Google announces changes to mapping service

Google's mapping service for mobile devices is getting an upgrade as the internet search leader braces for new competition from iPhone maker Apple.

The improvements center on listings for public transportation options in nearly 500 cities around the world. Today's update includes suggested routes and departure times for more than 1 million stations worldwide, about 50 per cent more than a year ago. At some stations, Google will provide indoor directions to help riders navigate the system.

To highlight what it sees as a competitive advantage, Google is offering its latest improvements only on devices running its Android operating software. They include models from Samsung, HTC, Sony, and Google's Motorola Mobility division. Google said it eventually hopes to make the upgrades available for other systems, including the iPhone and the iPad, but it didn't say when.

The changes come as Apple prepares to oust Google's maps as the automatic navigation service on the iPhone and the iPad. Apple will offer its own mobile mapping service in the next version of the iPhone and iPad operating system due out this fall.

The switch could come as early as next month if the release of Apple's next iPhone comes then, as several technology blogs have speculated.

Apple's snub represents a major blow for Google, which stands to lose mobile advertising revenue and valuable insights about people's whereabouts if users of the popular iPhone and iPad devices embrace the alternative mapping service from Apple.

Google's once-close relationship with Apple has been fraying since it began giving away its Android software in 2008 to cellphone makers looking to challenge the iPhone. Android has since established itself as the leading operating system for smartphones, helping Google boost its revenue by selling more digital advertising on its mobile services.

Steve Jobs, Apple's late co-founder, viewed Android as a rip-off of the iPhone's innovations and vowed to retaliate against Google for the perceived betrayal. Apple is currently pursuing allegations of intellectual theft against Samsung, a leading maker of Android devices, in a high-profile trial in a federal court in San Jose, California.

Google believes it can stay a step ahead of Apple in mobile mapping by adding features such as its expanded public transportation directions.

New technology on the maps will allow users to focus exclusively on directions for specific transportation options, such as the subway, while excluding other alternatives, such as the bus.

Navigating public transit is even more important than driving directions in many major cities where cars aren't the most popular way of getting around, said Brian McClendon, vice president of engineering for Google's maps. Requests for mass transit directions are especially high in Japan, London, Sydney and New York.

"I am very confident these are the best transit maps available," McClendon said. "It's not something you can just go out and buy on the street."

-AP

Smore Launches New Tool That Builds One Page Mobile Sites for App Promotion

Smore, a service that gives small companies and individuals the ability to build single page websites called “flyers,” is rolling out a new service that gives that same ability to app developers who want to build a single page mobile site to promote their apps.

The new mobile service focuses on making it as easy as possible for marketers and app developers. Smore can even pull data directly from the app store and put together a page about the app in seconds. Of course, marketers can then edit the design themselves and even choose from a selection of built-in styles provided by Smore. And once sites are created, they can be launched instantly.

The service is aimed at startups and small businesses that don't have huge advertising budgets to promote their apps or other products and services. The mobile service is currently in beta and free to try. In addition to the ability to quickly and easily build these sites, Smore offers promotional tools like SEO optimization, email compatibility and more. Users have the option of using their own custom domain name or choosing a unique Smore address.

Once marketers or app developers put together their mobile flyers and send them out via email and social media, they can view basic analytics data with Smore's built-in analytics tool. For those who want a more detailed look, Smore does support integration with Google Analytics, and it has plans to roll out more detailed built-in analytics tools in the future.

Smore launched its public beta earlier this year and has now helped thousands of small companies and even individuals launch online flyers. Though there are other DIY website builders similar to Smore, the focus on one-page, easy-to-build, easy-to-promote, design conscious sites makes Smore stand out from the crowd.

Those using the regular Smore website tool can build one-page sites for anything, not just apps. Content can include text, photos, videos, tweets, products, reviews, and more. And those sites can also be viewed on smartphones and other mobile devices.

How To Market Without Tearing Your Wallet In Half

Marketing is expensive. Everyone and their grandmother knows that. But it doesn't have to be that way. A dear friend of mine used to say, “Wherever money lacks, brains must compensate.” This is true to its very core and can be practiced within almost every sphere of business, including online marketing. If you play it smart, you'll bring home the trophy. In the meantime, there's a learning curve, and it's not very pleasant.

