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Today I got the call that my health care through my father will be extended indefinitely. The medical review board approved my case and determined I am sick enough. I now have to be reviewed by the financial board to take a closer look at my finances but I believe the most difficult part is over.

CCRIF renews member country catastrophe insurance policies

The CCRIF SPC (formerly the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility) has revealed that its 16 member countries all renewed their policies for 2015/2016, and at a discounted rate, while an additional five member states purchased excess rainfall coverage this year. (more…)

I just got mine delivered and now they are doing a giveaway for you guys!

Facebook Inc originator Mark Zuckerberg’s charity wander has made its first significant speculation, driving a subsidizing round in a startup that trains and selects programming designers in Africa.

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative LLC, made by Zuckerberg and his better half Priscilla Chan, drove a $24 million (generally Rs. 161 crores) Series B subsidizing in Andela, the startup said on Thursday.

Letters in order Inc’s GV, already known as Google Ventures, was likewise part of the financing round.

Andela chooses the main 1 percent of tech ability from Africa, trains them and spots them in building associations.

The startup, which has about 200 specialists as of now utilized by its Nigeria and Kenya workplaces, will utilize the assets to grow to a third African nation before the end of 2016.

“We live in reality as we know it where ability is equally conveyed, yet opportunity is most certainly not. Andela’s main goal is to close that hole,” Zuckerberg said in an announcement.

At the point when the magnanimity activity was dispatched in late 2015, Zuckerberg said he would put in 99 percent of his Facebook offers.

The activity is organized as a restricted risk organization. That is to say, not at all like a conventional altruistic or humanitarian establishment, the endeavor can make political gifts, entryway legislators, put resources into organizations and recover any benefits from those ventures.

A cheaper alternative to DRAM just took a step closer to enterprise data centers as IBM unveiled a way to make it more dense.

PCM (phase-change memory) is one of a handful of emerging technologies that aim to be faster than flash and less expensive than DRAM. They could give enterprises and consumers faster access to data at lower cost, but there are challenges to overcome before that happens.

Density is one of those, and IBM says it’s achieved a new high in that area with a version of PCM that can fit three bits on each cell. That’s 50 percent more than the company showed off in 2011 with a two-bit form of PCM. Greater density lets IBM squeeze more capacity out of what is still a pricey technology.

When did you last check your credit report?

The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) requires each of the nationwide credit reporting companies to provide you with a free copy of your credit report every 12 months.

Welcome to the new era of the personal assistant

The job of a personal assistant supporting the rich and powerful can be traced back 2,000 years. Marcus Tullius Tiro, the personal assistant of Roman senator Cicero (106 BC to 43 BC), is one of the best-documented personal assistants. Tiro’s duties included taking dictation, transcribing notes from a wax tablet to a papyrus and debt collection.

The modern personal assistant has entered the greater public consciousness thanks to the media industry. Movies like the James Bond series, Driving Miss Daisy and The Devil Wears Prada have introduced different types of personal assistants, each with specific duties and skills to support their boss.

Miss Moneypenny knew about her majesty’s secret service, and was able to engage in flirtatious conversation: “Flattery will get you nowhere, but don’t stop trying” she told James in Dr. No. But it is when Miranda Priestly expressed her dissatisfaction with the work of her personal assistant Andy Sachs – “Is there some reason that my coffee isn’t here? Has she died or something?” – that she points to the core duty of any good personal assistant: to get the job done and to do so perfectly.

Depending on who the personal assistant works for, duties vary greatly and range from traditional note-taking to the services otherwise provided by a butler, driver, project manager, or friend. The general attributes of a good personal assistant include intelligence, strong communication, and the ability to learn, remember preferences, solve problems, keep information confidential and anticipate what needs to be done. But equally important is a deep understanding of the context. Andy Sachs needed to know about fashion and cerulean blue, which I suspect was of little interest to Hoke Colburn who was more interested in automobiles.

The virtual personal assistant

More recently, a multitude of software agents commonly known as Virtual Personal Assistants or Intelligent Personal Assistants have emerged to assist the less rich and powerful among us. With the belief that most personal assistants are intelligent beings, I favour the term Virtual Personal Assistant.

