New Twitter Security Flaw

No sooner had Twitter fixed the 'Mouse Over JavaScript flaw', - which allowed messages to pop-up and third-party websites to open in your browser - another issue reared its ugly head. The Sophos Blog reports that Twitter has quickly removed a new worm, which posted messages from affected users' accounts saying that they loved goats (or words to that effect).

High-profile tech blogger Robert Scoble fell foul of the attack and, you guessed it, it appeared that he was admitting to a love for goats. Twitter users around the world were falling victim as soon as they clicked on: "WTF: (link)"

Upon clicking the link, users would only be a greeted by a blank screen. But the evil deed was taking place in the background, and soon the embarrassment was unveiled on their account. Although the issue was fixed, it once again highlights the security flaws waiting to be exposed on Twitter.

Top Ten Project Management Smart Phone Apps

Whether you are studying Project Management Training or are already PRINCE2 or PMP certified, you may want to get yourself some apps. Smart phones have evolved to become a must-have for project managers - and indeed anyone in business. Below are ten apps which can help you to remain in control of your projects.

iStudy PMP Exam (Free)
A fantastic app to use as a study aid when preparing to take the PMP exam, containing hundreds of practice questions.

PRINCE2 Snakes and Ladders (£4.99)
No prizes for guessing this is snakes and ladders with a PRINCE2 twist, in an interactive approach to revising for those upcoming exam questions.

Mindmeister (£3.99)
A great app for quickly noting and sharing your ideas. Your mindmap becomes a live document, that you and your colleagues can add to in real-time.

iPocketCoach (£0.59)
Love it. Those new to project management can gain instant advice on this very handy app. Remind yourself and others on how best to deal with a certain situation.

Evernote (Free)
Remind yourself of your ideas and inspirations wherever you are. With Evernote you can automatically sync your notes, images and sound recordings to one online portal.

Documents to Go (£5.99)
This is great if you’re unable to take the laptop with you. Edit documents and presentations on your phone, which can then be shared with your colleagues.

Tungle (Free)
When working on a global project it can be tough to align everyone’s calendars. Tungle is a great way of arranging meetings that you know everyone can attend.

ClockIn (£1.79)
A useful way to quickly note your time spent on different projects or clients. The information can be saved in CSV format, so that it can go directly into your spreadsheets.

Cisco WebEx Meeting Center (Free)
Online meetings are a must for anyone involved in global business. This app means that you no longer need to be routed to your desk – a life-saver when working across different time zones.

White from Qipit (£7.49)
This is the most expensive app in the list, and it’s here merely because I think it’s cool. Take photos of your whiteboard scribbles, and it automatically formats the image to appear exactly how it looked on your whiteboard – vivid, bright and on a pure white background.

Microsoft Security Essentials Free For Small Businesses

Microsoft Security Essentials has won many fans since its release in 2009. The anti-malware software doesn't slow down your system, and is effective at doing its job. With a price tag of "free", it's hard to beat. However, it has so far only been licensed for home users.

Ars Technica reports that this is about to change. From the beginning of October, small businesses — those with ten PCs or less — can use Microsoft Security Essentials too. Microsoft explains that enterprise security software is too expensive, complicated, and hard to use for these organisations.

How To Kill an iPhone

Not insuring your iPhone is obviously asking for disaster. And as insurance company Worth Ave Group proves, there are some crazy situations where the insurance is really needed.

Aaron Cooper, Marketing Director, lists the top three iPhone claim categories as: liquid damage, theft and cracked screens. It's the way that the iPhone ends up this way which is most compelling.

Liquid Damage
This is often caused by dropping the iPhone down the toilet. What baffles Cooper, though, is the fact that: "Women seem to be the ones dropping them in the toilet more often." If women are the culprit for flushing an iPhone, then men certainly get the blame for the next. iPhone and beer is not a good combination. A frequent claim by college students follows a night of "hard partying."

Theft
Want to know the best time to have your iPhone stolen? Try plugging it into your speakers, and then waiting until the end of the album. That is the point where the opportune thief strikes.