If you're anything like me, you're probably spending too many hours working to read tons of material that just repeats the same thing, so I'm going to make it a bit easier for you. I've highlighted some great tips from PR Newswire that could get you ahead on marketing your site without having to pull out the checkbook:

• Go places! Get into trade shows and as many other networking events as you can. Don't just market yourself online. Offline marketing is still very lucrative and very rewarding! Don't forget to bring a ton of business cards.
• Talk. Offer to speak at the next trade conference in your industry. Try showcasing some of your products at an exhibition or sponsoring one. This is a great opportunity to be seen by potential customers.
• Write content online the right way. Most people are tired of reading marketing drivel. That's why you have to be creative and implicit with your marketing strategy. If you're going to write about your product, write about something your product does without appearing to try to sell it. Don't forget to join forums with customers that are interested in things related to your industry. Let's say you're selling handyman equipment. A quick Google search takes me to this handyman forum. You can even ask them if they can make a special section for suppliers in which you can participate and show special deals.
• Use iReach or some other PR service. Getting PR will really significantly boost your backlinks, traffic, and customer interest. Do it. It costs very little ($130 on iReach) to get noticed.

OK, so many of those things cost money anyway. They certainly do, but the price you end up paying is way less than the price of a marketing department. All the pieces of advice listed here are bona fide ways of getting some customers and sales into your hands without any pressure to them.

3 Places to Find Qualified Hires for Your Small Business

If you're like most small business owners, you're stretched thin, with everyone at your business doing more with less. Maybe business has picked up a bit and you've finally decided to hire.

Well, according to a new study by The Wall Street Journal and Vistage International, if you're like most small business owners, you can't find anyone to hire.

That's hard to believe in today's economy, with millions of workers still unemployed. But as of last month, 31 percent of Read More

From Small Business Trends

3 Places to Find Qualified Hires for Your Small Business

Apple saw my tablet idea in \'90s, says witness

Apple saw a prototype for a tablet computer more than a decade before the iPad was released in 2010, says a news technology developer called as a trial witness by Samsung Electronics.

Videotaped testimony by Roger Fidler, who heads the digital publishing programme at the University of Missouri, was shown yesterday to the jury in Samsung's multibillion-dollar intellectual property dispute with Apple over smartphones and tablets.

Fidler said in a written declaration he started working on a tablet design in 1981 and that "Apple personnel were exposed to my tablet ideas and prototypes" during a period in the mid-1990s when the company collaborated with Knight-Ridder's information design laboratory in Colorado.

"My feeling was that it should be something that's lightweight, portable, with a flat screen that had an ability to use a touch screen," Fidler testified, referring to the first mock-up of his tablet from the early 1980s.

Apple, based in Cupertino, California, sued Samsung in April 2011, accusing it of copying patented designs, and Samsung countersued.

The case is the first to go before a federal jury in a battle being waged on four continents for dominance in a smartphone market valued by Bloomberg Industries at US$219.1 billion ($272 billion).

Samsung's use of Fidler's testimony, as with other witnesses the company has called since it started putting on its case, is intended to discredit Apple's claims of originality behind the patented technology used in the iPad and the iPhone.

Fidler, who began his career in the newspaper industry in 1961, had a longstanding interest in developing "interactive, easy to read, portable electronic tablets," he said in his declaration.

He wrote an essay in 1981 in which he envisioned how newspapers might look in 2000, suggesting they may appear on "portable flat-screen displays".

In a session without the jury present, Samsung lawyer Charles Verhoeven, defending the company's attempt to show the testimony, told US District Judge Lucy Koh it was central to the company's case and that Apple had successfully blocked Fidler from testifying in person. He did not explain how or why.

The jury did not see any videotape recording of Apple's lawyers questioning Fidler.

- Bloomberg

Adobe patches Flash Player vulnerability being actively targeted

Adobe Systems Inc. plugged a dangerous Flash Player vulnerability and corrected 20 flaws in its Adobe Reader and Acrobat software, issuing critical security updates for the widely used software.

Attackers are actively targeting the Flash Player vulnerability, Adobe warned. Researchers have detected an attack using a malicious .SWF file embedded in a Microsoft Word document. If a victim opens the document, it could cause the application to crash and potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system, Adobe said. The security update affects Adobe Flash Player 11.3.300.270 and earlier versions running on Windows, Macintosh and Linux.

"The exploit targets the ActiveX version of Flash Player for Internet Explorer on Windows," Adobe said.

Adobe is urging Windows users of Acrobat and Reader 9.5.2 to apply the security update, because exploits for attackers to target the flaws were likely. The update corrects a variety of Acrobat and Reader coding errors that could lead to memory corruption and heap and buffer overflow conditions. The security update also applies to users of Adobe Reader X and Acrobat X running on Mac and Windows.

