October 2015 News & Tips

Windows 10 Here to Stay! But Do We Love It?

Windows 10With over 75 million installs and counting in just a few months, Windows 10 is here to stay. So what’s the verdict so far? Most say this is the best since Win7. But that begs a question. Win8 was almost universally dismissed as, well, you know, a critter that barks. 8.1 was a step in the right direction and wasn’t hated – even garnering some positive reviews. So how does Win10 stack up? Read More . . .



 

SiteVision Welcomes New Hosting Clients


evision_logoevision®
turned to SiteVision for an ESRI ArcGIS Shared Map Hosting Service that would incorporate a Web Mapping Service (WMS) to serve georeferenced map images.  Read More


Tidewater Community CollegeTidewater Community College, also known as “TCC,” is a busy, two-year higher education institution in South Hampton Roads with campuses in Chesapeake, Norfolk, Portsmouth, and Virginia Beach. . .Read More

 


Botetourt County logo_new

Botetourt County, Virginia, is hosting its Visit Botetourt website, as well as several complimentary sites. They include: Botetourt Wine Trails, Downtowns of Botetourt, Explore Botetourt, and its Upper James River Watertrail site.

Nestled just north of Roanoke, Virginia, Botetourt County offers rolling hills, miles of hiking trails, scenic rivers, streams, and historic towns, all surrounded by a majestic mountain backdrop.



 

Hosting: When Out of the Box Just Doesn’t Fit.

out_of_the_boxHosting is often an off-the-shelf package to fit all. It can feature attractive pricing but frequently comes at a high price in lack of personalized help, annoying downtimes, and slow access . . .

Read More

 


 

The City of Roanoke, VA Chooses SiteVision For GIS Support & Development.

GIS

The City of Roanoke, Virginia has contracted with SiteVision, Inc. for ongoing support and enhancement of the City’s Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The city’s GIS system is used extensively by the public, as well as by city employees. The firm, together with the city, collaborated to design the original GIS architecture, along with improvements over the years . . .

Read More

 


 

iPhone 6S Blows Past Sales Record But Watch the Numbers.

iphone_linesApple iPhone 6s garnered 13 million in sales in just 3 days, but this time China, the world’s largest economy was included. Market watchers are busy analyzing the results and will look toward upcoming sales figures. In 2014, the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus were not available in China during Apple’s first release wave. This year, Apple included China in its first wave, along with the U.S. and 11 other markets.

But no matter — Apple enthusiasts cued up, paid up and went away smiling until the phones ran out. For those who weren’t so lucky, the phone is back-ordered in six markets from one to four weeks.

MarketWatch
ComputerWorld

 


Bits & Bytes

Patched Android Screen Still A Threat

Amazon Echo Just Got Smarter.

25 Cool Gadgets for Under $50.00

Android “Marshmallow” Coming Soon

Tech Radar Reviews the iPhone 6s

Apple Music Free Subscriptions Expire.Time to Pay Up.

Microsoft Office 2016 and Google Docs. A Comparison.

 

August Newsletter: Windows 10 Will You Get It?

windows-10By the time you read this, Windows 10 will have formally launched.

And remember, until July 28 of next year, it’s available free to non-pirated versions of Windows 7 or 8 devices.

But do you want it? Will you love it? How do you get it? When?

IT departments will have one view, which is sure to be a “wait until the dust settles” mental, and until they feel stability is a known.

Consumers, however, will likely be intrigued by mostly positive reviews thus far, and a pretty heavy nudge by Microsoft with it’s “free for all, almost” approach. The new, leaner Edge browser and Cortana, your personal assistant, are among intriguing inclusions. And, if you’re in the market for a PC, it will come preloaded for most. You can check out online reviews below!

More controversial was a Microsoft decision to make updates mandatory, especially when a recent video driver crashed systems throughout the preview community. To counter the hue and cry, Microsoft has issued package KB3073930, a download which allows you to hide or block Windows and driver updates – last reviewed on July 28. According to ZDnet the package is labeled for use with the Windows 10 Insider Preview, but based on its performance on the final (10240) preview build, ZDNet felt it should work with the final release beginning July 29.