Cracked Screens
There are thousands of ways to crack an iPhone screen. Although, Cooper's favourite story is from when a woman recently claimed for her iPad. She had left it on the roof of her car, only to drive off with it still on top. The iPad crashed to the ground. In her haste, having realised what had happened, she slammed into reverse to retrieve the iPad, only to run over it and really finish it off.

Cloud Computing Issues in Europe

CCloud computing is the future. But how far away is this future for us Europeans? This week, The New York Times reports that EU legislation is delaying the adoption of cloud computing across Europe. Tight privacy laws created by European governments in order to protect personal data is said to prohibit the free flowing data required by cloud computing.

Bob Lindsay, Privacy Director for Hewlett-Packard (HP) Europe, explains that the restriction “isn’t killing the business, but it is slowing its evolution.” It is rumoured that the big hitters in the IT industry (including Microsoft, Google, HP and Oracle) are currently lobbying for EU laws to be loosened.

In September 2009, John Vassallo, Microsoft’s Associate General Counsel in Brussels, asked the EU to introduce varying levels of privacy restrictions to different kinds of data. Almost a year later, and the restrictions show no sign of being lifted.

An alternative is to make cloud computing more secure. At HP's Labs in Bristol, research is underway to devise new ways of encrypting data before it is sent into the cloud. The hope is that this will address the privacy concerns of European governments. This software is named "HP Privacy Advisor" and HP plans to begin testing this new software that complies with European privacy laws this year.

CIW Certification Overhaul

The Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW) program has had a complete overhaul. The key change is now one exam equals one certification.

The courses are now much more modular. At Firebrand, this means that the CIW certification courses can now be taken independently of each other.

The CIW website explains the roadmap for the various certifications, and where they lead.

Steve Jobs Is Mean

Steve Jobs, Apple CEO, has long been known for sending abrupt email replies to customers. His latest victim is rumoured to be a University student.

According to PC Magazine, the Long Island University student, Chelsea Kate Isaacs, was writing a report on the iPad's use in the classroom. Having received no help from the Apple PR team, she went straight to the top via email:

"Mr. Jobs, I humbly ask why Apple is so wonderfully attentive to the needs of students, whether it be with the latest, greatest invention or the company's helpful customer service line, and yet, ironically, the Media Relations Department fails to answer any of my questions which are, as I have repeatedly told them, essential to my academic performance."

Jobs, obviously in a rush, wrote:

"Our goals do not include helping you get a good grade. Sorry."

Isaacs responded that she didn't want Apple to provide her with a good grade, only a comment. This didn't deter Jobs:

"We have over 300 million users and we can't respond to their requests unless they involve a problem of some kind. Sorry."

When Isaacs explained that she was an Apple customer and she did have a problem, the exchange was ended by Jobs:

"Please leave us alone."

1,000 pointer at the UK training centre

Firebrand Training has had another 100%-er at its UK training centre! Peter Van Der Merwe scored a perfect score of 1,000 out of 1,000 on the "Designing and Developing Enterprise Applications Using the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5" exam. He was studying for the Microsoft MCPD .NET 3.5 Enterprise Applications Developer certification.

Congratulations Peter!

La Enseñanza de la Ingenieria de Software desde la Conciencia Social y la Experiencia de Empresa

Este comentario lo escribí hace tiempo en una tarea de la especialización sobre la Gestión del Conocimiento. Lo encontré accidentalmente en mis borradores del blog, probablemente quería ampliarlo, y ahora que lo leo casi 2 años después se me antoja publicarlo, veamos si hay opiniones.

Cantidad de veces hemos escuchado hablar acerca de como el mundo occidental subvalora el conocimiento de las personas que mas recorrido han tenido en una disciplina o ejerciendo algun tipo de rol. Pocas veces se escucha hablar sobre como las nuevas generaciones desarrollan niveles de conocimiento tan aceptables como para ser ahora esas nuevas generaciones quienes educan e impulsan las aún mas nuevas.

