Days of our Lives, Cisco, Skype, and Joost and Volpi

It seems that all the noise around Skype should simmer down with the recent announcement that the company will be back under significant control of Skype founders Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis.

There has been drama around Joost ousted CEO Mike Volpi in the last several months and his integrity in running that company. That appears to be an issue that led to Joost's current troubles.

A great commentary can be found at gigaom.com here; http://gigaom.com/2009/11/06/my-thoughts-on-skype-settlement-winners-losers-scorecard/

The interesting technology news is that the UC500 is now interoperable with Skype. This is a seemingly unlikely move that has been made. Skype is embracing SIP technology as well as p2p. It should allow many of us to move into cheap and low quality voice calls in more ways than we used to :-).

http://about.skype.com/2009/09/skype_for_sip_now_interoperabl.html

That said, let's hope Skype can move forward and enjoy enhanced technology directions.

Cheers!

Doug

FW: Pac IT Pros: Windows 7 download warning, Two attacks not from Dell

But wait, there’s more…

 

From: Pacific IT Pros [mailto:mlk@pacitpros.org]
Sent: Thursday, October 22, 2009 8:28 PM
To: Douglas Renner
Subject: Pac IT Pros: Windows 7 download warning, Two attacks not from Dell

 

Pac IT Pros members:  More security news you can use.

Windows 7 download warning - If you are downloading Windows 7 make sure you are only downloading it from a microsoft.com web site. Don’t trust Windows 7 software downloaded from a non-Microsoft site it's just to easy for attackers to install malware in the download.

Variation of the OWA attack - This one is from Dell.
Fake emails with quotes from Dell are being sent to users. They spoof the return email address and have the Subject: Requested Dell Quote(s) #510357922 from someone at DellTeam.com. What's interesting is the email appears to be from a legitimate Dell SMTP server. The Dell quote attack contains malware.

Security Essentials from Microsoft detects the OWA attack - One of our members is happy to report Microsoft Security Essentials will detect the OWA attack. Not bad for a free anti-virus, anti-malware program from Microsoft.  I'm using it on all of my machines and I am very pleased with the performance.

Free Dell laptop attack - emails with an offer for a free Dell laptop for evaluation purposes are really malware and are not from Dell.  Don't click open the attachment or click on the link, it's malware.

I was talking to a security expert friend of mine who told me these types of attacks are on the rise because they are getting a lot of users to click on the links.

Doug

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Doug Spindler
Pacific IT Professionals
http://www.pacitpros.org   douggg@comcast.net
925-258-6600

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Pac IT News visit http://www.pacitnews.org
Pac IT Pros web site http://www.pacitpros.org

Pac IT Pros: Details on the OWA attack

Here is an interesting attack going around that users should be aware of.

Pac IT Pros members:
I was sent details to the OWA attack with screen shots.  You can see the report here.
http://www.pacitnews.org/2009/10/22/update-on-the-owa-scam-emails/

Doug

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Doug Spindler
Pacific IT Professionals

Douglas Renner
Peak IP Solutions, LLC
470 Lindbergh Avenue • Livermore, CA 94551

IP Phone:  925.337.8650 x8660
Unified FAX: 925.337.8630
VIDEO IP:  72.164.145.143
Email:      drenner@peakipsolutions.com
Web:        www.peakipsolutions.com   
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/peakip

Delivering exceptional engineering expertise and customer satisfaction excellence for all of your critical data, network and voice requirements.

 

VOICE & VIDEO  VoIP ● Unified Communications •  High Definition Videoconferencing

DATA  Virtualization ● Storage ● Security ● Backup and Recovery

NETWORK  Wireless, LAN, WAN, Firewall, Switching, Routing, VPN, BGP, IPv6

MANAGED SERVICES 24x7x365 Voice and Network Support and Monitoring Services

Interesting new Flash Cookies on your computer

Take a look at the new big brother cookie technology!

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/security/?p=2299&tag=nl.e102

Is Shoretel Green and Easy to Manage?

I was on a call today and heard a couple of things that were of interest with Shoretel. The shoretel system cannot span resources across switches. One situation is a phone cannot have a shared line so if you want to have x2000 in site a and also have that ring in site b, you cannot do it.