Overall, is the feeling that Microsoft has finally gotten it right, or very nearly so.

You can read more at:

ZDNet (Numerous topics on everything Windows)

TechRadar (Price, News, Features)

Engadget (Review)

Microsoft (All the details they want you to know!)


Two Critical Vulnerabilities Noted
For Windows, Android

Windows
Emergency Patch:

ms windowsMicrosoft has rushed out an emergency update for a critical windows vulnerability that would permit a takeover of your entire system. So, if you don’t engage in automatic Windows updates, take heed.

From PC World To verify if your PC has the critical update on Windows 8.1 (Windows Vista and 7 users will have a similar process), open the Control Panel, search for “Windows Update”, and then choose View update history. Towards the top of the list, you should see a security update with the number KB3079904.

If you don’t see it and want to install this update right away, run Windows Update manually—a restart will be required.


stagefrightAndroid: Nearly one billion phones are at risk with a newly discovered texting flaw.

Called “Stagefright,” NPR says here’s how the attack would work: The bad guy creates a short video, hides the malware inside it and texts it to your number. The bad news is you don’t even need to open it before it begins processing. Once it’s activated the attacker can take complete control of your phone.

Important links with additional info and potential fixes are listed below, and Google has patches and has notified the major carriers and manufacturers. But the process is likely to be slow and uneven.

Whether it gets put into people’s phones is not in Google’s hands.The NPR article notes: “In this case Google is not the actual one to blame,” says Collin Mulliner, a senior research scientist at Northeastern University. It’s ultimately the manufacturer of your phone, in combination possibly with your carrier.”

What To Do Now!

Probably the most immediate thing you should do is disable automatic downloading in your messenger app. If your app is older and doesn’t have this feature, it may be time to get a new app!

More at NPR, Greenbot, Twilio


Bits & Bytes

Cortana Speaks

Cortana Gets Sassy

Lenovo PC Stick: Plug Into Any TV or Monitor And Have a Windows PC

Personal Seismic Gadget Warns You Before The Big One Hits

Google Shows You Everywhere You’ve Been

Amazon’s New Dash Button Ordering

10 Of The Best Gadgets So Far This Year

SiteVision Certified As SOC 1 SSAE 16 Type II Compliant

AICPA Roanoke, VA October 30, 2014:  Following a robust, third-party audit, SiteVision Inc., a Virginia-based web hosting and development firm, has been certified as SOC 1 SSAE 16 Type II compliant.  The compliance standards developed by AICPA (American Institute of Certified Public Accountants) are a rigorous assessment process that audit internal controls with regard to security, trust, service and processing protocols.

The audit covered a wide swath of company controls that included administration, human resources, management, development, hosting, security policies, procedures and practices, as well as training and contracting.

Patrick Maddox, President, noted that SiteVision’s investment in the external audit represents “our total dedication to meet and exceed both our internal commitment to excellence and that of customer expectations.   While all customers benefit from such compliance, those with sensitive requirements can feel confident that SiteVision has been assessed as compliant with these important industry standards.  They can outsource areas like web hosting, cloud and co-location services knowing that we already meet SSAE 16 requirements.”

The auditing firm added: “Congratulations are in order as SiteVision has received a favorable opinion on the design and operating effectiveness of your control environment. This is a significant accomplishment and is an indication of the sound control environment you’ve established. . .”

“You have been a very responsive and professional client to work with and we absolutely appreciate all your efforts. We realize the audit process has been a major undertaking and we hope the process itself and the results of the audit prove to be beneficial going forward” (Jack Moore, CPA CITP President The Moore Group, CPA LLC)

SSAE 16 is an enhancement to the current standard for Reporting on Controls at a Service Organization, the SAS70. Among refinements to SAS70, the changes made bring US companies current with new international service organization reporting standards, the ISAE 3402.

While a Type I audit tests internal controls at a specific point in time, a Type II is time-based auditing that provides results of extensive testing over a defined period of time (at least 6 months) to determine how effectively the processes and controls are achieved.  The SOC 1 Report (Service Organization Controls Report) is a secondary report relevant to internal controls over financial reporting.

