The UltraTech Zone

Things have been good and busy this year for me.  Overall, I can’t complain.  :) Since June, I’ve been busy with a new corporate challenge, and it has been fun, exciting and already rewarding. Also, this year, I’ve had the privilege of working with the good folks at Focus.com on a number of intriguing projects.  In many ways, ...

I had a chance to review the 2010 Verizon Data Breach Report today, which I was alerted to by ISC.SANS.ORG.  They’ve put together data from 2004 through 2009, and it is quite interesting. These are from confirmed data breach cases. Here were 3 of the scariest stats in the document: 86% of victims had evidence of the breach in their log ...

I had a chance to review the 2010 Verizon Data Breach Report today, which I was alerted to by ISC.SANS.ORG .  They’ve put together data from 2004 through 2009, and it is quite interesting. These are from confirmed data breach cases. Here were 3 of...(read more)

I’ve said it for a few years now, but host-based antivirus is really not working out anymore.  Not with its reliance on signatures to detect malware. Recently, several prominent antivirus vendors have experienced problems with faulty virus definitions:  Faulty McAfee update burns IT execs BitDefender update breaks 64-bit Windows ...

I’ve said it for a few years now, but host-based antivirus is really not working out anymore.  Not with its reliance on signatures to detect malware. Recently, several prominent antivirus vendors have experienced problems with faulty virus definitions: ...(read more)

Long ago, in days or yore, it was common to complain that most information technology leaders and staff were too focused on deploying cool technology just for the sake of technology rather than ensuring that there was valid business justification for what they evaluated and implemented.  CIOs and IT leaders were told to learn the language of ...

It is quite amusing to see Apple and Steve Jobs go out of their way to lambast Adobe about the “closed” platform of Flash, and to suggest that it is buggy, insecure and obsolete. Flash is definitely buggy.  Or, more precisely, there are many buggy Flash-based apps out there.  Nothing kills browsers better than buggy flash ...

It has been a busy month or so for information security.  Apple has patched a vulnerability that was showcased in a recent hacking contest, Microsoft has released a major set of fixes in its most recently Patch Tuesday, and and Oracle (which now owns Sun) has not yet committed to patching a Java vulnerability on Windows that has been ...

I recently read an opinion piece on ComputerWorld about the post-Cloud IT landscape , and it I had a couple thoughts: The author makes a good point that little mention is made of what the world will look like when cloud is the norm… We (both business...(read more)

I recently read an opinion piece on ComputerWorld about the post-Cloud IT landscape, and it I had a couple thoughts: The author makes a good point that little mention is made of what the world will look like when cloud is the norm… We (both business and technology folks) spend a lot of time focusing on the flavor of the day, and not ...

So, we’ve made it through the first quarter of 2010.  What, exactly, do we have to show for it?  Lots – depending on your point of view, of course.   Automobile Adventures… It’s been an interesting year for sure!  Just this month, my car spent several days stranded at a Park & Ride in Wayne, NJ because of flooding.  Thankfully, the flood ...

This is the sixth part in a series of articles tracking the implementation of virtualization on my home network.  Planning for the project originally started at the end of 2007, with some equipment purchased in early 2008, but the bulk of the work was completed in the past 2 months. For those interested in seeing how this all played out over ...

Starting a new position is always an interesting challenge, especially if you have a leadership role.  It should go without saying that it is very important to start things off on the right foot.  While it is possible to recover from all but the most egregious of mistakes in the early going, you really want to take advantage of whatever honeymoon ...

It has been a very productive year so far, as it pertains to my ongoing Home Network Re-Engineering Project.  In fact, the past few days have been especially productive. I was finally able to fix the hardware problem that prevented my old domain controller from booting, and since the boys’ old Windows XP machine began to fail (spontaneous ...

Online communities are an excellent way for people to interact with other individuals who they can help or who can help them.  For business and technology professionals, they also represent a way keep an eye on trends and thought leadership within ones industry that can help solve a company’s issues. They also provide one element of career ...