Meet Chad Andrews. Father of four sweet kids, Claris helpdesk technician of three years and owner of one seriously messed up house. During the string of super cells that left Knoxville full of hail dents and tree branches, construction in his neighborhood caused massive runoff to flood Chad’s house. At 11:00 PM, Chad and his wife, Joy, grabbed some buckets and started bailing. The water eventually receded, but the damage was done. Mold crept in and made it uninhabitable. So Joy had to take the four kids, Kessy (7), the twins Madison and Abigail (5) and Isaac (almost 2) to Chattanooga to stay with their grandparents. What happened next was pretty fun to watch.
We’ll have Chad tell you the rest in his own words.
“I’m not the most handyman kind of guy, so I was really at a loss for what to do about it all. The damage was extensive, and insurance said they weren’t going to help. I called a buddy of mine and we began tearing up the floors, but we really weren’t doing a great job. Honestly, I had no idea where to start. I told some coworkers at Claris about the problems with my house in passing. More than just hear me out, they immediately made up a game plan.
"That afternoon, Jay Norris and Wade Orloski showed up at my door to scope out the situation. Instead of just observe though, they went straight to work. They scouted the situation, made a plan of action and recruited help. Every day after their regular hours at Claris, they were at my house working. And they worked all weekend. They stayed until 2:00AM and were back at 7:00AM. It was Navy SEAL level commitment. Literally, every free minute they had for days was spent working like dogs to helping a coworker get his family’s house back in order.
"That weekend, they had recruited too many people to name from the Claris Networks office to come help. It was like the whole company was there! Someone brought a backhoe to build a retaining wall. Another person rented a U-haul truck just to put our stuff in while we rebuilt the place. Our CEO, Larry Bodie, pulled me aside to say he was sending a contractor over to make sure things were done right. People were providing meals left and right; it had turned into a catered event! What’s wild is that people were not only giving their time and labor, but they were buying these materials out of their own pockets, without being asked. Palettes of wood and stone were showing up all the time. It was amazing. I don’t think anyone realized how much this blessed my family and me. I didn’t know how we were going to pay for all these repairs.
It might surprise you to learn that the “IT Provider Next Door” in Knoxville, Tennessee, Claris Networks, has one of the fastest clouds on the planet. A third-party development team
called Cloud Sleuth has created an objective application to examine and report the response times of cloud infrastructures around the world. At the time of this writing, Claris Networks supports the tenth fasted cloud
on the planet.
The competition is steep, and Claris is holding its own against the big boys as well. The Windows Azure, Rackspace and Google Apps Engine clouds are in the top ten alongside your Knoxville-based cloud provider.
How it works
· Cloud providers like Claris Networks provide Cloud Sleuth a server on its cloud.
· Cloud Sleuth installed a piece of software on that server
· Cloud Sleuth’s analytics suite measures the time it takes each cloud to perform the intended commands.
· How each cloud stacks up internationally is presented in real time on the cloudsleuth.net website for you to see.
In a nutshell, this says that businesses around the country operating from the Claris Networks cloud run on one of the fastest cloud environments in the world.
Check out Claris and the country’s other big cloud players’ stats in real time at
Cloud Sleuth.
Well, it finally happened. Someone cracked the Mac. It’s not the first time someone’s targeted Macs with malicious software, but this one is really expansive, affecting between 60,000 and 120,000 users. Still, it’s really just another credit card con. “But Macs never get viruses, right?” Well, that’s the assumption this malware is exploiting.
How you get it:
The scam is pretty easy to spot. The program goes by “MacDefender, MacSecurity or MacProtector” and will try to get you to download fake antivirus software through a popup or malicious website. Then, like every good scam, it pressures you into getting your credit card number. It looks like the screenshot below.
If you’re a Mac owner, Apple has created a thorough set of steps to destroy the program if you happen to download it.
Check them out here.
Safe clicking, everyone!
One reason a business may be hesitant to move their servers to a cloud computing provider is their current licensing structures make it difficult. In July, it will be easier than ever for businesses to use the cloud. Microsoft announced that on July 1st, it will allow customers the flexibility of deploying their servers on-premises or on the Cloud through a Microsoft Service Provider. The new licensing structure is called “License Mobility.”
Let’s say you have a current set of Microsoft servers with volume licensing purchased under Software Assurance. Previously, if you wanted to host those servers in the Cloud, you would eat the cost of those licenses and have to buy more. In July, however, the cost advantage of the cloud will apply to even your existing licenses.
From the Microsoft announcement:
“License mobility will cover Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft SharePoint Server, Microsoft Lync Server, Microsoft System Center servers, and Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Licenses for application servers that are covered under software assurance can be run in service providers’ datacenters on shared hardware for that customer’s dedicated use.
Also notable, for customers who wish to use Software as a Service (SaaS) from their Service Providers, Microsoft will expand the Subscriber Access Licenses (SAL) for SA SKUs to cover Enterprise SAL licenses for Exchange Server, Lync Server and SharePoint Server.”
Earlier this week, we
slammed peoples’ fears of what companies like Google and Apple are doing with our personal information. It’s not unimportant what data is taken, stored, shared of us, but we must also have a real grasp of our own personal security.
That said, personal online security is easy. And it is important enough to take a couple steps to secure ourselves. We’ve outlined here four categories of online life to think through and simple security tips in each. Do them. You’ll thank me for it.
Passwords
1. Complex Passwords: letters, numbers AND symbols if possible
2. Detailed security question responses (ie: “White Accord” instead of “Honda” in answer to your “First Car”)
3. Reference this Microsoft article for creating adequate passwords
Financial Transactions Online
4. When making financial transactions, make sure the URL of the website starts with https:// - That “s” means your data is being encrypted.
5. Don’t make purchases, do online banking or other financially related transactions on an unprotected, public network (ie: airports, coffee shops, hotel lobbies, etc.)
6. Don’t do anything that requires you to enter a password on a public network
7. Always sign out of the website when done
Setting Your Settings
8. Always download the latest versions of things. They contain “patches” to potential security holes in your software. (Claris’ Dan Thompson speaks on Microsoft updates in this blog post.)
9. If you use a smartphone, disable the “geo-tagging” option on your camera. This way, photos you uploaded online cannot be traced to their actual location.
10. Never download a program from an email you don’t recognize (ie: .exe files)
11. Never update your password information from a link in an email. Always manually type the name of your bank/website into the URL bar.
Social Networks
12. Facebook: Create strict privacy settings. On Facebook, go to “Account” --> “Privacy Settings” and set them each category to “Friends Only.”
13. Facebook: Use HTTPS. Select “Account” --> “Account Settings” and click “Change” to the right of “Account Security.” Select the box next to “Browse Facebook on a secure connection (https) whenever possible.
14. Twitter: If you only want followers to see your Tweets, make them “Private.”
15. Use caution with check-in features. Consider cutting them out completely.
16. Microsoft has an entire page with tips for children using social media. A must-read for parents.