These virtual personal assistants, digital in nature and connected in ways unimaginable, can perform a variety of tasks at a user’s request, such as finding information online, helping solve problems, filter information, organise day-to-day activities, or simply set an alarm. Some have the intelligence to predict what needs to be done, such as reminding a user when they should leave to be on time for a meeting.

For many, the assistants found on smartphones are those we have become familiar with. They’re generally good at helping use the many features of a smartphone, but are not always able to actually get the job done and do so perfectly. So while I can ask the assistant on my phone to find an Italian restaurant, it can’t physically get me there. It may serve up reviews and directions, but then it’s up to me to relay that information to my car. This is one example of why we need a tighter connection between the virtual assistant and the in-car system.

The need for an automotive assistant

With the emergence of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), carmakers add technology to cars to deliver on their vision and promise of a safer drive. My wife bought such a car: a sedan packed with advanced ADAS functions such as dynamic cruise control, lane change assist, blind spot detection and other safety-enhancing features. Recently, she allowed me to use her car for a business trip, which gave me some firsthand experience.

During a two-hour highway drive to our Aachen office , I decided to activate Dynamic Cruise Control (DCC), which lets the car decide when to break and accelerate according to the current traffic situation. DCC was breaking far too early to my liking, and I experienced how difficult it can be to try to change the default settings of the function. I desperately needed a virtual personal assistant to help me out.

Could my smartphone assistant help? I pressed the voice button and asked: “How do I configure dynamic cruise control?” My VPA understood me perfectly, and displayed a list of web search results starting with “BMW Technology Guide.” Doesn’t it know that I’m driving a different brand? I decided it was time for a short fuel and coffee break since I could not safely read my phone while driving. I pressed the voice button and said, “Drive me to a Shell gas station” (I have a Shell fuel card). It responded with a gas station that was kilometers behind me. What’s going on? My mobile virtual assistant seemed to know as much about cars and driving as Hoke Culburn knows about fashion.

What I needed was an automotive assistant with deep understanding of the car and an ability to meet my driving-related needs to get the job done and to do so perfectly. It would answer any question I have about my car and help schedule service when needed. It would find my preferred gas station along my route, or even better – plan a stop and ensure that I still arrive in time for my meeting. It would understand that a perfect business meal involves more than finding a sponsored restaurant, and includes unbiased reviews, availability, budget, trouble-free parking and notifying all invitees of the meeting time and location.

And of course, it would do all of this work for me, while ensuring that I can focus on a safe drive. In fact, recent research conducted by Nuance supports this. Tests showed a reduction in collision rate when the automotive assistant considered information from crash avoidance sensors (and then knew when to keep quiet to lessen distraction) compared to systems that could not factor in this information.

We’ve come a long way since the days of Tiro, but the concept of a personal assistant holds true: whether virtual or human form, they must do a job and do it well. The automotive assistant is coming, and only the carmakers will be able to deliver the in-car user experience that will perfectly meet the needs of drivers, and do so while keeping us safe.

Subnetting 101 (Overview)

I will now be doing a subnetting tutorial in a nutshell in order to help those pips who are also inclined to my field. So first and foremost, let us start by defining some few terms. Some of the definitions are of my own words for simplicity’s sake and some might not be reflected in some books or reviewers. This tutorial is made with the assumption that the reader knows how to convert IP Address from Decimal to Binary or vice versa.

This is Decimal, 10.1.23.19.

This is Binary, 00001010.00000001.00010111.00010011.

The two IP addresses are identical but of different format.

Definition:

Network - a group of two or more computer systems linked together.

Subnetwork - is commonly called as subnet, is a subdivision of an IP network. Which in we use it in a pie analogy, the pie would be the network and the slices in the pie would be the subnetworks.

Subnet mask - a 32-bit combination that would describe the portion of the subnet and the portion of the host.

Host/User - a computer or another device that is connected to a network.

Prefix Length - is the number of bits set in the subnet mask. Your prefix length will determine you subnet mask. The reverse is also possible by converting your subnet mask to binary and counting the number of 1’s in the set.

