One of the most important procedures to keep your business more successful than its competitors is to have a strong and stable strategic plan. A strategic plan will help define and prioritize key goals and objectives to help your company grow to new heights. Keep these 3 strategic planning tips in mind for your company:
1. Identify Realistic Goals
Setting obtainable goals for your company will allow for successes throughout. Each time goals are achieved, you are able to move to larger, more challenging goals. Keeping your goals realistic will help push your employees to accomplish new tasks and not settle for failure. Have a goal system where there are short-term and long-term goals set for both your company and each employee. Applying deadlines and check-ins on a quarterly, bi-annual or annual basis will help to track if your employees and company are meeting expectations.
2. Analyze ?Lifetime Value? and ?Life Cycle Management? For All Potential Clients
When analyzing different clients to work with it is important to look at their Lifetime Value with the company. This means to look beyond the first project or their initial budget and see what the lifespan of working together can bring. Often, when finding long-term clients, it will create stronger relationships, loyalty and understand of what will be delivered in comparison to client?s expectations. The second aspect is Life Cycle Management. After analyzing the lifespan look into what needs to be done to keep the relationship and what is all of their areas that can be improved?
3. Find The Right Fit
There will always be overarching goals and projects your company will strive to work towards, but it is not always in the company?s best interest to work toward one goal. Knowing the right fit for your company might mean to put a few goals on hold for the time being. This also might mean to turn down a few projects if they do not help your company move forward. Find the projects and/or clients that work well with your company and correlate with the realistic goals that have been set. If your goals are successful you will be successful, so keep this in mind when setting them.
Ian Singer Marketing Director isinger@cmasolutions.com
If you're confused over a recent email from Facebook regarding its data use policy, you're not alone.? The email ? with the subject line "Up... Read more
49 min.
Devin Coldewey, NBC News
September brought a series of mysterious break-ins to the Hyatt House Galleria in Houston, Texas. In the latest, a 66-year-old woman's laptop was stolen from her room, and the lock's records showed that no key, be it the woman's, the maid's, or a duplicate, had been used.
Police told NBC News that they?arrested Matthew Allen Cook on Oct. 31, after the stolen laptop showed up at a pawn shop and employees identified the suspect. But police said?that?they are?leaving the issue of how he entered the rooms to the prosecution.
The strange circumstance of a locked?door being opened without a key would be a mystery worthy of Sherlock Holmes, if not for one thing: The lock was one with a well-known security exploit made public by a hacker earlier this year.
The lock in question is from Onity, a major supplier of electronic and keycard locks for hotels like the Hyatt. Cody Brocious, a software engineer at Mozilla and hobbyist hacker, demonstrated a vulnerability in many of their locks in July, afterwards showing a refined technique onstage at the Black Hat hacker conference. Andy Greenberg at Forbes reports that the method used in the recent break-ins is more than suggestive of the hack.
Keycard locks like those in hotels often have a port on the bottom used to access the lock's electronic memory or activate it when its battery has run out. Brocious showed that the security inside the lock is extremely easy to circumvent using a cheap and portable device made with off-the-shelf parts. It was unreliable at first, but other hackers have improved the technique and even fit the device into the shell of a dry-erase marker.
Onity, for its part, has acknowledged the flaw but offers only a temporary solution: blocking the port with a bit of plastic or putty. The flaw is baked into the device's firmware, and the only way to fix it permanently is to replace it entirely, which could be costly with at least?hundreds of thousands of locks affected by the flaw. The Hyatt hotel in question has opted to glue the port shut.
In the meantime, the case against the suspect is progressing in Harris County. But even if he is charged and found guilty, the hack that opens hotel doors around the world is still at large. As Todd Seiders, a security expert at Petra Risk Solutions, told Forbes: "We?re expecting incidents in which these devices are used to explode nationally...?We?re going to get hit hard over the next year."
Devin Coldewey is a contributing writer for NBC?News Digital. His personal website is?coldewey.cc.
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Too much or too little activity bad for kneesPublic release date: 26-Nov-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Linda Brooks lbrooks@rsna.org 630-590-7762 Radiological Society of North America
CHICAGO Both very high and very low levels of physical activity can accelerate the degeneration of knee cartilage in middle-aged adults, according to a new study presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).
