How the gig economy will shape 2016

The gig economy is making a major impact on the IT industry, and millions of IT pros are taking advantage of the flexibility, freedom and income-generating potential it has to offer. Here's what's hot (and what's not) in the gig economy for 2016.

It's difficult to gauge exactly how large the gig economy is, but judging by the number of 1099-MISC forms received by the IRS -- which employers are required to file when hiring and paying freelance workers -- it's growing fast. Approximately 82 million 1099s were filed in 2010. By 2014 that number grew to an estimated 91 million.

"CIOs are finding that the gig economy can help them resolve many talent challenges they've struggled with for some time. There's a huge opportunity for businesses here, and a large pool of flexible, highly skilled workers almost on-demand. CIOs have the opportunity to tap into a scalable workforce that can help them meet IT needs and reduce costs," says Harry West, vice president of services product management for IT consulting firm Appirio.

2016: Read all our stories of what will happen in the tech sector next year
Freelance and contract marketplace Upwork sees approximately $1 billion worth of freelance work passing through its site annually, and is uniquely positioned to notice trends and spot hot tech buzz before it hits the mainstream. Here's what to expect in the freelance and contract gig economy for 2016.
What's hot: virtual teams -- What's not: on-site work

More businesses than ever will begin structuring themselves as "remote first" instead of "remote friendly" or "on-site only," says Rich Pearson, senior vice president of marketing and categories at Upwork. According to Upwork's 2015 Freelancing in America research, one in three Americans freelanced in 2014, and 60 percent of freelancers are choosing to do so instead of being forced out of necessity. That gives businesses greater access to a more flexible, highly available talent pool that's not restricted to a specific geographic area.

"We're seeing companies becoming more remote-friendly. Teams may want to work from home, or companies want to hire a particular person with special skills or knowledge that's not in their geography. Tools like Slack and other virtual collaboration tools are making it so easy for teams anywhere to work together. The growth in 2016 is going to accelerate rapidly, we believe," says Pearson.

IT companies are also embracing remote workers as a way to address talent and skill gaps, and speed up time to hire, says Upwork's Mateo Bueno, senior director of product management. The average time to hire a skilled, knowledgeable freelancer via a talent marketplace like Upwork is three days, allowing companies to move quickly on mission-critical IT projects. In addition, hiring from outside tech hubs like Silicon Valley or the New York City area can save businesses money.

"When companies are in a tech hub, they're looking at extremely high recruiting costs, higher pay and a greater risk of having their valuable talent poached. We've seen that remote workers, even freelancers, have a greater loyalty and commitment to companies they work with, and a global access to talent can be a major competitive advantage," Bueno says.

What's hot: Independent consultants -- What's not: Huge consulting firms
As enterprise services move to the cloud and technology becomes increasingly mobile-centric, business are turning to lean, independent consultants and freelancers with a strong integration background to serve their IT consulting needs and work individually with existing IT teams and other contractors, says Pearson. There's no longer a great need for large, unwieldy teams of consultants who may move more slowly or can't get their hands dirty on integration projects.

"We saw in 2015 that the number of businesses spending money on large IT consulting projects in our marketplace increased by 22 percent year-over-year. These larger projects indicate that more companies are enlisting independent consultants or small agencies for projects. At the same time, we're seeing a slowdown in growth in the traditional IT consulting market that includes major firms," Pearson says.

Smaller teams or individual freelance consultants often come with highly specialized skills and can work with almost surgical precision to get in, get the job completed and get out much more efficiently and effectively than a large, more generalized IT consulting team, he says.

What's hot: Dynamic presentation skills -- What's not: PowerPoint skills
Companies are increasingly looking for new, dynamic ways to create and deliver corporate presentations, and PowerPoint just isn't cutting it in the business world, says Pearson. Dynamic presentations with superior graphics and animation and the ability to be interactive is all the rage.

The amount of money businesses spent hiring for Microsoft PowerPoint skills decreased by 5 percent year-over-year, while spend for projects that need Prezi and Keynote skills increased by 23 percent and 18 percent, respectively, according to Upwork's data.

"This is an area where we're seeing a massive shift in demand for a particular skill -- and it's a big one. PowerPoint has cornered the market for so long, but now we're seeing huge demand for Prezi, Keynote and other dynamic presentation tools like Google slides. Whether that's a collective cheer you hear from the market or a collective groan remains to be seen," Pearson says.

What's hot: Video -- What's not: Infographics
Upwork's data shows a significant increase in business spend on video-related skills like Adobe Aftereffects (115 percent year-over-year), video production (36 percent YoY) and Motion Graphics (117 percent YoY). This is driven by the continuing evolution of content marketing and the advertising potential inherent in video (think of all those pre-roll ads you're seeing), as companies race to be the first to take advantage of video ad offerings, Pearson says.

"Platforms like Instagram and Snapchat are continuing to expand their video ad offerings, and companies like Vine and Twitter with its Moments feature are jumping on this bandwagon. Businesses tried infographics, but quickly realized they weren't reaching their audiences as effectively as they should be -- now they need to hire skilled video pros who can develop high-quality content quickly," Pearson says.

Click here to view complete Q&A of LX0-104 exam
 

Certkingdom 20% Discount Promotion Coupon Code: 45K2D47FW4

Best Comptia LX0-104 Certification, Comptia LX0-104 Training at certkingdom.com

70-697 Practice Test - Windows 10 Devices in 2016

Welcome to the free practice test for 70-697 - Configuring Windows Devices. This simulated multiple-choice test was handwritten for the benefit of other IT professionals including engineers, helpdesk and managers. It contains 15 random questions selected from a wide range of Windows 10 topics - all relevant to the 70-697 subject material.

The questions will help to compliment your study material, providing the opportunity to test what you’ve learnt and improve your chance of passing the exam first time. Remember, if you enjoy the questions and answers then please share this page with friends and work colleagues.

Background
The 70-697 Specialist exam was introduced in 2015 for the Windows 10 MCSE certification path. Unlike exams from the Windows 8 series which tended to focus on a core principle the 70-697 exam covers a wider range of topics.

Candidates should bear this in mind when studying for the exam as it will test your experience across a wider spectrum of subjects including cloud based Intune management, virtualization and apps.

Topics you need to know
The exam is an even split between each of the following high level topics:
Windows Store and cloud apps
Desktop and device deployment
Intune device management
Networking
Storage
Data access and protection
Remote access
Updates and Recovery

● Exam 70-697 Configuring Windows Devices is near completion, and should soon be available. Passing this exam will confer a Microsoft Specialist certification, and it serves as the “recommended prerequisite” for the MCSE: Enterprise Devices and Apps certification (in lieu of exams 70-687 Configuring Windows 8.1 and 70-688 Supporting Windows 8.1). - See more at: http://www.certkingdom.com/Exam-70-697.php

You should be comfortable answering questions around the Windows Store and cloud apps, with an understanding of Microsoft Office 365 and the inner workings of Intune for sideloading apps to devices.

Several authentication mechanisms are available in Windows 10; certificates, Microsoft Passport, virtual smartcards, picture password, biometrics etc. You should be comfortable answering questions for each of these authentication types and any corresponding authorisation processes.

Many of the classic Windows configuration questions reappear, such as profiles and roaming with a focus on virtualization (Hyper-V) and mobile options such as Windows To Go and Wi-Fi Direct.

Networking and storage have their own subject areas which focus on classic networking principles such as name resolution and network adapters. On the storage side expect BitLocker to make an appearance in addition to classic questions on NTFS and data recovery.

Buzz Topics
Intune - provides mobile device management, mobile application management, and PC management capabilities from the cloud.
Hyper-V - software infrastructure and basic management tools that you can use to create and manage a virtualized computing environment.
BitLocker - a full disk encryption feature designed to protect data by providing encryption for entire volumes.
Windows To Go - boot and run from USB mass storage devices such as USB flash drives and external hard disk drives

Azure RemoteApp - brings the functionality of the on-premises Microsoft RemoteApp program, backed by Remote Desktop Services, to Azure. Azure RemoteApp helps you provide secure, remote access to applications from many different user devices.

Important
After reading this article, if your preparing for career change and looking for MCITP Online Training Certkingdom.com is the best online training provider that provide the all the and complete MCITP certification exams training in just one package, certkingdom self study training kits, save your money on bootcamps, training institutes, It’s also save your traveling and time. All training materials are “Guaranteed” to pass your exams and get you certified on the fist attempt, due to best training CertKingdom become no1 site.

