Hectic Eclectic

Ed Brill: New Redbooks Wiki for Domino 8.5 web application development

Ed Brill.

ibm.com developerWorks: Redbooks Wiki for Domino 8.5 web application development

Don't be tomorrow's Headline - ICO Annouces £500k fines as of April 2010

As reported recently online by Nick Heath and others Companies that lose individuals' sensitive personal data will face a fine of up to £500,000 under powers expected to come into force from April.

The powers will allow the UK's privacy watchdog, the Information Commissioner's Office, to fine private and public sector organisations that commit a serious breach of the Data Protection Act.

Justice minister Michael Wills laid a statutory instrument before Parliament on Tuesday, setting the maximum fine at £500,000. The instrument will become law by default on 6 April this year, unless Parliament objects.

All very topical since we are (in conjunction with IBM) running an Event covering - The importance of Web application security - today's most significant online threat.

A few of the guys from our team will be heading along to this Scotland IS event in Edinburgh.  Especially since in this area we have the skills to pay the bills  ;-).

So if you are one of the majority of people whose spending on IT Security is in all the wrong places perhaps we and this event can help.  The event is targeted for IT staff.

IT is a useful truth however that the buck rarely stops with IT in my experience from a Data Protection responsibility perspective.  So if that's you and you are not IT we can come and speak to you about this stuff and help you determine whether you are properly protected or not.  It's all about the due diligence - not the geeking out.  Though I, like many others enjoy geeking out.

Here's a little something to chew on from a cost and risk perspective...

Gartner research indicated that 75% of today's attacks occur at the application level and 80% of organizations will experience an application security incident by 2010.  Internal security attacks cost US business $400 Billion annually.

 Are you confident this won’t happen to you?

A North American Retailer claimed that over 45.6 million cards belonging to customers were compromised in an intrusion that went undetected for over 18 months; however, several banks suing the company claim the actual number is 94 million cards, a vast majority of them issued by Visa. The breach prompted numerous lawsuits and calls for stronger data protection laws. By the retailers own estimates, the company has spent or set aside close to US$250 million for costs stemming from the incident.

Catch Problems Early with IBM Rational Application Security Solutions

Call Seric today to find out how 0141 561 1161

Some news for you iPhoners out there... though for now I still prefer Berries myself

Another one from Uncle StephenfromIBM - cool

You can see the Blackberry one here...

All the men who should have used Lotus Connections

A few people have ribbed me for plugging a product on my blog but I don't get their logic.  I like a fair chunk of IBM software, sure some of it is guff.  I never heard a band who didn't make at least one bum record ... and I don't think connections is a bum by any far stretch, hence the mention.  Anywho in my defence I thought I'd at least put some stuff out here properly to help folks make up their own mind and give me a fairer crack.

I've got below an overview - very corporate and features and then some scenarios StephenfromIBM posted on youtube late 2009 and I thought I'd collate them here.  All pretty short and sweet.

The Corp. Overview - useful but find makes more sense for people on a second listen once they have seen some of the practical scenarios below - otherwise it is too easy to see as IT buzzwords and corporate spin.

The Scenarios - THE MAN WHO SHOULD HAVE USED LOTUS CONNECTIONS...

....#1

#2

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#5

#6

Didn't post #6 - it was way too cheesy.

( I await your email abuse! )

Turn on, tune in, re-design, plug-in, turn on

Oh, when industrial deisgn is good ... isn't it so very very good... well done Mr RCA man

Simple things and simple designs amuse this simple mind.

Described nicely thus by some doodle-dandy... "Of all the AC adapters stuffed into your personal item when globetrotting, the plug used in Merry Old England must surely be the most cumbersome -- its three copper prongs flung to the extremes of a giant block of plastic. That Victorian holdover gets a major re-do with this UK Folding Plug ..."

 

SWMBO for President, I beg your pardon, but let's stay the execution for now at least

My wife bought me this peach of a compilation and it is wonderful.  Buy one - you'll like it too.  Off-Kilter et al. not included.

She was listening!

Introducing the Google Streetview Snowmobile

Thanks to Lepoland for this one...  tee-hee

Finding the best person... by making the right Connections

I've been speaking to a number of folks recently about their concerns of how to connect the right people within their organisations and we currently had a few people looking at Lotus Connections - Lotus' Social software.  I don't think IBM have quite figured out how to sell this stuff fully yet - though there are plenty of refereneces world wide but I think it is highly apposite for organisations going through classic VC acquisition plays where staff don't know who one another are, what they do or what their inherent value may actually be to one another.

 This lack of information or transparancy may be through ignorance, sheer geography, speed of acquisition or any combination thereof and more of the same.  For the guy who has an inbound call for X that he needs to route, for the guy who doesn't know what else he can promote to his exisiting accounts, for the answer to that question you know nothing about ... social software holds the key to making connections (geddit) and delivering the intrinsic value held within the staff to clients of the business.

IBM definitely have the lead in this area and do eat their own dog food to particularly good effect on this one but how they communicate the message to the market ... still not quite there.  That said, for organisations with issues like this - well worth an afternoon's time to find out if there is something in it for them.

 Oh, and for folks with End Point Data capture issues or for folks who want to have their reps dazzle clients with their connections into to the back end skills and knowhow to get those client queries answered in double quick time then recent releases on Blackberry AppWorld may also be of interest as announced recently on ZDNET.  You can find out more and see some flash demos for a number of apps on Blackberry site here.

New Domino 8.5 Testimonials

Domino 8.5 has been getting some great reviews by industry analysts and nice to see a video posted this month with some testimonials on there...

If you fancy finding out more about this stuff - drop me a line.  We have some good local (Sunny Scotland) references.

Stuart Recommends

My home page on linkedin throws up my activities and sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised myself by what I've been up to on what I though was a relatively inactive time...  Certainly sounds like I'm enjoying myself.

  

Anyway here is a link to the one that caused my amusement in case you are so inclined... What I recommend