So if you were wondering who won Canada’s 700 Mhz auction, wonder no longer. Minister James Moore Tweeted this:
https://twitter.com/JamesMoore_org/status/435898836267978752
Tune in at 5PM to see the results. I’ll be posting the results as soon as humanly possible after they are announced.
Linksys used to be a player in the wireless networking market for business. They disappeared for a while, but today they’re back. Two new Linksys Wireless-N access points were announced today.
The new access points can be deployed as an access point or range extender. The Linksys Business Wireless-N Access Points use the widely adopted 802.11n wireless technology to provide a fast and highly reliable wireless network and support advanced features such as Power over Ethernet for flexible placement, plus Rogue AP Detection and 802.11X supplicant for enhanced security.
Here’s the lineup:
Wireless-N300 Access Point with PoE (LAPN300) – MSRP $199.99 USD
Wireless-N600 Dual Band Access Point with PoE (LAPN600) – MSRP $299.99 USD
They’re available later this month through major distributors. SMBs and resellers can find a participating distributor here: http://www.linksys.com/en-us/business/find-a-distributor
Despite what you might be reading, there is a labor shortage. Specifically in engineering and IT. An recent article said for every seven job openings in engineering and IT in the GTA, there was just one qualified recent graduate of a post-secondary program. That’s a serious problem.
Toronto based BrainStation Education is trying to change this. Their purpose is to bring web development to the masses by challenging traditional teaching methods.
BrainStation offers 12-week part-time courses in web and mobile development. Students learn to build technology under the guidance of industry professionals. They use a blended learning approach where students are assigned work to be completed at their own pace and can work. The part-time course offering empowers students to learn and work in tandem if they want to. Upon completion, students will have developed the skills and the portfolio needed to compete in a workforce increasingly driven by technology.
Many of BrainStation’s students are young professionals looking to develop marketable skills. Some are entrepreneurs preparing to build their businesses, and others are looking to make a drastic career shift into the expanding technology sector.
In order to guarantee students receive the attention they need, BrainStation equips each class with one instructor per six students. Classes are hosted out of coworking spaces like Project: SPACES at King and Bathurst, The Fueling Station in Liberty Village and Extreme Startups at Queen and Bathurst, essentially in otherwise unused space time. These co-working spaces connect students with Toronto’s vibrant ecosystem of entrepreneurs and startups. In other words, low class sizes in places where people can connect with those who might hire them is a win for all concerned.
BrainStation hosts complimentary coding workshops for complete beginners on the last Tuesday of every month. Check out http://www.meetup.com/BrainStation/ for more details. If you’re in the Greater Toronto Area, check it out.
Bad news if you’ve either donated via Kickstarter or used it to raise funds. It’s been hacked. Here’s the details from CNet:
Though no credit card information was taken, the site said, attackers made off with usernames, e-mail addresses, mailing addresses, phone numbers, and encrypted passwords.
“Actual passwords were not revealed, however it is possible for a malicious person with enough computing power to guess and crack an encrypted password, particularly a weak or obvious one,” the site said in a blog post, adding that “as a precaution, we strongly recommend that you create a new password for your Kickstarter account, and other accounts where you use this password.”
What really bothers me is this:
The site said law enforcement told Kickstarter of the breach on Wednesday night and that the company “immediately closed the security breach and began strengthening security measures throughout the Kickstarter system.”
You’d think that Kickstarter would have the ability to detect security breaches. It shouldn’t take an outside agency to tell Kickstarter that it has an issue. They really need to improve on that front. In the meantime, you should reset your password if you’re on Kickstarter. Information about resetting a password can be found here.
When you hear the name CAT, you usually associate it with heavy machinery used in construction. But the company now has a smartphone in the form of the CAT B15 that’s designed for those who work in not only construction, but any extreme environment. Rogers clearly wants to appeal to that demographic as they’re the exclusive carrier of the CAT B15 in Canada.
Now the CAT B15 clearly looks tough:
Key portions where the phone could take a hit or water could get in are covered by rubber. In this case, you’re looking at the flap that covers the headphone jack in the center of the phone as well as the on/off switch on the left. The latter is hard to press by the way and that’s not a bad thing as it avoids accidental activation of the phone in your pocket.
Other areas have the exposed metal frame that gives the phone extra rigidity.
The back is rubberized as well. I’ll note that the back is hard to remove. But that’s likely deliberate for reasons that will become clear in a second.