Subnetting - the practice of dividing a network into two or more networks.

Sample Problem:

Ayala has a Network IP of 192.168.0.0/24. Ayala needs 3 subnetworks namely: Net A, Net B and Net C. Net A have 20 users. Net B have 10 users. Net C have 10 users. Provide the subnetworks that would accommodate Ayala’s needs.

Steps in Solving the Problem:

Given this question, we will now use the 5 basic fundamental questions in problem solving.

What is asked?

What is given?

What operation to be used?

What is your solution?

Is this your final answer?

What is asked?

The subnetworks that would accommodate Ayala’s needs.

What was given?

Network IP - 192.168.0.0/24

Net A with 20 users

Net B with 10 users

Net C with 10 users

What operation to be used?

Unlike in mathematics were we have multiple operations to choose from, we will be followings steps here instead of choosing operations. There is actually no sequence that was taught in the books or reviewers but I follow this sequence that I came to be quite fond of after four years of doing it. It is straight forward and easy to follow step that I put together.

Validate the Network IP

Why do we need to validate the Network IP? We need to verify if the Network IP is valid because some professors test their student’s analysis. Some professors will put an invalid Network IP so the problem will be invalid in an instant. Most students will just solve the problem without even considering if the problem was actually valid. This will result to waste of time especially during exams when you realize later after solving that the Network IP could not handle the client’s needs. (How to validate Network IP will be discussed in details in another post.)

Determine the biggest needed Network (Subnetting)

Now that you already validated your Network IP, you can start subnetting. In order to have a organize flow, we need to get the biggest needed network out of the client’s demand. In our sample problem that would be Net A since it has 20 users. (How to subnet a given IP will be discussed in details in another post.)

After subnetting the given Network IP, you will get 8 subnet IPs that could handle 30 users each with a prefix length of /27.

192.168.0.0/27

192.168.0.32/27

192.168.0.64/27

192.168.0.96/27

192.168.0.128/27

192.168.0.160/27

192.168.0.192/27

192.168.0.224/27

We will now assign the first set for our Net A. So our Net A will now be using the IP set - 192.168.0.0/27.

Technically, we can use the remaining sets to assign to Net B and Net C since each subnet IP could handle 30 users. But in making an effective network plan, this is considered a bad practice since you will be wasting 20 users resource on each subnet because you will only be using 10 valid IPs for each.

To correct this, we need to subnet again the next subnet IP ( 192.168.0.32/27 ) in order to maximize the resource that we have.

After subnetting the next subnet IP, you will get 2 subnet IPs that could handle 14 users each with a prefix length of /28.

192.168.0.32/28

192.168.0.48/28

We will then now use these two subnet IPs with 14 users capacity to our remaining needed networks which are Net B and Net C.

What is your solution?

From our subnetting process. We can now produce a solution which is:

192.168.0.0/27 - Net A

192.168.0.32/28 - Net B

192.168.0.48/28 - Net C

Is this your final answer?

Normally, this is an enough solution and your professor will already understand this. However, as a student, we need to secure our grade so just to be on the safe side we will need to dissect this into a more detailed solution.

How? We simply present it in this format:

General IP: (Given Network IP) Network Name: (Given Needed Network) Network IP: (Subnetted IP for this Network) First Usable: (First Usable IP of this Subnet) Last Usable: (Last Usable IP of this Subnet) Broadcast: (Broadcast Address of this Subnet)

So our final answer will look like this:

General IP: 192.168.0.0/24

Network Name: Net A Network IP: 192.168.0.0/27 First Usable: 192.168.0.1/27 Last Usable: 192.168.0.30/27 Broadcast: 192.168.0.31/27

Network Name: Net B Network IP: 192.168.0.32/28 First Usable: 192.168.0.33/28 Last Usable: 192.168.0.36/28 Broadcast: 192.168.0.37/28

Network Name: Net C Network IP: 192.168.0.48/28 First Usable: 192.168.0.49/28 Last Usable: 192.168.0.62/28 Broadcast: 192.168.0.63/28

And there you go! This is an overview of how you will solve a subnetting problem. (How to determine the FUA/LUA/BA will be discussed in detail on another post.)