SiteVision, Inc. was found compliant with both SOC 1 and SAE 16 Type II standards.

SiteVision, Inc. (www.sitevision.com) is an Internet application development, consulting, design and hosting firm providing solutions for a broad spectrum of markets and industries, as well as for state, federal and international entities. Expertise includes custom, back-end dynamic applications, consulting to achieve unique goals, geographic information systems (GIS), content management systems, hosting services including, map and GIS application hosting, as well as custom and dedicated hosting solutions.

SiteVision, Inc. participates in, or is available through, the following state and federal contracting vehicles:

  •  Virginia VITA CAI Supplier, Managed Staff Augmentation Services Contract (VA-051123-CAI)
  •  Virginia VITA Supplier, Hosting Services Contract
  •  Virginia eVa Procurement as a sub-contractor to various state and federal private contractor entities
  •  State and Federal Sole-source Contracting

The firm has its home office in Roanoke, VA, with sales offices in Charlottesville, VA and Miami, FL.

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September News & Tips

Finding Your Best
Hosting Options

Finding Your Best Hosting OptionsWe get a lot of questions regarding hosting options! The variety of choices can often be somewhat overwhelming for businesses large and small.

With that in mind, we’ve developed a helpful article that discusses and compares the advantages of three popular hosting options in a simple, straightforward way:  shared hosting, virtual private servers, and dedicated servers.

We discuss the basics of whether a shared solution is adequate for your needs, or whether you could be compromising valuable data? What exactly is a virtual private server (VPS)? Does my growing business dictate a more secure solution? I’m fairly certain our business needs a dedicated server or more, but should we just buy our own?

Read More Here

Plus – We Can Help

If you are still unsure about your current options or requirements, we’ll help you make an honest assessment of your best options. We host and/or develop solutions from simple shared hosting environments to complex Geographic Information Systems (GIS) – to high demand, high security enterprise solutions, cloud, content delivery networking (CDN) Software as a Service (SaaS) and more.

A skilled development team is always at your service for custom web applications or websites. We are also currently a Virginia Information Technologies Agency (VITA) provider. Please visit our website, call us (866-345-8322 -toll-free) or contact us, anytime – no obligation ever


Kudos To The
Development Team

We recently completed a Content Management Site for one of our clients – Virginia Society for Respiratory Care (VSRC). Here’s what they had to say:

“Since the launch of the new VSRC website, I’ve gotten an overwhelming response from board members and respiratory therapists throughout the state of Virginia. They love the professional look of the new site and aren’t ashamed to refer peers to the new site. “

“Working with SiteVision on the updating and re-launch of our professional society website has been a dream. Christina went above and beyond all expectations I had and was absolutely incredible to work with. I would gladly recommend this company to anyone and everyone.”

You can read more here


Welcome Daria Norris

Daria NorrisSiteVision welcomes a new Developer, Daria Norris. Daria, formerly a System Design Architect and Release Manager for Nsite LLC, an Information Technology and Services firm, has joined SiteVision as Web Applications Developer reporting to Ray Faddis, Development Team Lead.

Norris, a 15-year ColdFusion veteran, has been a frequent presenter on the ColdFusion development circuit over the past several years including presentations for NC DevCon, and cf.Objective(). NC DevCon is held annually on the Centennial Campus of NC State University in Raleigh, North Carolina and covers a wide variety of web development and design topics including Web / HTML5 / CSS, Mobile, Javascript / jQuery and ColdFusion. cf.Objective() is focused on Enterprise level development topics.

Read more here


Join Us At NCDevCon In September!

ncdevcon-logoOur own Daria Norris will present a session on how to how to make the transition from procedural programming to object oriented design concepts.

DevCon is North Carolina’s Premier Web & Mobile Conference being held September 13-14, 2014 at Raleigh, North Carolina.

The Conference is held annually on the Centennial Campus of NC State University in Raleigh, North Carolina and covers a wide variety of web development and design topics including Web / HTML5 / CSS, Mobile, Javascript / jQuery and ColdFusion.

If you are headed to the event, look us up, or we’ll see you there! Looking for a career boost? Check out available positions here.

