The PCI Security Standards Council created a fun and useful video that can help anyone get a quick understanding of the things that need to be done in order to keep credit card information safe.
The short video covers, on a high level, the 12 requirements that need to be implemented in order to secure credit card information. It’s a great way to communicate the need for security without having to read through the whole standard.
https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/about/pcidss_rocks_video.shtml
Posted in Security
Check out this video. See how the city of Jacksonville saved money, increased employee mobility and efficiency and increased their infrastructure’s reliability by moving to a virtualized desktop environment.
Posted in Citrix
Title: Product Architect, K-12 Education
Hometown: Mt Pleasant, SC
Twitter Account: I’m twitter-free, but have a blog: http://mhoop.wordpress.com/
Areas of expertise: Product development and design, program management, K-12 public education
What certifications have you recently obtained?: MBA from USC, April 2009
One technology you can’t live without: Smart phone with internet capabilities.
Unknown fact about me: I like to write music.
Posted in VC3
The deadline for submissions has passed, so what is Google’s next step? According to Google, over 1,100 community responses were received and over 194,000 responses from individuals. Communities have gone to great lengths to be recognized. Cities have renamed themselves, coordinated public rallies and Facebook pages have sprouted up all over the place with local communities building awareness and support for the high-tech Google experiment.
Google states that the over the next several months, they will be reviewing responses, narrowing down choices, visiting local communities and meeting with local officials. The lucky community or communities will be announced by the end of the year. Won’t that be a nice Christmas present for town or city?
Google’s experiment of building an ultra high-speed broadband network hopes to reach at least 50,000 individuals and potentially up to 500,000. According to the 2000 census, the population of the City of Columbia was 116,278. 2008 estimates put the population at 127,029. Kind of nice how these numbers are within the Google range, huh?
I know I’m kind of partial here but Columbia would be an excellent choice for this project. Columbia is a great place to live and raise a family. We’re not too big, yet big enough. We are a college town w/a thriving arts community. We not only have a local municipality presence with the City of Columbia, but we also have a State Government presence with our legislators at the the Capitol. The k-12 students as well as our local university and colleges would benefit greatly!
With South Carolina currently having one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation, the boom that Columbia could get could be limitless. This Google intiative could help give Columbia a fabulous boost that we need. By choosing Columbia as the test bed, Google could begin to then build their network out to other communities throughout the State! Not to mention that we’re home of the Gamecocks! That’s a reason to come here, in and of itself, right?
So, we’ll stay on top of this story and see how Columbia fares.
Posted in Broadband
Google has created a wave of excitement with its Community Fiber project announcement that has exceeded the buzz about the federal broadband stimulus program. This most likely happened because municipalities realized that the federal broadband stimulus programs that were part of the Recovery Act were primarily focused on regional and statewide projects.
Cities such as Columbia, SC; Greenville, SC; Greensboro, NC; Decatur, GA; Topeka, KS; Palo Alto, CA; Grand Rapids, MI and dozens of other cities have assembled groups of volunteers, assigned city staff and even hired marketing experts to assemble their “Google pitch”. The competition is intense, but these cities know the benefit that it will bring to their communities in terms of economic development and delivery of next-generation applications and content if they are selected.
Why is Google doing this? Is this the first step in their aim to become a national broadband provider? I don’t think so. Rather, it is a chance to show to the FCC and others at the federal level that open access broadband networks at 1 Gbps speeds, much higher than the incumbents are proposing, can be built and operated in such a way that multiple service providers can provide service over the same “pipe” and still make money. Google has lobbied the FCC in support of network openness but this principle is a glaring omission in the recently released National Broadband Plan. Thus, the Community Fiber project may be a “test case” for network openness at Gigabit speeds. As municipalities complete their Community Fiber applications this week, they should keep in mind that there are other options besides Google. Several communities in North Carolina have funded their community fiber networks through a financing vehicle called a “Certificate of Participation”. In addition, there are private equity firms that are actively reviewing business plans. Thus, consider the work that you have done preparing your Community Fiber application as laying the ground work to explore other options if you are not one of the “chosen few”.
Posted in Wireless
TestView Unified Communications SharePoint SAN Networking Utility Computing Virtual Desktop XenServer XenDesktop VMWare Virtualization MARS Microsoft Dell Dell EqualLogic Collaboration Cloud Computing Cisco Managed IT Services Disaster Recovery Linux ESX ITIL HostedVoice Broadband Citrix Wireless Security VC3
The opinions expressed here are the personal opinions of VC3 employees.Content published here is not read or approved by VC3 before it is postedand does not necessarily represent the views and opinions of VC3.