TechBlog

Dr. Johannes Ullrich at SANS brought up a good point in his morning podcast (Stormcast 296 ) about widespread transportation shutdowns and disaster recovery planning. The Eyjafjallajokull glacier volcano in Iceland, which has stopped all air travel in the UK, Western Europe and Scandinavia, of course is the case in point. Those writing and updating disaster recovery plans should keep in mind the possibilities of just such widespread transportation shutdowns when they plan for personnel to operate remote (backup) network operations centers. If an enterprise’s plan calls for an IT crew to fly to a backup NOC and they can’t get there, what then? ...

It’s 4/16 and for fans of the social network application Foursquare, it’s cause for celebration. All across the world, Foursquare users are celebrating Foursquare Day by gathering in swarms and taking advantage of Foursquare deals offered by bars, restaurants and other venues. The big day could also potentially be the day Foursquare reaches one million members. According to Co-Founder Dennis Crowley, who joined me on NBC San Diego earlier this morning (see video below), the company had nothing to do with the day except the creation of a special badge — it was devised 100% by fans of the service. ...

It’s no secret that Sony Ericsson has been struggling for the last couple of years. It hasn’t reported a profitable quarter since 2008 and 2009 has been especially tough for the company, which ended Q1 with a 293 million euro ($397 million) net income loss. This morning, however, Sony Ericsson posted a 21 million euro ($28 million) profit for Q1 2010. On the downside, it also shipped 10.5 million handsets — 4 million fewer than the number shipped in Q1 2009 and 4.1 million fewer than the number shipped in Q4 2009. ...

Just in time for Earth Day, Oceanhouse Media has released two special iPhone and iPad apps based around Dr. Seuss’s classic book, The Lorax. First published in 1971, The Lorax was written by Dr. Seuss to teach children about the value of caring about the environment. Like the other Dr. Seuss apps for the iPhone and iPad, the spirit of the characters and story are recreated for touch devices. And just like the other Dr. Seuss eBooks, the book can either be read aloud at a set pace, put in auto-play or readers can read and interact with the book on their own. The eBook costs $3.99. ...

The first volume licensing arrangements for Microsoft Office 2010 will be made through company partners on May 1, almost two weeks earlier than expected. This news today from the company’s Office Engineering team, which released the final build of all versions of the company’s principal applications suite today. “Since the start of our public beta in November 2009, we’ve had more than 7.5 million people download the beta version — that’s more than 3 times the number of 2007 beta downloads!” reads this afternoon’s post by the Engineering team. “The feedback that we’ve received from all these programs has shaped the set of products we’re excited about, and that I’m sure will delight our customers.” ...

A study of web traffic from enterprises in the first quarter of this year has shown that YouTube videos used 10 percent of bandwidth – more than any other site. Facebook traffic used 4.5 percent, Windows update 3.3, Yahoo!’s image server Yimg 2.7 and Google searches 2.5 percent. The study, by the Hong Kong-based security firm Network Box, analyzed traffic to and from 13 billion URLs. The study also analyzed the number of hits: ...

The CEO of Apple is certainly no stranger to the stage, being known for giving keynotes that typically have the effect of rendering tech geeks into little piles of goo after the announcement of a new product. But now Mr. Jobs — or at least, the story of his career — will be gracing a new stage: an Off Broadway theatre. Playwright Mike Daisey wasn’t scheduled to perform his new monologue about the Apple head honcho until next year, but popular demand from New York’s Ensemble Studio Theatre has pushed up the premiere of Notes Toward the Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs to a one-night-only run on April 22. The venue’s artistic director was reportedly so excited about the work that he commissioned a one evening run even though the play is officially a “work in progress and not ready for review.” ...

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin [iTunes link] has his own iPhone app, and it’s packed full of information, news, images and videos related to space exploration. It’s currently the one of the most popular apps in the Apple App Store’s Education category. “Buzz Aldrin Portal to Science and Space Exploration” is divided into five sections: Space Buzz, News, Interactive, Buzz Life, and More. We’ve pictured most of them below. The Space Buzz section serves up a variety of content (mission data, videos, photos, “buzz’s takes” and more) on nine subjects in space exploration, including Deep Space Exploration, Mysteries & Myths, Mars Exploration, Space Tourism & Private Ventures, Hubble & Other Telescopes, Moon Exploration, International Space Station and International Space Race. ...

Taken from Google Official Blog: Last year, in our quest to minimize our carbon footprint (and keep people on their toes), we turned to an unlikely solution for mowing an overgrown field: goats. More than 200 goats from California Grazing have once again arrived at our Mountain View headquarters where they’ll stay for over a week chomping away on grassy goodness. The cost of bringing in the goats is comparable to hiring lawn mowers for the same job and the green benefits are clear: the goats eliminate mower emissions, reduce noise pollution, restore plant species and fertilize while grazing. ...

Whenever you want to print out a document, you rely on your local operating system, which must have drivers installed for each printer you intend to use. Most of the time, it’s not an issue: at home, you probably have one printer, and all your PCs have the required drivers. Things get a bit more complicated when you want to print something from a mobile device, like an iPad. Or a laptop based on Google’s Chrome OS, which relies entirely on web apps and services. This is why Google is working on Google Cloud Print, a service that enables “any application (web, desktop, or mobile) on any device to print to any printer.” ...