In addition, Adobe issued an update correcting five vulnerabilities in Shockwave Player. The update affects version 11.6.5.635 and earlier. The flaws "could allow an attacker who successfully exploits these vulnerabilities to run malicious code on the affected system," Adobe said.

8 Ways to Encourage Innovation Without Leading to Burnout

Daily life at a startup is inherently exciting. Since capital is limited, teams are small, allowing each employee to wear multiple hats and fulfill fluid job descriptions, all to reach unprecedented goals.

Brainstorming sessions are intimate, voices are heard, creativity is appreciated and innovation is implemented. It's quite the contrast to corporate America, where endless cubicles often keep an employee's task list monotonous.

However, the juggling act of startup employees isn't all fun and games. Often, the drive to be more productive in business is counterproductive for innovation, as team members find themselves and their creativity drowning in the demands of multiple company roles.

We specifically asked female members of the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invitation only nonprofit organization comprised of the country's most promising young entrepreneurs, the following question to find out their advice for continually placing innovation as a top priority:

“How do you foster innovation in your startup, especially when team members are overburdened?”

Here's what YEC community members had to say:

1. Stop Doing That!

“Refocus your startup on the essential projects needed to reach your immediate goals and stop doing everything else for now. By pushing your team to do too much too soon, you'll lose the excitement that comes with innovating in a new business.” ~ Kelly Azevedo, She's Got Systems

2. Make Innovation a KPI

“Innovation can be a Key Performance Indicator, just like revenue or expenses. If you prioritize innovation as an extra metric that you track, it will incentivize creativity among team members. You could track contributions by team members during brainstorm meetings, new ideas added to an internal company list, or dollars saved by implementing innovative processes.” ~ Doreen Bloch, Poshly Inc.

3. Mentor, Consultant or Coach

“Sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees, you're too close to your own business and processes. That's where getting a mentor, consultant, or coach really comes in handy. Someone with an outside perspective - who isn't overburdened - can think more clearly and come up with innovate solutions.” ~ Nathalie Lussier, Nathalie Lussier Media

4. Set a Lofty Goal

“We pick a lofty goal that we want to shoot to hit that month, and hold an all-team brainstorm on how to make it happen. By pulling us out of our usual to-do lists, we end up coming up with a ton of creative new ideas and initiatives that end up extending beyond whatever that current goal is.” ~ Stephanie Kaplan, Her Campus Media

5. Schedule It In

“One of the best ways you can foster innovation is to make space for it in the company schedule. This could look like monthly brainstorming meetings, a company retreat, or simply making it a discussion point during your one-on-ones. By designating time for it, you make it a priority.” ~ Elizabeth Saunders, Real Life E®

6. Ramble Freely!

“Ramble Meetings are freeform brainstorming at its best. Put away the computers, phones and distractions and throw out crazy ideas. It can be one hour a day, or once a week - it's your choice, but you need to do it, or else the very engine of growth that propels your company forward will slow down.” ~ Caroline Ghosn, The Levo League

7. Blogs and Webinars

“I always encourage my team members to read blog posts about content marketing and attend webinars in order to learn more and foster ideas. I also have a large list of blogs in my RSS feeder that I read on a regular basis.” ~ Heather Huhman, Come Recommended

8. Set Aside Play Time

“I think it's really important to set aside play time where team members can simply focus on things that they enjoy doing and that give them the ability to be completely creative without confinement. When allowing your team members to play and explore, they will then often come up with other ideas and innovations that will help push the business forward.” ~ Erin Blaskie, BSETC

Resting Photo via Shutterstock

Small Business Marketing: The Power Of Media (Infographic)

If you're not a fan of social media in general, well, I can't fault you for that. I'm on Facebook but I hardly use it except to post inane and silly things. For me,  it's hardly more than a shiny little bauble that occasionally makes noise and flashes prettily if you poke it just right.

While I recognize its usefulness for me, there's absolutely no denying the power it holds for those of you that use it (or should use it) to push your business into a realm that's literally begging for attention. And while you see the potential it has for your business, perhaps through those that have used it quite successfully, you might be left wondering how,though. How do they do it? How do they connect? What challenges are there? Is the print medium truly dead?

The answers aren't all that simple, and certainly not easy to lay out in a small article, but suffice it to say I'll sure try, especially with the help from the infographic below, from Bolt Insurance.