Nearly one in every two people in the U.S. may develop knee osteoarthritis by age 85, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. By 2030, an estimated 67 million Americans over the age of 18 are projected to have physician-diagnosed arthritis.
Researchers at the University of California in San Francisco (UCSF) previously had found an association between physical activity and cartilage degeneration. But that study focused on one point in time.
For the new study, the UCSF researchers looked at changes in knee cartilage among a group of middle-aged adults over a four-year period. They used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-based T2 relaxation times to track the evolution of early degenerative cartilage changes in the knee.
"T2 relaxation times generated from MR images allow for analysis of the biochemical and molecular composition of cartilage," said Wilson Lin, B.S., research fellow and medical student at UCSF. "There is increased water mobility in damaged cartilage, and increased water mobility results in increased T2 relaxation time."
The researchers analyzed 205 patients, age 45 to 60, from the UCSF-based Osteoarthritis Initiative, a nationwide study funded by the National Institutes of Health on the prevention and treatment of knee osteoarthritis. Participants used a questionnaire to record their physical activity. The researchers measured T2 values of cartilage at the patella, femur and tibia of the right knee joint at baseline and at two- and four-year visits.
According to the results of the study, participating frequently in high-impact activities, such as running, appears associated with more degenerated cartilage and potentially a higher risk for development of osteoarthritis.
"When we compared the scores among groups, we found an accelerated progression of T2 relaxation times in those who were the most physically active," said Thomas M. Link, M.D., professor of radiology and chief of musculoskeletal imaging at UCSF. "Those who had very low levels of activity also had accelerated progression of T2 values. This suggests that there may be an optimal level of physical activity to preserve the cartilage."
The results open up numerous areas for future inquiry, including analysis of the impact of specific types of physical activity on knee cartilage health. For instance, some of the participants in the Osteoarthritis Initiative wore an accelerometer, a device with a motion sensor to record physical activity.
"In this study, we used the subjective measure of a questionnaire," Lin said. "The accelerometers provide a more objective way to measure physical activity."
Along with the findings on changes in knee cartilage, the study also highlighted the potential of T2 relaxation times as an early indicator of cartilage degeneration.
"Standard MRI shows cartilage defects that are irreversible," Dr. Link said. "The exciting thing about the new cartilage T2 measurements is that they give us information on a biochemical level, thus potentially detecting changes at an earlier stage when they may still be reversible."
Dr. Link noted that people who have a higher risk for osteoarthritis (such as family history of total joint replacement, obesity, history of knee injury or surgery) can reduce their risk for cartilage degeneration by maintaining a healthy weight and avoiding risky activities and strenuous, high-impact exercise.
"Lower impact sports, such as walking or swimming, are likely more beneficial than higher impact sports, such as running or tennis, in individuals at risk for osteoarthritis," he said.
###
Coauthors are Waraporn Srikhum, M.D., Charles E. McCulloch, Ph.D., Michael Neitt, Ph.D., John Lynch, Ph.D., Gabby B. Joseph, Ph.D., and Hamza Alizai, M.D.
Note: Copies of RSNA 2012 news releases and electronic images will be available online at RSNA.org/press12 beginning Monday, Nov. 26.
RSNA is an association of more than 50,000 radiologists, radiation oncologists, medical physicists and related scientists, promoting excellence in patient care and health care delivery through education, research and technologic innovation. The Society is based in Oak Brook, Ill.
Editor's note: The data in these releases may differ from those in the published abstract and those actually presented at the meeting, as researchers continue to update their data right up until the meeting. To ensure you are using the most up-to-date information, please call the RSNA Newsroom at 1-312-949-3233.
For patient-friendly information on MRI of the knee, visit RadiologyInfo.org.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Too much or too little activity bad for kneesPublic release date: 26-Nov-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Linda Brooks lbrooks@rsna.org 630-590-7762 Radiological Society of North America
CHICAGO Both very high and very low levels of physical activity can accelerate the degeneration of knee cartilage in middle-aged adults, according to a new study presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).
Nearly one in every two people in the U.S. may develop knee osteoarthritis by age 85, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. By 2030, an estimated 67 million Americans over the age of 18 are projected to have physician-diagnosed arthritis.
Researchers at the University of California in San Francisco (UCSF) previously had found an association between physical activity and cartilage degeneration. But that study focused on one point in time.
