IT Executive news

• Cisco aims to simplify security

  11-07-2016 23:31
  
  Digital transformation. It's a reality that few companies today can escape. For some, the process is well underway. For many others, it's an oncoming inevitability. Whichever side of the gap your organization is on, you're probably facing a "security effectiveness gap" as the process brings more users, devices and applications online, creating an ever-expanding attack surface.Cisco today moved to close that gap with an architectural approach to services and cloud-based security solutions that it
  
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• The end of free Windows 10 upgrades may prop up PC shipments

  11-07-2016 22:30
  
  Microsoft will end its free Windows 10 upgrade program on July 29, possibly giving an unexpected boost to PC shipments in the second half this year, according to IDC.Buyers may opt to buy a new Windows 10 PCs instead of upgrading existing PCs with a paid version of the OS. Many businesses are evaluating Windows 10 and could also upgrade.Windows 10 hasn't helped boost PC shipments so far. Instead of buying new PCs, people have been taking advantage of the free program and upgrading PCs from older
  
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• Who’s right behind Amazon in IaaS cloud revenue? Not Microsoft

  11-07-2016 22:17
  
  Research firm IDC is out with its latest semi-annual tracking of IaaS public cloud vendors and while the top provider in this market – Amazon Web Services – will not surprise you, numbers two and three just might.
  IDC estimates that IBM’s Infrastructure-as-a-Service cloud revenues are larger than those of Microsoft in this still-emerging market.
  +MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: Gartner says cloud will be “default” software deployment option by 2020 | Top 5 Storage vendors s
  
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• Dallas PD turned robot into IED to get sniper

  11-07-2016 22:15
  
  When Dallas police officers were under fire during a deadly sniper attack last week, it was a nearly 4-foot-tall robot that took out the suspected assailant.
  It's believed to be the first time that police have used a robot to kill someone, taking the technology from a passive role, such as capturing images or video of a crime scene, to an active and lethal role.
  Police used the robot to try to take out the attacker, Micah Xavier Johnson, 25, of Mesquite, Texas, who ambushed police officers work
  
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• Pluribus enriches virtual management system with central console, apps

  11-07-2016 22:04
  
  Pluribus this week added a key piece to its virtual network management portfolio – a central management console and framework for helping customers better see and control their virtual network environment.
  The company announced VCFcenter, which it describes as a single pane of glass that will let customers comprehend business service flows and packets across their networks. VCFcenter is key because the company’s primary analytics application -- VCF-IA – will plug into the syst
  
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• The new Space VR app makes Microsoft's vision of a virtual HoloLens office a reality—now

  11-07-2016 21:59
  
  If you thought Microsoft’s vision of the holographic office was cool, you might be happy to know that you can already work on a version of it today—just not using the Microsoft HoloLens.
  Chinese developer Pygmal Technologies recently released a free beta of Space (also known as Space-VR), an app for either the Oculus Rift or the HTC Vive. Like what Microsoft showed on stage at its Worldwide Partner Conference, Space allows you to pin multiple windows to a spot in virtual s
  
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• Microsoft to partners: Make more money

  11-07-2016 21:18
  
  While Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella today touted "digital transformation" during a 30,000-foot-view speech before thousands of resellers, the executive in charge of the firm's global partner group got down to dollars and cents.
  "It starts for us with our mission. Everything we do, every product we build, every decision we make, in even our partner programs, is grounded in our mission, to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more," Nadella said shortly after he step
  
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• After 12 years seeking H-1B reform, Rep. Pascrell tries again

  11-07-2016 21:07
  
  In 2005, U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) introduced an H-1B reform bill that picked up just five co-sponsors. The bill went nowhere, but he didn't give up.
  The  "Defend the American Dream Act" returned in 2007. It didn't advance, however. Pascrell tried again in 2010 with another H-1B reform bill, which joined the others in the legislative graveyard.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• BrandPost: How Connectivity Enables Manufacturers to Make Smart Manufacturing a Reality