Click here to view complete Q&A of 70-697 exam

Best Microsoft MCTS Certification, Microsoft 70-697 Training at certkingdom.com

Exam 77-419 Microsoft SharePoint 2013

Exam 77-419 Microsoft SharePoint 2013

Published: June 28, 2014
Languages: English
Audiences: Information workers
Technology: Microsoft Office 2013 suites
Credit toward certification: MOS

Skills measured
This exam measures your ability to accomplish the technical tasks listed below. The percentages indicate the relative weight of each major topic area on the exam. The higher the percentage, the more questions you are likely to see on that content area on the exam. View video tutorials about the variety of question types on Microsoft exams.

Please note that the questions may test on, but will not be limited to, the topics described in the bulleted text.

Do you have feedback about the relevance of the skills measured on this exam? Please send Microsoft your comments. All feedback will be reviewed and incorporated as appropriate while still maintaining the validity and reliability of the certification process. Note that Microsoft will not respond directly to your feedback. We appreciate your input in ensuring the quality of the Microsoft Certification program.

If you have concerns about specific questions on this exam, please submit an exam challenge.

Create and format content (25–30%)
Navigate the SharePoint hierarchy
Use Quick Launch, use All Site Content, use breadcrumb trails, add content to Quick Launch, use Content and Structure for navigation
Manage lists and libraries
Create lists or libraries, edit properties for new items, enable email notifications on lists or libraries, provide shortcuts to a mobile site URL, manage document templates, manage list views, create alerts on lists or libraries, use ratings, add columns, add content validation, manage column properties
Manage list items
Create new list items, edit content, delete list items or documents, version list items, publish assets, manage existing workflows, upload documents, create and manage announcements, collaborate with Microsoft Office assets (calendars, spreadsheets, web apps)
Manage document sets
Add documents to document sets, create document sets, activate and deactivate document sets

Preparation resources
Manage lists and libraries with many items
Introduction to document sets

Manage SharePoint sites (30–35%)
Manage pages
Create new site pages, use templates, edit and delete existing site pages
Perform administrative tasks on sites and workspaces
Create new sites or workspaces using templates, configure site or workspace structures, configure the Content Organizer, display a list of all user alerts, modify Look and Feel, recover assets (lists, libraries, documents, list items), use document and meeting workspaces, view site web analytics, view detailed reports
Manage Web Parts on a page
Add Web Parts, configure Web Parts, hide or remove Web Parts, export or import Web Parts
Manage content types
Associate content types to lists, extend the columns of content types, create custom content types
Manage users and groups
Create groups, manage groups, manage user access, manage group permissions

Preparation resources
How to: Create a page layout in SharePoint 2013
Configure and deploy Web Parts in SharePoint 2013
Determine permission levels and groups in SharePoint 2013

Participate in user communities (15–20%)
Configure My Site
Add keywords, add colleagues, select themes, configure the Colleague Tracker Web Part, configure RSS feeds, configure My Profile
Collaborate through My Site
Update profile status, share pictures in My Site, manage personal documents, share documents in My Site, browse the organization hierarchy, add Web Parts to My Site
Add tags and notes to content
Add notes to the Note Board for lists or libraries, add tags for lists or libraries, rate items, use tag clouds, review tags on My Site

Preparation resources
Configure My Sites in SharePoint Server 2013
Social and collaboration features in SharePoint 2013

Configure and consume site search results (15–20%)
Perform search administration at the site level
Configure searchable columns, configure list searches, configure site search visibility
View search results
Browse search results, use Best Bet results, use the Refinement Panel, use alerts and RSS feeds with search results, preview documents
Perform advanced searches
Use Boolean operators in searches, use wild cards in searches, use property searches, use phonetic searches, use People Search, use advanced searches

Preparation resources
Manage the search schema in SharePoint Server 2013
Search in SharePoint Server 2013
Plan to transform queries and order results in SharePoint 2013

Who should take this exam?
Candidates for the Microsoft SharePoint 2013 exam should have a sound understanding of the SharePoint environment and the ability to perform all site-level tasks. They should know and demonstrate the correct application of the principle site, library, and list features of SharePoint 2013. Candidates should be able to optimize and customize SharePoint sites to provide structure, solve problems, facilitate collaboration, and enhance productivity. Examples of application include managing list permissions, adding content to Quick Launch, creating team sites, and modifying library views. Candidate roles might include technical support staff, project managers, team leads, department heads, and others.

Click here to view complete Q&A of 77-419 exam

Best Microsoft MCTS Certification, Microsoft 77-419 Training at certkingdom.com

74-343 Managing Projects with Microsoft Project 2013

---

QUESTION 1
You use Project Professional 2013 to manage a project that has customer-required milestone
completion dates. You need to see graphically that your milestones have slipped beyond your
customer-required dates. What should you add to the project milestones?

A. a Must finish on constraint
B. a finish date
C. a deadline
D. a Finish no later than constraint

Answer: C

---

QUESTION 2
You manage a project by using Project Professional 2013. Your project is updated with changes to
the baseline for selected tasks. You back up your project fife before you start your next tracking
cycle. After completing the tracking cycle, you notice that the baseline duration values on some
of the summary tasks are not correct. You need to correct these values before re-entering the
tracking data. You open the backed up version of the project schedule. What should you do next?

A. Manually update the summary tasks with the new duration values.
B. Reset the summary tasks to manual scheduling.
C. Ensure the tasks durations are of the same denomination values. Then reenter the tracking data.
D. Reset the baseline checking the Roll up baselines to all summary tasks option. Then reenter
the tracking data.

Answer: D

---

QUESTION 3
You are a program manager. Your project managers use Project Professional 2013 to manage
projects. The project managers want to utilize the same resources across their projects. You need
to combine the projects, as well as the project resources, to see allocations across the projects.
What should you do?

A. Copy and paste all resource assignments into a Master file.
B. Share resources from an external resource pool.
C. Create a Master project and insert subprojects by using Link to project.
D. Open all projects in a new window.

Answer: B

---

QUESTION 4
Your company uses Project Standard 2013 to track project progress. You need to accurately
calculate cost performance index (CPI) as a health indicator. Which three actions should you
perform? (Each correct answer presents part of the solution. Choose three.)

A. Ensure there is a value in the Status Date field.
B. Ensure there is a value in the Standard Rate field.
C. Ensure Task Dependencies exist in the schedule.
D. Enter actual progress information.
E. Level resources within available slack.

Answer: ABD

---

QUESTION 5
You are a project manager who uses Microsoft Excel 2013. Your company decides to migrate all of
the current projects in Microsoft Excel 2013 to Project Professional 2013. They allow all
employees to spend 8 hours migrating each project plan. Your current and unique project plan
has 462 tasks with duration in days, and resources have been assigned and named. You have a
status meeting in two days. You need to provide your project's information by using Project
Professional 2013. What should you do?

A. Create a new project plan in Project Professional 2013 and use the Gantt Chart Wizard to
import from an Excel Workbook.
B. Rename the Excel file from .xlsx to .mpx, and open it by using Project Professional 2013,
activating the Mapping Excel Workbook feature. Map tasks, durations, and resources
assigned into Microsoft Project fields.
C. Open the Excel File .xlsx directly from Project Professional 2013, which will convert and map
tasks, durations, and resources assigned into Project fields.
D. Create a VBA macro by using the Excel Record Macro feature to import all tasks, durations,
and resources assigned from Excel into your new Project Professional 2013 project plan.

Answer: C

Click here to view complete Q&A of 74-343 exam

Are wearables worth the cybersecurity risk in the enterprise?

How should the enterprise address the growing adoption of wearables?

The Internet of Things and wearable technology are becoming more integrated into our everyday lives. If you haven't already, now is the time to begin planning for their security implications in the enterprise.

According to research firm IHS Technology, more than 200 million wearables will be in use by 2018. That's 200 million more chances of a security issue within your organization. If that number doesn't startle you, Gartner further predicts that 30% of these devices will be invisible to the eye. Devices like smart contact lenses and smart jewelry will be making their way into your workplace. Will you be ready to keep them secure even if you can't see them?

According to TechTarget, "Although there haven't been any major publicized attacks involving wearables yet, as the technology becomes more widely incorporated into business environments and processes, hackers will no doubt look to access the data wearables hold or use them as an entry point into a corporate network."

While it's true that IT cannot possibly be prepared for every potential risk, as an industry we need to do a better job of assessing risks before an attack happens. This includes being prepared for new devices and trends that will pose all new risks for our organizations.

How many of us read the news about a new data breach practically every day and have still yet to improve security measures within our own organizations? If you're thinking "guilty," you're not alone. Organizational change can't always happen overnight, but we can't take our eyes off the ball either.

