ExamForce

ExamForce: A Force in IT-Ready’s Success Friday, May 31, 2013 Keeping costs down and quality up. That’s the trick for any business. It’s also one of the keys to success for a nonprofit program like our IT-Ready Apprentice Program. Thankfully, we don’t have to do it alone. Courseware and test prep software are important tools that our IT-Ready participants can use to go over their classroom material on their own time and reinforce what they’ve learned. But the best software adds a cost to our program that is multiplied for...

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War texting technology could endanger us in ways the average person wouldn't comprehend. Not long ago two employees of iSEC Partners used off the shelf parts to create their own GSM network and proceeded to sniff out network traffic between cars that utilize remote communications between the vehicles and their appropriate vendor to hack into and unlock cars. While the report didn't specify, I imagine that anyone using GM Onstart, BMW Assist, Ford Sync and Hyundai Blue Link services, and where those services can remotely start the car, would be able to literally drive away without so much as a pip from the alarm system. According to the Read more »

My wife and I are foodies. We love going to new restaurants, trying out new dishes and reviewing them. We’ve found some true gems and at the same time expanded our tastes for different cuisines, and even revisited some chains to discover significantly updated menus. Once we are done we log on to Yelp, TripAdvisor, Urban Spoon and Zagat and make our reviews. Yeah, it sounds a bit manic but we’ve also been able to get some perks from the restaurants for leaving the reviews. And if you are wondering, free food doesn’t influence our reviews. We only go back for the goods when we know we like it. It’s also fun and it obviously earns us recognit...

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Time stands still for no one, history repeats itself, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Sorry, it was one of those “The Replacements” flashbacks that happen as the NFL season unfolds. These statements could easily describe the continuing downfall of American strength and influence in the world. It was bound to happen; a quick scan of every dynasty that has ever existed shows an eventual breakdown, most often by a society gone soft while another arises. The key differentiator is usually either economic or militaristic, but regardless, change happens. So while we’ve spent the last couple of d...

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Is anyone getting excited about Windows 8? “Windows 8 has been re-imagined from the chipset to the user experience to connect more with the user.” Doesn’t it seem like Microsoft is being a little too pushy? Aren’t most of us just now beginning to accept Windows 7 as proven, reliable, and stable? I’m getting flashbacks… Do you remember Windows ME back in 2000? I’m sure you can recall the 2007 Windows Vista debacle or as many refer to as Windows ME too. Both were technical and marketing disasters that were rushed to the market before Microsoft or the public were ready. Hell, they started development on Windows 8 before 7...

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It sounds more like a mundane out take from a spy thriller, but the reality is much more far reaching. I got started down this path after reading a story on IEEE.org about how the frequency of law enforcement requests for cell phone surveillance has grown dramatically over the past decade. IT was more of a “duh” moment at the time. I mean, didn’t Apple just announce something like 17 million new iPhones sold in the second quarter of 2012? I’d bet that was more than all the cell phones sold in 2002. After further review I’d have lost that bet, since there were reportedly 180 million cell subscribers in the United States in 2002. Still,...

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I’m at a…Pay Phone…trying to call home…spent all my change on you… Could you imagine life without your mobile devices? Have you been out and had to look for pay phone recently? I can’t remember the last time I saw one….hell my kids don’t even know what a pay phone is… I don’t have a home PC anymore (nor home phone for that matter). Read More »

Where Amazon treads, retailers tremble – and the brick and mortars are collectively huddling as the internet leviathan continues to shake their foundations, this time by dusting off an old game plan and breathing new life into an old idea…Same day delivery. Read More »

All the industry big boys seem to be floating on cloud nine with product releases and training geared toward the new era in cloud computing. So as reluctant as many IT pros are in getting involved in the conversation at all, the real discussion needs to shift toward – Who is securing all the fluff? Read More »

I have to admit the irony of this story gave me a huge chuckle. The cloud was struck down by lightning. Oh what fun! Better yet, with Amazon’s  EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) going down, it took down Netflix, Pinterest and Instagram according to Forbes. Read More »