  11-07-2016 20:43
  
  The constant hum of excitement about the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is becoming louder and more intelligible every day. It is now clear that we are well past the initial hype, and opportunities for forward-thinking manufacturers are real: a connected enterprise and smarter operations. But manufacturers need to realize that all the benefits of IIoT start with connectivity.The challenge is as little as one to five percent of plant data are made available to applications and people. It&rs
  
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• Report: YouTube is plotting an online TV service with ESPN, CBS, and ABC to launch next year

  11-07-2016 20:38
  
  YouTube may be the next company that aims to build a full-blown television service delivered over the Internet.
  According to The Information, the launch is planned for the next six to nine months with a tentative list of partners that includes ESPN, CBS, and ABC, with others to come. The price was rumored to be $35 per month, which would be competitive with PlayStation Vue (depending on the package you choose) and Sling TV.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• File sharing site Megaupload will return in January, claims Kim Dotcom

  11-07-2016 20:30
  
  The creator of Megaupload plans on reviving the infamous file sharing site on Jan. 20, five years after the U.S. government shut it down.“It will be better than the original and it will feel like home,” tweeted Megaupload’s creator Kim Dotcom on Sunday.He made the announcement as U.S. authorities are trying to extradite him to face copyright infringement charges. In 2012, the U.S. government pulled the plug on his file-sharing site, which was accused of helping to distribute pi
  
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• GE and Microsoft work together on IoT services in the cloud

  11-07-2016 20:03
  
  GE and Microsoft have teamed up to bring the industrial giant's Predix platform-as-a-service offering to the Azure cloud, the two companies announced Monday. It's a move that helps add to the portfolio of Internet of Things services available through Microsoft's cloud platform, at a time when the company is pushing its service for IoT applications. The announcement came during Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference in Toronto, where GE CEO Jeff Immelt talked with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadel
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Losing is good

  11-07-2016 19:37
  
  Losing is winning, it just doesn’t feel like it in the moment.During a recent basketball playoffs, the coach of the defeated team was asked about how he felt about losing the championship. He replied, “Of course, I feel bad.” The question wasn’t whether he felt bad, because naturally one would feel bad after climbing so close to the ultimate victory and having it slip away. The real question is not if he felt bad, but why?Losing hurts in a good way
  People don’t like
  
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• Serious flaw fixed in widely used WordPress plug-in

  11-07-2016 19:04
  
  If you're running a WordPress website and you have the hugely popular All in One SEO Pack plug-in installed, it's a good idea to update it as soon as possible. The latest version released Friday fixes a flaw that could be used to hijack the site's admin account.
  The vulnerability is in the plug-in's Bot Blocker functionality and can be exploited remotely by sending HTTP requests with specifically crafted headers to the website.
  The Bot Blocker feature is designed to detect and block spam bots b
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Questions after your presentation signal success

  11-07-2016 19:00
  
  I have been asking the executives, managers and business students I work with to identify the top three concerns they have when called upon to deliver a work presentation. Everyone has their own personal torments, but one common concern is “questions.” Many are nervous about being asked questions before, during or after their presentation.Why questions can be troublesome
  Different people have different reasons for being concerned about questions, but they tend to fall into one of thr
  
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• Cisco Live: Cisco bolsters, integrates security products and services

  11-07-2016 18:50
  
  At Cisco Live today the company is rolling out a set of new services and cloud-based security features that better integrate existing Cisco gear with products it acquired through acquisition.
  These products essentially grow the features of some existing gear and expand security coverage to devices not connected to the corporate network.
  +More on Network World: Cisco will need to tackle these high-tech issues in 2016+
  The Cisco mantra is that there are too many point security products for busine
  
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• Google aims to train 2 million app developers in India