For the new study, the UCSF researchers looked at changes in knee cartilage among a group of middle-aged adults over a four-year period. They used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-based T2 relaxation times to track the evolution of early degenerative cartilage changes in the knee.
"T2 relaxation times generated from MR images allow for analysis of the biochemical and molecular composition of cartilage," said Wilson Lin, B.S., research fellow and medical student at UCSF. "There is increased water mobility in damaged cartilage, and increased water mobility results in increased T2 relaxation time."
The researchers analyzed 205 patients, age 45 to 60, from the UCSF-based Osteoarthritis Initiative, a nationwide study funded by the National Institutes of Health on the prevention and treatment of knee osteoarthritis. Participants used a questionnaire to record their physical activity. The researchers measured T2 values of cartilage at the patella, femur and tibia of the right knee joint at baseline and at two- and four-year visits.
According to the results of the study, participating frequently in high-impact activities, such as running, appears associated with more degenerated cartilage and potentially a higher risk for development of osteoarthritis.
"When we compared the scores among groups, we found an accelerated progression of T2 relaxation times in those who were the most physically active," said Thomas M. Link, M.D., professor of radiology and chief of musculoskeletal imaging at UCSF. "Those who had very low levels of activity also had accelerated progression of T2 values. This suggests that there may be an optimal level of physical activity to preserve the cartilage."
The results open up numerous areas for future inquiry, including analysis of the impact of specific types of physical activity on knee cartilage health. For instance, some of the participants in the Osteoarthritis Initiative wore an accelerometer, a device with a motion sensor to record physical activity.
"In this study, we used the subjective measure of a questionnaire," Lin said. "The accelerometers provide a more objective way to measure physical activity."
Along with the findings on changes in knee cartilage, the study also highlighted the potential of T2 relaxation times as an early indicator of cartilage degeneration.
"Standard MRI shows cartilage defects that are irreversible," Dr. Link said. "The exciting thing about the new cartilage T2 measurements is that they give us information on a biochemical level, thus potentially detecting changes at an earlier stage when they may still be reversible."
Dr. Link noted that people who have a higher risk for osteoarthritis (such as family history of total joint replacement, obesity, history of knee injury or surgery) can reduce their risk for cartilage degeneration by maintaining a healthy weight and avoiding risky activities and strenuous, high-impact exercise.
"Lower impact sports, such as walking or swimming, are likely more beneficial than higher impact sports, such as running or tennis, in individuals at risk for osteoarthritis," he said.
###
Coauthors are Waraporn Srikhum, M.D., Charles E. McCulloch, Ph.D., Michael Neitt, Ph.D., John Lynch, Ph.D., Gabby B. Joseph, Ph.D., and Hamza Alizai, M.D.
Note: Copies of RSNA 2012 news releases and electronic images will be available online at RSNA.org/press12 beginning Monday, Nov. 26.
RSNA is an association of more than 50,000 radiologists, radiation oncologists, medical physicists and related scientists, promoting excellence in patient care and health care delivery through education, research and technologic innovation. The Society is based in Oak Brook, Ill.
Editor's note: The data in these releases may differ from those in the published abstract and those actually presented at the meeting, as researchers continue to update their data right up until the meeting. To ensure you are using the most up-to-date information, please call the RSNA Newsroom at 1-312-949-3233.
For patient-friendly information on MRI of the knee, visit RadiologyInfo.org.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Sporting hats, Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis stepped out on Friday night to enjoy a meal at Checchino in Rome's Testaccio district. Kunis, 29, is bundled up with a scarf, while her beau Kutcher, 34, is sporting a very different accessory ? a plate!
In the '70s... "there were high-level conversations about adding marijuana to tobacco, creating a line of marijuana cigarettes, and being ready to jump in and market this."
As recently as 1993, when it looked like France was poised to legalize marijuana, Philip Morris trademarked the name "Marley." But when the estate of Bob Marley complained, the company claimed it had nothing to do with the reggae singer.
"Philip Morris said, 'No no, it could be any kind of Marley,... like Jacob Marley, the cheap, cantankerous teetotaler from A Christmas Carol.'"...
Editor?s note:Lucas Dailey is the founder and CEO of political social network Our Ballot Box, a designer, and a local politico. You can follow Lucas on Twitter.
Regardless of your views on our recent election, one thing that we can generally agree on is that our political system is broken. There are myriad contributors to our malaise, not the least of which is the voting system on which it?s all based. But apart from the intractable structural problems, there is one area that we in the web world are tantalizingly close to ameliorating: constituent opinion.
