Stoked about Firewalls

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I’ve had my Cisco certifications for some years now so I’m not a newbie on routing and firewalls.  I have my ethical hacking certification so it’s not like I don’t know and understand security.  I’ve done my share of bouncing from products that Cisco, SonicWall, SonicPointe, Barracuda, and others have produced.  But I’ve never been more excited about our firewall appliances.  With a network of over 50,000 users we are part of a team that is constantly evolving security with a linux based firewall.

I was just reminded of this when a client called me and asked me how much time employees were spending on youtube.com.  I was able to produce a report in seconds and give the alarming news to them, and quickly block youtube.com in seconds.  Plus put a flag on other time wasting internet sites in case they want to make more changes in the future.  Literally … seconds is what it took me.

If you want to know more, or see a demo just contact us and let us know.  We’ll be glad to show off what protecting your network has evolved into.

Neat tool — ImageResizer

From ImageResizer website. Click to enlarge.

Found a real neat tool today to squeeze images that people have saved on their pc and try to email as large attachments. After installing it, you right click on a picture or multiple pictures, tell it to resize and even select from pre-set sizes.  Handy little tool to have installed for everyone, never know when your going to need it.

Click here to visit the ImageResizer website and download the application.

UPDATE 11/16/2011, SR. WEB DEVELOPER DANIEL PANTOJA — This is a very handy tool for image resizing; it’s very similar to the script used by the top website publishing platforms and comes in REALLY handy when you need to resize a large image.

Who-Da-Thunk-It?

Something awesome’s been happening in Redmond, Wash.

First, in Q1 2010, Internet Explorer ranked higher in security tests run by independent security consultants NSS Labs. Like, not just a little bit better, a whopping 56% better than the No. 2 most secure browser in their test.

Then Windows 7 blows reviewers away. And first looks at Windows 8, with its one-click “Windows To Go” feature and broad compatibility for hardware platforms from X86 to tablets have hardware manufacturers eagerly anticipating its release.

Long perceived “also-ran” Microsoft seems to have kicked up their game and positioned themselves for excellence on multiple fronts.

So it shouldn’t come as a surprise — although my mouth LITERALLY dropped open upon hearing the news — that a year-long study conducted by IT publication Ars Technica revealed Microsoft’s Cloud Servers perform far more quickly across a broad range of indexes than any other cloud services.

Another win for Ballmer’s boys.

IPhone 4s

Unless you live under a rock or in the Dakota’s you’ve heard about the upcoming release of Apple’s new product. But is it new? If you haven’t heard yet Apple did not change the overall appearance of the device, but they did change the inside. In other words, it’s faster. When comparing my iPad and my iPad2 there are considerable and noticeable speed differences, so if your an iPhone 4 user that has issues with your phone being slow, the 4s will make your life happier. Here’s my breakdown on the new product. Remember, this is just my opinion based off a pretty good understanding of Apple as a company, and as an owner or previous owner of almost all their 22 product lines.

I’m not going to go over each new feature, instead I’m going to post my opinion on a few of them for listening ears.

You can’t argue with dual core processing, it will be faster. Whether or not that’s something you have a problem with if your an iPhone4 user will determine how important that is.

The battery life has been enhanced. I personally never had a problem with the battery life. It’s not like the old days where you had a flip phone that would make it all week and you were griping about plugging it in every night. I believe now everyone is used to just plugging it in every night.

The camera does have an extra lens and larger aperture to let in more light. I’m excited about this, not because I’m a huge camera person. But because the iPhone already has a camera that can out perform any Android hardware I’ve owned, and now it’s better. I think other hardware vendors need to take notes.

The video camera has a built in image stabilizer, THIS IS HUGE. I can’t believe Apple didn’t make a bigger deal out of this, I think it by far is the best new feature. This is also something that hardware vendors need to take notes on. I personally do NOT enjoy the Apple IOS (operating system). But you cannot argue with the hardware they have produced in the past.

Siri, or the new “personal assistant”. I’m waiting to hold judgement on this. I’ve been burned, you’ve been burned, everyone has been burned on voice recognition technology. With that in mind, apple seems to lead the way with new technology. We all have heard that Windows 8 is going to be largely driven by voice activation. So I’m waiting to see how good my new personal assistant is really going to be.

iCloud — Why didn’t apple just announce this, and leave everything else as is? This alone would have been enough to hold a press conference about and get the press it needs. Granted, I’ve been syncing music wirelessly using Spotify for some time now, but iCloud let’s me do it seamlessly between my Apple devices. LOVE THIS. Can’t wait to see what other software vendors do in Android and PC to compete with this.

Opinion

My opinion is this is not the finished product. I believe Apple did not call it the iPhone5 because it knows it’s not the finished product. They’ve made a few modifications to hardware and software and is releasing as a finished product, but I believe it’s not a finished product.

I don’t understand why Apple get’s all this technology together and then releases it all at once. They would make a lot more money and satisfy our desire for more technology if they would realease things on a faster schedule.

Will I buy one? That’s yet to be determined. My Samsung Android already has an 8 megapixel camera with a dual core processor. So their hardware enhancements aren’t too attractive to me. But I am interested in the image stabilazition, Siri, and iCloud. However iCloud will work with my iPad2, iMac, and MacBook so do I really need it on my phone too? I personally think the Android offers more benefits as a mobile device and dealing with mobile applications in a mobile lifestyle. Yes, I carry my iPad2 everywhere.

So wait, let’s see what 200 enhancements IOS5 has, then determine if you want to put out the cash on a phone. I’ll follow up later.