Esta discusión se plantea desde una vivencia particular, sobre como desde mi juventud experimento situaciones en las que el conocimiento, conciencia y crecimiento obtenido durante el ejercicio de mi carrera, han resultado insuficientes para algunos de mis colegas mas experimentados.

La necesidad de contar mi historia, surge además de trabajo de caracter investigativo que nos encontramos desarrollando y que ha hecho surgir en mi el entusiamo por compartir mi vivencia personal.

Ahora bien, desde este lado del prisma encuentro particularmente desconcertante haber encontrado en mi recorrido profesional, personas que no valoran el no muy común, conocimiento e interes por la educación de la nuevas generaciones y aún más la formación de profesionales integros por parte de personas jóvenes.

Si bien justifico tal incredulidad en lo común que resulta ver cantidad de adultos jovenes tomándose la educación como un simple trabajo o necesidad económica sin impacto o trascendencia social; habría que entrar a evaluar como las personas de experiencia, o que creen tenerla, adjudican el mismo tipo de compromiso (o falta del mismo) a la mayoria de los que nos dedicamos a dicha tarea.

Pensaría uno que la experiencia permitiría tener una visión un tanto más abierta de las nuevas motivaciones que hay en las generaciones actuales de profesionales; sin embargo, la tendencia a observar despectivamente las intenciones y construcción de ideas diferentes que concienticen a las personas en formación acerca de como y de que forma ser profesionales de calidad y tener conciencia del trabajo que realizamos y las responsabilidades sociales que adquirimos, parecen ser algo poco creible en la mayoría de personas con experiencia, a quienes terminamos denominando como "sicorigidos", esta vez desde toda nuestra juventud.

Mi experiencia personal me ha hecho persar en bastantes cosas relacionadas con este mismo tema así sea de forma indirecta. Uno mas de mis cuestionamientos es en que medida el conocimiento meramente académico, transmite las herramientas correctas para defenderse en el mundo actual. Desde mi vivencia, es esta razón la que me hace cuestionar mi labor como docente y empeñarme tanto en conseguir transmitir a mis alumnos tanto la instrucción academica y teorica, como la vivencia real producto de la experiencia en organizaciones del medio las cuales he tenido la oportunidad de conocer como empleada o contratista.

Y es que a algunos les parece increible que tan poca experiencia pueda servir para este fin. Yo avoco nuevamente a mi experiencia particular para decir que no se como podria llevarse un conocimiento de esa indole si algo de experiencia real. Seria tanto como no ver y pretender describir el mundo de lo que imaginas o de lo que otros dicen, basto criterio seria ese, como tambien lo sería intentar formar personas, solo a través de vivencias personales y alejarse totalmente del contexto académico, eso seria un desproposito.

Pues bien, es así como el conocimiento esta pasando entre nuestras generaciones, nuevas generaciones educado a nuevas generaciones, por mas redundante que eso parezca. Y aunque no es mi propósito en ninguna forma terminar en el punto de desmeritar el enorme valor que tiene la experiencia, quiza si lo es a través de esta corta historia, el defender el valor que tiene la pasión por retribuir a la sociedad y la academia, el valor que representa el conocimiento presente en las generaciones actuales, que hemos sido forjadas por los a hoy valiosos intentos y equivocaciones que germinan en conocimiento, producto del aprendizaje de las generaciones precedentes.

Firebrand Training Wins Accredited Training Centre of the Year Award

Firebrand Training has won the EC-Council Accredited Training Centre of the Year Award 2010.

The EC-Council Awards recognise Accredited Training Centers who contribute significantly to the information security community, by providing EC-Council certification programs.

Firebrand Training was selected as the European Accredited Training Centre of the Year from a Training Partner network that has more than 450 training centers across 70 countries.

Jay Bavisi, President of EC-Council said: “The annual EC-Council Awards highlights the commitment and achievements of our global partners and trainers that have contributed to the information security community. I congratulate all of the winners for their achievements and dedication to the Information Security industry in their respective region.”