Finding Your Best Hosting Options

Finding Your Best Hosting OptionsWe get a lot of questions regarding hosting options!  The variety of choices can often be somewhat overwhelming for businesses large and small.

Is a shared solution  adequate for your needs, or could you be compromising valuable data?  What exactly is a virtual private server (VPS)?  Does my growing business dictate a more secure solution? I’m fairly certain our business needs a dedicated server or more, but should we just buy our own?

With that in mind, we’ve developed a brief article that discusses and compares the advantages of three popular hosting options in a simple, straightforward way:  shared hosting, virtual private servers, and dedicated servers.

Shared Hosting

Shared hosting, the phrase most of us are familiar with, is an excellent solution for small websites. It’s an inexpensive option and has all the basics an individual or very small business might require.  In essence, you are sharing a single server and common operating system with many other users, meaning you and they are subject to common restrictions, potential downtime, etc.  Think of it like a folder on your current desktop or laptop. As your needs grow, particularly in a business or ecommerce environment, you may find that this hosting option lacks the robust security and flexibility features you require.

Virtual Servers (VPS)

As your website or internal requirements grow, virtual private servers can offer dramatically increased security, flexibility and cost savings. It’s similar to having your own in-house web server, minus the hassles of hardware costs, IT, maintenance and upgrade costs.  A virtual server shares a single server but is completely isolated to protect valuable internal documents, ecommerce solutions, other applications and web data. You can install anything you like with security permissions you choose. In VPS hosting, each primary server is segregated into various private servers, with each having its own resources and operating system to act as an entire server. Overall, the advantages of VPS hosting can are affordability, guaranteed resources, full control, and better performance with increased security & reliability.

Dedicated Servers

Importantly a dedicated server provides you with total control minus the hardware costs, maintenance, internal IT costs.   Your webmaster and/or your hosting provider can customize the server to your exact business requirements.  This might include back-end enterprise solutions, specialized e-commerce applications, increased security and many other custom or preferred applications your business requires.  Automated software license renewals, custom backups and hosting IT support are very real and measurable benefits.

All very nice, you might say, but what about the cost?  Almost universally, studies show it is far more cost effective to “lease” a dedicated server or servers than to maintain the effort internally.  Just as your business offers particular and unique expertise to your customers – reputable hosting companies employ the technical and physical assets required to provide the best technical and physical support for you, their customer.

 We Can Help

If you are still unsure about your current options or requirements, we’ll help you make an honest assessment of your best options.  We host and/or develop solutions from simple shared hosting environments to complex Geographic Information Systems (GIS) – to high demand, high security enterprise solutions, cloud, content delivery networking (CDN) Software as a Service (SaaS) and more.

A skilled development team is always at your service for custom web applications or websites.  We are also currently a Virginia Information Technologies Agency (VITA) provider.  Please browse our website, call us (866-345-8322 -toll-free) or contact us, anytime – no obligation ever.

Sitevision News & Tips June 2014

Massive eBay Hack. States Investigating

eBay LogoMost people at some point in their digital life have shopped Ebay, set up a password, credit card, username and the like. A week or so ago, eBay announced an enormous hack: some 145 million accounts, and urged users to change their usernames and passwords. Hint: even if you have an old account and rarely or never use the service anymore, go ahead and take care of it now. Many users create the same credentials for the other sites they use, and are thus comprised yet again.

What Took So Long To Notify Users?

This breach apparently happened as early as February. eBay announced the Hack May 21st, and then neglected to email users for several days more. Users are angry. States are investigating. Among states looking into the matter are Florida, Ilinois, California and Connecticut.

To date eBay has yet to explain the delay nor present a clear picture of exactly what happened. You can read more at Forbes, Yahoo Tech, eBay Announcement

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What’s New At SiteVision

Cloud ComputingWhew! It’s been busy! We’ve added several members to our Development Team and performed some major hosting upgrades.We’ve also just completed a major upgrade to your IceWarp email software – pretty slick! Plus, we hope you’ve noticed our convenient new mobile friendly version of the newsletter.