In a 2014 report, 86% of respondents expressed concern for wearables increasing the risk of data security breaches. IT Business Edge suggests, "With enterprise-sensitive information now being transferred from wrist to wrist, businesses should prepare early and create security policies and procedures regarding the use of wearables within the enterprise." Updating policies is a smart move, but the hard part is anticipating the nature and use of these new devices and then following through with implementing procedures to address them. It seems it may be easier said than done.

We all know that wearables pose security challenges, but how do IT departments begin to address them? This can be especially challenging considering that some of the security risks lie on the device manufacturers rather than the teams responsible for securing the enterprise network the technology is connected to. Many wearables have the ability to store data locally without encryption, PIN protection, or user-authentication features, meaning that if the device is lost or stolen, anyone could potentially access the information.

Beyond the data breach threat of sensitive information being accessed by the wrong hands, wearables take it a step further by providing discreet access for people to use audio or video surveillance to capture sensitive information. Is someone on your own team capturing confidential information with their smartwatch? You may not realize it's happening until it's too late.

How can we effectively provide security on devices that appear insecure by design? It seems the safest option is to ban all wearables in the enterprise – there are too many risks associated with them, many of which seemingly cannot be controlled. If this thought has crossed your mind, I may have bad news for you. This isn't really an option for most organizations, especially those looking to stay current in today's fast-paced society. TechTarget's Michael Cobb explains, "Banning wearable technology outright may well drive employees from shadow IT to rogue IT – which is much harder to deal with."

If the threat of rogue IT isn't enough to convince you, also consider that there may very well be real benefits of wearables for your organization. According to Forrester, the industries that will likely benefit from this technology in the short term are healthcare, retail, and public safety organizations. As an example in the healthcare field, Forrester suggests that "the ability of biometric sensors to continually monitor various health stats, such as blood glucose, blood pressure and sleep patterns, and then send them regularly to healthcare organizations for monitoring could transform health reporting." There are many examples for other industries, and the market continues to evolve every day.

It all boils down to this: enterprise wearables present a classic case of risk versus reward. We know there are many security risks, but are the potential rewards great enough to make the risks worthwhile? This answer may vary based on your industry and organization, but chances are there are many real business opportunities that can come from wearable technology.

If you haven't already, it's time to start talking with your teams about what those opportunities are and the best ways to ease the associated risks. As we all know, the technology will move forward with or without us and the ones who can effectively adapt will be the ones who succeed. It's our job to make sure our organizations are on the right side of that equation.

Best Microsoft MCP Certification, Microsoft MCSE Training at certkingdom.com

7 ways to ease stress at work

Workplace stress is a fact of life, especially in the IT industry. Keeping that stress to manageable levels can seem like a full-time job in and of itself. Thankfully, there are some easy ways to relax, recharge and rejuvenate, and many of them you can do right at your desk.

Technology
Ironically, the same technology that's causing you undue stress and frustration can also be used to help manage and reduce it. From biometrics and fitness trackers that monitor your heart rate, blood pressure and the number of steps you take each day, to resilience solutions that guide you to stress-reduction resources (like those from Concern and Limeade), technology is playing a huge role in helping workers chill out and relax.

Meditation
Meditation can be done anywhere, anytime, whether you've got five minutes or 50. Take some deep breaths and clear your mind in between meetings, or before a particularly stressful phone call. Meditate on the bus or the subway. You can try mantra meditation, where you silently repeat a word or phrase; mindfulness meditation, which focuses on the flow of your breath and on being conscious of the present moment, or some form of meditative movement like Qigong or yoga.

Exercise breaks
Does your workplace have an on-site fitness center? Use it. Is one of your employee benefits or perks a fitness center membership or reimbursement? Take advantage of that. Even a brisk walk around the block, or jogging up and down the stairs instead of taking an elevator can help get the blood flowing and help relax your mind and energize your body.

Tech time-out
It's hard to manage stress when you're constantly reading emails, your smartphone's ringing off the hook, text messages keep flooding in and your to-do list keeps getting longer. Set aside a certain period of time each day for a tech time-out, says Henry Albrecht, CEO of employee wellness solutions company Limeade. Turn off all your electronic devices and focus on something other than a screen. You could even meditate during this time. You'll be surprised how peaceful it can be.

Curb Caffeine
No one's suggesting you give up your morning cup of Joe, but cutting down on caffeine intake, or setting a time of day when you stop drinking caffeinated beverages, can help you better manage stress. "Maybe after, say, 2 p.m., avoid anything with caffeine in it. That can affect your sleep later on in the evening, and if you aren't well-rested, that will add to your stress," says Albrecht.

6 sound sleep
Make sure you're getting your rest, or you'll be poorly equipped to manage stress. The general rule is eight hours, but some people function optimally on a little more or less. Figure out what works for you and stick to it. And don't fall asleep in front of the TV, your tablet or your smartphone, either. Research shows that can affect the quality of your REM sleep and impact your rest.

Fix your finances
Financial issues can affect more than just your credit score - taking care of your financial health is critical to maintaining your overall physical and emotional health, too. If you're struggling financially, check with your HR department to see if they have financial wellness and planning resources available. Or consult a financial advisor or debt consolidation organization. You should also check out free budgeting technology, like Mint, that can help track your spending.

Click here to view complete Q&A of 70-342 exam

Best Microsoft MCTS Certification, Microsoft 70-342 Training at certkingdom.com

What next? A brief history of tech stars and their second acts

F. Scott Fitzgerald didn't know everything
The tech industry in 2015 is shaped by one executive's spectacular second act: Steve Jobs, exiled from the company he helped build, returned triumphantly in 1996 to take back control and transform it into a world-changing electronics company. It's a story that everyone knows, but it's one that's almost unique in the tech industry. More common is a different kind of second act: one in which a leader or visionary leaves (voluntarily or not) the role that made them famous and tries something else, something new. Sometimes these new gigs are calmer and more low-key than their first act; sometimes they might seem to be in a very different field; and sometimes they take a tech leader to new heights.

Elon Musk
In 2001, Elon Musk was deposed as CEO of PayPal, a company he helped found and focus on online payments. The coup was motivated, depending on who you ask, over either his autocratic management style or his attempt to move PayPal's infrastructurefrom Unix to Windows. Most people would've been satisfied with having created a service that redefined how people pay for things, and also with a $165 million payout. Instead, Musk went for a double second act, pouring his fortune into Tesla, which aims to transform how cars are powered, and SpaceX, which seeks to make manned spaceflight profitable. It's pretty difficult to imagine two less grandiose goals to tackle.

Ev Williams
Pyra Labs, co-founded by Ev Williams in 1999, was supposed to make (boring) project management software. But they built a publishing tool for internal use that they called Blogger, which quickly became an outward-facing service, which quickly brought blogging mainstream and got Pyra Labs acquired by Google in 2003.

Flash-forward a few years: Williams leaves Google and helps found Obvious Corp., a sort of incubator with several projects in progress; one of them, launched in 2006, was originally called twttr, and was conceived of as an SMS-based publishing network. Nearly a decade later, Twitter has come to define Web publishing for the '10s as much as blogging did for the '00s. Will Williams's next startup focus on even shorter posts?

Jack Dorsey
While Williams was an important part of Twitter's origin story, it was Jack Dorsey who laid the foundations for its technology, after having ruminated on similar ideas for much of the first half of the '00s. Dorsey was Twitter's CEO in its early years. However, the microblogging service was barely out if its infancy when he launched another endeavor: Square, a service that made it easy to accept credit card payments on smartphones. The company had reached beta status by 2010. Twitter is a media darling and may get more press, but more people probably encounter Square, which aggressively moved to replace standard cash registers with iPads, in real life. In a Jobsian move, Dorsey has also returned to Twitter as CEO, though that seems temporary.

Andy Rubin
Maybe Rubin didn't have so much a second act as a second try. He was one of the co-founders of Danger, Inc., a company whose Danger Hiptop phone-PDA combo -- a smartphone, essentially -- was way, way ahead of its time when it arrived on the market in 2002. Rubin left the company, which ended up stagnating before being absorbed by Microsoft, but he wasn't done with mobile. He quietly started another company, Android, which focused on mobile software, and which was, just as quietly, bought by Google in 2005. Android was the world-changer that proved that sometimes the second time's the charm.

Carly Fiorina
In tech circles, Carly Fiorina is best remembered for her late '90s/early '00s stint as CEO of Hewlett-Packard, which was extremely controversial within the industry; she fought the company's founding families, dismantled the egalitarian "HP Way," and, most famously, engineered a much-derided merger with Compaq. Fiorina was fired in 2005, but has chosen a second act even more grandiose than conquering space: politics. Undaunted by a failed 2010 Senate run that featured one of the weirdest campaign ads in living memory, Fiorina is currently running for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, and in her first big debate managed to humble Donald Trump.