An Old Problem We Take For Granted
In the middle of February in Wisconsin, nearly 100,000 people, some driving hundreds of miles, all converged on the same location at the same time simply to convey information. These people didn?t want to be there, but they felt, rightly, that this extreme effort was the only means available to convey their opinions effectively.
Protests are a unique method of communication, because they combine three essential components of effective civic speech: participants are publicly counted in them; they publicly convey a message; and they give reasonable evidence that participants are constituents. But soon we?ll have better ways of conveying that information without having to brave the Wisconsin winter.
Americans have an embarrassment of sites on which one can voice an opinion. Yet none of them meet the requirements necessary for people to actually voice these opinions in a way that maximizes their political impact.
My startup, Our Ballot Box, spent four years in Madison identifying these requirements, testing their effectiveness, and building a web app that began to satisfy those requirements. We failed as a business, but our product has had some success and someone will pick up our torch. The market is ready and the political value is too great for it to remain unbuilt. Ten years from now an effective constituent communication site will serve as a central component of the political process that none of us can imagine living without.
You?re Doing It Wrong: How Our Startup Failed
Our vision was very well received by regular citizens, activists, politicians, and news organizations, but we still failed as a business. That was my failure. As a first-time entrepreneur and CEO, I?d like to think I at least made some novel mistakes, but the reality is that they were mostly pedestrian.
Our talented developers had little time left to power a startup in addition to their demanding day jobs and young families. I should have expanded our team before launching with insufficient wind under sail. Our business models relied on long-term mass adoption, a big swing and tough sell that relies on more at-bats with investors than usual. And while Madison has a burgeoning web industry, it still lacks the number of investors of Silicon Valley, and I?m the only team member able to relocate.
I should have developed better business models and shaped our product to fit. Lastly, and most personally painful, I restrained my design passion by limiting myself to a first-draft approach to the UX and UI that resulted in a substandard experience. I did this to ensure I stayed focused on the business, marketing and fundraising parts of the startup. Ultimately, I simply didn?t execute well enough.
A Vision To Transform Political Speech
The good news is that there are startups close to successfully building such a space. My goal is to offer a direction to anyone else excited to address one of the most pernicious problems in our society. There are five basic components necessary for a political social network to effectively solve the constituent communication problem:
User-generated opinions
Single units of opinion
User verification
Surfacing and sorting
Open, demographically indexed data
User-generated opinions. Users must be able to write opinions in their own words, uncensored and unmoderated. Yes, it means dealing with a host of issues such as griefing, hate speech, and duplication. But a site must allow for the full and unrestricted expression of political opinion if it is to reach broad public acceptance. To users, speech must be free, and damn the consequences for developers. The site must allow users to quickly and easily express an opinion that is immediately accessible, so when others are presented with opinions that don?t quite match their own, they can speak for themselves on an issue instead of being pressured to vote on something they are uncomfortable with.
Single units of opinion. It may seem counterintuitive but single units of opinion for users to endorse or oppose are far more persuasive than compounded opinions. Whether it?s something as complex and packaged as ?I am pro-life? or as granular as ?Williamson St. should have a two-way connection to Winnebago St.? these are the data points that sculpt public policy, shape political platforms and guide the selection of political candidates. The multiple-choice questions on many political opinion sites fail this test because the limited number of answer options necessarily excludes other opinions and pressures people into selecting the least bad option. When single units of opinion are coupled with easy, user-generated opinions, users will have the freedom to fully express themselves through either their own words or an endorsement of another?s words.
User verification. In an age when astroturfing is becoming increasingly sophisticated, proving your identity in a political social network is essential. Many social media products offer different means of user verification. They range from methods as weak as providing a unique email or algorithms that spot fake accounts to methods as strong as requiring driver?s license or credit card information. To balance user acquisition with political strength, the ideal political social network will allow for multiple methods of identity verification across the confidence spectrum.
Surfacing and sorting. Getting the right opinions in front of the right users at the right time for their votes is delicate but essential, not only in terms of user engagement but also for political relevance. If an opinion is only voted on by a particular subset of constituents ? such as, say, the followers of a particular radio host ? then that opinion won?t reflect the full support or opposition of that constituency. Careful exposure is essential both to ensure opinion conveys a representative picture of overall public support, as well as to ensure that users have the opportunity to easily voice their opinions on the most politically valuable issues. Though partisans will always cry bias of all but their supporters, if the system is entirely algorithmic with no opportunity for organizational bias, it will gradually become accepted and treated as a neutral platform.
