Security meaning, in this case, something you can count on.

Amazon has had a monster outage the last few days of their primary cloud servers. This coming just days after Microsoft had the same. Unrelated issues, too.

ZDNet had a good breakdown of exactly what happened. It’s pretty technical, but the long and short of it is this: Cloud Servers aren’t totally dependable, and even the big boys break down. What can be shocking is how this can happen for 24-48 hours; with all the resources these big companies have, there is really no excuse for that.

See the ZDNet article here

For your convenience and their financial gain, scammers are
altering their “business” model and diversifying their payment options.

For years, scammers have been programming fake security
software designed to incessantly bug you about bogus infections on your
computer. While scareware tactics aren’t new, they’ve become increasingly
sophisticated; and, until recently, the only way to give the scammers your hard
earned money was to divulge a credit card number. But, now these nefarious
groups are expanding the methods by which you can give them your money.

Learn more about the new scheme here.

The earthquake in Japan, and general mess left behind, is causing real problems in the tech industry supply chain. Not unexpected considering the size and breadth of the calamity, of course. Those poor folks are really up against it there.

Bloomberg has an article on the state of things here.

Michael Linenberger is a terrific “Productivity” guru who specializes in efficient use of Outlook – and I am a big fan. He recently had a great post on his blog about the new “Personal Archives” in Exchange 2010.

This is new, but will work out pretty well I think. Linenberger has a lot of detail, so I won’t belabor his efforts, but if you are interested in how this all works, he has the goods.

See the post here.

We’re big fans of Vipre anti-virus/anti-spyware software here. The following is from a newsletter they sent out recently, and it has some great information on protecting yourself from spam.

For more information on Vipre, see their site here.
===============================================================

Spammers are constantly collecting and even verifying email addresses to make sure they are valid. Here are a few pointers that can help you prevent spam. Key to the effort is of course protecting your email account and your computer.

** Don’t be so easy on giving out your personal info including your email address. I have set up disposable email addresses that I can give out to anyone and shutdown should they get overly spammed.

** Check out privacy policies of sites or companies before you disclose who you are. This applies to reg forms, surveys, etc. Especially look in to their opt-in or opt-out policies.

** Unless you want to receive unwanted email, don’t put your email address on public websites, contact directories, membership directories, or chat rooms. Use a disposable email address (hotmail) if you must.

** Remember not to click on links, respond or download attachments from unknown sources in your emails. Spammers will try and trick you to respond to them so they know your address is valid. Make sure you really do know the sender prior to responding.

** Delete emails from unknown senders or dubious sources because your reply or click on any link in the email message from an unknown source, you are confirming to the unknown sender that your email address is valid.

** Check the “sent” folder or outgoing mailbox of your email program or webmail account to see if there are any outgoing messages that were not sent by you. If there are such messages, your computer may have been hacked and used by spammers to send emails from your computer. You should scan your computer with anti-virus or anti-spyware software (make sure the software’s signatures are up-to-date). VIPRE is here to protect your computer

** As stated before make sure your computer is fully protected with antimalware and a firewall. Make sure you are scanning on a regular basis.

** Apply the latest security patches/hot-fixes released by product vendors to the operating systems and/or applications installed in your computer.

** Make good use of any anti-spam solutions provided by your ISP, your email provider or install a filter.

** Just to reiterate: Never reply to spam emails, just delete them. You will save yourself a lot of heartache and work. You can report them to your ISP.

Check out: http://www.sunbeltsecuritynews.com/3Y9W06/110308-Spam

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From Engadget, regarding MS Internet Explorer:

Out with the old

In with the new

As for me: I am a fan of IE9. I like the changes and it seems faster and a little less bloated.

I still use IE a lot…less than Google Chrome (first choice in most cases) and Firefox. I do use IE lots for Internet shopping – it seems to be consistently easiest with e-commerce sites. YMMW, of course…

Microsoft has released Windows 7 Service Pack 1. We are finding no issues with this update, and my recommendation would be to go ahead and install it without worry.

It’s not a very “big” SP at all, and there’s no real new features, so that makes the entire process easier. Being as some SPs have lots of new stuff, and sometimes that new stuff breaks other existing stuff, this is all good news.

PC World has some comments here.

CIO.com is an excellent CIO / CTO website and a favorite of mine; it’s the web site for CIO magazine.

They have a very useful article on some good Facebook settings to check out so help with privacy issues. I recommend checking this out and comparing your Facebook settings against this list.

See the article here

Larry Dignan of ZDNet got a first look at a Google Chromebook. Interesting! I’ll want a look at one of these as soon as I can get my grubby little mitts on one. Strangely, they aren’t sending one my way. Hmmm…

A notebook computer running Google Chrome as the operating system. You fire it up, it hits the web using Google Chrome, and you go from there. This is early, but it does have the potential to be quite a game-changer.

See the report here

Interesting post on the IT Business Edge blog about SMBs (Small-Medium sized Businesses) and their battle with social media sites (these days it’s primarily Facebook and Twitter).

The “battle”, such as it is, relates to three things: First, time wasted (invested) by staffwho troll / obsess over their Facebook account and waste time; secondarily, when staff post sensitive corporate information; and third, the exposure to malware. According to the article, sensitive corporate information is the least of these:

Strikingly, the main concern does not appear to be due to loss of productivity – though it is a factor – but has more to do with how unrestricted access to social networking sites results in heightened risks of data leakage or instance of malware infection. Indeed, 53 percent say the proliferation of malware is the top reason they block such sites as Facebook and Twitter.

The article, written by Paul Mah, can be found here.