Henry Blodget
Perhaps nobody on this list had their first act end as dramatically as Henry Blodget: as a stock analyst for Merrill Lynch during the dot-com boom he promoted stocks in public that he privately admitted weren't worth much; he eventually paid a $2 million civil fine and was banned from the securities industry. For his second act, he turned to journalism: he helped found Silicon Alley Insider in 2007, which quickly become part of the Business Insider empire, where Blodget is the editor in chief and CEO. Much of the hostility within the industry towards him has dissipated, and many view him as a sort of kooky uncle, especially when he produces oddball it-happened-to-me articles like this one.

Kevin Rose
Kevin Rose is perhaps emblematic of the sort of second acts many tech execs who hit it big young have: the anticlimactic kind. Rose founded Digg, which for a few years in the '00s was one of the most important websites on the Internet, with hundreds of millions of views and the power to make or break stories that it linked to. A baby-faced Rose appeared on the cover of BusinessWeek in 2006, though he later claimed the hat and headphones weren't his. After a disastrous 2010 redesign evaporated Digg's goodwill, Rose started an app-making shop that got bought by Google and ended up briefly working on Google+, a project that, as we all know, did not end in glory.

James Gosling
Some second acts are lower-key by choice. James Gosling created Java for Sun Microsystems in 1995; when Sun was merged into Oracle in 2010, Gosling left in short order, which was seen as emblematic of the culture clash between the two companies. After a brief five-month stint working for Google, Gosling went in a completely different direction: he took a job with Liquid Robotics, helping build low-power automatic seafaring robots. I imagine this job has to be significantly less stressful than his previous high-profile gigs.

Steve Jobs (again)
Steve Jobs's return to Apple is so important to the industry that it's easy to forget that he did have another, truly different second act. In 1986, after he had been ousted from Apple, Jobs spent $5 million to fund the spinoff of LucasFilm's Graphics Group, which was quickly renamed Pixar. After years of failed attempts to market to special effects artists the custom hardware and software the group had developed, and only a little traction from doing commercial animation, Jobs was almost prepared to sell the company in 1995, when Toy Story was released to near-universal acclaim and massive box office success. The rest was history. Even Jobs's secondary second act was pretty good.

---

Best Microsoft MCTS Certification, Microsoft MCITP Training at certkingdom.com

Google may have renamed Glass in revitalization effort

Google may have renamed Glass in revitalization effort

New name hints of a big rethink of Glass and wearables

Google appears to be renaming its Google Glass effort and expanding its work on wearables.

The company has renamed its Google Glass work Project Aura and has scooped up staff from Amazon's secretive Lab126, according to a report from Business Insider.
it resume roundup
IT Resume Makeover: How to start from scratch

Twenty-five years of successful consulting gigs left Malcolm Greene with a list of accomplishments a
Read Now

Google declined to comment on the report.

If it's accurate, though, the move is likely part of Google's attempts to get out from under the negativity that had blossomed around Glass and revive its wearables effort.

Aura is also separate from Project Ara, Google's push into modular smartphones, according to Insider.

In January, the company pulled Glass to give its engineers a chance to rework how the computerized eyeglasses both look and function.

At the time, Google would not give a release date - or even a timeframe - for people to get a look at Glass version 2.0, only stating that its "team is heads down building the future of the product."

A big part of what Google has to rework is Glass' image. Many people had come to find Glass creepy since they didn't know when a user might be recording them or what information they were seeing on the display when the user was talking with them.

Establishments from a casino to movie theaters and a bar all banned Glass users.

If Google is renaming its Glass project, that could be a good sign that the company is focused on rethinking the entire product, said Patrick Moorhead, an analyst with Moor Insights & Strategy.

"With the colossal market failure of Glass, they really had to name it something different," he told Computerworld. "New names are indicative of a desired change but don't guarantee a real change. The Glass name was a liability and needed to be replaced."

Moorhead also said he hopes Google expands its wearables from Glass to a broader range of products.

"I would expect that," he said. "They are clearly behind Apple on wrist wearables... They have a lot of ground to make up."

Best Microsoft MCTS Certification, Microsoft MCITP Training at certkingdom.com

Three critical considerations when optimizing infrastructure for application performance

You need a vendor–neutral, unbiased understanding of system-wide performance, and accurate analytics to support and inform immediate action

This vendor-written tech primer has been edited by Network World to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note it will likely favor the submitter’s approach.

Overprovisioning has been the go-to approach for ensuring infrastructure and application performance. But when performance degradations and unplanned outages occur, even the most experienced teams move into “react-and-guess” mode.

Where to start? Every level of the infrastructure stack comes with its own possible issues, and tracking the culprit down takes time. And with IT infrastructures growing at an exponential pace and workloads to the cloud, the typical approach of overprovisioning and reacting-and-guessing is no longer a viable option.

There are three steps IT professionals can take to prevent emerging issues from becoming recurring problems that impact performance and productivity:

* Understand the system’s history, in addition to its present. Understanding how an infrastructure arrived at its current state will provide a clearer picture of what has been integrated throughout the system and the purpose of each component. Each part was put in place for a specific reason. Every application, whether on-premise or hosted, comes with its own dependencies. Patching together the history of the IT infrastructure will help you understand exactly what you are dealing with and why.

It will also give you an idea of the problems the system experienced in the past, which will help you detect issues more quickly. Auditing critical IT infrastructure is another process that helps teams benchmark systems and identify areas that may call for upgrades or more efficient processes. Knowing precisely which application workloads an infrastructure is supporting helps you detect wasteful assets and plan for the necessary size and scale of future deployments.

* Focus on the end user, in both the near and long term. Guaranteed availability isn’t just about alleviating IT headaches. Frequent latency delays are frustrating for users, and in the end, user issues matter far more than internal frustrations. Overprovisioning is no longer tenable given the explosive infrastructure growth, and there is a clear mandate to maximize existing assets.

What’s more, while overprovisioning does take into account workload fluctuations to ensure enough capacity to deliver a good end-user experience, it ties up resources that could be used for valuable new applications, products or services. Understanding traffic patterns, in terms of behavior during peak periods and the tasks that need to be completed during those high-demand times, will help you provision appropriately and ensure all critical workloads function properly.

* Use performance monitoring solutions that integrate with disparate environments. Assessing performance requires a solution that analyzes system-wide health, utilization and performance to identify issues that may increase latency. There are a number of technologies available that attempt to solve this puzzle, such as enterprise systems management (ESM) and network performance management (NPM) tools. However, these monitoring platforms were developed before data centers became as virtualized and heterogeneous as they are today.

With the disparate systems working together in enterprise environments, an understanding of the way these solutions and systems collaborate is critical. Vendor-neutral IT monitoring and management technologies enable workers to measure the outputs and activities in cloud, virtual and on-premise applications from different vendors.

This integration of performance standards should also be reflected in a company’s service-level agreements (SLAs); as each component in an IT infrastructure has come to overlap so heavily with the rest, isolating each element in siloed SLAs no longer makes sense. Rely on SLAs that look at your infrastructure as the holistic entity it is, and focus on performance, not just availability.

The pace of IT demands agility, accuracy and answers that drive optimal performance at all times, but guaranteeing performance isn’t easy. It requires a vendor–neutral, unbiased understanding of system-wide performance, and accurate analytics to support and inform immediate action. All of this starts with a better comprehension of IT infrastructure assets, which only becomes more crucial as additional investment of resources, both financial and personnel, becomes necessary.

Answers are the silver bullet in the modern IT landscape, and they’re not only about the data stored in an application infrastructure, but how that data is correlated and analyzed to deliver value. All of the knowledge gained from an infrastructure’s operation is significant to the ultimate success of the business, and the companies that take proactive steps toward gaining those insights will be the ones that find themselves ahead of the curve.

Best Microsoft MCTS Certification, Microsoft MCITP Training at certkingdom.com

Microsoft fires back at Google with Bing contextual search on Android

"Snapshots on Tap" echoes a feature coming with the next version of Android

Microsoft has pre-empted a new feature Google plans to include in the next version of Android with an update released Thursday for the Bing Search app that lets users get information about what they're looking at by pressing and holding their device's home button.

Called Bing Snapshots, the feature is incredibly similar to the Now on Tap functionality Google announced for Android Marshmallow at its I/O developer conference earlier this year. Bing will look over a user's screen when they call up a Snapshot and then provide them with relevant information along with links they can use to take action like finding hotels at a travel destination.