The screen is made of Gorilla Glass to make it tough and it can be used while your fingers are wet as well.
All of this conspires to make the CAT B15 waterproof to the IP67 standard. That means that you can keep it submerged in depths of 1m for 30 minutes. It’s dust proof and has been been drop tested on concrete from 1.80m. Not only that, it has a an operating temperature range of -20 degrees C to + 55 degrees C. That means it will survive abuse that will kill your average smartphone. Even with all of that ruggedness, it doesn’t feel too big or too heavy and won’t slip out of your hands. And needless to say, it feels very solid.
What does it have under the hood? Here’s a quick look:
Let’s start with the screen. The size of the screen, which is 4″ and has a 800 x 480 resolution is not going to blow you away if you’ve seen a Samsung Galaxy S4 as it isn’t as sharp as the screen on that phone. But the target audience isn’t going to care unless they view pictures and videos on that screen. The screen is bright, but I do recommend turning off the automatic brightness function as it seems to make the screen dimmer than I think you’d like. I’m guessing that it’s done to save battery life which is good. But it can get a bit annoying depending on the lighting conditions.
In terms of data speeds, since it’s a GSM/EDGE/HSPA+/HSPA phone, I was only able to get an average 4 Mbps downstream and 1 Mbps upstream. Not speedy, but neither of these is a bad thing as the target market for this phone likely doesn’t have speed at the top of their list. But the phone is speedy in another area. The CAT B15 comes with a unmodified, unskinned version of Android (4.1 Jelly Bean). The advantage of this is that it is quick as you navigate through the homescreens or jump into apps. Aside from the usual roster of Google apps – Chrome, YouTube, Maps and Calendar – CAT has included a few of its own. They’re little more than internet links to CAT equipment dealers. If you’re in the construction industry they could prove useful. Rogers has tossed in a few of their apps such as Rogers 1 Number, Rogers Anyplace TV and an app that allows you to access your Rogers account from your phone. It’s a basic but solid software offering.
Now when it comes to the camera, it’s a 5MP shooter that does 1080P HD video. To test that, I went to my usual location which is Pearson Airport in Toronto to shoot some planes landing. First let’s start with the still pictures. Click the picture to see it in full resolution:
The picture is pretty good. It’s sharp and clear and the colors are reproduced well. It’s hard to believe that it’s “only” 5MP. I should also mention that you can take pictures in quick succession. That’s going to be handy for those who need to take action shots. Now how about the video? Well, it’s not as good. Make sure to set the video to 1080P and full screen to see it at full size:
The video quality is passable, but clearly it isn’t the strong point of this phone. It’s best suited for occasional use in my opinion.
Now, how about battery life? You’ll get just over a day of usage out of it without a problem. You’ll be able to get more battery if you keep the screen brightness down or set it to automatic. In any case, it’s going to be there for you if you work very long days.
What’s my verdict? This is a phone that’s aimed at a very specific demographic who care less about raw speed and flashy features and more about usability and durability. Namely construction workers or those who want a phone for extreme environments. It’s $99 on a two year plan from Rogers or $299 outright. If you want your phone rugged, waterproof and tough, the CAT B15 is the phone for you.
Pretend for a moment that your a decent sized business who has to share files such as PowerPoint documents to people inside your company and outside it. You may not know it, but the risks of sharing that data are huge. Someone could pass it along to your competitors, or leak it to the media, or just steal it and use it for their own financial gain. I can think other things that can happen, but they are all bad. And no business can afford to have any of this happen to them.
Seclore however says that you shouldn’t have to deal with these risks. Their technology which is in their flagship product FileSecure allows enterprises to exercise full control over access to confidential information, what someone can do with that information, how long they have access to it and even control where they can access it from. So you can share that PowerPoint file inside or outside your organization and be aware of what people are doing with it. For example, if someone attaches it to an e-mail, you’ll be notified. You can allow or revoke the right to edit it, or even destroy it if the person who has it doesn’t have a business need to have it anymore. Plus you can restrict where information can be used. For example, if you set a policy that restricts the use of that info to the office, and someone takes it home, they’ve not going to be able to use it. And you can do this on the fly. In other words, if you send out something today and three days from now you need to change some of the policies that govern that document, you can. One other thing to note is that all of this can be fully audited. That’s important to certain market segments such as governments how have to protect themselves from the next Edward Snowden and health care who have to worry about being HIPPA compliant.
So the bottom line is that Seclore brings “Mission Impossible” like technology to the enterprise.