E-mail and the Web. A huge majority of small businesses connect with their consumers via e-mail and website marketing; solid tools that still drives decent numbers across the board. It's used by just about everyone and is checked often during their day â€" at least six times a day. Many people, almost 70%, say they'd give up that e-mail address for discounts and promotions. Almost 60% say they'd be more likely to buy something after getting an e-mail about it.

Social Media Cool-Factor. What the world needs more of is the cool-factor that is defined more by social media, which is itself used by almost three-quarters of your peers. Most use Facebook (just over 80%) and YouTube (73%). Combined these two have almost two billion users. How can you ignore those numbers? Add Twitter and LinkedIn for another 261 or so million. Ignore these numbers at your own risk.

Print and Online Advertising. These are at about the same level of use as social media; it's tough to ignore older customers that prefer actual paper to read and aren't keeping their noses pushed into an iPhone for six to sixteen hours a day. Even so, according to our infographic, the young make purchases via mail distributions as well. While I tend to throw away such junk mail, 65% value it.

I keep thinking print media is going to eventually die, but like my mother-in-law's 13-year-old dog, it hangs on, and on, and on. Computers were supposed to make us 100% more efficient with getting work done, but it's actually generated 400% more work in the process. ‘Paperless' media was supposed to disappear with home computers, but that didn't happen either. It might take another generation or two, but eventually, it's going to be all about the nose-in-the-iPhone. In the meantime, I'll hope it doesn't go quite that far.

Savvis adds Trend Micro technology to offer virtual IPS

Savvis has added Trend Micro's Deep Security technology to its cloud solution to offer a fully automated virtual intrusion prevention system, purpose-built for hybrid and public cloud deployments.

Named the Virtual IPS (or vIPS), Savvis said that it is the first cloud provider to introduce an IPS for hybrid and public cloud deployments.

Chris Richter, vice president of security products and services at Savvis, said: “Deep Security's innovative virtualisation and cloud security design and feature set enable us to deliver a fully automated, virtualised IPS that our customers can implement quickly and easily.”

Kevin Simzer, vice president of corporate development at Trend Micro, said: “Savvis delivers proven, enterprise-ready cloud services that are depended on by many of the world's largest companies.

“The addition of Trend Micro Deep Security to these services will enable Savvis customers to upgrade to our virtualisation and cloud security solutions that are purpose-built to protect hybrid data centre and cloud environments.”

Microsoft delivers nine bulletins on August\'s Patch Tuesday

Microsoft released nine bulletins addressing 27 vulnerabilities on yesterday's Patch Tuesday.

The priority patch, according to commentators, is MS12-060 that fixes a vulnerability that is located in the Windows Common Control and can be triggered through Office documents and malicious web pages. According to Wolfgang Kandek, CTO of Qualys, this is already being exploited in the wild and currently known attacks have been targeting Word and WordPad through RTF files attached to email messages.

Paul Henry, security and forensic analyst at Lumension, said: “MS12-60 affects all platforms of Windows and addresses an Active X component that's redistributed in many places in Windows. It's an issue that was previously patched and this month's patch cleans up the previous one. This is a very high priority update because it's native in Windows and impacts all Windows platforms.”

Ziv Mador, director of security research at Trustwave's SpiderLabs, said that MS12-060 has already been disclosed publicly and Microsoft is aware of limited targeted attacks but they haven't yet seen any proof of concept code.

“Considering this exploit results in remote code execution we can probably expect proof of concept real soon now,” he said.

“This one does require a bit of social engineering to exploit, as it requires a user to click a link, either on a web page, in an email, or in a message in Instant Messenger or to open an attachment. The issue is found in an Active X control in the MSCOMCTL.OCX file, specifically the TabStrip control, which is a shared component across multiple MS Office products.

“There two different versions of the patch depending on which version of SQL Server you have installed, if you have automatic updates turned on it is smart enough to get the correct one.”

Bulletin MS12-058 patches the flaw in the Exchange Server disclosed three weeks ago in KB2737111.

Marc Maiffret, CTO of BeyondTrust, said: “Microsoft security bulletin MS12-058 details a vulnerability within Microsoft Exchange that essentially allows for remote system compromise if you send a specifically crafted email to an Exchange server where the email is then read by someone using Outlook Web Access. The reason this is possible is because of Microsoft's usage of Oracle's Outside In document parsing technology.”