For example, someone watching a movie trailer can press and hold on their device's home button and pull up a Bing Snapshot that will give them easy access to reviews of the film in question, along with a link that lets them buy tickets through Fandango.

Google Now On Tap, which is slated for release with Android Marshmallow later this year, will offer similar features with a user interface that would appear to take up less screen real estate right off the bat, at least in the early incarnations Google showed off at I/O.

The new functionality highlights one of the major differences between Android and iOS: Microsoft can replace system functionality originally controlled by Google Now and use that to push its own search engine and virtual assistant. Microsoft is currently beta testing a version of its virtual assistant Cortana on Android for release later this year as well.

A Cortana app is also in the cards for iOS, but Apple almost certainly won't allow a virtual assistant to take over capabilities from Cortana, especially since Google Now remains quarantined inside the Google app on that mobile platform.

All of this comes as those three companies remained locked in a tight battle to out-innovate one another in the virtual assistant market as a means of controlling how users pull up information across their computers and mobile devices. For Microsoft and Google, there's an additional incentive behind the improvements: driving users to their respective assistants has the potential to boost use of the connected search engines.

---

Best Microsoft MCTS Certification, Microsoft MCITP Training at certkingdom.com

Dropbox security chief defends security and privacy in the cloud

Patrick Heim is the (relatively) new head of Trust & Security at Dropbox. Formerly Chief Trust Officer at Salesforce, he has served as CISO at Kaiser Permanente and McKesson Corporation. Heim has worked more than 20 years in the information security field. Heim discusses security and privacy in the arena of consumerized cloud-based tools like those that employees select for business use.

What security and privacy concerns do you still hear from those doing due diligence prior to placing their trust in the cloud?
A lot of them are just trying to figure out what to do with the cloud in general. Companies right now have really three choices, especially with respect to the consumer cloud (i.e., cloud tools like Dropbox). One of them is to kind of ignore it, which is always a horrible strategy because when they look at it, they see that their users are adopting it en masse. Strategy two is to build IT walls up higher and pretend it’s not happening. Strategy three is adoption, which is to identify what people like to use and convert it from the uncontrolled mass of consumerized applications into something security feels comfortable with, something that is compliant with the company’s rules with a degree of manageability and cost control.

Are there one or two security concerns you can name? Because if the cloud was always entirely safe in and of itself, the enterprise wouldn’t have these concerns.

If you look at the track record of cloud computing, it’s significantly better from a security perspective than the track record of keeping stuff on premise. The big challenge organizations have, when you look at some of these breaches, is they’re not able to scale up to secure the really complicated in-house infrastructures they have.

We’re [as a cloud company] able to attract some of the best and brightest talent in the world around security because we’re able to get folks that quite frankly want to solve really big problems on a massive scale. Some of these opportunities aren’t available if they’re not in a cloud company.

How do you suggest that enterprises take that third approach, which is to adopt consumerized cloud applications?
The first step is through discovery. Understand how employees use cloud computing. There are a number of tools and vendors that help with that process. With that, IT has to be willing to rethink their role. Employees should really be the scouts for innovation. They’re at the forefront of adopting new apps and cloud technology. The role of IT will shift to custodian or curator of those technologies. IT will provide integration services to make sure that there is a reasonable architecture for piecing these technologies together to add value and to provide security and governance to make sure those kinds of cloud services align with the overall risk objectives of the organization.

"If you look at the track record of cloud computing, it’s significantly better from a security perspective than the track record of keeping stuff on premise."

Patrick Heim, Head of Trust & Security, Dropbox

How can the enterprise use the cloud to boost security and minimize company overhead?
If you think about boosting security, there is this competition for talent and the lack of resources for the enterprise to do it in-house. If you look at the net risk concept, where you evaluate your security and risk posture prior to and after you invest in the cloud, and you understand what changes, one of those changes is: what do I not have to manage anymore? If you look at the complexity of the tech stack, there are security accountabilities, and the enterprise shifts the vast majority of security accountabilities on the infrastructure side to the cloud computing provider; that leaves your existing resources free to perform more value-added functions.

What are the security concerns in cloud collaboration scenarios?
When I think about collaboration especially outside of the boundaries of an individual organization, there is always the question of how do you maintain reasonable control over that information once it’s in the hands of somebody else? There is that underlying tension that the recipient of that shared information may not continue to protect it.

In response to that, there is ERM, which provides a document-level control that’s cryptographically enforced. We’re looking at ways of minimizing the usability tradeoff that can come with adding in some of these kinds of security advancements. We’re working with some vendors in this space to identify what do we have to do from an interface and API perspective to integrate this so that the impact on the end user for adopting some of these advanced encryption capabilities is absolutely minimized, meaning that when you encrypt a document using some of these technologies that you can still, for example, preview it and search for it.

How do enterprises need to power their security solutions in the current IT landscape?
When they look at security solutions, I think more and more they have to think beyond the old model of the network parameter. When they send data to the cloud, they have to adopt a security strategy that also involves cloud security, where the cloud actually provides the security as one of its functions.

There are a number of cloud-access security brokers, and the smart ones aren’t necessarily sitting on the network and monitoring, but the smart ones are interacting, using access and APIs, and looking at the data people are placing into cloud environments, analyzing them for policy violations, and providing for archiving and backup and similar capabilities.

Security tools that companies need to focus on could be oriented to how these capabilities are going to scale across multiple cloud vendors as well as how do I get away from inserting it into our network directly and focus more on API integration with multiple cloud vendors?

---

Best Microsoft MCTS Certification, Microsoft MCITP Training at certkingdom.com

So long (Vista), it's been good to know yah

Windows 8's predecessor in Microsoft's every-other-OS-flops series now has a user share of just 2%

Windows Vista, the perception-plagued operating system Microsoft debuted to the general public in early 2007, has sunk to near insignificance, powering just two out of every 100 Windows personal computers, new data shows.

According to analytics provider Net Applications, Windows Vista's user share, an estimate based on counting unique visitors to tens of thousands of websites, stood at 2% at the end of July.

Vista has been in decline since October 2009, when it peaked at 20% of all in-use Windows editions. Not coincidentally, that month also saw the launch of Vista's replacement -- and Microsoft's savior -- Windows 7. Within a year, Vista's user share had slumped to less than 15%, and in less than two years fell below 10%.

Since then, however, Vista users have dragged their feet: The OS took another four years to leak another eight percentage points of user share. Projections based on the current average monthly decline over the past year signal that Vista won't drop under the 1% mark until April 2016.

Vista's problems have been well chronicled. It was two-and-a-half years late, for one. Then there were the device driver issues and ballyhoo over User Account Control (UAC). It was even the focus of an unsuccessful class-action lawsuit that alleged Microsoft duped consumers into buying "Vista Capable"-labeled PCs, a case that revealed embarrassing admissions by senior executives who had trouble figuring it out.

Even former CEO Steve Ballmer admitted it was a blunder. In a pseudo-exit interview in 2013 with long-time Microsoft watcher Mary Jo Foley of ZDNet, Ballmer cited Vista as "the thing I regret most," tacitly setting most of Microsoft's then-problems on the OS's doorstep, from its failure in mobile to the slump in PC shipments.

Those still running Vista -- using Microsoft's claim that 1.5 billion devices run Windows, Vista's share comes to around 30 million -- have been left out in the cold by Microsoft and its Windows 10 upgrade: Vista PCs are not eligible for the free deal.

It's actually good, at least for Microsoft, that Vista is on so few systems. The company will ship the last security updates for the aged OS on April 17, 2017, 20 months from now.

And there is a silver lining for Vista owners: At least their OS is more popular than Linux.

---

Best Microsoft MCTS Certification, Microsoft MCITP Training at certkingdom.com

How to ditch the iOS 9 preview and go back to iOS 8

If the beta version of Apple's next mobile OS is causing problems on your iDevice, there's an easy out

his is a time of temptation for Apple enthusiasts, many of whom are eager to get their hands -- and devices -- on the company's newest software. Between June, when company execs tout the upcoming versions of Apple's desktop and mobile operating systems, and the fall, when the polished, finished versions arrive, Apple users get a chance to serve as beta testers.

Having a hardcore set of fans eager to try out the latest software is a benefit that Apple has embraced. Last year, it allowed users to check out pre-release versions of OS X 10.10 Yosemite. This year, they can beta test OS X 10.11 El Capitan and -- for the first time -- an early version of the company's mobile operating system -- in this case, iOS 9. (Not available as a public beta is the pre-release build of Watch OS, which is a good thing; some of the developers that have tried it have found it to be unstable, and who wants to brick their brand new Apple Watch?)

