace, and helps with organizational development by having participants practice listening skills while blind folded.

Our second program is Workplace Preparation. We provide technical assistance to organizations that are interested in learning how to make software accessible to consumers, or organizations that need technical assistance for a VI employee.

The third program is Certification and Training, so it is all about education. We have partnered with the Tuliva Academy in downtown Denver to offer technical certifications that are fully accessible in the classroom.

And the fourth program is Staffing and Placements. We have signed direct placement agreements and master service agreements with organizations for full-time employment, project and contract work.

Since we’re a 501C3 Nonprofit, organizations can donate to one of our programs to help us impact the unemployment within the vision-impaired community.

When you approach a large company, is it hard to get in the door or are they receptive to the idea and just haven’t thought it through?

When I talk to CIOs or CTOs I talk pure technology. I explain that bringing in technology to support visually impaired programmers adds less than one percent to software development lifecycle costs, and suddenly you have access to this large talent pool out there. Technically minded executives get this concept. Every organization is looking for scalability. When I explain how many millions of blind people there are, it’s kind of a no-brainer to start incorporating accessible technology in the workplace because it allows you to scale immediately.

Where I get more resistance is when I talk to HR types. Their goal is to mitigate risk, but I’ve found zero statistics that show that the visually impaired are any more problematic for organizations. As a matter of fact, all the testimonials and statistics I’ve found show that companies that have embraced the vision-impaired community have some of the lowest churn in the industry because, quite honestly, once I know my way to my office, I continue to walk that path. So I think the loyalty factor is a huge win for organizations.

So yeah, it’s kind of a mixed reaction, although the reason we’ve been able to grow is because when I talk to an executive I always ask if they can introduce me to two or three peers and they’re like, “Absolutely,” because what we’re selling is this amazing talent pool that they’re probably not tapping into.

How many people are visually impaired?

In Colorado alone there are 45,000 blind people between the ages of 18 and 64. And if 70%-80% are unemployed? Do the math. And the vision-impaired community has roughly the same level of higher education degrees as our sighted peers, which is about 20% percent of the population.

Then we look for the unemployed visually impaired that have what I call the AA standard. The first A is for attitude. Is your vision impairment an obstacle or is it a barrier, because if it’s a barrier, BIT is not the right organization for you. If it’s just an obstacle, and you’ve got the attitude that you can overcome whatever is in front of you, to me that is a great asset for any technical organization.

The second A is your aptitude. Do you have skills? We literally represent double master, double bachelor’s degree candidates that are just sitting on the sidelines right now chomping at the bit, waiting for a friendly organization to say, “You know what? I’m not worried about the accessible technology. I’m not worried about the perception. I’m just looking for a talented, loyal professional to help our group.”

What was it like for you to learn technology as a visually-impaired person? What kind of obstacles did you face as you pursued this career?

I think you’ll find a lot of vision impaired people can memorize copious amounts of information. When I was coding, my learning curve in the beginning was slower because I had to memorize large COBOL programs, although give me a couple of months and I was way more proficient because I knew exactly where to go to update my data division or go to my procedure division. I could do the correlating of data elements so much faster than my sighted peers because memorizing was secondary to them because they could just see what they were doing.

And because of my sight, I use a lot of tactile representations. For network topologies, for example, I would lay a document over a hard rubber mat and ask a coworker to use a pen to perforate around the shapes, giving me a tactical, three-dimensional layout.

So I leverage all my senses, I leverage every tool and technique I can. There’s actually a lot of science that quantifies how, if you use multiple senses during your transfer of information, your retention and recall go up exponentially. I’ve had high success of getting projects out on time and on budget and that is an anomaly within the IT network space.

When you were going to school for technology, was it hard to find adequate tools to help you learn?

In the early 90s IBM provided a grant to four community colleges and the program I attended was called Computer Training for People with Disabilities. It was designed to get people with physical challenges into technology organizations. There were screen reader and early speech-to-text software and other technologies, but when I first started the software that would help me had not yet arrived. However, there was another student there who had crippling carpal tunnel and so I said “I’ll be your hands, you be my eyes,” and for the first two months of the program that’s how we turned in our assignments. Today, 20 years later, the technology is so much better, thank goodness.