Firewalling Application level gateway

Applies security mechanisms to specific applications, such as FTP and Telnet server applications. This is very effective, but can impose performance degradation.

Circuit-level gateway

Applies security mechanisms when a TCP or UDP connection is established. Once the connection has been made, packets can flow between the hosts without further control. It allows the establishment of a session that originates from an area of ​​greater security to a lower security area.

Network layer firewalls or packet filtering

Works at the network level (layer 3 of the OSI model, layer 2 stack TCP / IP) and IP packet filter. At this level filters can be made according to the different fields of IP packets: source IP address, destination IP address. Often this type of firewall allowed filtered according fields Transport Layer (Layer 3 TCP / IP, OSI layer 4), as the source and destination port, or data link level (there is no TCP / IP, OSI layer 2) as the MAC address.

Application layer firewall

It works in the application layer (OSI layer 7) so that the filtrates are adaptable to variation characteristics this level protocols. For example, if traffic is HTTP, filtering can be performed according to the URL that you are trying to access, and can even apply rules based on their own values ​​of the parameters displayed on a web form.

A 7 level firewalls often called proxy HTTP traffic, and allows computers of an organization entering Internet in a controlled manner. A proxy effectively hides the true network addresses.

Personal Firewall

It is a particular case of firewall that is installed as software on a computer, filtering communications between that computer and the rest of the network. It is used therefore personally.

Advantages of a firewall

Blocks access to persons and / or applications.

Limitations of a firewall

The limitations stem from the very definition of firewall: filter traffic. Any type of computer attack that use traffic accepted by the firewall (to use TCP ports open expressly for example) or simply not use the network, will remain a threat. The following list shows some of these risks:

A firewall can not protect against those attacks that traffic does not pass through it.

The firewall can not protect against the threats they are subjected to internal attacks or careless users. The firewall can not prohibit corporate spies copy sensitive data on physical storage media (disks, memory, etc.) and remove them from the building.

The firewall can not protect against social engineering attacks.

The firewall can not protect against possible attacks on the internal network by computer viruses through files and software. The real solution is that the organization must be aware of installing antivirus software on each machine to protect against viruses that arrive via any storage media or other source.

The firewall does not protect against security breaches of services and protocols whose traffic is permitted. Must be configured properly and ensure the safety of the services are published on the Internet.

Firewall policies

There are two basic policies in setting up a firewall that would radically change the fundamental philosophy of security in the organization:

Restrictive policy: all traffic except what is explicitly allowed is denied. The firewall blocked all traffic and you have to explicitly enable traffic of services needed. This approach is typically used by businesses and government agencies.

Permissive policy: all traffic except what is explicitly allowed is denied. Every potentially dangerous equipment need to be basically isolated case by case basis, while other traffic will not be filtered. This approach often use the universities, research centers and public Internet access services.

Migration as a form of digital preservation

With the explosion of information technologies increasingly born digital documents and scans documents exist that must be preserved while maintaining its integrity, authenticity, reliability, readability and funcionalidades.Tradicionalmente, preservation of physical document amounted to conservation information contained therein, and thus ensured its usability, however digital documents preserve the support is necessary, but not sufficient, other usability issues to consider: The obsolescence due to rapid technological change can cause digital resources remain “orphans” is you say unusable for lack of any or all elements of computer-hardware, software or media physicists from its original environment; and volatility, whose data can be easily altered or destroyed due to human error, malfunction of systems or electronic documents malicious actions.

To avoid such threats on electronic documents can be used a number of strategies, among which migration is most often used by the advantages:

is a very experienced operation.

Not very specialized expertise is required.

You can automate some of the processes.

The trend towards standardization of software formats and facilitate migration.

Converts the document to a format compatible with current systems.

But also has some associated risks:

Primary functional loss

Changes in the features that affect their use through an interface (static or images, multi-resolution, visibility from the web …)

Security: Watermarks loss (watermarking) or cryptographic token security (DRM …)

Loss of context and integrity

Using hardware and software from

Links to files or other associated metadata