  11-07-2016 18:41
  
  India’s large number of software developers has top smartphone companies like Google and Apple trying to coax them to work on their operating systems.Google on Monday said it will be training, over the next three years, some 2 million developers in the country on its Android operating system.In a similar move, Apple announced in May it will set up a facility in Bangalore by early next year to help developers on best practices and to improve the design, quality, and performance of their app
  
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• Digital nomads post to their travel blog without wireless contracts

  11-07-2016 18:40
  
  Some people dream of traveling the world on a budget and staying in touch as digital nomads. Married couple Sam and Toccara Best have made that dream a reality.
  Both have been producing a travel blog from far-flung locales called Forget Someday for more than a year mainly by using only their cell phones with no monthly carrier contract. They rely on free Wi-Fi with occasional assistance from Google Voice and Google Hangouts on Sam's Android phone, a BLU Life One X unlocked, which he bought for
  
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• Pokemon Go no-go: the latest chapter in Intel's Android drama

  11-07-2016 18:13
  
  As Intel drifts away from smartphones and tablets, users with Android devices are starting to feel the pinch.The hot Pokemon Go app won't work on Android devices with Intel Atom processors, and that's an issue for some users.A petition to make the popular augmented reality game compatible with Atom chips attracted close to 22,000 signers by Monday. The app isn't working on devices like Asus' Zenfone 2, which runs on an Atom CPU. Pokemon Go maker Niantic Labs didn't respond to questions about whe
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Digital health: Just what are we talking about?

  11-07-2016 18:04
  
  Ask any two people what digital health or mobile health really means and you're likely to get three different answers (who knows, you might even get more). The convergence of several trends -- wider adoption of electronic medical records, advances in mobile technology, and payment reform -- is accelerating the pace of change in how we are all thinking (and in many cases rethinking) how healthcare is delivered.
  For example, smartphones have become ubiquitous and we use them for everything from h
  
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• Studie ontwikkelaars steeds minder doorslaggevend

  11-07-2016 17:56
  Een relevante opleiding in software development is lang een harde vereiste geweest van werkgevers bij werving en selectie van ontwikkelaars. Het belang van een toepasselijke studie verdwijnt echter naar de achtergrond. IT-recruitmentbureau. Daarop duidt onderzoek van recruitmentbureau Huxley IT.Het bureau onderzocht... lees meer
  
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• This is Microsoft's vision of a holographic office

  11-07-2016 17:51
  
  Microsoft made the biggest pitch to date for HoloLens as a business computing device on Monday during its Worldwide Partner Conference in Toronto, Canada.When Arantxa Lasa Cid, a program director at the company, took the stage for a HoloLens demo, she pulled up a workspace that looked a lot like a massive, multimonitor desktop setup, complete with virtual monitors showing an Outlook calendar, email and two web browsers. It looked a lot like a traditional desktop setup, with one catch: Cid w
  
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• Victims of terrorist attacks in Israel sue Facebook for $1 billion

  11-07-2016 17:08
  
  The families of victims of five recent attacks in Israel are suing Facebook for more than US$1 billion, saying the social media site helps terrorists plan their violence.The lawsuit, filed in a New York court, accuses Facebook of helping Palestinian group Hamas recruit members, communicate, and plan attacks. The U.S. government designated Hamas a terrorist organization in 1995.Plaintiffs in the lawsuit are family members of five terrorist attacks in Israel in the past two years, the most recent
  
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• Pokémon Go: Into the real world, with real crime

  11-07-2016 17:08
  
  Pokémon Go sneaked up on me. One minute, I knew nothing about it, and the next, just about everyone was talking about it.
  The twist with Pokémon Go is that players can catch Pokémon in real life, out on the streets and away from their couches. I love the idea that a smartphone game not only can be played anywhere, but actually requires its players to get outside. But because security is always on my mind, I quickly wondered what crimes Pokémon Go would enable. The an
  
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• New Relic adds support for Golang, SPA monitoring