Bulletin MS12-052 is a critical security update patching four vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer. Mador said: “We are looking at the possibility of remote code execution for the worst of them if you once again visit a specially crafted web page.

“Just like last month, the attack targets objects that IE has held in memory, two of them deal with file corruption in memory, one deals with JavaScript Integer Overflows and the fourth has to do with asynchronous NULL object access. If you can't or don't want to apply this patch you can limit your risk to this attack by setting your security zone to high to block Active X controls, add trusted sites to the IE trusted sites zone, and either have IE prompt for or disable altogether any Active Scripting, but I would seriously consider installing the patch instead.”

Maiffret said: “Internet Explorer specifically has vulnerabilities that affect all versions of IE from 6.0 to 9.0 with critical remote code execution across all versions. These vulnerabilities will help to continue putting fuel to the various exploit toolkits used for mass scale hacking attacks and most likely some targeted attacks given the lag time in a typical organisations time to patch.”

Mador pointed out that IE8 users will also need to install the important-rated patch MS12-056 to protect against CVE-2012-2523. Looking at this patch, he said: “This is yet another remote code execution flaw, but only for 64-bit versions of Windows. If a user visits a specially crafted web page an attacker could take advantage of a flaw in the JScript and or VBScript engines.”

Also among the ‘critical' patches are MS12-054 that addresses a flaw in the remote administration protocol (RAP) of Windows Networking that an attacker can use to spread quickly within enterprise networks; while MS12-053 is a fix for a remote desktop protocol (RDP) vulnerability in Windows XP running Terminal Services.

Jason Miller, manager of research and development at VMware, said: “The last Microsoft security bulletin administrators should pay particular attention to this month is MS12-054. This bulletin addresses multiple vulnerabilities in the Windows Networking Components.

“If an attacker is able to share a resource with a malicious name on a network, the attacker can gain control of other systems with an unauthenticated response to the machine.  An example of this is any resource, such as a shared printer, that machines will attempt to find on a network.”

Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle, said: “MS12-054 contains a print spooler bug with a potentially wormable condition. Keen-eyed attackers are going to need to focus carefully on a vulnerability to uncover all of its potential. This is something that predominately affects small business and campus locations where Windows computers are configured in workgroups.

“Hidden lower in the MS deployment priority is MS12-053, an RDP bug only affecting XP, another bug with a potentially wormable condition. This one has the potential for serious impact because it is network aware and no authentication is required. If you have XP on your network, then get the mitigations for this one installed ASAP.”

The remaining Microsoft bulletins are rated ‘important' and address a local privilege escalation vulnerability Windows (MS12-055), a file format problem in Visio DXF format (MS12-059) and a fix for the Office CGM, a graphics file format (MS12-057).

Microsoft to revoke certificates with fewer than 1024 bits

Microsoft is to only accept certificates with a maximum of 1024 bits.

After it initially stated that it would revoke certificates with fewer than 2048 bits last month, it has now said that certificates with RSA keys less than 1024 bits in length will be blocked instead.

Microsoft has released nine critical and four important bulletins this month. Yunsun Wee, spokesperson at Microsoft Trustworthy Computing, said: “This update will be available in the Download Center as well as the Microsoft Update Catalog. This allows enterprise administrators to download and import the update into WSUS for testing before widely deploying the update throughout their enterprise.”

Wee said that this update is planned to be released via the Windows Update in October 2012.

Paul Henry, security and forensic analyst at Lumension, said that once this patch is applied, users will not be able to communicate with a product that uses 256-bit encryption and encouraged vendors to act upon this now if they want their product to continue to work in upcoming months.

He said: “When you apply this month's update from Microsoft, it will invalidate all of those less than 1024-bit certificates and it will effectively break your communication encryption.

“This will impact any new product sales that include encryption and just as importantly, perhaps any previously sold products overseas because the vendor may have to apply for an export permit before they can ship a solution with a higher level of encryption for use with a patched Microsoft product.”

Henry also suggested that this could create serious problems with computers using client server communications with these certificates, as well as having USA export permit ramifications for US firms that sell encryption products to clients outside of the US.

“Previously, in order to export a product, you had to use less than 256-bit encryption or apply for an export permit. Rather than going through the paperwork and time involved in getting an export permit, many chose to go with 256-bit encryption,” he said.

“Download the update and see if it breaks your encryption. If it does, you can do an uninstall or downgrade within the registry.”