The solution also requires a lot of power cords and costs a lot in power and cooling. their Enterprise Manager also does not have IDS and requires DoubleTake for redundancy. This is expensive. If EM goes down, you lose auto attendant, shoretel desktop and other functionality.

On teh phones, they dont have LLDP today so each phone will draw much more power than required. LLDP allows a device (phone) to "talk" to the switch and request only the power needed by the device. If you cant do that you get all 15.4 watts per the 802.3af specification. Can you say "not green!"



Let's take a look at the network and firewall and switch and Host IDS and WAN connections and wireless and WAN optimization and... Lots of support numbers to call here in this model.






The other area is that they need to partner with Alcatel for conferencing/collaboration and EasyRun for Call Center. They have to work with Microsoft for IM and Presence without any other options. They OEM their wireless phone from Hitachi, the access point from someone else. They dont make the switch, the router. How will one support this model? Video- no go... They dont even support H.323. WoW!!!! H.323 is what Netmeeting ran back in 1997 on the Microsoft Desktop. Wow!!! Wow!!! I have to verify that comment. Let me know if you know they they do or do not have H.323 support.

They finally announced support for Active Directory in 9.0 and LLDP on phones. Their integration to AD and MOC is lightly engineered and brand new. It requires a license to enable the features also at $165 per user list.

Another main point to consider is redundancy. UCME is a very robust failover scenario. You can do CME as SRST which provides full redundancy to Business Edition installations. Support for all this is primarily channel partner based. It will cost extra to get direct Shoretel support and it their support is not follow the sun or weekend based. You will have an on call engineer. Not a problem for us as we do have 24x7 SLA's but with the quality installation we do, we rarely get a call after hours or on the weekend.

When the ST system is priced, it never has the network infrastructure included. It is imperitave that the network upgrades are included in the cost of the phone system. It is not on the ST Bill of Materials.

Very interesting discussion. I only have a few of the points brought up. There are many more. feel free to ask me if you are interested in having discussions on Shortel versus Cisco. I also have a friend at Altigen and that conversation can be interesting also.

Cheers!

Doug
http://www.peakipsolutions.com/
http://www.peakip.net/
http://www.ebcug.org/
http://www.summitsol.com/
http://www.securitywheel.com/

Incredibly important information to pass on

This is a must view. It is 3 sections of 10 minutes each. It seems to me that we need to spend our own money now (while it still has some value) on conservative campaigns and get someone with a clue elected. I don’t mean republican or democrat, I mean fiscally conservative!

http://www.lebed.biz/hyperinflationnation.html


You can find your congressman to lodge a complaint by changing the zip code at the end of this url and entering it into a browser;
http://whoismyrepresentative.com/search.php?zip=94551

We must lodge complaints on this mess we are into. California is only a visionary in the sense that it can be the first state to go bankrupt! The nation is, as usual, following California’s lead.

Good luck and God Bless to each of you!

Sincerely,

Doug

A true Welcome Home to a HERO

If this doesnt make the hair on your arms and legs stand up at some point through it, you should check your pulse or your passport...

------------------------
Killed in action the week before, the body of Staff Sergeant First Class John C. Beale was returned to Falcon Field in Peachtree City, Georgia, just south of Atlanta, on June 11, 2009. The Henry County Police Department escorted the procession to the funeral home in McDonough, Georgia. A simple notice in local papers indicated the road route to be taken and the approximate time.

Nowadays one can be led to believe that America no longer respects honor and no longerhonors sacrifice outside the military. Be it known that there are many places in this land where people still recognize the courage and impact of total self-sacrifice. Georgia remains one of those graceful places.

The link below is a short travelogue of that day's remarkableand painful journey. But only watch this if you wish to have some of your faith in people restored. Please share widely.

Click below for the video. Turn up your speakers !!!http://blip.tv/play/AYGJ5h6YgmE

Consentry Networks makes Layer 2 exciting!

Just reading about how Consentry Networks has a new network control system that will examine every flow on the network and provide device and user based access for every application. It looks very interesting. Layer 2 is generally fairly simple and boring but this moves layer seven to the edge L2 switch. Check out the company at www.consentry.com.

Co founded by Jeff Prince (Foundry Networks) and Mario Nemirovsky (the godfather of symmetric multiprocessing), this look interesting. I see an acquisition in sight... Their ASIC has juice in it...

