• 03 Jan 2012

    Great quote to live by

    Here's one of my favorite #quotes you can apply to your career, regardless of which field you're in:"A successful life is one that is lived through understanding and pursuing one's own path, not chasing after the dreams of others." -Chin-Ning Chu...

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  • 15 Dec 2011

    Going green’s tie-in with infosec

    If you've been following my blog and my principles for even a short period of time you've probably figured out that I pull no punches when it comes to personal responsibility and limited government. There's hardly anywhere I'm more passionate in this regard than the marketing smoke and mirrors of "Going Green" and the religion of "global warming". I should say "climate change"; that covers warming and cooling for the ...

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  • 12 Dec 2011

    Why uninterruptible power supplies have higher quality than Web apps

    I recently purchased an APC uninterruptible power supply for my office and noticed something peculiar in the packaging. It was a small piece of paper that says "QUALITY ASSURANCE TEST". It has the time, date, operator ID and other identifying information for the specific piece of hardware.As you can see in the image, this QA test sheet has 33 unique tests that were performed on the unit presumably before it ...

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  • 09 Dec 2011

    Reactive security at its finest

    I've been hearing on the news about Georgia State University (@GeorgiaStateU) installing 50 new security cameras. No doubt, universities in downtown Atlanta (one of the highest-crime cities in the nation) are not fairing so well with security these days so somebody needs to do something, no?Well, Georgia State's solutions was to install more security cameras. Is this security theater at it's finest? Not totally, but it is security theater like ...

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  • 08 Dec 2011

    Are CIOs not doing their jobs?

    In the past week I've come across three different articles on how CFOs are getting more involved in IT. For example, in last week's Atlanta Business Chronicle feature CFOs take on increasing roles in IT department stated: "CFO involvement with IT has been largely driving by the need to upgrade reporting functions and the general inability of many legacy systems to provide the kind of data the C-suite needs." According ...

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  • 20 Nov 2011

    A new way to bleed

    I was in New York City this past week for my final keynote and related presentations for our TechTarget & CDW information security roadshow. Wow, 10 cities in eight months - what a great way to end our year. Of course, being in New York I couldn't help but notice the *constant* coverage of the Occupy Wall Street protests that ended up turning a bit ugly on Thursday - the ...

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  • 08 Nov 2011

    One of my pet peeves: relying on users to wipe out wimpy passwords

    You cannot - and should never - rely on your users for complete security...yet they're often the first or last line of defense - sometimes both. I wrote about this a while back but it's a problem that's still rampant in IT so I had to bring it up again. It's probably my biggest pet peeves with security. Simply telling users that they need to select strong passwords on their ...

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  • 01 Nov 2011

    What needs to change?

    The late Richard Carlson once said:Circumstances don't make a person, they reveal him or her. There are times when other people and/or circumstances contribute to our problems, but it is we who must rise to the occasion and take responsibility for our own happiness. Deep.Whether you're caught up in an IT project mess, a data breach or even the #Occupy "movement", keep this in mind. We're the sum of our ...

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  • 25 Oct 2011

    Your title really means nothing

    I can't tell you how many times I've met people over the years who have a fancy title like CEO or Director of This and That and it ended up being more of a façade than anything. As John Maxwell talks about in this video, your title really means nothing.I've often told people, I don't care what you call me as long as you pay me what I'm worth. That ...

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  • 21 Oct 2011

    Users making security decisions is your Achilles’ heel

    I recently came across some content in a book outlining the benefits of SSL. The author depicted a scenario where SSL is in place to help the user authenticate the server/site he's connecting to and if a certificate-related error popped up in the browser then the user would know that the site was malicious and (presumably) not continue on with the connection. This very situation is an example of how ...

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