As always, we have significant offerings in Software As A Service (SAAS), Global Information System (GIS) and Facilities Management (FM) development with ESRI ArcGIS Hosting; custom and back-end application and web development; and content management systems – all for a wide variety of industries. We are now a VITA hosting and SAAS service provider, as well. Many of our customers have specialized hosting and application requirements, so don’t hesitate to ask!

If you haven’t visited us lately, come see us and our offerings! We’re always here to help with your questions! http://www.sitevision.com

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Spotify LogoSpotify Also Breached

Spotify is the latest to notifiy users of a breach and will be asking some users to re-enter passwords and usernames. The intrusion was apparently limited to one account, but the company is taking the matter seriously.

The company also said they would ask android users to upgrade their application.

You can read more at Zdnet

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The Buzz: Apple Worldwide Developer Conference

WWDC14The WWDC is being held in San Francisco, CA, June 2-6. The big excitement? Apple is expected to announce a significant entrance into the connected smart home space we discussed last month in “the internet of things” – that is, connecting more of our stuff to our other stuff in a unified way. Apple’s view is that it will build control of things like appliances, lights, security systems right into your iOs device instead of relying on 3rd party apps. Also expected are new versions of iOs and OS X.

But at least a few wonder if the excitement has gone (perish the thought). Will the conference bite, or will there be some tasty tidbits? What about iPhone 6. Will there be something developers can really get excited about?

It will all be clear soon enough. By the way, Apple will be steaming the keynote presentation, and will be posting videos online.

You can read more at TechCrunch, WWDC, Digital Trends.

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LG G3Meet the LG G3: A Monster Mobile

Taking a run at Samsung’s Galaxy, the LG G3 turns up the heat with a 5.5” screen with 2560 x 1440 pixel resolution, laser-guided photography, a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor with a clock speed of up to 2.5GHz, and a removable 3,000mAh power block.

It supposedly hits the UK in July, but you can take a closer look at LG, Cnet or TechRadar.

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Apple LogoiPhones Hacked & Locked.  Ransoms Demands

Australian users are reporting that their iPhones are being hacked, locked and ransomed.
Now, some are reporting the same issue on Apple forums.

In a helpful article from KETR out of Texas A&M, you can find a ste-by-step guide to regaining control over your phone.  The author discusses both a preventive step and a step-by-step cure.  You can read more here.

 

 

SiteVision April News & Tips, 2014

SiteVision Email Upgrade Coming Soon!

Icewarp-LoginIn the next few weeks we’ll be upgrading your email account with an enhanced interface and features. The upgrade will be done after hours, so you should not be affected during your standard business day. Many enhanced visual, usability and security features will be included in the upgrade for administrators and users, alike!  Here’s a brief overview.

For Administrators

Beneath the updated user interface, you’ll find a highly integrated solution, including dual Anti-Spam & Anti-IceWarp Preview PaneVirus protection and a unified WebClient, WebAdministration interface, full mobile device synchronization and much more. Administrators have highly granular control of user rights including Read, Write, Modify and Delete and setting user limits.

Increased Security: 20+ anti-spam technologies help ensure high accuracy for increased security. Through sophisticated behavior analysis, artificial intelligence & auto-learning – spam protection adapts to ­unique messaging behavior. With no management required, the longer you use IceWarp Anti-Spam, the more accurate it will become. The proprietary dual system Spam Protection & Virus Protection is fully integrated & delivers protection from threats, while intrusion prevention stops malicious or unwanted behavior in real-time.

IW_11_MyDetailsFor Users:

As noted for Administrators, sophisticated security technologies protect you at the server level while a new user-friendly interface beckons!
New Modern Design: A stunning new visual and functional concept can be found inside and out. The redesign is inspired by a modern visual language with flat icons, soft colors, larger type and simplified layout.
Hi-Resolution Graphics: Graphics elements are able to uniquely adjust in size to various pixel densities of modern displays so that the UI is always looking ultra sharp, independent of screen resolution.
Touch Screen Friendly: Dedicated radiator buttons allow you to “right-click” while using touch devices, such as tablets and hybrid notebooks.
Updated Mobile Interface: We didn’t forget about smartphones either. The WebClient interface for mobile browsers sports new, modern visuals.
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Windows XP.  Going.  Going. Gone!