  11-07-2016 16:53
  
  Modern applications increasingly rely on cloud and microservices architectures. While enabling greater efficiency and scalability, they also present operational challenges: Traditional application performance management (APM) offerings were built to provide visibility in a world of monolithic, on-premises applications. SaaS-based APM specialist New Relic is pushing hard to position itself as the APM of choice for these modern applications.
  "The word 'application' itself has new meaning today,"
  
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• SWIFT brings in external support as it fights wave of bank hacks

  11-07-2016 16:44
  
  SWIFT is bringing in additional security support after a series of high-profile bank heists and attempted bank heists conducted via its financial transaction network.The company has hired two security firms, UK-based BAE Systems and Fox-IT Security of the Netherlands, to help its customers strengthen their security, it said Monday.SWIFT's network itself has not been breached in the recent attacks, but bank systems connected to it have been hacked in a number of high-profile incidents over the la
  
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• How to marry content, business process management

  11-07-2016 16:39
  
  Alfresco Software was born a decade ago as an open source enterprise content management (ECM) provider and the company has enjoyed growing success with major corporations and government agencies struggling to deal with an explosion of information. More recently, Alfresco jumped into the business process management (BPM) market and its integration of ECM and BPM is gaining from enterprise buyers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• Samsung unveils the world’s highest capacity consumer SSD

  11-07-2016 16:00
  
  Samsung today announced what it claims is the highest capacity consumer solid state drive, a 4TB member of its 850 EVO line, which will retail for $1,499 or about 36 cents per gigabyte of capacity.
  The new 850 EVO SSD uses Samsung's 48-layer high V-NAND technology, which stacks flash memory cells one atop another like microscopic skyscrapers and stores three bits per cell.
  Samsung then crammed the 4TB of capacity into a 2.5-in. SSD form factor only 7mm thick, which is small enough to fit into u
  
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• Lessons for leaving

  11-07-2016 15:46
  
  I made a terrible mistake the first time I quit a professional job. I was in my 20s and had been working on an MBA at night and decided to return to school full time to finish the second half of the degree. Wanting to leave well, I gave my boss six months’ notice. Big mistake.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• SDN providers nibbling away at slow-moving MPLS carriers

  11-07-2016 14:56
  
  Switching networking providers is no small task but it wasn't really an option for Pattonair CIO Brian Long. Growing 16 percent year-over-year, the provider of nuts and bolts for airline engines was regularly adding new offices worldwide to serve its customers. It needed to have these new sites up and running quickly but its MPLS network provider Verizon was not willing to move at the speed Pattonair required, Long says.Pattonair CIO Brian Long."It was a really good service once [the network cir
  
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• Why you should avoid OS upgrades from Microsoft and Apple (for now)

  11-07-2016 14:55
  
  Apple and Microsoft are giving out free OS updates, but unless you want to risk an exasperating tussle with software that's not quite ready for prime time, it's a good idea to resist temptation and wait a while.
  You'll eventually want to upgrade to Windows 10 and iOS 10, Apple's OS for iPhones and iPads. Both have features that make them more user friendly and more powerful. But OS software is packed with millions of lines of code, and the chances of a new version landing without
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Why I’ve given up on Pokemon GO for iOS

  11-07-2016 14:00
  
  As I write this post, Pokemon GO is the top free app in the iOS App Store. The game has taken the world by storm, with people running around all over the place trying to capture various Pokemon.When I first found out about the game, I was quite interested in trying it out. But now I’ve given up on Pokemon GO, and I’m not sure I’ll ever bother trying to play it again.What happened? Well, as you might imagine given the game’s popularity, its servers have been absolutely swa
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Deep learning is coming to a chip near you

  11-07-2016 14:00
  Deep learning has become one of the most relevant trends in modern software technology. From a conceptual standpoint, deep learning is a discipline of machine learning that focuses on modeling data using connected graphs with multiple processing layers. In the last few years, deep learning has become a pivotal technology to power use cases such as image recognition, natural language processing, or even powering some of the capabilities of self-driving vehicles. The popularity of deep learning ha
  