Microsoft issued the change after it was revealed that Flame had an ability to create rogue certificates that appeared to be from the software giant. Mike Reavey, senior director of MSRC at Microsoft Trustworthy Computing, said that its Terminal Server Licensing Service, which allowed customers to authorise remote desktop services in their enterprise, used an older cryptography algorithm that could be exploited and then used to sign code.

Lack of employee education blamed for success of phishing

A survey of 250 IT professionals at the recent Black Hat USA conference found that a quarter had been compromised by spear phishing attacks within the last 12 months.

The survey at the conference found that most email recipients are not properly trained to recognise or safely react to phishing threats, with nearly half (49 per cent) of the respondents saying that their users receive training only once a year; while nine per cent said their organisations have no security training programs at all.

Of those that do receive training, only 16 per cent of security professionals train their users via simulated attacks, while two-thirds say that their staff are being phished relentlessly.

Scott Greaux, vice president of product management and services at PhishMe, who conducted the survey and offers a service that simulates phishing attacks to help train users on how to react to them, said that many enterprises believe that spam filtering tools or other email security technologies are keeping them safe from phishing attacks.

“What we found in our survey is that despite such filters, end-users are presented with live, malicious attacks in their inboxes nearly every day,” he said.

Aaron Higbee, CTO and co-founder of PhishMe, said: “This survey demonstrates with great clarity that phishing attacks â€" particularly targeted attacks â€" are getting through to end-users with alarming regularity, yet most organisations don't train their users on what the most current attacks look like or how to react to them.

“If enterprises are going to protect themselves, they need a realistic, regular training regimen that helps users make the right decisions when they see a potential phishing attack â€" passive security awareness that doesn't focus on tracking behaviour modification is ineffective.”

Speaking on a recent SC Magazine webcast titled Today's Top 10 Threats Unmasked, Bryan Littlefair, group technology security director at Vodafone Group, said that every employee needs to become a virtual part of the security team.

He also dismissed awareness campaigns that use ‘balloons and mousemats', saying that they are a thing of the past and that businesses need to work on information flows.

“Awareness and feeding the information and risks into the culture of the organisation is key, otherwise you are definitely going to have problems if people are not aware of the threats posed by phishing as they will click, it is just human nature,” he said. 

Listen to the SC webcast by clicking here.

Imation offers secure USB drives up to 1TB

Imation has announced the release of a 1TB encrypted hard drive to its range of hardware encrypted USB hard drives.

Offering secure data portability, along with USB hard drive management, remote kill and optional biometric fingerprint authentication, Imation said its range offers FIPS 140-2 level 3 and AES 256-bit hardware encryption and administration with McAfee's ePolicy Orchestrator software to enable centralised enterprise device management.

Lawrence Reusing, Imation's general manager for mobile security, said: “Enterprise and government organisations increasingly need manageable USB devices in order to provide mobile workers with the tools necessary to work where and when they want, and access the data they need in the most secure way possible.

“People are increasingly turning to USB hard drives to transport large data sets. Our expanding secure hard drive offerings are in response to our customers needing increased capacity without compromising control over the devices and data.”

Savvis add Trend Micro technology to offer virtual IPS

Savvis has added Trend Micro's Deep Security technology to its cloud solution to offer a fully automated virtual intrusion prevention system, purpose-built for hybrid and public cloud deployments.

Named the Virtual IPS (or vIPS), Savvis said that it is the first cloud provider to introduce an IPS for hybrid and public cloud deployments.

Chris Richter, vice president of security products and services at Savvis, said: “Deep Security's innovative virtualisation and cloud security design and feature set enable us to deliver a fully automated, virtualised IPS that our customers can implement quickly and easily.”

Kevin Simzer, vice president of corporate development at Trend Micro, said: “Savvis delivers proven, enterprise-ready cloud services that are depended on by many of the world's largest companies.

“The addition of Trend Micro Deep Security to these services will enable Savvis customers to upgrade to our virtualisation and cloud security solutions that are purpose-built to protect hybrid data centre and cloud environments.”

Savvis add Trend Micro technology to offer virtual IPS

Savvis has added Trend Micro's Deep Security technology to its cloud solution to offer a fully automated virtual intrusion prevention system, purpose-built for hybrid and public cloud deployments.

Named the Virtual IPS (or vIPS), Savvis said that it is the first cloud provider to introduce an IPS for hybrid and public cloud deployments.

Chris Richter, vice president of security products and services at Savvis, said: “Deep Security's innovative virtualisation and cloud security design and feature set enable us to deliver a fully automated, virtualised IPS that our customers can implement quickly and easily.”