To do so, users must sign up for Apple's Beta Software Program, which is free. The program allows access to relatively stable versions of the pre-release software and gives Apple engineers a wider audience to test it. That, theoretically, leads to more bugs uncovered and fixed before the final release. Public betas roll out every few weeks -- the most recent one arrived yesterday.

Apple
The problem with the time between beta and final releases is that many people who aren't developers or technology insiders use their primary device to test what is actually unfinished software -- and pre-release software is historically unstable, at best. Yes, Apple routinely warns you not to use your main iPhone, iPad or desktop to test the software. And users routinely ignore that advice.

But there's good news for iPhone and iPad owners who took the plunge into iOS 9 and have now decided -- whether because of problematic apps or the need for a more stable OS -- they prefer iOS 8. You can downgrade your device, and it's not even that difficult to do. But there is a caveat: Any data accumulated between the last time your device was backed up running iOS 8 and since the upgrade to iOS 9 will be lost, even if you recently backed up your data. Put simply, you cannot restore backup data from iOS 9 to a device running iOS 8; it's not compatible. The best you can do is restore from the most recent backup of iOS 8.

Assuming you still want to return to iOS 8, here's what to do.
If you're a public beta tester (who hasn't signed up to be full-fledged developer), you can downgrade your iDevice by putting it into DFU mode. (DFU stands for Device Firmware Update.) You use this method to restore iOS 8 without having to get the older operating system manually.

First, perform a backup via iCloud or iTunes. Even though you won't be able to use this data on iOS 8, it's always better to have a backup than not. Then go to Settings: iCloud: Find My iPhone and turn off Find My iPhone.

Then follow these instructions to put the iPhone into DFU mode: Turn off the iPhone and plug it into your computer. Hold the Home button down while powering on the phone, and hold both until you see the Apple logo disappear. You can release the power button, but continuing holding down the Home button until you see the iPhone's screen display instructions to plug the device into an iTunes-compatible computer. When prompted on your computer, click on the option to Restore, and iTunes will download the latest released version of iOS for your device.

If you're a developer, log into the Apple Developer portal (after you turn off Find My iPhone), click on the section for iOS and download the latest officially released build. As of now, that's iOS 8.4. Once the software is downloaded, open iTunes and click on the iPhone/iPad/iDevice tab. Within the Info tab, there are two buttons: Update and Restore. Hold down the Option button on the keyboard while clicking Restore. Navigate to the file that was just downloaded and select it. The software will then erase the iPhone or iPad of its contents and install that previous version of iOS.

Note: When downgrading to the previous version, make sure to option-click Restore; do not choose Update. Doing that will lead to a loop in which the iPhone is placed in Recovery mode, iTunes attempts to download and install the latest official build, runs into errors, and then attempts to download another copy of the official build. It will do that until you break the cycle and choose to Restore the device. So again, don't select Update.

Given that Apple software upgrades now routinely roll out in the fall, upgrading your devices to unstable software isn't a good way to spend the summer. For most people, I'd recommend waiting. The latest features are really only worth having when your device is stable, especially if it's something you rely on day in and day out. But if running the latest software is your thing, then by all means, have at it. And at least if you run into problems on your iDevice, you now know how to get out of trouble.

---

Best Microsoft MCTS Certification, Microsoft MCITP Training at certkingdom.com

Can Dropbox go from consumer hit to business success?

Can a business-grade cloud storage service that doesn’t come from Google, Microsoft or Apple make it big in the enterprise? Here’s why Dropbox for Business makes a strong case.

Apple iCloud. Google Drive. Microsoft OneDrive. Box. Dropbox. Hightail (formerly YouSendIt). Online storage services have been a mainstream option for consumers for some time now. But as the business world wrestles with adopting cloud-based collaboration services, can a so-called independent company offer a competitive product to the business-centric offerings by Google
(Apps/Drive), Apple (iCloud for Work) and Microsoft (Office 365)?

To answer this question, we take a closer look at Dropbox, arguably one of the most popular online storage services today, with more than 400 million registered users as of July 2015. Though it went through some security missteps in its early days, Dropbox successfully leveraged its popularity and success with consumers to develop a credible business-grade service – Dropbox for Business – that was launched in April 2013.

Despite being priced at $15 per user per month – compared to $10 per month for Dropbox Pro – Dropbox says the service now has 100,000 customers around the globe. (Unfortunately for power users looking to make the switch to Dropbox for Business, the plan starts at a minimum of five users. This means that small companies with fewer than five users will have to pay the equivalent of $150 per user, or $750 per year.) So what does the more expensive Dropbox for Business offer over the nonbusiness version of the product?
dropbox for business - webinterface

Administrators will see an additional "Admin Console" option added their minimalistic Dropbox Web interface. Note also the additional Dropbox for "CIO.com."
What you get is more than what you see

To be clear, Dropbox for Business builds off the basic Dropbox offering, which includes strong encryption, support for two-step authentication and the trademark simplicity of Dropbox. In addition, both “personal” Dropbox and Dropbox for Business accounts are supported by the official software clients – albeit separately; both can also be accessed from the Dropbox home page.

How the Dropbox app looks like on Android after signing in to Dropbox for Business.

This is where the similarity ends. Unlike Dropbox Pro, Dropbox for Business comes with a long list of capabilities that include unlimited storage (available upon request; users are initially allocated 1GB each), centralized billing, phone support and an Admin Console for administrators. The Admin Console is used to access a range of other capabilities and controls endemic only to Dropbox for Business:

Depending on industry vertical, some businesses may be more concerned about the possibility of data leakage due to “over-sharing” or accidental leaks. On that front, Dropbox for Business offers various ways that organizations can tighten the lid with such controls as the ability to limit the sharing of links to external parties, or the joining of shared folders outside of your organization.

In addition, administrators can also mandate that only one Dropbox account can be linked to each computer – though users would still be able to access their private Dropbox accounts from the Web. Ultimately, while the controls won’t stop a determined insider from leaking confidential data to competitors, they should go a long way towards preventing any unintended sharing of files.

Finally, organizations will be interested in such Dropbox for Business features as its comprehensive audit log, creation of groups, unlimited file recovery and integration with third party services, each of which are outlined below.

You can also specify a date range to download the entire Activity feed as a CSV file.

Dropbox for Business maintains a comprehensive feed of various activities under the “Activity” tab, ranging from the sharing and un-sharing of a folder, and the creating and sharing of links. Similarly, activities including those related to passwords, groups, membership, logins, admin actions, apps and devices are also logged.

Audit logs brings increased visibility and control over sharing and access of company data, and could be inordinately useful to trace data leaks, as well as to narrow down misconfigured devices. By being able to track permissions and apps that are linked to the Dropbox for Business account, administrators could also potentially find successful phishing attacks, and even identify data that’s been compromised.

It’s important to note that individual file edits, deletions and additions are not currently shown in the Activity feed reports, though a running history of edits, deletions and additions of all files can be viewed from the main Dropbox Events page.

Creating a group
Larger organizations will appreciate the Group feature in Dropbox for Business, and how it allows them to create departmental or project-level groups for easier collaboration. This feature makes it possible to share new information directly with an entire group instead of having to add each person individually – and likely missing some team members. Moreover, any new members that are added to a group will be automatically granted access to all shared folders to which the group has previously been invited.

You can also manage the permission of a Group as a single entity when it comes to granting editing or view-only access, while the ability to create Groups can be restricted by the Dropbox administrator, or be left open to everyone. When individual and group permission settings differ, Dropbox will always grant the permissions that grant users with the highest level of file or folder access.

The many versions saved of this feature as it was being written. In this case, you can see that cloudHQ is used to cloud sync from a different online storage service to Dropbox.
security tools 1

One of the most powerful capabilities reserved for Dropbox for Business is undoubtedly its automatic storing of all versions of a file, as well as the ability to recover deleted files. In fact, it’s this author’s opinion that Dropbox for Business currently offers the best versioning support among the top cloud services.

Specifically, there is no limit to the number of versions that are saved, and versioning does not contribute your account’s total storage cap – which is unlimited anyway. Similarly, there are no time limits on when deleted data can be recovered.

While this feature certainly shouldn’t supplant a proper offline backup and disaster recovery strategy, storing multiple versions of a single file can be help users, groups and companies quickly recover from editing mistakes, whether the mistake is noticed hours, days or even weeks later.
Third-party enterprise integration

Dropbox for Business also stands out due to the many third-party apps and services that are built on top of the Dropbox for Business API. The API essentially gives developers access to the members, groups and audit log data for a particular Dropbox for Business deployment.

