ITEC

All data center managers hear a lot of talk about uptime. But if you're going to address uptime, you have to talk about its less welcome relative: downtime.

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If you want to hack a corporation fast, Social Engineering (SE) techniques work every time and more often than not it works the first time. I'm talking about in your face, Mano-a-mano, live in the flesh social engineering techniques. Securing the information that is in the human mind is a monumental, colossal, epic, task compared with securing digital data! So it is no surprise that it is also the largest gap in a corporations IT security.

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As the Department of Energy's Loan Guarantee program continues to inch along, more visibility is emerging on how much economic activity it will spur. A total of $15 billion worth of projects could be financed through the new FIPP structure, which stands for Financial Institution Partnership Program, and requires that renewable energy project developers arrange financing through private banks prior to applying for the loan guarantee. This allows the DOE to streamline and hasten the application process. However, only tried and true technologies need apply for the FIPP guarantees, as few banks would be willing to take a flier on emerging technologies that haven't been tested in the field for years or decades.

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Bad news for newspaper and magazine publishers hoping to boost their flagging businesses by charging for content: Most consumers in the U.S. won't pay for it.

That's the finding from a new study from Forrester Research, which polled around 4,700 U.S. consumers, 80% of whom indicated they're unwilling to pay for access to newspaper and magazine articles and other content.

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It's no shocker that 2009 has been a tough year on IT leaders. They have been asked to do more with less as the economy has placed unprecedented constraints on budgets: Yankee Group's 2009 Transforming Infrastructure & Transforming Applications Survey of business and IT decision-makers shows that 62 percent of enterprise IT organizations have had moderate reductions in technology spending, and 21 percent have experienced severe pullbacks. More importantly, only 4 percent of firms say they have increased technology spending, meaning innovative initiatives have been placed on the backburner. Mobile and wireless projects have felt this impact: 59 percent of companies have experienced either moderate or severe reductions in mobile application investments.

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There's a federal law--the Rehabilitation Act--requiring that federal agencies' electronic and information technology be accessible to people with disabilities. It's a law that every agency must take seriously, but many are falling short of the requirements to make web access fully available for 54 million Americans with disabilities.

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Virtualization isn't just for big companies. Most, if not all, organizations will have introduced some measure of virtualization to their systems in the near future. As it's no longer a question of 'if,' but of 'when,' figure out the steps you should take before virtualizing your data center. The first step is to know the benefits of going virtual, which includes simplified management, cost and time savings and faster recovery time from disaster.

For a detailed overview of how to figure out the right time to virtualize, download the complimentary whitepaper "Five Steps to Determine When to Virtualize Your Servers." It's available right now courtesy of VMware via IDG Connect.

We think you'll find it educational and rewarding.

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Microsoft today said computers in countries with high rates of software piracy are more likely to be infected by malicious code because users are leery of applying security patches.

"There is a direct correlation between piracy and the malware infection rate," said Jeff Williams, the principal group program manager for the Microsoft Malware Protection Center. Williams was touting the newest edition of his company's biannual security intelligence report.

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The Obama administration is working on a number of important information technology initiatives to improve government operations.

On one front, the administration is trying to bring transparency to the public by making more information about government policy and spending available online, and in an accessible way and usable formats.

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Unstructured data on underutilized storage devices create huge data center inefficiencies. Learn how to extend the capacity of your existing storage investment without buying new equipment.

This Hitachi Data Systems webinar will teach you five important concepts that will lower your storage costs by one-third or more. Learn about money-saving tactics like:

• NAS Head Consolidation
• File Tiering
• Capacity Efficiencies
• Archive Reduction
• Backup Efficiencies

You'll also learn where you can view a Video White Paper: Storage Economics: "Four Principles for Reducing TCO"

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