winxpAccording to Microsoft, XP support for Enterprise customers is going away on April 8th, 2014.  The same goes for Office 2003.  Since nearly a third of the planet’s users still use XP, according to ZD net, it’s a bigger deal than one might think.  You can read more at Microsoft and ZDNet who has positive vibes about the offering

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gmaillogoGoogle Beefs Up NSA Email Security

Google is now using a secure https connection from your computer onward in its journey to wherever – this in response, of course, to leaks about NSA snooping.  The fix only works with Gmail users, and not with Microsoft or Yahoo, as they haven’t yet instituted the same security measures.  Both claim to be “working” on it.  You can read more at CNN, and TechCrunch

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Microsoft Announces Office for iPad.  But Will It Matter?

Office for iPad The new offering attempts to take a cue from Apple’s  mantra of beautiful simplicity, but does it work?  According to CNN it’s an  interesting, attractive offering, but whether it will replace more  familiar productivity apps is questionable.  Office is now available in the  iTunes App Store for free – but only for reading documents. If you want to  create and edit content you’ll have to pony up an Office 365 subscription,  starting at $70 a year. You can read more at CNN and Engadget and ZDNet

UPDATES:  Office for iPad Tops Apps Charts.  Free on IPhones and AndroidWhat Does MacWorld Think?

 

SiteVison News & Tips – March 2014

Interconnecting the Connected

How Much Is The Internet Of Everything Worth? Try $19 Trillion.

svsn003Cisco’s CEO, John Chambers, has a rosy view of your future.  In a presentation first at CES, and again a few days ago at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, he predicted that the Internet of Everything (IoE) will be a world of interconnected devices communicating via an Internet connection.

Smartphones and computers will simply be one element of connected devices that will become ever more sophisticated.  Smarter power grids.  Interconnected industrial environments sharing meaningful data. Connected cars and home automation systems. Improved healthcare monitoring. All   are just a sampling of the impact the IoE will have on our lives, according to Chambers.

For example, Chamber noted that when Cisco was founded in 1984 there were a total of 1,000 devices connected to the Internet.  By 2010, that number had exploded to over 10 billion – outnumbering the Earth’s human population.

While it’s obvious that such a rosy prediction coincides with Cisco’s self interest, the trajectory is apparent wherever we look.   And while this was Chamber’s speech and his platform, there will be plenty of competition in interconnecting the connected!

What Chamber’s speech does illustrate, though, is the potential for the IoE to dramatically affect not only our personal lives, but entire corporate, industrial and healthcare ecosystems in a dramatic way.

For a look at excerpts from Chamber’s presentation see this YouTube video.[divider_line]

Apple News

Apple Patches Nasty Vulnerability Flaw in OS X

Apple LogoThe upgrade description barely acknowledges it, but the latest system updates are importantly a patch for a scary SSL code flaw.  The flaw, according to Aldo Cortesi, CEO and founder of security consultancy firm Nullcube resulted in the ability to capture full transparent interception of HTTPS traffic on both IOS (prior to 7.0.6) and OSX Mavericks.
Nearly all encrypted traffic, including usernames, passwords, and even Apple app updates can be captured, claimed Cortesi, who provided a proof of concept. Zdnet has an excellent article, as does Slate and Network World. Network World goes so far as to question whether the flaw was accidental or purposeful spyware.

But the big bottom line: this is a potentially devastating flaw. You should upgrade NOW.

Download: http://support.apple.com/downloads [divider_line]

Hosting Updates

We’re Invested In Your Hosting Experience!

Seriously.  We’re excited to announce that we are currently in testing with some major network infrastructure additions to our shared hosting environment.  These enhancements include new network switches and attached storage servers.

Ho-Hum, you might think?  Not so fast. The new Ethernet switches are designed to offer significant security and performance benefits including a secure, high-performance networking platform and advanced network management features.

We will also be adding a new PowerVault iSCSI SAN storage array designed for high availability and expansion across Ethernet networks. The new array provides advanced data protection, data replication, encryption and secure data removal.

So, in a nutshell, this investment is part of our continued effort to offer superior shared hosting options with dramatically increased throughput, as well as new levels of day-to-day security and stability[divider_line]

News Briefs

Is Google Fiber Coming To You?