While there are too many for an in-depth evaluation in this space, a few categories stand out:

Data loss prevention (DLP). For organizations that require better tools to manage sensitive data stored on Dropbox for Business, services like CloudLock and Elastica promises enterprise-class DLP with auditing and compliance functionality.
Identity management. Larger organizations or those using Active Directory can rely on cloud services such as Microsoft Azure AD or third-party offerings such as Centrify and Meldium to keep their Dropbox for Business managed and authenticated in a seamless fashion.
eDiscovery. Integration with industry leading tools (Nuix, Splunk) makes it possible for administrators to respond to litigation, arbitration and regulatory investigations involving files stored on Dropbox for Business. The comprehensive Activity feed data is automatically collected and visualized to help businesses better understand activities related to sharing, devices and security.

Of course, there are also the many third-party apps and services that work perfectly fine with the Dropbox platform without relying on the Dropbox for Business API. For organizations that are already on Dropbox for Business, this translates into usability and flexibility that is not matched by other cloud storage services.

---

Best Microsoft MCTS Certification, Microsoft MCITP Training at certkingdom.com

Microsoft to release cross-platform Visual Studio 2015 by July 20

With this announcement, it looks like Microsoft plans to release Windows 10, dev tools, and .NET framework all within two weeks.

Microsoft has announced that Visual Studio 2015 will be released for download on July 20, along with the Team Foundation Server 2015 and .NET Framework 4.6. The company will also host a Q&A session online on the day of the release with the engineering team, as well as 60 deep-dive sessions to help users understand the new features of the platform.

S. Somasegar, corporate vice president of the Developer Division at Microsoft, made the announcement on his blog.

Visual Studio has become the de facto standard for Windows development, but with this release, Microsoft is going way beyond Windows. It will support cross-platform mobile development targeting iOS, Android, and Windows, as well as game development by targeting game platforms like Unity, Unreal, Cocos and more.

For its traditional use, Visual Studio 2015 adds proactive diagnostics tooling and the new Roslyn language services for C# and VB. Together, Visual Studio 2015, Team Foundation Server 2015, and Visual Studio Online help teams embrace DevOps with Agile backlog management, Azure cloud tooling, hosted continuous integration, and Application Insights across all the components of an application.

In March, the company announced two subscription flavors: Professional and Enterprise. The standalone, non-subscription version of Visual Studio Professional is available for $499, while the Pro version with an MSDN subscription is $799. The Enterprise edition with MSDN is $1,199. Microsoft will also offer a free Community edition of Visual Studio for open source projects, academic projects and education, and for small teams.

---

Best Microsoft MCTS Certification, Microsoft MCITP Training at certkingdom.com

Best tools for single sign-on

It has been a few years since we last looked at single sign-on products, the field has gotten more crowded and more capable.

Single mindedness
Since we last looked at single sign-on products in 2012, the field has gotten more crowded and more capable. For this round of evaluations, we looked at seven SSO services: Centrify’s Identity Service, Microsoft’s Azure AD Premium, Okta’s Identity and Mobility Management, OneLogin, Ping Identity’s Ping One, Secure Auth’s IdP, and SmartSignin. Our Clear Choice test winner is Centrify, which slightly outperformed Okta and OneLogin. (Read the full review.)

Single mindedness
Since we last looked at single sign-on products in 2012, the field has gotten more crowded and more capable. For this round of evaluations, we looked at seven SSO services: Centrify’s Identity Service, Microsoft’s Azure AD Premium, Okta’s Identity and Mobility Management, OneLogin, Ping Identity’s Ping One, Secure Auth’s IdP, and SmartSignin. Our Clear Choice test winner is Centrify, which slightly outperformed Okta and OneLogin. (Read the full review.)

Microsoft Azure Active Directory Access Control
Earlier this year Microsoft added Azure Active Directory to its collection of cloud-based offerings. It is difficult to setup because you tend to get lost in the hall of mirrors that is the Azure setup process. It is still very much a work in progress and mainly a developer’s toolkit rather than a polished service. But clearly Microsoft has big plans for Azure AD, as its new Windows App Store is going to rely on it for authentication. If you already are using Azure, then it makes sense to take a closer look at Azure AD. If you are looking for a general purpose SSO portal, then you should probably look elsewhere.

Okta Identity and Mobility Management
Okta tied for first place in our 2012 review and it remains a very capable product. Okta’s user interface is very simple to navigate. Okta has beefed up its multi-factor authentication functionality. It now offers a mobile app, Okta Verify, as a one-time password generator. It also supports other MFA methods. Okta has its own mobile app that can provide a secure browsing session and allow you to sign in to your apps from your phone. It contains some MDM functionality, although it is not a full MDM tool. Reports have been strengthened as well, but reports only show the last 30 days.

OneLogin
OneLogin was the other co-winner of our 2012 review and while it is still strong, its user interface has become a bit unwieldy. OneLogin has numerous SAML toolkits in a variety of languages to make it easier to integrate your apps into its SSO routines. It also has specific configuration screens to set up a VPN login and take you to specific apps. OneLogin’s AD Connector requires all of the various components of Net Framework v3.5 to be installed. Once that was done, it was a simple process to install their agent and synchronize our AD with their service. OneLogin has 11 canned reports and you can easily create additional custom ones.

Ping Identity PingOne
Ping began as on-premises solution with PingFederate, but now offers cloud-based PingOne, web access tool PingAccess and OTP soft token generator PingID. Multi-factor authentication support is somewhat limited in PingOne. You can use PingID or SafeNet’s OTP tokens. If you want more factors, you have to purchase the on-premises Ping Federate. Reports are not this product’s strong suit. The dashboard gives you an attractive summary, but there isn’t much else. Ping would be a stronger product if consolidated their various features and focused on the cloud as a primary delivery vehicle. If that isn’t important to you, or if you have complex federation needs, then you should give them more consideration and look at PingFederate.

SecureAuth IdP
Of the products we tested, SecureAuth has the most flexibility and the worst user interface, a combination that can be vexing at times. SecureAuth is the only product tested that has to run on a Windows Server. The interface is supposed to get a refresh later this year, but the current version makes it easy to get lost in a series of cascading menus. The real strength of SecureAuth always has been its post-authentication workflow activities. SecureAuth’s MFA support is strong, featuring a wide selection of factors and tokens to choose from. This is a testimonial to its flexibility.

PerfectCloud SmartSignin
SmartSignin has been acquired by PerfectCloud and integrated into their other cloud-based security offerings. They now support seven identity providers (Amazon, Netsuite and AD) with more on the horizon and more than 7,000 app integrations. The identity providers make use of SAML or other federated means, and come with extensive installation instructions. This is a little more complex than some of its competitors. When it comes to MFA support, SmartSignin is the weakest of the products we reviewed. They are working on other MFA methods, including SMS and voice, but didn’t have them when we tested. Also, MFA is just for protecting your entire user account, there is no mechanism for protecting individual apps.

---

Best Microsoft MCTS Certification, Microsoft MCITP Training at certkingdom.com

Google opens up on its SDN

For first time, hyperwebscale company details its data center network, offers it to developers

At this week’s Open Network Summit, Google spoke for the first time publicly about its custom data center network. For nearly a decade, we’ve been hearing, reading and writing about how Google was building its own switches and writing its own software to handle the tremendous traffic load on its search engine and applications because vendor offerings were either not up to the task, too expensive, or both.

This week we found out how they did it. In a keynote presentation at ONS, Amin Vahdat, Google Fellow and Technical Lead for Networking, described the company’s data center network architecture, capabilities and capacity for a rapt audience thirsting for information on software-defined networking implementations and experiences.

Vahdat summarized his talk here and offered use of the architecture to external developers through the Google Cloud Platform.

To summarize Vahdat’s summary:
The network is arranged around a Clos topology where a collection of small, cheap switches are grouped into a much larger logical switch.
Google uses an internally written centralized software control stack to manage thousands of switches within the data center and treat them as one large fabric.
The company’s current generation Jupiter fabrics are designed to deliver more than 1 Petabit-per-second of total bisection bandwidth, enough for 100,000 servers to exchange information at 10Gbps each, or enough to read the entire scanned contents of the Library of Congress in less than 1/10th of a second.

Over the past decade, Google has increased the capacity of a single data center network more than 100x.
And in building its own software and hardware, Google relies less on standard Internet protocols and more on custom protocols tailored to its data centers, and perhaps others.

Our network control stack has more in common with Google’s distributed computing architectures than traditional router-centric Internet protocols.

Perhaps vendors snubbed by Google these past 10 years can learn something about data center network product development from the hyperwebscale company. The key impetus might be how attractive the architecture is to external developers.

