Cameron Sturdevant

The first service pack for Windows 7 is a healthy dose of security fixes and minor updates rolled into a single installation package. The relatively large size of Windows 7 SP1 along with the multistep installation process means that IT managers should make plans now to minimize the productivity impact of rolling out the update […]

I just finished reviewing the 8GB Spyrus PocketVault P-384 encrypting USB drive. The review process took a little longer than I would have liked because I lost the device for a day. In an effort to keep it in a place I could remember, I plunked it in the pen-and-pencil holder on my desk. Yep, […]

Spyrus has entered the commercial USB encrypted drive fray girded with an encryption algorithm that is more sophisticated than competing products. The PocketVault P-384 uses elliptic curve cryptography as put forward by the NSA (National Security Agency) called “Suite B.” Suite B algorithms are published for use in protecting classified and unclassified data that must […]

RSA Conference, San Francisco–I sat in in the “Securing the virtual desktop: best practices in enterprise VDI deployments.” The bottom line from the panelists was to look out for antivirus when it coes to performance. It’s important to point out the the panelists were from ETC, RSA and VMWare, all entities that are owned by […]

I sat in on talk by Dr. Peter Tippett this morning at RSA. Tippett is Vice President Industry Solutions and Security Practices at Verizon Business. Verizon Business is getting into the business of identity management as a service, and Tippett’s remarks outlined how the company intends to accomplish this. Leaving aside my privacy concerns (Verizon […]

The more I worked with the latest version of Microsoft’s System Center Configuration Manager, the more I felt I was walking through a soon-to-be-abandoned factory. It’s not that SCCM 2007 R3 is an orphaned project. Nor am I foolishly predicting the death of the desktop. However, it’s clear that new user computing paradigms are being […]

The rejuvenating updates embodied in System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R3 make the R3 release a must for enterprise organizations that already use SCCM and are moving to Windows 7. Even for organizations that are staying put on Windows XP, if SCCM is already in place, there are a number of management improvements that will […]

Probably one of the more egregious marketing maneuvers employed in the lead up to the RSA Conference (starts 2/14 in SF) is the claim “our product/service/cloud/app could have prevented the WikiLeaks leak.” Leaving aside the questions of just how much secrecy is needed to conduct US deplomacy (and I think there is a legitimate question […]

Microblogging in the enterprise attempts to harness the power of Twitter and Facebook-like activity streams of social networking in a private, secure business setting. Quick hitting “what am I doing now” comments mingle with files and followers in a fast flowing river of information. The emerging question for IT managers is can social collaboration tools […]

The more I use enterprise social collaboration tools the more I like them. Unlike the sluicing deluge of Twitter or the (often unhelpful) mash up of personal and business communication on Facebook, enterprise-only social media is a non-stop productivity stream. That does mean there is one slight drawback to enterprise social media tools (see my […]

The App Dev DIY story that appeared in today’s print issue of eWEEK magazine (on online here at eWEEK.com) shows that the cloud is advancing the way IT can empower business users. What I didn’t talk about as much in the story, but will here, is the why the cloud is changing how IT works […]

I’m experimentally telecommuting on Thursday’s. Yesterday I had a great time using VMware Workstation to create a virtual machine dedicated to working from home. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner. I could just have well used Oracle’s no-cost VirtualBox and Ubuntu to basically accomplish the same thing. Creating my Windows 7 […]