Google is considering expanding to some 34 cities.  Will yours be one of them?  Google Fiber offers both a fast Internet connect (gigabit speeds) and an IP-based Cable TV service.  You can find a map and a brief overview here at Google BlogSpot.  Among Eastern cities to be considered is the Raleigh-Durham metro area, Charlotte, Nashville, Atlanta. Read more at Google Blogspot

Boeing’s New Self Destruct Phone

So does it blow up in your hand?  Maybe it jumps out of your pocket, runs to a corner and quietly goes into melt-down?

Kidding aside, this is one serious Smartphone. While still in the hands of the FCC, the secure Android phone called, simply, Black caters to government agencies and those companies dealing with defense and homeland security.  When it’s tampered with physically or digitally, it goes into self destruct making the device inoperable, according to Boeing.

You can read more at ars technica or elsewhere on the web.

Mobile World Congress Highlights

It’s over, and PC Magazine, among others, has its own take on the hottest of the hot.  Top rated phones. were the Yotaphone; the Blackphone, a consumer variation of the Boeing self-destruct phone, which claims to be super secure; and the Samsung Galaxy S5.

Cnet agreed that the Samsung Galaxy S5 was a winner, and included mentions for the Mozilla $25 phone, a smartglove, and various wearable tech items.  For a wrapup see the video at  Mobile World Congress 

 

February 2014 News & Tip

Securing Your Content Management Website

CMS GreenImportant Tips & A SiteVision Option

Websites are generally built to display information in the form of content, and in the last decade managing that content has become much easier due to the widespread use of a Content Management System often abbreviated as “CMS”.
The most popular CMS by far is WordPress with an impressive 60.1% of the CMS market share. With widespread popularity comes vulnerability, and many WordPress  sites are susceptible to attack due to running outdated, unsupported versions of the WordPress software. It’s also worth noting the 50 most downloaded plugins for WordPress in 2013 were also vulnerable to attacks such as SQL injections and Cross-site scripting (XSS).
These issues are not unique to WordPress.  All CMSs are susceptible to security risks, and it’s equally important to maintain updates no matter what your platform.  We’ve prepared an article for you about this important topic.  Read More Here.
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When Something Good Gets Better, We Call It Great.

Red HatRed Hat And CentOS Join Forces

We’re happy to say that is the case with the announcement of Red Hat adopting The CentOS Project. Here at SiteVision, CentOS is our Linux distribution of choice, and we’ve relied on its stability and security to provide the excellent hosting solutions you’ve become accustomed to. Now with CentOS having access to all of resources Red Hat has to offer, we can anticipate an Operating System that offers unparalleled results.

So who benefits from this added value?  You, our customers, and we’re happy to say that’s just great! Read more at Red Hat. 

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Apple LogoTwo Birthdays Worth Celebrating

30 Years ago Steve Jobs introduced the Macintosh 128K to the Chariots of Fire theme song.  The computing world has never been quite the same since.  And now Time has published that groundbreaking video.  Check out Steve’s blazer.

 

TED logo30 Years ago TED was formed – an innovative nonprofit  think tank devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading in the worlds of Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED)  –  Apple included.  Today, TED conferences bring together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives, which TED then publishes for free, everywhere.

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Microsoft’s SkyDrive Becomes OneDrive

One Drive LogoAfter losing a trademark battle, Microsoft is relaunching its cloud drive from SkyDrive to OneDrive. For any anxious users, everything is the same except for the name, according to Microsoft.  They do, however, promise more at a preview page here, where you can sign up for the news when it arrives.

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svsn003The Internet Of Things Can Be A Very Scary Place!

When your embedded software in a new PC (or other computing device) is crawling with  vulnerabilities before you ever boot it up, it’s time to sit up and take notice.

So says Wired online in a thought-provoking article about embedded  software and operating systems that – when added to the Internet of things –  might just present a future security disaster.

 

January, 2014 News & Tips

News & Views

CES LogoAs the biggest, splashiest,  electronic show on earth gets underway (CES), “whatup,” as the saying goes.  We think it’s safe to say – smart everything.  Just about everything you use will get smarter, well, at the very least, get a chipset to do stuff you really need,  or stuff you don’t, but think you do.