When you transitioned into the corporate world, did they have adequate tools for you?

Back then the technology was a lot more pricey than it is now, but organizations could write-off the investment and they were more than willing to do that because there was this boom in IT like we’re going through now.

Today the technology is so much better. One of the brilliant things Steve Jobs did with the i-devices, he went out and talked to the blindness community and made sure the very first i-device was completely accessible to the VI community. Now, for example, you have applications from companies like Salesforce that I can use to do everything a sighted person would do. The technology is 100% percent innate within iOS.

A lot of what we do now when we go in to talk to an organization is showcase the new capabilities. We say, “Here’s how the technology looks and feels, here’s some of the code you can implement, and here’s how our devices actually respond to that code.”

Are schools doing enough to prepare visually impaired people for tech roles?

In Colorado I’ve checked out all of the major universities, and the thing that saddens me is there’s not one program that actually offers an accessible technology class or tutorial. So BIT is going to be a game changer within the educational realm. We will challenge the IT programs to offer accessibility as a portion of its curriculum. Currently, Universities are not teaching anything about accessible technology. We believe that is important not just to have accessible technology available but teach students about using accessible technology. Therefore, graduates will know what it looks and feels like to code for accessibility.

We’re also partnering with a local technology school that has the curriculum for Cisco and Salesforce and Project Management certifications, and they’re going to be the first technical school in the country that is 100% percent accessible to the visually-impaired community.

So if we have a visually-impaired person reach out to us that has, say, a bachelor’s in English, we can say, “With that degree and with this certification, you’ll be able to line up for a project management role,” or something like that. So we can help them leverage their current skills, augment them with some additional certifications that are completely VI accessible, and then place them in an industry with the lowest unemployment rate out there.

Security is an interesting opportunity. A lot of healthcare organizations, for example, are building out security operation centers, and they’ve told us, “We just want the right personality. We’ll teach them the hard skills.”

Well, Mike, anything else that’s important to know about your organization that I haven’t thought to ask about?

I just want to reiterate that we have national reach. We’re completely connected with all of the blindness organizations nationwide, and this is of national importance and I know with community effort, with organizations who are just looking for talented, loyal people, BIT can absolutely be a brand name that they can come to depend on to help them get those resources out there nationwide.

---

Best Microsoft MCTS Certification, Microsoft MCITP Training at certkingdom.com

9 useful PowerShell tools

 Microsoft's mighty Windows administration framework gets even better with the help of these tools and materials. Almost all are free; the one for-fee tool is well worth the cost.

Why PowerShell?
Ah, PowerShell. A simple blue window and some text has transformed the world of Windows administration from a point-and-click GUI to scripts that automate everything, as well as provide log rotation and identity lifecycle management and which server receives which updates.

With everything in the newest versions of Windows Server accessible primarily via PowerShell and only secondarily (and sometimes even not at all) via the server's GUI, PowerShell knowledge has become a must. Sometimes, though, it is difficult to know whether you are proceeding correctly. Luckily, there are other resources available that will help speed you along in your training and your professional responsibilities.

In this slideshow, I will highlight 9 resources for immersing yourself in the PowerShell world. Whether you're writing scripts, working in a DevOps-oriented environment or administering software from vendors other than Microsoft using PowerShell, there is something for everyone in this group of resources. And best of all -- they are all free, save for one excellent paid product.

What are you waiting for? Let's dive in.

Dell PowerGUI
Presumably left over from Dell's 2012 acquisition of Quest, PowerGUI is a visual complement to PowerShell. It makes assembling scripts and getting things done in PowerShell as simple as selecting cmdlets that are appropriate for your task and then dragging them into place. Perfect for those who are new to PowerShell but have a basic grasp of its concepts, PowerGUI is an easy-to-use script editor that will probably advance your understanding of assembling more complex and advanced scripts quicker than anything else -- especially if you are a visual learner.

Perhaps the most useful features of PowerGUI are the Power Packs: Pre-built scripts that have been open-sourced by the user community and made available to other PowerGUI users. These range from adding users to managing switches; they can be customized and further improved upon, or simply baked into whatever script you are currently writing, saving the time it would take you to reinvent the wheel.