Kevin Simzer, vice president of corporate development at Trend Micro, said: “Savvis delivers proven, enterprise-ready cloud services that are depended on by many of the world's largest companies.

“The addition of Trend Micro Deep Security to these services will enable Savvis customers to upgrade to our virtualisation and cloud security solutions that are purpose-built to protect hybrid data centre and cloud environments.”

5 Tips for Being Naturally Good at SEO

As a small business owner or consultant, getting on the Web and developing your presence can be scary enough.  When you're in the thick of things, you don't even want to hear terms like “search engine optimization (SEO)” or “Internet marketing.”

It certainly doesn't help that new and improved SEO concepts are being touted each week. It can be hard to know what to believe or understand where your time is best spent.  But for your business to reach its full Web potential, SEO is something you need to consider. Because SEO matters.

It matters a lot.

If you're an SMB not sure where to get on the SEO train, fear not. As a small business, there are plenty of easy things you can do, all by yourself, to set up your site to be naturally good at SEO. Get the basics down; then worry about the more difficult components.

Where should you start?

1. Build your site for users: Putting together a full website that represents you and tells the world what you're all about can be paralyzing. Where do you start? What do you focus on? Who do you speak to? There's so much to consider.

Your first step is to focus on your customers. And that means focusing on usability. Build a site that is intuitive and easy for people to digest. Sticking to best SEO practices like using breadcrumb navigational elements, creating easy-to-skim content, having a simple interface, selecting the right keywords, and organizing your content into topic silos can go a long way in helping customers understand your site better.

By making your site intuitive and easy for a user to parse, you also make it easier for the search engines to index and rank.  Remember, the search engines are using algorithm to “read” your website. That means the structure and organization of your content is paramount.

2. Become a subject matter-authority: Want to naturally attract SEO magic? Work toward asserting yourself as a subject matter authority in your niche by focusing on two things:

• Becoming a source of content: Adding unique, expert content to your website is a great way to set it up as a leader in its field and to build authority. For a SMB or consultant that may mean writing tutorials about your service or product, publishing opinion or thought-leader type pieces, writing e-books or whitepapers, creating videos, guest blogging on other authority sites, and using social media to share additional content. By making your site The Source for trusted information about a topic, you become a subject matter-authority in your customers' eyes and build your expertness.
• Building your personal brand/reputation: By establishing yourself as a content hub, you're already well on your way to building your personal brand and reputation. But don't just stop on your own site! Start building your presence in your local community and your niche by speaking at events, participating in webinars, and being vocal about whatever it is you stand for. The more people see you participating in your online community, the more authoritative you become.

By making yourself an authority in your niche, it allows you to naturally attract the links, likes, mentions, and shares all the SEO experts will tell you that you need.

3. Do stuff to attract links: Any SEO worth his or her salt will tell you that you need to build links in order to increase your SEO efforts. But as a small business, how do you do that? And how do you do it in a non-spammy way that you're comfortable with?

The easier answer is that to attract links you have to do stuff. You have to give people a reason to talk about you. And on the Web, talking about you means linking to you.

Again, becoming an authority and writing content are obviously two great ways to do something and attract links. But be on the lookout for ways to insert yourself into press mentions, hold contests and giveaways, sponsor events in your area, support local charities, blow something up, disagree with an industry demigod, anything.

While it's easy to get caught up working inside your business, you also have to work on your business and attracting attention is part of that.

4. Increase social and be social: When you're creating cool stuff, kill two birds with one stone by making that “stuff” inherently social. Add social calls to action, incorporate social share buttons, allows for user participation, etc.

Not only will adding and encouraging social activity help your content and ideas be seen by more eyeballs, it will give off important signals to the search engines that your brand and your content are things that consumers want. The search engines are looking at social signals to help them find the meat in the vast sea of content that is being produced. Likes, shares, mentions and comments help them to do that.

5. Think about performance: One thing many business owners don't think about is the way their site performs, both on the Web an on mobile. They create sites in Flash not understanding the underlying SEO issues or they don't worry too much if a page (or the whole website) takes too long to load. The result of this is a bad experience, both for users and the search engines.

Google has been very clear about the importance of a quick load time and how it plays into the Google algorithm. They've even developed a tool to help you analyze and optimize your page speed.

If performance is something you haven't considered or thought about in terms of your site, you want to start thinking about it. Because when it's between you and a competitor for the top sport in the search results, the little things can end up being big things.