Ease of use and speed of creating and voting on existing opinions are also important factors for surfacing and political relevance. When people can vote on 10 issues a minute in a leanback experience that has political value, they?ll never stop.
Open, demographically indexed data. Finally, the potential of the opinion data must be unlocked by indexing it with users? demographic and location data and making it publicly available. Then the general public, news organizations and all 10 (yes, 10!) political bodies that represent each citizen will be able to fully interpret the clear preferences of each constituency. Researchers and pollsters will also gain even greater insight by analyzing and modeling the data to compensate for the underrepresented constituencies.
Internet users have become more conscious of the amount of personal information they release. While that trend will continue, users will gladly volunteer their information when they realize it will give them greater political power: By aligning themselves with a particular group, they can then speak more effectively on behalf of that group. However, that depth of personal information must be used carefully to allow users to enjoy their desired level of privacy and be confident that their information won?t be misused. Successful political social networks must protect users? identities while they speak at whichever hue of the anonymity-advocacy spectrum they so choose.
Political Social Networks In The Wings
There are a number of companies that competed against Our Ballot Box that are well on their way to providing a truly effective way for constituents to communicate. They have great products that they can expand to execute this vision:
Votizen was moving in this direction with its publicly endorsable, user created Letters. Lately they seem to have tacked away from constituent communication in favor of political candidate promotion through social pressure, though that could be a momentary change to take advantage of the elections. With the elections now over they may retool again to focus more on problems of governance.
Change.org has a great petition platform that could increase its political relevance by adding the parts of this vision it lacks, noteably adding open demographics and allowing votes against petitions. If they combined the brute force of large absolute numbers with the tools necessary to show percent support and evidence that their public response is relatively representative of the constituency, they could have a much more politically powerful tool.
POPVOX is doing a lot right, and while focusing on public opinion for H.R. 2526 Amendment 4 has a lot of value (particularly to Congressional staffers), it?s unlikely to have the popular reach and political strength of stating ?70% of Americans believe National Forests shouldn?t host private logging roads.? Their political strength could be tremendous if they had a simple opinion layer on top of their excellent legislative depth, so casual users can easily sound off at a high level while power users can drill down further.
Votifi is an excellent opinion platform with a promising analytics focus. Plus their ?Simplifi, Quantifi, Amplifi? nearly matches our ?Verify, Quantify, Amplify!? If they were to successfully incorporate user-generated questions and statements they could go a long way toward becoming a central voice of the people.
Apart from current players in the space, this vision could be produced by a new small startup that grew organically to be recognized as the primary venue for political opinion. It would be easiest to build by a company that already has strong brand identity as a relatively trusted and politically impartial repository of personal profiles such as a Google, Facebook, AOL or Yahoo. Nonpartisan nonprofits (particularly Pew) may be the best home for such a product from the public?s perspective, but even the most responsible use of the data will have business-model potential sufficient to motivate a larger company to compete eventually if not soon (or already, quietly).
Effect Change
To paraphrase T.S. Elliot and Clay Shirky: one of the most momentous things to happen to a culture is that it acquires a new form of arguing. The Internet has already given us a new form of individual argumentation, but it now has the potential for the next, much greater form: collective argumentation. As a society and country, when we can definitively say ?this is who we are, and this is what we think,? we will fundamentally reshape the political process by speaking for ourselves in an undeniable voice that is impossible to ignore. When we put the lie to claims from talking heads that they speak for us, we will have more focused and productive public debate.
But the greatest change will come in how politicians operate. The one thing more important than money to a politician is votes, and when politicians know their constituents hold a clear, undeniable position on an issue, they almost always listen. Because their challengers are.
Our small startup took an important step but stumbled. Take the next step in our place and finally realize the dream of indirect democracy.
Now that Turkey Day is finally passed, it?s time to fix yourself a Thanksgiving Sandwich and fire up the old computer to snag the latest deals on one of the fastest-growing shopping holidays around, Cyber Monday. The National Retail Federation estimates that more than half of online retailers will be offering promotions and discounts for Cyber Monday, and ComScore is projecting an astronomical $1.5 billion dollars in sales ? all in a single day.
