When IBM sold its desktop and laptop PC business to Lenovo nine years ago, it held on to its x86-based server business. But now, IBM doesn’t see the x86 server business as a growth area anymore, and now they’re interested in selling that to Lenovo, too. Read more
Questions to ask before taking a job
I found this infographic from Avidcareerist via Lifehacker that lists 12 questions to ask before accepting a job offer. There is good information on it, though I have mixed feelings on some of them.
The ACLU has a point about smartphone security
The ACLU complained to the FTC that carriers aren’t patching vulnerable Android phones. They have a point.
Phones are profitable, and the carriers are trying to have it both ways. Read more
Linksys isn’t the only company building insecure routers
I warned a few days ago about Linksys routers being trivially easy to hack; unfortunately many other popular routers have security vulnerabilities too.
The experts cited in the article have a few recommendations, which I will repeat and elaborate on. Read more
Don’t read too much into the PC sales drop just yet
If you’ve been paying any attention at all, you probably know that new PC sales are in the toilet–out of the five biggest vendors, the only one whose sales managed to hold steady in Q1 2013 was Lenovo, while the other four saw a sales decline. So now Slashdot linked to a ZDNet piece stating that Windows is over, and said it must be true because ZDNet always sides with Microsoft.
Let’s not read too much into that. The author of the piece is a longtime open-source advocate. The points he raises are completely valid, but if there’s one person who’s going to take Microsoft to task, it’s Steven Vaughan-Nichols.
Microsoft has a long road ahead, but there is precedent for salvaging the boondoggle known as Windows 8. And I don’t think Windows 8 is the only factor here. Read more
A treasure trove of training material
Need to improve your security skills? Need a refresher course to brush up on some skills you haven’t used in a while? Or are you just looking for some CPEs or CEUs to keep your certification valid?
The United States Department of Defense offers a great deal of security training, much of which is freely available to all comers. Your tax dollars paid for it, so don’t feel bad about using it. Besides, if you use it to improve your networks, then your networks are less likely to become a source of attack on government networks, so they’re happy for you to use most of it.
Here’s a hint: Anything that isn’t viewable by the general public is marked ” *(DoD PKI Cert req’d).” If you don’t see that marking, then it’s free for you to view. Just click the link marked “Launch Training.” Read more
Troubleshooting at all layers of the OSI model
I saw this phrase in a job description last week: Troubleshooting at all layers of the OSI model. That sounds a bit intimidating, right?
Maybe at first. But let’s not overcomplicate it. Once you get past the terminology, it’s a logical way to locate and fix problems. Chances are you already do most of this whether you realize it or not. I was already troubleshooting at at least four of the seven layers when I was working as a part-time desktop support technician in college in 1995.
Rob O’Hara on phreaking, Tesla coils and modems
Rob O’Hara posted a podcast about phreaking today. He explains in layperson’s terms how the phone system was controlled by tones, cites it as an example of security through obscurity, and he talks about his own first-person experience subverting the phone system. He was far from the only one who did that.
The 1 TB-ish SSD: The Micron M500
Anandtech has a review of the Micron M500, which is the first 960 GB SSD to retail for less than $600. Micron had to make some decisions to get that combination of capacity and price, so it’s not truly a no-compromises SSD, but like the article states, it’s a not-quite-a-terabyte capacity at the price that the best 80 GB drive was selling for in 2008. That’s a long way to come in five years. At $599, the price is high, but it’s not out of reach. If you really need that much high-speed capacity, you can probably come up with that sum.
And the drive’s reception has been very good. It’s backordered everywhere I’ve looked. Read more
Mourning Lucasfilm Games/Lucas Arts
The sudden closure of Lucas Arts raised a few questions, like why we’re still talking about a studio that hasn’t done much of note in a decade. Slashdot posted a link to a developer’s musings. I’ll talk about it from a fan perspective.