Cheers!

Doug
www.peakipsolutions.com

A Test of Socialism

A test of socialism

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class.

That class had insisted that Obama's socialism would work and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan". All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A.

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little. The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F. The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great. But when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed. Could it not be any simpler?

(Please pass this on)

Gartner is Recommending HD Video Only

Gartner Says Enterprises Should Purchase High-Definition Videoconferencing Instead of Standard Definition From Now On

Worldwide Videoconferencing Market Set for 20 to 30 Percent Growth As a Result of HDSTAMFORD, Conn., March 27, 2008 —
Organizations considering a refresh of traditional, standard-definition (SD) video systems should purchase high-definition (HD) video systems from now on, according to Gartner, Inc. Gartner said that some HD videoconferencing solutions have reached a price point that’s low enough (less than $10,000 per endpoint) to appeal to most businesses that are considering updating their videoconferencing technology.

read more....
http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=632907

Video Conferencing - An Introduction

Video Conferencing Tutorial at a high level. Nice and easy read...

Video Conferencing - An Introduction

Great article on getting introduced to the technology. By far the LifeSize Video solution and MCU addition is one of the most powerful combinations available for the price. The real fun is integrating Microsoft OCS, Presence, Cisco MeetingPlace conferencing and WebEx into a single point solution. I would be happy to give a demo of it sometime.

Cheers!

Doug
www.peakipsolutions.com
Peak IP Solutions
Livermore, CA

Microsoft Direct Access in Windows 7

Have you heard about Direct Access? It is the next big thing from Microsoft. It will allow users to access resources internal to a business network over any public IP network. This is a new feature in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 working in conjunction with IPv6 to enable a whole new paradigm in the Windows Domain (no pun intended).

Here is a nice link to a blog on the solution details;

http://www.microsoftpartnernetwork.com/groups/windows_7/blog/archive/2009/02/24/windows-7-direct-access.aspx

Enjoy,

Doug

Cornerstone Fellowship is now on Twitter...

Take a look at my church now on Twitter. Everyone is going social now even my Church.

http://twitter.com/cornerstoneweb

Cornerstone is also a good customer of ours. We have worked with them on their Microsoft, VMware, Cisco Voice, Wireless and LAN/WAN. Most of all we are blessed to share our talents to help make them more efficient and extend the reach of God's message.

Trusted Business Advisor

Trusted Business Advisor

http://tba.integratedmar.com/story.cfm?item=45

HTG

IT Trends for VAR's

Notes:

The cloud has potential. What are the trends? Will it take over? How fast?

The cloud is on track. It is gainging momentum. How will it evolve? We see this as moving similar to the Internet boom. From 96 to 99, everything was goign to be on the Internet. Then in 200-2003 it was over... Then in 2003 till now, it has over run us all.

Is the cloud the same? Will it gain momentum, crash (somewhat?), and then come back with a vengence to be the defacto solution in 2015? Where will a VAR make money? Who will survive? Will there be no on premise resources left?

The product vendors and product sellers are in trouble. The services vendors are in a better place but the projects will be less prevalent. The managed services providers will have the edge. They are managing the IT for the customer. They will manage the infrastructure whether on premise or off premise. They are the trusted advisor to the customer and will direct where and how the customer (gained now) moves to this new model (or doesn't).

I know one thing, I dont want to be the one holding the bag selling product. We are a company selling Networking and Unified Communications, Voice and Video. We work heavily with Cisco Systems and are investing in Data Center and Voice and Video solutions like Unity Connections, LifeSize Video Solutions,

Where is the Server? Who manages the server? who touches the end customer? the value will be with the people perceived by the end customer to be the ones who assist them daily.

What does all this mean? Obviously it is open to interpretation. Cloud computing is on the rise. On prem + Cloud or Cloud + on prem or all cloud appear to be the options. At which point does the VAR of the future sit to stay relevant?

Best,

Doug Renner
Peak IP Solutions LLC
www.peakipsolutions.com

The Mars Hill Blog | Blog Archive » Pastor Mark’s Unaired Closing Statement

The Mars Hill Blog | Blog Archive » Pastor Mark’s Unaired Closing Statement