But then, is it the Google data center network architecture that attracts them? Or is it Google itself…

In any event, Google’s been using and benefitting from (its own) SDN for the past 10 years, Vahdat states. Just like Microsoft has been using and benefitting from (its own) SDN for five years.

The degree to which the industry can benefit from their experience may hinge on how much Google and Microsoft share with the industry not only their experiences, but actual code, through open source and other means. Cloud operators and enterprise users are being pressed at ONS this week to not only use open source for their SDNs, but contribute to the open source SDN community as well.

But as Microsoft Azure CTO Mark Russinovich said at ONS this week, that decision is not an easy one – it comes down to determining what the cost and benefit is to the contributor, the benefit to the community, and what constitutes “secret sauce” intellectual property vs. shareable development.

---

Best Microsoft MCTS Certification, Microsoft MCITP Training at certkingdom.com

Exam 70-331 Core Solutions of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013

Exam 70-331 Core Solutions of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013

Published: 01 February 2013
Languages: English, Chinese (Simplified), French, German, Japanese, Portuguese (Brazil)
Audiences: IT professionals
Technology: Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013
Credit towards certification: MCP, MCSE

Skills measured
This exam measures your ability to accomplish the technical tasks listed below. The percentages indicate the relative weight of each major topic area in the exam. The higher the percentage, the more questions you are likely to see on that content area in the exam.

Please note that the questions may test on, but will not be limited to, the topics described in the bulleted text.

Design a SharePoint topology (20–25%)

Design information architecture
Design an inter-site navigational taxonomy; design site columns and content types; design keywords, synonyms, best bets and managed properties; plan information management policies; plan managed site structures; plan term sets

Design a logical architecture
Plan application pools; plan web applications; plan for software boundaries; plan content databases; plan host-header site collections; plan zones and alternate access mapping

Design a physical architecture
Design a storage architecture; configure basic request management; define individual server requirements; define service topologies; plan server load balancing; plan a network infrastructure

Plan a SharePoint Online (Microsoft Office 365) deployment
Evaluate service offerings; plan service applications; plan site collections; plan customisations and solutions; plan security for SharePoint Online; plan networking services for SharePoint Online

Preparation resources
Architecture design for SharePoint 2013 IT pros
SharePoint online planning guide for Office 365 enterprise and midsize

Plan security (20–25%)

Plan and configure authentication
Plan and configure Windows authentication; plan and configure identity federation; configure claims providers; configure site-to-site (S2S) intra-server and OAuth authentication; plan and configure anonymous authentication; configure connections to Access Control Service

Plan and configure authorisation
Plan and configure SharePoint users and groups; plan and configure People Picker; plan and configure sharing; plan and configure permission inheritance; plan and configure anonymous access; plan web application policies

Plan and configure platform security
Plan and configure security isolation; plan and configure services lockdown; plan and configure general firewall security; plan and configure antivirus settings; plan and configure certificate management

Plan and configure farm-level security
Plan rights management; plan and configure delegated farm administration; plan and configure delegated service application administration; plan and configure managed accounts; plan and configure blocked file types; plan and configure web part security

Preparation resources
SharePoint security: The fundamentals of securing SharePoint deployments
Security planning for SharePoint 2013 farms
Plan authentication in SharePoint 2013

Install and configure SharePoint farms (20–25%)

Plan installation
Identify and configure installation prerequisites; implement scripted deployment; implement patch slipstreaming; plan and install language packs; plan and configure service connection points; plan installation tracking and auditing

Plan and configure farm-wide settings
Configure incoming and outgoing email; plan and configure proxy groups; configure SharePoint Designer settings; plan and configure a corporate catalogue; configure Office Web Apps integration; configure Microsoft Azure workflow server integration

Create and configure enterprise search
Plan and configure a search topology; plan and configure content sources; plan and configure crawl schedules; plan and configure crawl rules; plan and configure crawl performance; plan and configure security trimming

Create and configure a Managed Metadata Service (MMS) application
Configure proxy settings for managed service applications; configure content type hub settings; configure sharing term sets; plan and configure content type propagation schedules; configure custom properties; configure term store permissions

Create and configure a User Profile Service (UPA) application
Configure a UPA application; set up My Sites and My Site hosts; configure social permissions; plan and configure sync connections; configure profile properties, configure audiences

Preparation resources
Plan for SharePoint 2013
Install and configure Microsoft SharePoint 2013
Install and configure SharePoint 2013

Create and configure web applications and site collections (15–20%)

Provision and configure web applications
Create managed paths; configure HTTP throttling; configure List throttling; configure Alternate Access Mappings (AAM); configure an authentication provider; configure SharePoint Designer settings

Create and maintain site collections
Configure Host header site collections; configure self-service site creation; maintain site owners; maintain site quotas; configure site policies; configure a team mailbox

Manage site and site collection security
Manage site access requests; manage App permissions; manage anonymous access; manage permission inheritance; configure permission levels; configure HTML field security

Manage search
Manage result sources; manage query rules; manage display templates; manage Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) settings; manage result types; manage a search schema

Manage taxonomy
Manage site collection term set access; manage term set navigation; manage topic catalogue pages; configure custom properties; configure search refinement; configure list refinement

Preparation resources
Create a web application in SharePoint 2013
Manage site collections in SharePoint 2013
Managed metadata and navigation in SharePoint 2013

Maintain a core SharePoint environment (20–25%)

Monitor a SharePoint environment
Define monitoring requirements; configure performance counter capture; configure page performance monitoring; configure usage and health providers; monitor and forecast storage needs

Tune and optimise a SharePoint environment
Plan and configure SQL optimisation; execute database maintenance rules; plan for capacity software boundaries; estimate storage requirements; plan and configure caching; tune network performance

Troubleshoot a SharePoint environment
Establish baseline performance; perform client-side tracing; perform server-side tracing; analyse usage data; enable a developer dashboard; analyse diagnostic logs

Preparation resources
Monitoring and maintaining SharePoint Server 2013
Optimise performance for SharePoint Server 2013
Troubleshooting SharePoint 2013

---

Best Microsoft MCP Certification, Microsoft 70-331 Training at certkingdom.com

---

QUESTION 1
You create a User Profile Synchronization connection. You need to grant the necessary
permissions to the synchronization account. What should you do?

A. Grant the account Full Control on the ActiveUsers OU.
B. Grant the account Full Control on the AuthenticatedUsers AD security group.
C. Grant the account Read permission on the domain.
D. Grant the account the Replicate Directory Changes permission on the domain.
Correct
Answer: D

---

QUESTION 2
You need to ensure that content authors can publish the specified files. What should you do?

A. Create multiple authoring site collections. Create a site that contains lists, document libraries,
and a Pages library. Create an asset library in a new site collection, and enable anonymous
access to the library on the publishing web application.
B. Create multiple authoring site collections. Create a site that contains lists, document libraries,
and a Pages library. Create an asset library in the authoring site collection, and enable
anonymous access to the library on the authoring web application.
C. Create one authoring site collection. Create a site that contains multiple lists, document
libraries, and Pages libraries. Create an asset library in a new site collection, and enable
anonymous access to the library on the publishing web application.
D. Create multiple authoring site collections. Create a site that contains multiple lists, document
libraries, and Pages libraries. Create an asset library in a new site collection, and enable
anonymous access to the library on the publishing web application.
Correct
Answer: B

---

QUESTION 3
HOTSPOT
You need to ensure that user-selected subscription content automatically appear on users' My
Sites. Which configuration option should you choose? (To answer, select the appropriate option
in the answer area.)
Hot Area:



Correct Answer:

---

QUESTION 4
You need to import employee photos into SharePoint user profiles by using the least amount of
administrative effort. Which three actions should you perform? (Each correct answer presents
part of the solution. Choose three.)

A. Define a mapping for the thumbnailPhoto attribute of the Picture user profile property.
B. Run the Update-SPUserSolution Windows PowerShell cmdlet.
C. Run an incremental synchronization of the User Profile Synchronization service.
D. Run a full synchronization of the User Profile Synchronization service.
E. Run the Update-SPProfilePhotoStore Windows PowerShell cmdlet.
F. Define a mapping for the photo attribute of the Picture user profile property.
Correct
Answer: ADE

---

QUESTION 5
DRAG DROP
You need to install the appropriate versions of Windows Server, Microsoft SQL Server, and
Microsoft .NET Framework in the server environment. Which operating system and applications
should you install? (To answer, drag the appropriate operating systems and applications to the
correct server layers in the answer area. Each operating system or application may be used once,
more than once, or not at all. You may need to drag the split bar between panes or scroll to view
content.)
Select and Place:



Correct Answer: