Archive for the ‘Computers’ Category

Protecting Your Data

Thursday, August 30th, 2007

How many stories have we read about financial institutions or corporate powerhouses losing what to many of us is akin to vast fortunes because of loss of data. It occurs on a daily basis. Read any major business publication and you will see headlines denoting this.

Theres many numerous ways to incur data loss. Theres those evil hackers ever plaguing the electronic world, theres fires, floods, acts of god, and most likely, data corruption or input errors. Whatever the cause data loss is an unacceptable and preventable issue.

I find myself wondering why these companies don’t use online backup solutions to constantly update and store their data to a remote location keeping it intact, safe, and always ready for retrieval.

There are solutions that include encrypting your data, and holding it for later use. This is much preferred and prevents hackers, floods, fires, or data corruption from ruining your data, and your profit.because of its ease anyone can do this, and because its always available with a few clicks, it means next to no downtime for your enterprise.

Acer to Buy Gateway

Wednesday, August 29th, 2007

Computer seller, Acer, Taiwan’s main show is posed to buy Gateway computers for 710 million.

The conclusion of the deal will make Acer the third largest producer of computers int he world. They will ship 20 million computers and have sales average of 15 billion dollars a year.

Also of note, they may try to prevent their Chinese rival Lenovo from purchasing Packard bells European section.

Gateway wants to buy Packard Bell in a deal regard “first refusal” struck with its owner back in 2006.

Acer feels that with the purchase of gateway they will finally have visibility and presence in America.It strongly compliments their vast foothold in Asia and Europe.

Both Gateway and Acer feel that the deal is good for both of them and cuts the annual cost by 150 million annually.

Experts believe that Acer will act on the deal to acquire Packard Bell’s European Division, if only to get one over on Lenovo. Lenovo has been focused on the acquisition of the Dutch company to give them a European presence.

Perhaps they will simply have to pay more for Packard Bell…

Systems Administrators

Tuesday, August 28th, 2007

System administrators get the head aches of the hi tech world. They are responsible for installing, monitoring, upgrading, and maintaining the hardware, systems, and the software. Things must run smooth, or someone will be yelling at the admin. Some larger groups have many admins, each with a specialization, but often they do everything.

System admins work on things like operating systems, server hardware, software programs, the devices on the network,the web servers, the email systems attached the them, the secuirty of each. Not a sexy job, but its very needed. A good admin is invisible, becuase if they do the job well you never need to call on them. Kind of like the cops that deter crime, they never need to make an arrest and so are never hailed as heroes.

Why does a enterprise need a sysadmin? They are the wood and nails of a the business’s IT building, so to speak. They do the boring, robotlike jobs daily to prevent the problems, and improve technical perfomance. If something does somehow break, they do the diagnostics. They must stay on top of the the changes to the quick technology changes to the systems of the enterprise, and because of that they often contain knowledge that most wont, and it will often prove to be a critical fact. Sysadmins will be needed throughout the foreseeable future. More and more systems go online daily and  they are variably complex, coupled with new technology.

Generally you want one with 3-5  years experience. For some positions companies might seek a 4 year degree, dependant on complexity. Many employers seek only a specific general certificate. Such as Cisco Certified Network Professional or Cisco Certified Network Associate.

InVideo for YouTube

Monday, August 27th, 2007

Some innovative technology from Google again. YouTube, which is now owned by Google has created InVideo. InVideo is a animated overlay that plays inside a youtube video. It has a clickable message to it.

The ad is fairly simple and resides in the lower  20% or so of the viweing space. They start about 15  seconds into a video, are 80% see through and  remain up for about 10 seconds, then they are gone.

The video giant streams 3 billion minutes of video monthly. Well, thats alot of advertising dollars they weren’t using, alot of opportunities missed.

Its said that the embedded content wont have invideo, possibly because it may be embedded somewhere that wouldn’t flatter the advertiser.

You know, they should have this for television. Commercials are the worst part of TV. A nice little ad, quietly scrolling translucently at the bottom of the screen for 10 seconds, well I think thats hot!

Of course, when would we use the restroom if we didn’t have commercials? I hadn’t considered that. In that light its  as if they are doing a public service…

I jest, but how long until our web surfing is kept in a log and commercials are sent to individual sets based on the viewers surfing… Its coming. I just don’t know when.

Chinese Looking to Buy Seagate

Monday, August 27th, 2007

Seagate is a disk drive maker that currently hold 30 percent of the market. And a chinese technology firm is interested in buying it.
Of course, this bears a bit of a concern, as the industry leader in a technology sector tends to possess alot of technology we as a nation dont want the chinese to have. The national security types are up in arms over this.

For quite some time, Seagate has controlled in a sense, the disk drive market. With numbers like 3 billion dollar quarters, its easy to see why. With products like 1TB capacity drives, and encrypted laptop drives, well that solidifies it.
The CEO of Seagate said the company isnt for sale, but  if the paid a high enough price, most investors would sell their stock.  Its folly to believe that there is not foreign companies that manufacture better products than our domestic ones. Thats what drives competition and makes us strive to be better.

the loss of jobs is the biggest threat here, in my opinion


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