Geek Speak

By Paul Simons

Spamming, hacking and the breach of cyber security are an unfortunate reality of the digital world. According to some reports, almost one in three internet users in the United States are a victim of cyber crimes in one way or another. The cyber security attackers are launching more and more harmful malware every day and are evolving their techniques to strike more devices than ever before.

The situation is even more alarming for small businesses and ecommerce stores. Some statistics indicate that almost 64% of online companies have experienced web-based attacks and millions of customers have been affected. This means that online retailers must take necessary safety measures to secure their websites and ensure that customer’s sensitive information is duly protected.

There are a lot of great things to say about the faster release cycles we see with software these days. Bugs are fixed and features become available to us sooner, security issues are resolved quicker too. In a lot of cases, our operating systems and software packages are smart enough to check themselves and let us know updates are available or automatically install themselves.

Wise minds are always innovating. That’s exactly what’s occurred with long-time SMB Nation member Grace Schroeder (remember the Idea2 CRM?) with her new company Slingr. 

Schroder and team have launched a supporting actor application in a category I just made up called SMB channel partner ecosystem extenders. Essentially Slingr found a gap that needed to be filled. In particular this blog concerns Slingr’s integration of Slack to the Autotask professional services automation (PSA) solution.

Look to these excellent tools to improve CLI and web admin, SQL queries, schema migration, and replication and recovery in your MySQL environment

                                                   ThinkStock

For database administrators (DBAs), keeping databases running at peak performance can be a little like spinning plates: It takes agility, concentration, quick reactions, a cool head, and an occasional call out from a helpful onlooker. Databases are central to the successful operation of almost every application. As DBAs are responsible for an organization’s data, finding dependable tools that help them to streamline the database management process and ease day-to-day maintenance tasks is essential. DBAs need good tools to keep their systems spinning smoothly.

SEO Audit Tools make it easy to perform an SEO Audit of Websites & Blogs automatically. Otherwise, doing an SEO Audit can be very time consuming and involve tons of complicated manual checks. Luckily, there are plenty of good website audit tools available online. Here’s a list of Top 10 SEO Audit Tools that you can use for your websites & blogs.

10 Best SEO Audit Tool for Website SEO Audit

It’s important to remember that there is no one-size-fits-all SEO Auditing Tool for Websites. You need to try out each of these good SEO Audit tools to see if they fit your requirements, before picking a website auditing tool to improve your search engine results.

It’s that time of year when pundits are preaching what’s hot and what’s not in the new calendar year. As a fancy pants analyst sitting at his desk on Bainbridge Island typing, I resemble that. Today I want to focus on security. Recently I checked off the box on IoT here. 

Security Supply Chain
For five years, I sat on the program advisory committee for

From VPNs to mesh networks, efforts to find an alternative route to internet access are gaining ground in Silicon Valley

Daniela Perdomo, goTenna’s founder, holding the $90 antenna, with engineer Raphael Abrams. PHOTO: RYAN BOBROWSKI

By Douglas MacMillan

Daniela Perdomo is concerned about the power of U.S. telecom giants that stand to gain from the repeal of “net neutrality” rules. Her company offers a way around them: A $90 antenna that lets users send messages without cellular service or Wi-Fi.

I’ve really struggled to see the Internet of Things (IoT) opportunity for MSPs. While IoT was/is a topic de jour at nearly every MSP-related conference currently, it’s still a pie in a blue sky concept. So what’s the reality of IoT as I write this in early 2018? I’d offer industrial applications that are, to be brutally honest, far afield from the traditional MSP world.

I have two data points to back up my research.

Both involve relationships I have from the Microsoft days. First, there is an employee

Daniel Newman , CONTRIBUTOR
Exploring all things Digital Transformation

An Amazon Echo sits on a table in New York. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)

An IHS survey estimates that there are 20 billion connected devices globally as of this year. Will 2018 be “The Year of IoT”? Not exactly, but the future looks promising and 2018 will show a promising trajectory.

Despite the huge gains in connectivity, the truth is 2018 will be more of a steady (rather than explosive) growth period for the IoT, full of fits and spasms, and everything that goes along with them. It will see lots of investment—lots of growth—and widespread adoption in a few major industries. But it will also see some growing pains—“fragmentation frustration,” potential data breaches, and security issues galore.

Let’s face it: 2017 was a terrible year for cyber security with more phishing scams, ransomware, state-sponsored attacks, and new attack vectors. Will 2018 be better?

By Michael Nadeau   Senior Editor, CSO

Given what’s happened in 2017 — the Equifax breach, state-sponsored attacks, Russian manipulation of social media, Wannacry, and more phishing scams than we can count — you might not be looking forward to 2018. Breaches will be bigger, hackers will be smarter, and security teams and budgets won’t seem to keep pace.

There is reason to be optimistic, though. Yes, some things will get worse before they get better, but we expect real progress in a few areas. Here’s what we think will happen next year.

All mixed up

By Casey Newton     @CaseyNewton

Snap today introduced a redesign of its flagship app intended to promote more intimate sharing among friend groups while pushing professionally produced content into a separate feed. The redesigned Snapchat includes a new dynamic friends page that incorporates both chat messages and ephemeral stories, and pushes items from your close friends to the top of the feed for the first time. It will begin appearing later this week for a small test group, and is expected to roll out more broadly in coming weeks.

Microsoft in 2016 changed the way it rolls out updates for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1, leaving many IT admins and users confused. Here's how to sort out what the company is doing.

By Gregg Keizer

Senior Reporter, Computerworld

It's been more than a year since Microsoft ended the decades-old practice of letting customers choose which patches they apply, and instead instituted a cumulative update maintenance model for Windows 7 and its shadow-of-a-sibling, Window 8.1.

And yet some users still don't grasp the new scheme.