There was once a paid edition of PowerGUI with more advanced features, but that edition was rolled up into the freeware product. PowerGUI does not seem to have been updated for a while, but that does not make it any less useful, and since it is freeware, you have nothing to lose by adding it to your arsenal.

Sapien Technologies PowerShell Studio 2015
More advanced PowerShell developers and administrators need more advanced tooling, and PowerShell Studio 2015 from Sapien is the first place to look. When you first open PowerShell Studio, you are immediately reminded of Visual Studio and for good reason: PowerShell Studio is as much an integrated scripting environment as Visual Studio is an integrated development environment (IDE).

Features include: Ribbon, remote debugging support, compiler features that let you turn scripts into executable files, support for multiple versions of PowerShell (useful for targeting scripts to different servers running different levels of the Windows Server operating system), source control for checking in and out script code and support for multiple developers. All of which make this an obvious choice for shops where administrators and developers work together on building advanced PowerShell scripts to handle a variety of scenarios.

At $389 per license, it is a little pricey. But considering all of the product's functionality, if you live in this part of the PowerShell world, it is well worth the cost of admission.

Amazon AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell
It's not just Microsoft that is jumping on the PowerShell bandwagon; even a competitive cloud service like Amazon Web Services recognizes that (a) Windows Server is huge, (b) lots of administrators are learning PowerShell, and (c) anything that lets administrators manage Amazon services more easily increases the likelihood that an Amazon server will stick in any given enterprise. Thus the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell were born.

With AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell, you can manage virtual machines and service instances that are running in the Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), or write scripts that automate the management of any workloads you have running in a variety of Amazon services. The tools install a bunch of cmdlets into your Windows PowerShell "sphere of influence" and let you manage and script tasks like backing up data from virtual machines in EC2 to the Simple Storage Service (S3) or logging and publishing metrics to the Amazon CloudWatch personal dashboard.

If you know PowerShell and you use Amazon cloud services, these tools will be a great addition.

Microsoft Script Browser for Windows PowerShell ISE
The problem: You want to do something in PowerShell. You know your outcome. But you do not know how to get there and, further, you have a sneaking suspicion that someone, somewhere out there on the Internet has already figured it out and probably would tell you for free. What if there were this free magic tool that would scour the TechNet Script Center -- probably the most authoritative source for PowerShell scripts on Earth right now -- and find scripts that purport to do what you need? That is exactly what Microsoft Script Browser claims to do.

It also includes a built-in Script Analyzer function that will read through your scripts and suggest improvements or changes to make based upon scripting best practices.

This tool plugs right into the Windows PowerShell Integrated Scripting Environment, which you get for free as part of Windows. You might need to install the feature on Windows client machines, but it should be installed by default as part of the basic Windows Server image.

Adam Driscoll's PowerShell Tools for Visual Studio
If you are more on the "dev" side of DevOps, then you probably use Visual Studio as one of your tools of choice. While Visual Studio has a lot going for it, it does not do a lot with PowerShell out of the box. That is where Adam Driscoll's PowerShell Tools for Visual Studio project comes in.

This project integrates within Visual Studio, brings syntax highlighting and colors to the IDE, and adds IntelliSense support for automatically completing syntax elements like variables, cmdlets and arguments as you type within a Visual Studio window. It also extends options for configuring Visual Studio projects so you can keep your scripting efforts organized and together, extends support for scripting arguments with the MS Build compiler and supports script debugging via breakpoint and breakpoint pane support. It also extends some testing features with Pester and PSate test adapters.

All in all, this is a free set of resources for making Visual Studio more PowerShell savvy. If you like this after downloading it, consider throwing Mr. Driscoll a few bucks for his efforts.

Microsoft Windows PowerShell Web Access, via Control Panel
PowerShell Web Access is like webmail but for PowerShell cmdlets. You log into a webpage that presents a Web-based console where you can run cmdlets, perform operations and do simple remote administration tasks right over the Internet. There's no need for PowerShell, extensions or cmdlets to be installed on the machine you are browsing with.

This means that yes, you can run PowerShell operations from your iPad if you have this feature enabled.
Best of all, it is free with a Windows Server license and is built right in. I do not see this in use a lot, but I think it is very handy. As the saying goes, "You might not need this until you need it, but when you do end up needing it, you need it very badly."