Above are some ways small business owners can cover the SEO basics without really even trying. Because, as it turns out, the best SEO means simply creating the most positive experience you can for visitors.

SEO Photo via Shutterstock

How to Be Found Online: Four Simple Steps To Online Greatness

Everyone who has a website with low or moderate traffic doesn't necessarily suffer because of a bad site. You can have a great online product with no visibility. So, what are the secrets of sites that actually see success? We're not sure how much websites actually game the system, but it doesn't last.

Just recently, the Wall Street Journal posted an article about making your website more visible to search and social magnates like Google. Today, we're going to break that article into some points that you should follow as guidelines to online visibility.

Here are the points made in the piece written by Sarah E. Needleman:

• Add more keywords to your SEO strategy. This is probably one of the most important steps to getting noticed. Your SEO strategy should include more keywords. For example, if you're selling hard drives, be sure not to only use “hard drive” as a keyword. Try using “storage device,” “hard disk,” and the abbreviation: HDD.
• Find out what people are calling your product. To put things into perspective, let's use our last example. Some people call it “hard drive,” and others call it “my disk.” Some people call a “jar” a “container.” Find out what people are calling your product when they come to purchase at your store, and you'll know what to zero in on. You have to follow the search behavior of your customers.
• Follow trends. A keyword you've been using for months might not be relevant anymore. Keep track of the changes in how products are called so you can stay on top of the game. You must constantly revise your content. Do this like once or twice a month.
• Don't underestimate the power of social media and referrals. Everyone focuses on pleasing the Google gods, but if you're doing that, you're missing out on one of the greatest opportunities to be visible. You might not notice it, but some sites receive up to 40 percent of their traffic from social media and referrals. Try to communicate with sites and be socially active. You won't believe how this could pay off! I personally post comments all over Facebook and other sites that integrate social network accounts. This scores me a lot of likes on my business page, and generates a lot of genuine interest. Sure, you might not get a lot of attention, but it's more focused and genuine. Be sure to discuss something meaningful. This isn't a marketing effort. It's a way to get people's attention by saying something that adds to discussions.

Take this advice to heart, and remember not to game the search engines. Many huge sites have fallen because of this, and Google absolutely hates it. The moment Google finds out you've gamed its system, it will unleash a wrath on you the likes of which you have never seen before. Keep going in the right direction, and you'll reap the rewards slowly but surely!

Microsoft Tweaks SkyDrive Ahead of Windows 8 Release

As Microsoft prepares for the release of Windows 8, sure to be critical to many business users, the company is also making a push to improve other products like its cloud storage solution, SkyDrive. Here's what users of Microsoft's various business solutions have to look forward to:

Brand New Toys

SkyDrive makeover sneak peak. Changes in SkyDrive give it a Windows 8 look and feel. Changes include a roll out of updated Windows and Mac OS X SkyDrive clients with faster file upload to the cloud and less processing time when checking for file changes. Ars Technica

Outlook.com at 10 million strong. Two weeks ago, Microsoft introduced a preview of the upgraded Outlook.com in connection with release of the new Windows 8. The new Outlook.com also replaces Microsoft's Hotmail service and now has an estimated 10 million users. The Windows Blog

Microsoft surface for just $199.99. No, we're not sure we believe it either! A rumor is floating around that Microsoft's new tablets and laptops could be priced quite reasonably. But given earlier statements Microsoft has made about pricing for these products, we're not holding our breath. Neowin.net

Other Tools

Thinking about ThinkPad. Other options exist besides the Microsoft Surface. While some Microsoft partners don't see the point of developing a competitor to the new Microsoft hardware, at least one, Lenovo, does. Here's what their new device has to offer. ReadWriteWeb

Getting InTune with Microsoft. With all the focus on Windows 8, there's another choice coming up for Windows users. Business users can decide whether to use just Windows 8, or subscribe to Windows InTune. Here is more about Windows InTune and why it matters. PC World

Hands On Preview

Office hours. If you want to know more about what Microsoft's new Office 2013 will be like, you may want to check out this hands-on report from a guy who's spent a few weeks with the preview version. Forward Thinking

What's in a name? Columnist Preston Gralla looks at the the naming of the new interface for Windows 8, possibly to be described as “modern” instead of “metro.” But what difference does it make what they call the thing, so long as it works? Quite a bit, Gralla argues. Here's why. ComputerWorld