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• Focus Matrix to-do app helps prioritize 'urgent' and 'important' tasks

  11-07-2016 14:00
  
  Dwight D. Eisenhower was a five-star general during World War II and the thirty-fourth POTUS. Not too surprisingly given his accomplishments, he knew how to get stuff done. On the man's long list of claims to fame is "organizational guru" ... sort of.
  With just a cursory search, I found about a dozen apps built around what came to be known as the "Eisenhower Matrix," the "Eisenhower Decision Matrix," or more simply, the "Eisenhower box."Xwavesoft
  The idea behind the former president's matr
  
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• Muggers used Pokemon Go to lure victims, police say

  11-07-2016 13:57
  
  With the launch of Pokemon Go last week, it's not just players but police that "gotta catch 'em all."Police in O'Fallon, Missouri, believe muggers may have tracked or lured victims through the Pokemon Go mobile game, in which players follow their phones' directions to real-world places to "catch" Pokemon characters."The way we believe it was used is you can add a beacon to a Pokestop to lure more players. Apparently they were using the app to locate people standing around in the middle of a park
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Universities must build innovators in new ways

  11-07-2016 13:57
  
  Whether you’ve completed your undergraduate 15-years ago or are comfortable with a newly minted Ph.D., how you will learn is changing. The experts of tomorrow will learn differently.Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, Harvard University, and the University of Washington are the world’s most innovative universities according to Times Higher Education. Reuters agrees, they all fall into the Reuters Top 100 World’s Most Innovative Universities. But there&rs
  
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• This mobile chip is faster than the one in Samsung's Galaxy S7

  11-07-2016 13:30
  
  A mobile chip faster than the one in flagship smartphones like Samsung's Galaxy S7 and LG's G5 will start appearing in handsets this quarter.The Snapdragon 821, announced by Qualcomm on Monday, is an incremental upgrade to the Snapdragon 820. In addition to mobile phones, it's also aimed at tablets, drones, robots and virtual reality headsets.The Snapdragon 821 is about 10 percent faster than its predecessor. It is also more power-efficient, meaning batteries in smartphones and phablets will las
  
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• Why you shouldn't pay the ransomware fee

  11-07-2016 13:00
  
  While most of the decision makers would likely prefer to hear a simple yes or no when asking if they should pay, nothing in security is simple. By and large, the position of many leaders in the industry is that the ideal situation is not to pay.
  Security experts across the industry would like to see all enterprises, large and small, be prepared for a hit so that they can recover their data without paying a ransomware fee. The question of whether to pay the ransomware fee is tricky, though, as s
  
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• Happy anniversary, Windows 10: Here’s what coming in the latest update

  11-07-2016 12:48
  
  Happy AnniversaryMicrosoft’s latest update to Windows 10, dubbed the Anniversary Update, is slated to officially drop on Aug. 2, a year after the initial release of Windows 10 last July 29. Windows 10 has been installed on more than 350 million devices, making it Microsoft’s most successful OS launch. However, there’s always room for improvement and this update introduces several changes, customization options, and new ways to interact with Windows 10. Here are the highlights:T
  
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• How to rebuild your career after a layoff

  11-07-2016 12:30
  
  Technology professionals and managers are used to being in high demand, but no sector is immune to layoffs and economic disruption.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• Free data visualization with Microsoft Power BI: Your step-by-step guide

  11-07-2016 12:30
  
  Microsoft has jumped into the free, self-service data analysis space with Power BI.
  Power BI offers basic data wrangling capabilities similar to Excel's Power Query. It also lets you create interactive visualizations, reports and dashboards with a few clicks or drag-and-drops; type natural-language questions about your data on a dashboard; and handle files that are too large for Excel.
  It can work with dozens of data types -- not only Excel, Access and CSV files, but also Salesforce, Google Ana
  
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• Data files for our step-by-step guide to Microsoft Power BI

  11-07-2016 12:30
  
  If you'd like to follow along with our hands-on Power BI tutorial, you can download the data files below.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• Where's my single social stream?

