By Erik Small -

SC Magazine just published an article with an interview with Frank Kenney, VP of Global Strategy.  He recently spoke in London at a press conference for InfoSecurity Europe, Europe’s leading information security event which took place on April 27-29, 2010.

A basic theme of the interview addresses the FTP market and the growing number of files sent back and forth in business environments.

From the article: “Referring to Gartner statistics, Kenney said that the market is growing in FTP, and two million MP3s are moved via email systems every four weeks.

He said: “From the iPhone and iGoogle portal pages to web mail and file-sharing websites to USB drives, corporate IT has to manage and control both sanctioned and ad-hoc applications, processes and systems.”

Read the full article: Problem with the professional consumer is leading to an information security headache

By c-emmons -

Hubs, switches, and routers all do the same thing in allowing you to connect one computer to another computer or network.  They each have at least two connections that are known as ports into which you plug cables to make a connection.   So what’s the difference between them?

The hub is historically the cheapest and least intelligent.  It also lacks the complication that switches and routers may possess.  Its job is to send out anything that comes into its port.    Every computer that is connected to a hub can see anything on the computers that are connected to that same hub.  Hubs are a simple and fast way to connect computers in a smaller network.

A switch does mainly the same functions of a hub.  The difference? Efficiency.  A switch is able to determine that if the traffic from a certain machine is coming from the same port it is connected there and it will send the traffic back to the machine only through that port it is connected to.   This is  beneficial over a hub because that traffic will only go where it needs to go and not to every single port its connected to.  When networks are busy, a switch can be much more time efficient than a hub as well.

We saved the best for last.  A router is the most complicated of the three yet it is hands down the “smartest”.  In fact, the Internet itself is driven by a router.  A router is a computer that has the capabilities to not only understand the data is it processing but to manipulate it, meaning that it can be configured to how it will treat traffic.  Communication between routers is enabled in order to figure out the best way to get the network traffic from one point to another.

By c-emmons -

Remember when Google stated that they would be offering a service to let people manage their files online called GDrive?  This has been rumored for years.   Google, however, can’t seem to first tackle the project of giving consumers easy and cheap data backup.  It would be a great idea to get the ball rolling on this project, leading players in the online backup field include Symantec who has more than 8 million customers.  These services are fairly easy to use and not too expensive either. Finding a way for Google to beat that might be what is taking so long but this is a market that is in dire need of a creative alternative since it seems like the technology is not keeping up with the growing demand.  Today, many more average people and not just businesses are dealing with larger files that need to be modified often.  The problem is that backing these files up online currently seems to be a chore.  Nobody knows what the future holds in this  industry but it could use the help of a smart, savvy, and creative vessel like Google.

By pete -

Backing up your data – its like flossing. We all know we should do it, but really, who has the time..

LifeHacker, the blog that solves all kinds of problems that you didn’t realize you had (in a good way!) has a terrific  post about System Restore Tools, labeled “Five Best Free System Restore Tools“.

Weekly, they present a “High Five” feature which is essentially the results of an open forum to users, to get the “best of” a particular topic.  LH then presents a writeup of the top results – which is one of the best features of the site.

We highly recommend taking a look at the article – they give a good rundown of the following tools, as well as some other nice tidbits.

• Macrium Reflect Free
• DriveImageXML
• Paragon Drive Backup
• ImageX
• Clonezilla

via Lifehacker – Five Best Free System Restore Tools.

By c-emmons -

With the new arrival of the iPhone 3G S many consumers are wondering how it stacks up to its contender of the Palm Pre.  The biggest difference between the two if capacity.  At the same price you receive 16GB with the iPhone and 8GB with the Palm Pre.  For $200 more without any rebates, you can get the iPhone with 32 GBof storage!  If it the storage you are looking for, this is the phone for you.  However, the Pre offers a better deal whenit comes to the data plan.  You get more for your dollar in regards to data, voice and text plans with the Palm Pre.

Both of the phones has the same 3-megapixel camera, yet both offer different features.  The Pre had a LED flash but no video recording or editing capabilities.  The iPhone has no flash but focus control by tapping on the screen.

The biggest and newest improvement to the iPhone has been video recording.  It has the capability to record 30fps VGA video with audio.  On top of this you can edit video and share them immediately via e-mail or upload onto YouTube. The iPhone also has a build-in digital compass, but the Palm Pre has a removable battery whereas the iPhone does not.  Speaking of batteries, the Palm Pre was an innovator for wireless charging.  Using magnetic connections, the Palm Pre allowed customers to charge their phone without plugs and this was a feature that the Palm Pre had over the iPhone.   However, as of today, the iPhone is now selling wireless chargers to its 3G S customers.

With the over 50,000 apps that the iPhone offers, it is hard to argue that they may have won this first battle.  Overall, what matter most is what you are using your phone for and how you are going to spend your money the best.  Remember that though the iPhone does have amazing features, it has been around much longer than the Palm Pre.  If we were comparing the first edition of the iPhone to the Pre it would be a much stronger contender in this fight of the phones.