From the kitchen to your car, to your home heating and lighting, not to mention your health – it’s all up for streaming, talking, doing, thinking, suggesting, monitoring – well, you get the idea.  Our “stuff” may soon be smarter than we are, so we’ll undoubtedly need a smart device sooner, rather than later, to decode all the smart stuff around us.

What’s not up – is likely to be devices we have forever taken for granted:

  • Hard disk drives  vs. solid state drives.  Think 200 MBps per second vs. 550 MBps or better.
  • Traditional keyboards and mice vs. voice, hand, and touch technologies
  • DVD, CD Formats –  Think Netflix, Amazon and other streaming protocols
  • Pocket Cameras  vs. your smartphoneSony UHD 4K TV

So What is up? This is one, big, fun show, and according to most we’ll see:

  • 4K TV’s  at 60 fps  Big.  Beautiful.  Expensive.  Even curved.  Shown, Sony’s 84″ UHD TV.
  • Wearables.  Anything you can imagine.
  • 3D Printers vs. 3D printers.  A huge potential for manufacturing, but will consumers buy into the concept?
  • 2-in-1, All-in-One computing devices.  As the traditional desktop morphs into various iterations, we’ll probably see refinements to the current  tablet-laptop iterations,  as well as all in one’s that can go from room-to- room un-tethered.  These devices don’t seem so much “new,” as innovative attempts to define what future computing will or should be.

And lot’s More! In fact everything you can fit in about two million square feet and show to about 150K people!

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win8.1_logoMicrosoft Says Upgrade – Or Else!

Microsoft warns customers to update their 8.1 preview to Windows 8.1 final or face ruin.

“Thank you for using Windows 8.1 Preview. The preview is no longer available for download, and the license for it expires January 15, 2014. If you have not yet installed the final version of Windows 8.1 or Windows RT 8.1, you should do so now. If you are still running Windows 8.1 Preview, you’ll see the following notification every time you sign in. After January 15, 2014, your PC will also restart every 2 hours and you will lose any unsaved data.”

Gee, thanks, Microsoft.

InfoWorld also informs that while neither Windows Vista nor XP are designed to be upgraded to Windows 8.1, users can instead take a circuitous path — first to Windows 8, from which they can update to 8.1 via the Windows Store — or follow the steps outlined on this Microsoft support page.

Even those who formerly relied on Windows 8 and experimented with the 8.1 Preview have work to do after an update to the final. “Note that you will have to reinstall all of your applications (desktop or modern) after doing this,” Microsoft said.

More information on updating from the beta to the final of Windows 8.1 can be found on Microsoft’s website. A Windows 8.1 update FAQ is also available.

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MaskMe_Logo

Mask Me:  Ninja Protection for Online Sharing

We touched on this offering recently, but in view of “gi-normous” online data breaches lately – we think it’s an application worth revisiting.

So what does MaskMe do?  According to Abine, and put simply, it prevents you from sharing your personal information while letting you browse and shop online without having to give out your real email address, phone number, or credit card number.

According to a thorough review at Cnet, Abine’s new MaskMe browser add-on and mobile app, promises that you can use the Web while avoiding the data stalkers and  by preventing you from giving out your contact info in the first place.

The author of the review, Seth Rosenthal, calls it “one of the most vigorous attempts so far to protect people’s identities, and in a week of testing, it appears to be nearly flawless.”
At it’s heart,  MaskMe is an add-on for Firefox (Win & Mac) and Chrome (Win & Mac) that creates and manages dummy accounts for your e-mail address, phone number, credit card, and Web site log-ins. For Cnet’s full review go here, or visit Abine’s website

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turtleQuick Tips For Slow-Running Computers

From news.com.au, some classic, but oft forgotten tips to get your computer running faster.  See complete how-to details here

 

  • Uninstall unused programs
  • Delete Temporary Files
  • Get a Solid State Drive!
  • Get More Ram
  • Defragment and Clean-up
  • Stop Unnecessary Start-Up Programs

 

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