Be careful, though, as opening this facility up to users outside your network is just an invitation for security problems. Restrict access to the PowerShell Web Access site in IIS to only IP addresses local to your corporate network. Or even better, restrict that access to a few workstations on your local network and perhaps a static VPN address you can use to perform administration tasks remotely.

Free. Windows feature, installed through Control Panel / Add and Remove Windows Features.

PowerShell Training via the Microsoft Virtual Academy
With great power comes the need for a lot of training. PowerShell is a capable language that can do so much. It marries scripting with development and .NET programming. It comes with a universe of cmdlets. It has its own syntax. And while I have (and will continue to) explain PowerShell basics training on Computerworld.com, those pieces just scratch the surface of all there is to know.

Fortunately, the Microsoft Virtual Academy contains hours of video training on getting to know PowerShell, using it and making the language work for you. These courses include information from stars such as the father of PowerShell, Jeffrey Snover, and distinguished technologists who have made (new) careers out of understanding every nook and cranny of PowerShell. Perfect for lunch hours.

Master-PowerShell, an ebook from Dr. Tobias Weltner
If you are a visual learner, then video training is the best way to learn PowerShell. For those of us more language inclined, we can learn from Microsoft MVP Dr. Tobias Weltner in his free ebook cleverly titled Master-PowerShell. Weltner covers a lot of ground in his book, including variables, arrays and hashtables, the pipeline, objects, conditions, loops, functions, scripts, error handling, scope, text and regular expressions. Also included: XML, administrative work using the file system, Registry, processes, services, event logs, WMI and users. He even includes a chapter on .NET and compiling for the developers among us.

The book is hosted by Idera, a popular administrative tool developer, and can be found over on the PowerShell.com site, which is a useful community resource in its own right.

VMware vSphere PowerCLI
Like Amazon, VMware has figured out that, in some respects, making nice with your competitors for the benefit of your mutual customers is not a bad thing. To that end, VMware created PowerCLI, a command line-based environment for managing VMware vSphere resources that integrates PowerShell throughout.

The PowerCLI environment is basically a bunch of cmdlets that interact with vSphere and vCloud, and also provides interfaces based on C# and PowerShell for the various APIs that are exposed by the VMware products. If you are a VMware shop and want to get your hands on PowerCLI, head over to this link. Is it not great when everyone plays nicely together in the sandbox?

Freeware, with a free cmdlet reference available.

---

Best Microsoft MCTS Certification, Microsoft MCITP Training at certkingdom.com

Exam 70-490 Recertification for MCSD: Windows Store Apps using HTML5

Exam 70-490 Recertification for MCSD: Windows Store Apps using HTML5

Published: 01 August 2014
Languages: English
Audiences: Developers
Technology: ASP.NET MVC
Credit towards certification: MCP, MCSD

Skills measured
This exam measures your ability to accomplish the technical tasks listed below.

Please note that the questions may test on, but will not be limited to, the topics described in the bulleted text.

Design Windows Store apps

Design the UI layout and structure
Evaluate the conceptual design; decide how the UI will be composed; design for the inheritance and re-use of visual elements (e.g. styles, resources); design for accessibility; decide when custom controls are needed; use the Hub App template

Develop Windows Store apps

Implement search
Provide search suggestions using the SearchPane and SearchBox control class; search and launch other apps; provide and constrain search within an app, including inside and outside of search charm; provide search result previews; implement activation from within search; configure search contracts

Implement Share in an app
Use the DataTransferManager class to share data with other apps; accept sharing requests by implementing activation from within Share; limit the scope of sharing using the DataPackage object; implement in-app Share outside of Share charm; use web links and application links

Integrate media features
Support DDS images; implement video playback; implement XVP and DXVA; implement TTS; implement audio and video playback using HTML5 DRM

Create the user interface
Implement WinJS controls

Flipview; flyout; grid layout; list layout; menu object; WebView; item container; repeater

Implement HTML layout controls
Implement layout controls to structure your layout; implement templates and bindings; support scrolling and zooming with CSS3; manage text flow and presentation, including overflow

Create layout-aware apps to handle windowing modes
Use CSS3 media queries to adapt to different devices; respond to changes in orientation; adapt to new windowing modes by using the ViewManagement namespace; manage setting for an apps view