But with that profit hinging on a few hours of fevered shopping, online outlets are positioning themselves for a big security risk. Hackers with a motive (or simply an easy way to get in) can threaten an entire website?s livelihood by launching a DDoS attack through simple means.
?Programs that can do serious damage to a company?s servers aren?t hidden,? says Marty Meyer, CEO of Corero Network Security, a cyber security company that specializes in DDoS attacks. ?These are free, easy to access, and can be launched quickly.?
With Cyber Monday quickly becoming the largest and highest profile ecommerce event, a lot can happen when you type your credit card number into a website that?s not equipped to handle a server breach or shutdown. Unfortunately, the inside look on cybersecurity for all websites ? even the big ones ? isn?t reassuring.
Problems from the first line of defense
Of course, Cyber Monday?s status as a premier online shopping holiday just magnifies an already rampant problem on the Internet all year round: Companies don?t defend well against hackers from the get-go, and very little protocol is in place to actually guard against breaches.
?We see businesses that look at cyber attacks like being hit by lightning, thinking, ?It won?t happen to me,? Meyer explains. ?But if it does, your business might be seriously injured or dead.?
This false sense of security is a trouble spot for not only the big players in the ecommerce space such as Amazon and Etsy, but also for smaller independent retailers looking to score big with online orders. Meyer says that small businesses are just as likely to get hit by hackers as big business and often cause even more damage ? especially if the company?s website or ecommerce system is new and untested.
?Cyber attackers are not always targeting specific sites,? Meyer says. ?Instead, they?re randomly polling URLs and IP addresses for vulnerable sites. So don?t think you can fly under the radar.?
False perceptions about how hackers work leads to drastic under-preparedness. In his experience, Meyer says that companies often rely on outdated network infrastructure and ineffective firewall services ? in short, nothing that could really help if a DDoS or other predatory maneuver was launched. Add to this a poor knowledge of regulating server traffic and shaky adherence to PCI security standards, and Cyber Monday begins looking more and more like a recipe for a complete Internet meltdown.
Once down, down for good
Unfortunately, the problems don?t end there. If by any chance an unprepared online business is looking now to get everything in place on Cyber Monday, there are very few last-minute measures to take.
?Reactive quick fixes are very limited in the attacks they protect against and are extremely expensive,? Meyer says. ?But if an e-retailer is not already using a CDN or service provider to provide burst bandwidth, they could try and set this up for Cyber Monday. However, the website will remain vulnerable to application-layer and server-targeted attacks, which can significantly degrade the site performance and drive away frustrated customers.?
Even worse, a successful attack could spell hours of downtime, long waits for the ISP, and relying on a whole lot of luck to get back up.Small businesses are, unsurprisingly, the ones with the most to lose when a cyberattack occurs: They have the least bandwidth, least secure ecommerce options and, perhaps most importantly, they have the least resources to rely on when an attack occurs. Cyber attacks can also cripple ecommerce outfits for the long-term, especially if a first-time customer finds out his or her data has been compromised.
?The huge increase in Cyber Monday as a source of revenue for retailers creates a rush to setup an online presence and, if protocols are not done properly, it could tarnish the reputation of the retailer if they are the target of a data breach and any private or payment card information is stolen.?
In short, many ecommerce platforms simply don?t have the infrastructure to withstand a calculated attack on such an important day ? and they could suffer if their servers come crashing down like dominoes.
The long run
In order for Cyber Monday to stay safe, secure and ? most importantly ? popular, ecommerce systems must replace their slow, weak and outdated cybersecurity systems. Meyer says that remaining vigilant and proactive is the most important defense against all kinds of online attacks.
?Attackers are smart and getting more sophisticated, and technology to combat them needs to move with the times,? Meyer adds.
There?s a lot riding on Cyber Monday, but increasingly insecure websites could mean big trouble. Users and businesses alike could potentially face deal phishing scams, information extraction from insecure ecommerce systems, and fraud of all kinds.
The best way to keep the day alive is not to think if, but when.
>>>it's a holiday week but there's no rest for the late-night comics.
>>let's check them out.
>>you know, today is the busiest travel day of the year, i don't know if you knew that. people have been getting ready for these trips for a long time. in fact, two weeks ago
general petraeus
' wife told him to start packing.
