We’ve all done it; posted pictures of something at our home to Twitter, Facebook or some other space online. Did you realize though that each of those photos contains a digital signature that can be traced to the exact location it was taken? The pictures of your family can be easily tracked online. Claris’s Dan Thompson addresses this smartphone photo feature on WBIR, along with whether or not you should be concerned and what you can do about it.
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Are you tired of having a trusty computer for work and pleasure? Do you relish the anxious insecurity of knowing a creeper somewhere could be browsing all your personal and corporate information? Or are you just tired of things going smoothly at work and want some thin ice to walk on for a bit? Then this post is for you!
There are a lot of ways to make sure your laptop gets stolen and all your files compromised. Not only can you lose your personal documents, applications, pictures and videos, but your company’s confidential, proprietary data and sensitive customer data as well! It’s easier than you would think to completely mess stuff up, lose hundreds of dollars and make things pretty miserable for yourself!
Here is our patented, six-step, surefire way to make sure your laptop gets stolen and all your hard work gets tossed out the window:
1. Leave your computer in your car in plain sight, like the front or back seats
2. Carry your laptop in an obvious “laptop bag”
3. In public places like coffee shops, leave your computer on the table when you get up
4. Don’t have a secure system login password
5. Don’t back up your important files once a week and before going on trips
6. Assume it’s safe and will not get stolen today
Protecting your computer can be a little like convincing yourself to floss. You know what you should do. But do you do it? The answer to that question is the difference between a major disaster and a minor setback.
If you need any further convincing, watch this heartbreaking video about someone whose laptop was stolen with some very valuable information on it. Do you have a “how I got my laptop stolen” story? Would you add any tips to our 6-step, surefire method?
True or False: IT guys hate talking to people, play epic video games in their spare time and never see the sun, preferring to crack jokes in binary code to their invisible buddies in online chat rooms. We answer with a huge FALSE! That character might fit the mold of other IT companies, but Claris Networks techs are a bit abnormal. Take Jay Norris for example. He loves to totally confuse our techie stereotypes. His latest fitness adventure is a great example: Jay will be running every trail through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. That’s over 900 miles of trail runs. His website bears the name he gave his extreme project: Smoky Mountain Runner.
By day, Jay is a quick-thinking member of the Claris Networks technical support team. But, in his off time, you won’t see Jay’s head buried happily in a computer. He is a restless outdoorsman with a passion for fitness. “Since I’m inside at a desk or in a server room all day,” Jay says, “my off-time is spent outdoors, and with my wife and 19-month old son, Boone.” His website says it best: “I am not one to sit around and do nothing. I don't even have cable television. I do, however, have the strange urge to do things that I am almost confident I'm not capable of. I've never ran a marathon, much less the over 800 miles of trails in the GSMNP that contain almost 5,800 feet of elevation change. This is surely going to be impossible for me...I'm in.”
“The project came about some time in the past few years, as I’ve been trying to break out of the mold of my fitness,” Jay says. “It’s my goal to challenge myself more each year. Part of it, I’m sure, is the fear of growing old. I’m in my thirties now, and want to push the envelope in staying active and healthy. I hate treadmills. I hate being inside. I love trails and seeing things.” That’s no exaggeration, either. Jay regularly competes in triathlons and 100+ mile bike rides.
Smoky Mountain Runner – In Jay’s Words
It was November when I decided to run all the trails in the Smoky Mountain National Park. There is a group of people who have hiked every trail in the Smokies, called the 900 Miler Club. To my knowledge, though, no one has ever run the entire thing. The president of the 900 Mile Club actually discouraged me from doing it. He said I’d break my legs and ruin my knees. We’ll see about that!
Logistically, this is a horrible idea. Aside from running, I expect about three hours of drive time, depending on the location of the trailhead. A 15 mile run pretty much takes up your Saturday. Also, many of the trails double back on themselves, so I can end up running the same trails twice without it counting toward my total mileage. Those in the 900 miler club end up putting in about 1100 miles total.
It soon became clear that I wasn’t going to be able to get this done in one year, my original goal. Though it was discouraging, it just is not feasible for where I am in life. The excitement of being a new dad and waking up to my son trumps my desire to wake up at 5:30AM on a Saturday, drive three hours, run 15 miles and miss a whole day with him. As cliché as it may sound, I’m really excited about the journey. It could be a 3 year thing, or a 5 year thing. Heck, I might be 78 years old with a walker trying to hack away at it! But I will do it.”
Claris Networks is a thriving small company because it is filled with people like Jay who are passionate about life, are committed to their families, who love this community and also happen to be pretty good at IT. We like our people, and hope you enjoy getting to know a little more about them. And the next time Jay pulls up to your business in his silver Jeep to solve some crazy complex technical issue, ask him about the snowy run he shared with a bear.
We just received the announcement that Knoxville and the surrounding areas will be experiencing the big switch to 4G in July. According to the Verizon release, the 4G LTE Broadband mobile network provides speeds “up to 10 times faster” than its current 3G network.
The company also stated it expects “average data rates in real-world, loaded network environments to be 5 to 12 megabits per second (Mbps) on the downlink and 2 to 5 Mbps on the uplink.” Here is some of what you can expect from a functionality aspect from the 4G network:
· Smooth mobile video-conferencing
· Multiple, simultaneous video streams
· Speedy transfer of large files
· Running of powerful programs
· Downloading of songs in seconds and movies in minutes
Some of the smartphones that will be available to run on the 4G network include:
· Revolution™ by LG,
· DROID Charge by Samsung and
· ThunderBolt™ by HTC
· MiFi® 4510L 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot
· Samsung 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot
Here is our technical evaluation: that’s a really fast network!
What do you think? Will you buy a 4G device to run on the network when it comes out?
We talk about Electronic Medical Records, or EMRs, a lot on Cloud9, but they are only a small function of how the marriage of technology and medicine will affect our lives in the near future for the better.
In a late 2009 Ted Talk, Eric Topol shows how the convergence of several technologies will take medicine to the next level in prolonging our lives and increasing their quality.
The technologies that are bringing about this conversion:
· Multiple billion cellphone users
· Broadband 3g, soon to be 4g
· Pervasive connectivity
· Smartphones
· Ingenious Sensors
Topol demonstrates how broadband-enabled smartphones can deliver real-time vitals data on a patient. "On your smartphone today, you check your email. In the future you will be checking all your vital signs," Topol says.
“Why is that important?” he asks. With advancing technologies like these, it is possible we can reduce the number of hospital readmissions for things like heart failure by consistent monitoring. Topol lists several other life-threatening diseases which sensor-enabled devices can and will be able to monitor and prevent. This list of course is not exhaustive:
· Diabetes
· Sudden Cardiac Death
· Atrial Fibrillation
· Hypertension
· Breast Cancer
· Hip Fractures
· Sleep disorders
Sure, IT can be pretty boring. But advances in medical information technology like this and others can tangibly translate into longer, healthier lives.