All Things Gibbs

All Things Gibbs This newsletter is sponsored by Arsenal Digital Solutions Traditional Backup vs. On-Demand Data Protection Services: Critical Questions for IT Decision-Makers When deciding on a data protection solution, budget limits, service quality, and compliance requirements all weigh on the minds of IT leaders. A single overlooked issue can mean the difference between disaster and continuous operations. In this Webcast, Doug Chandler of IDC will explain how many companies have evaluated their data protection choices in today's market and made a successful transition from in-house backup and recovery operations to service-based solutions. Click here to listen to this webcast today! Network World's All Things Gibbs Newsletter, 07/24/07 All Things Gibbs By Mark Gibbs Gearhead: Identifying any CD Last week in Gearhead I discussed how CD identification services such as Gracenote and freedb, in conjunction with applications like WinAmp, figure out which CD you have just loaded. The data from these services allows the application to accurately fill in the header tags when you rip the disk to MP3 files. To read this week's Gearhead, click here. Optimize Your WAN: Network World Shows You How In this Executive Guide learn how optimization can supercharge your WAN. Click Here Backspin: King Kong Sprint kills customers An interesting thing just happened: Sprint Nextel "fired" some 1,000 customers. That's right - Sprint sent them letters and told them they needed to find another cell phone carrier because it didn't want their business! Why didn't Sprint want their money? Well, apparently the customers were too needy. To read this week's Backspin, click here. Gibbsblog: The past 7 days Ransomware This stuff isn't new -- you've seen it before. Your system gets infested, your data gets encrypted, and the bad guys demand payment to restore your data and go away. The problem with these schemes in the past has been collection -- follow the money and you catch the bad guys. But what happens if the payment is small, and crosses a number of jurisdictions? Or instead of 'payment' they demand an online purchase of some sort? You find the cops aren't interested. Ubuntu Live Conference The first ever Ubuntu Live Conference kicks off today, 7/22/07, in Portland. Though running for just three days, the speaker list is impressive, with folks from all over the world, representing diverse backgrounds, from noobs to geeks to CEOs. Let's see what comes out. Sprint Hates Everyone ... Even Soldiers. Following on the heels of Sprint Nextel's dropping 1,000 customers, it would seem that Sprint is on a PR nightmare roll: A couple of weeks ago the company canned another 200 customers. But not just any customers! No, these were 200 soldiers just back from Iraq who apparently roamed too much! Where did they roam? West Point Military Academy! The kicker? West Point is supposed to be in Sprint's coverage area! Recognizing what a colossal gaff they committed in doing this Sprint has since reinstated the soldier's accounts ... something I'm sure that the soldiers were overjoyed with ... Windows and Outlook and Word, Oh My! I just got an error message from Microsoft Word I've never seen before: "Saving the Autorecovery file is postponed for Normal.dot". The choice with the alert is "OK". What demented Microsoft engineer thought that was useful? What half-baked Microsoft product manager wasn't paying attention? The perils of using somebody else's Web apps A couple of years ago, I started a blog aggregator for Boston blogs. This was back when I was still enamored with Peanut Jelly Butter Time. So when I saw somebody had built a Peanut Butter Jelly Time Terror Alert (the color of the banana changed according to the day's threat level) and was making it accessible via a JavaScript call, I jumped on it - never mind that the thing had absolutely nothing to do with Boston.

TODAY'S MOST-READ STORIES: 1. Cisco: its gear caused Duke's iPhone flooding 2. 11 corporate anthems to die for 3. HP to acquire Opsware in $1.6B deal 4. 12 IT skills that employers can't say no to 5. Hogwarts IT director quits 6. Microsoft 'silently' restores root certificates 7. Cisco facing up to challenges 8. Duke CIO releases statement on disruptions 9. Security team claims successful iPhone hack 10. Readers speculate on Duke's iPhone problem MOST E-MAILED STORY: Hogwarts IT director quits

Contact the author: Mark Gibbs is a consultant, author, journalist, and columnist and now blogger: Check out Gibbsblog. Gibbs not only pens (well, keyboards) this newsletter he also writes the weekly Backspin and Gearhead columns in Network World. We’ll spare you the rest of the bio but if you want to know more, go here This newsletter is sponsored by Arsenal Digital Solutions Traditional Backup vs. On-Demand Data Protection Services: Critical Questions for IT Decision-Makers When deciding on a data protection solution, budget limits, service quality, and compliance requirements all weigh on the minds of IT leaders. A single overlooked issue can mean the difference between disaster and continuous operations. In this Webcast, Doug Chandler of IDC will explain how many companies have evaluated their data protection choices in today's market and made a successful transition from in-house backup and recovery operations to service-based solutions. Click here to listen to this webcast today! BONUS FEATURE IT PRODUCT RESEARCH AT YOUR FINGERTIPS Get detailed information on thousands of products, conduct side-by-side comparisons and read product test and review results with Network World’s IT Buyer’s Guides. Find the best solution faster than ever with over 100 distinct categories across the security, storage, management, wireless, infrastructure and convergence markets. Click here for details. PRINT SUBSCRIPTIONS AVAILABLE You've got the technology snapshot of your choice delivered to your inbox each day. Extend your knowledge with a print subscription to the Network World newsweekly, Apply here today. International subscribers, click here. SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES To subscribe or unsubscribe to any Network World newsletter, change your e-mail address or contact us, click here. This message was sent to: networking.world@gmail.com. Please use this address when modifying your subscription. Advertising information: Write to Associate Publisher Online Susan Cardoza Network World, Inc., 118 Turnpike Road, Southborough, MA 01772 Copyright Network World, Inc., 2007