>>traffic in new
york city
is worse than any traffic i've ever seen in my entire life, especially during the holidays. every -- i'll tell you what? you know what it's like? it reminds me of
chris christie
. it tells me how it reminds me of
chris christie
. every major artery is clogged.
>>some people have been camped outside of stores for days now to get a good spot in line for what they call
door buster
sales. this what makes lining up for a "twilight" movie reasonable.
>>let's take a look at the
pros and cons
of the macy's
thanksgiving day parade
.
>>pros, getting to see snoopy in the
dog house
float. con, seeing job petraeus in there with him.
>>old geezer, and you have to guess whether it's the neck of an old geezer or a
turkey neck
.
>>all right.
>>turkey.
>>how many say turk i?
>>take a look.
>>got to go. hey, made turkey it's try and crazy do me a favor and pass the gravy and all or the once ain't so tasty i'm never ever, ever wear an ugly sweater we will never ever wear an ugly sweater.
>>holiday gear on display.
>>the shirt you gave me last year. that's the shirt
MUMBAI (Reuters) - The Indian joint venture of Wal-Mart Stores Inc has suspended its chief financial officer and other employees as it investigates alleged violations of U.S. anti-bribery laws, a development that could hamper India's efforts to open its domestic supermarket sector to foreign investment.
Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, said last week it has opened internal inquiries or investigations into bribery allegations in a number of countries including Brazil, China and India, which follows an earlier probe in Mexico.
"The suspension is a routine global practice followed in such investigations," an official at the Indian unit said, declining to be named. "We cannot carry out a fair investigation when the people we are investigating are in office. What we must not forget is they are innocent until proven guilty," the person said.
Separately, a spokeswoman for the joint venture confirmed the suspensions and said the venture was "committed to conducting a complete and thorough investigation." Wal-Mart's partner in the venture is Bharti Enterprises.
Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, declined to say whether similar suspensions could be carried out elsewhere as its investigation proceeds.
"We are a committed to conducting a complete and thorough investigation," Wal-Mart said in a statement. "It would be inappropriate for us to comment further until we have finished the investigation."
If any alleged improper conduct occurred, then the suspensions by Wal-Mart "will serve it well in the eyes of enforcement agencies" such as the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission, in deciding how to resolve the broader case, said Mike Koehler, assistant professor of law at Southern Illinois University School of Law, who also runs the FCPA Professor blog, a forum focused on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
"Suspensions are common in situations like this. Companies that are under FCPA scrutiny want to demonstrate to enforcement agencies that upon learning of improper conduct, they took effective remedial measures," said Koehler. "Part of doing that is to isolate current employees from their positions, so that any improper conduct does not continue."
Indian authorities are also investigating claims that Wal-Mart violated foreign exchange rules when it invested $100 million in a domestic unit owned by its wholesale joint-venture partner.
Indian opposition parties and allies within the Congress party-led coalition government in New Delhi are opposed to allowing global giants like Wal-Mart into the retail sector, saying to do so would drive small traders out of business.
After several delays, the government in September finally allowed foreign direct investment in the sector to revive stalled reforms and help halt a slide in economic growth.
On Thursday, when the Indian parliament opened for its winter session, opposition politicians demanded a debate and vote on the policy decision and have threatened to halt parliamentary proceedings.
(Reporting by Nandita Bose, additional reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York and Jessica Wohl in Chicago; Writing by Ranjit Gangadharan; Editing by Matt Driskill and Richard Chang)
A company organize defines your entire internet marketing business method, in which to get started on with and where exactly your company will guide you in long run? To create a business regimen it is best to are aware of the points concerning the home business you?ll begin.
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JOHANNESBURG/CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - South Africa's strike-battered mines sector could see thousands of job cuts and further violent clashes between rival unions, the national mining industry group warned on Friday.
The last of South Africa's recent crippling wildcat strikes ended last week, after leaving more than 50 dead and temporarily halting mining output in the continent's top economy.
But the three months of often violent unrest have poisoned industrial relations and the union turf war that sparked the strikes shows signs of flaring up again.
Two workers at a Harmony Gold mine near Johannesburg were killed on Thursday in a clash between the once-dominant National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the smaller Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU).
That violence is likely to continue, said Bheki Sibiya, chief executive of the Chamber of Mines, the group that represents the industry.