Speaking of enterprises, they’ve got quite a few on their roster of clients. All have a serious need to protect their information. Plus they are a IBM Business Partner who has received Deloitte Technology Fast 50 India award for the second time this year in its three year history. If you need to protect your information, and quite frankly most of enterprises do, then you should look at Seclore to help you to protect your valuable information.
Given the polar vortex seems to be permanently parked over Canada. So a lot of Canadians are heading to places like Cuba and likely taking their smart phones with them. Telus can save them some cash as they announced new Travel Passes for Cuba. For example, customers travelling to Cuba can get 50 text messages, 50 minutes of voice and 50 MB of data for only $40, in comparison to spending approximately $600 with pay-per-use rates. See more Cuba Combo Pass options below.
|
Cuba Travel Pass |
Cost |
Voice, SMS & Data |
Overage |
Free Incoming Texts |
|
Cuba Combo Pass 40 |
$40 |
50 min 50 texts 50 MB |
$1.00/min $0.60/text $1.00/MB |
Included |
|
Cuba Combo Pass 65 |
$65 |
150 min 150 texts 150 MB |
||
|
Cuba Combo Pass 100 |
$100 |
300 min Unlimited texts 300 MB |
$1.00/min $1.00/MB |
|
|
Cuba Text Pass 15 |
$15 |
75 texts |
$0.60/text |
Telus customers can also take advantage of Telus’ Travel Tracker which is a web portal accessible while traveling outside of Canada via the smartphone’s web browser to help Telus customers manage their data usage and costs in real-time. When a customer arrives in their destination country, they’ll receive a free text message with the link to the Travel Tracker portal.
For more information on Telus travel passes, visit www.telus.com/travel.
OVH.com: With offers starting at $109/month, OVH.com is focusing on high-end professional servers for North America and Europe. Their solutions are highly customizable to fit any need.
SOYOUSTART.com: “So you Start” (SyS) is a line of professional, powerful and innovative servers providing the best ratio of technology/functionalities/price on the North American and European markets, Starting at $49/month. The SyS servers feature Intel processors (Xeon E3-1225v2 type) and the possibility to choose between a SSD and/or a RAID card and up to 48 gig of RAM. The “Backup” line, which is specially designed for data saving, offers disk space of up to 24 TB.
KIMSUFI.com: (Coming soon) Available all over the world, the Kimsufi solution presents around thirty different server offers starting at $12/month. OVH will use this line to gain recognition and new users in emerging markets. This solution will offer second generation machines offering more than a dozen processors of your choice, up to 4 cores and 16 gig of RAM and can reach up to 100 Mbps of bandwidth.
This should move OVH to the top of the list for anyone looking for hosting services as it gives them complete coverage in every market and every segment. That’s something that cannot be ignored.
If you’re interested in developing applications for multiple platforms, Digia has announced something that will be of interest to you. They are having a series of Qt Mobile Roadshows that will run in the US, UK and Germany during February and March. The full-day events will feature technical training and developer presentations focused on how the Qt cross-platform application and user interface (UI) development framework can be used to enhance, simplify and accelerate development for the leading mobile OS platforms.
Sessions will be delivered by Digia Qt trainers and Qt R&D specialists. Starting in San Francisco, CA, on February 19, the roadshow then moves to UK (London) on March 11 and Germany (Berlin) on March 13.
The agenda for the day includes:
For details of the Qt Mobile Roadshows and to register, visit the Digia website http://qt.digia.com or http://qt.digia.com/Qt-Mobile-Roadshow.
Rogers Next Upgrade Program Announced
Posted in Commentary with tags Rogers on February 19, 2014 by itnerdRogers announced today that their customers will soon be able to subscribe to Rogers Next, a program that will allow them to get most of the latest smartphones for $0 down every 12 months, with no early upgrade or connection fees.
Here’s how the program work:
The $0 down offer applies to smartphones worth up to $250 based on subsidized two-year term pricing. Over 95% of phones they offer are under $250. However, if the two-year term price exceeds $250, customers simply pay the difference in the hardware price. As an example, if they wanted to upgrade to a smartphone available for $329.99 on a two-year term today, they would have to pay an additional $79.99 at the time of upgrade with Rogers Next.
Now if any of this sounds familiar, it should. Telus has a similar program called T-UP for their customers. Will it make sense for you? Check out additional details and a comparison chart on Redboard: http://roge.rs/9egtA9. It may make sense to those who always want the latest and greatest.
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