  11-07-2016 12:00
  
  Social media moguls like Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg talk about uniting mankind through the power of social networking. Back in 2012, Zuckerberg wrote in a letter that accompanied Facebook's IPO paperwork that "Facebook... was built to accomplish a social mission — to make the world more open and connected."
  That's a worthy mission, and it's hard to find any who who opposes it. We all want a more open and connected world, don't we?
  On a practical level, there are two way
  
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• How to get Office 365 document sharing to actually work

  11-07-2016 12:00
  
  You know how in the movies the monster lopes along yet always somehow catches the screaming girl who's running away from it? That's been the story of Office 365, Microsoft Office, and OneDrive, the three pillars of Microsoft's attempt to move its productivity suite into a collaboration tool, both across users and across devices. But now, after years of progress and piecemeal rollouts, Microsoft has finally pulled together the pieces into a cohesive package and delivered on the original collabor
  
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• How to get and set up all the Office 365 components

  11-07-2016 12:00
  
  Most of the work for setting up Office 365 collaboration happens on the back end, where you define and manage Active Directory users and associated policies and set up SharePoint and OneDrive access, if applicable.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• How to access documents stored in OneDrive from any device

  11-07-2016 12:00
  
  Until recently, a functional version of the OneDrive app wasn't available for Windows or MacOS, so many people learned to use OneDrive as part of Office 2016 apps, as descried in Part 2 of InfoWorld's Office 365 document-sharing how-to series.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• Cybercrime volwassen, verstoort gedigitaliseerde organisaties

  11-07-2016 11:32
  Eén vijfde van de IT-beslissers binnen grote multinationals is overtuigd dat zij volledig beschermd zijn tegen online criminaliteit. Het overgrote deel van de bedrijven voelt zich beperkt door regels, de middelen die tot hun beschikking staan en de afhankelijkheid van derden bij respons op aanvallen. Daarop... lees meer
  
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• Special Pre-Prime Discount on Jaybird X2 Sport Wireless Bluetooth Headphones - Deal Alert

  11-07-2016 06:02
  
  With a regular list price of $149.99, the current discount makes the Jaybird X2 Sport is now available with a 45% discount for this pre-Prime Day deal. Features include:Premium Bluetooth Audio For Skip-Free Music Outdoors
  8 Hours of Music + Calls With Complete Remote Controls
  Secure Over/Under-Ear Fit Options
  Lifetime Sweat proof Warranty
  Includes Comply Premium Sport Memory Foam Ear Tips, Patented Secure-Fit Ear Fins, Friction-Fit Silicone Sport Carrying Case, Silicone Ear Tips, Charging C
  
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• $30 off Lumo Lift Posture Coach, Today Only - Deal Alert

  11-07-2016 06:01
  
  If your posture needs to be improved, this deal may be worth your consideration. With Lumo Lift, get gentle vibrational reminders for your posture whenever you slouch. Track your posture hours, steps taken, distance travelled and calories burned through the companion iOS, Android or Windows Desktop Lumo Lift app. For today only, Amazon is discounting the Lumo Lift posture coach by $30, making it available for just $50. It currently averages 4 out of 5 stars from over 1,900 customers (read r
  
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• Omni Hotels was hit by point-of-sale malware

  11-07-2016 05:56
  
  Omni Hotels & Resorts has reported that point-of-sale systems at some of its properties were hit by malware targeting payment card information.The attack on the systems of the luxury hotel chain follows similar breaches of point-of-sale systems at various hotels and retailers like Hyatt Hotels, Target, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide and Hilton Worldwide Holdings.Omni in Dallas, Texas, said in a statement Friday that on May 30 this year, it discovered it was hit by malware attacks on
  
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