Program user interaction

Notify users by using toast
Enable an app for toast notifications; populate toast notifications with images and text by using the ToastUpdateManager; play sounds with toast notifications; respond to toast events; control toast duration; configure and use Azure Mobile Services for push notifications

Manage security and data

Choose a data access strategy
Choose the appropriate data access strategy (file based; web service; remote storage, including Microsoft Azure storage and Azure Mobile Services) based on requirements

Retrieve data remotely
Use XHR or HttpClient to retrieve web services; set appropriate HTTP verb for REST; handle progress of data requests; consume SOAP/WCF services; use WebSockets for bidirectional communication

Manage Windows Authentication and Authorisation
Retrieve a user’s roles or claims; store and retrieve credentials by using the PasswordVault class; implement the CredentialPicker class; verify credential existence by using credential locker; store account credentials in app settings

Manage Web Authentication
Use the Windows.Security.Authentication.Web namespace; set up OAuth2 for authentication; CredentialPicker; set up single sign-on (SSO); implement credential roaming; implement the WebAuthenticationBroker class; support proxy authentication for enterprises

Develop Windows Store apps

Create background tasks
Implement the Windows.applicationmodel.background classes; implement WebUIBackgroundTaskInstance; create a background task to manage and preserve resources; create a background task to get notifications for an app; register the background task by using the BackgroundTaskBuilder class; prioritise tasks by using the Scheduler namespace

Discover and interact with devices

Capture media with the camera and microphone
Use CameraCaptureUI to take pictures or video, and configure camera settings; use MediaCapture to capture pictures, video and audio; configure camera settings; set media formats; handle media capture events; implement advanced photo capabilities, such as sequence mode, thumbnails and focus mode

Get data from sensors
Determine the availability of a sensor (Windows.devices.sensors); add sensor requests to the app manifest; handle sensor events; get sensor properties; determine location via GPS; enable geofencing

Implement device access
USB; Bluetooth; Human Interface Device (HID); 3D printer support; Point of Service (PoS) devices

Program user interaction
Implement Play To by using contracts and charms

Register an app for Play To; use PlayToManager stream media assets; register an app as a PlayToReceiver; programmatically implement PlayTo functionality

Notify users by using Windows Push Notification Service (WNS)
Authenticate with WNS; request, create and save a notification channel; call and poll the WNS; configure and implement push notifications by using Azure Mobile Services

Enhance the user interface

Design for and implement UI responsiveness
Choose an asynchronous strategy between web workers and promises; implement web workers; nest and chain promises; make custom functions promise-aware; improve interface performance by using the Scheduler namespace

Implement animations and transitions
Apply animations from the animation library (WinJS.UI.animation); create and customise animations and transitions by using CSS; apply transformations; create animations by using keypoints; apply timing functions; animate with the HTML5 < canvas > element

Manage data and security

Design and implement data caching
Choose which types of items (user data, settings, application data) in your app should be persisted to the cache based on requirements; choose when items are cached; choose where items are cached (Microsoft Azure, Azure Mobile Services, remote storage); select a caching mechanism; store data by using indexDB, LocalStorage, and SessionStorage

Save and retrieve files
Handle file streams; save and retrieve files by using the StorageFile and StorageFolder classes; set file extensions and associations; save and retrieve files by using file pickers and the folder picker; compress files to save space; access libraries and KnownFolders, for example, pictures, documents and videos; manage appearance of the file picker; improve searchability by using Windows Index; integrate OneDrive with apps; compare files; manage libraries

Secure application data
Encrypt data by using the Windows.Security.Cryptography namespace; enrol and request certificates; encrypt data by using certificates; revoke file permissions

Prepare for a solution deployment

Design and implement a test strategy
Design a functional test plan; implement a coded UI test; design a reliability test plan, including performance testing, stress testing, scalability testing and duration testing; simulate in-app purchases

Evaluate and configure for Windows Store deployment
Configure app options to submit to the Windows Store, such as age restrictions, privacy statement, permissions, images and contact information; create application files, resource files and application bundles; verify application readiness by using the Windows Application Certification Kit (WACK)

---

Best Microsoft MCP Certification, Microsoft 70-490 Training at certkingdom.com