"What is happening at Harmony is a continuation of what we have observed," he said at the Cape Town Press Club.
"I think we are still going to observe quite a bit of it before it settles."
He also warned that the strike-hit industry will likely need to shed thousands of jobs, sobering news in a country where unemployment hovers at around 25 percent, and the wealth disparity is among the most glaring in the world.
"There are going to be retrenchments in the first quarter of 2013.... It is probably in the thousands, possibly going above ten (thousand) and maybe higher."
Harmony, South Africa's third-largest bullion producer, said on Friday operations at its Kusasalethu mine 65 kilometres west of Johannesburg had not been affected by the violence that left two dead.
Spokeswoman Henrika Basterfield told Reuters there were no further reports of violence at the mine.
UNION TENSION
Analysts say the tension between AMCU and the NUM, which has had its dominance challenged by the smaller union, is likely to rumble on.
AMCU charges that the NUM, with its connections to the ruling African National Congress, has lost touch with the needs of average workers, who still live in grinding poverty.
The labour strife and the resulting deaths - including 34 striking miners shot dead by police in a single day in August - have dented the image of the ANC and President Jacob Zuma as they prepare for a party leadership election next month.
Despite criticism that his government mishandled the mines crisis, Zuma is widely expected to keep the ANC presidency.
But this week's trouble at Harmony was unlikely to be a "one-off" event, said Loane Sharp, a labour economist at staffing firm Adcorp.
"For as long as the causes of the protests and unrest are not addressed, the mining sector will remain vulnerable to these sorts of actions by workers," Sharp said.
"I am referring to the labour law and regulations that promote the larger trade unions and exclude the smaller ones."
South Africa's labour laws make it difficult for smaller unions to participate in labour negotiations.
Harmony Gold chief executive Graham Briggs said AMCU had applied for recognition at the company.
LOWER GROWTH
Mass job cuts in mining are likely to further strain South Africa's battered economy. The pace of economic growth probably halved in the third quarter, according to a Reuters poll, after the strikes hit mining output.
Gross domestic product (GDP) probably grew at 1.5 percent in the quarter, from 3.2 percent in the previous three months, according to the median forecast in a poll of 15 analysts.
"The slowdown has largely been a result of the mining sector strikes, which have caused output levels in the sector to plummet," said Shilan Shah of Capital Economics.
Mining accounts for 4 to 6 percent of South Africa's GDP.
The strikes have also battered the rand currency, which has depreciated by about 11 percent against the dollar this year and touched a 3-1/2 year low this week.
Central bank governor Gill Marcus on Thursday cautioned that the fall-out from the strikes was far from over.
"While many of the strikes appear to have been resolved, long term resolution of the underlying causes requires ongoing, concerted action on the part of all the parties involved," she said.
>>now to all the early birds stuffed and happy after
thanksgiving dinner
and already out the door, making a beeline for those ready to shop, getting a jump on black friday. nbc's kevin tibbles is outside
chicago tonight
, good evening.
>> reporter: well, kate, it may be the tradition time of thanksgiving and turkey, but on this tradition day it is time to also head out, line up and hope for a deal. while many americans are serving up seconds, many others are lining up in search of a bargain.
>>happy thanksgiving.
>>the earlier you get here, the better chances you have at bargains.
>>black friday is back, savings start.
>> reporter: traditional black friday sales moved head to thanksgiving thursday as walmart, sears, target and toys "r" us roll out their big deals tonight.
>>it is important for people to make sure they're in the game, too. and if walmart opens earlier, it will be very hard for the competitors to sit on the sidelines.
>> reporter: k-mart shoppers got off to an early start. in some places like atlanta, tempers flared. the holiday shoppers suggest that more than 17% of consumers will venture out tonight to try to save a little money. tomorrow, black friday remains the busiest day with more than 80 million people planning to shop. but some employees are not so thrilled at having to work what is traditionally a day to spend with family.
>>and it would be better for the consumer as well as the worker for them to have thanksgiving off.
>> reporter: some even picket several walmart locations.
>>there is a petition that tens of thousands signed saying they don't want to work on thanksgiving.
>>i'm out here getting a good deal.
>> reporter: but in a shop until you drop society, choice is king. and if shoppers want to gobble up bargains on
turkey day
, well, then, the retailers will help them do it. so here at toys "r" us, many have already had their
pumpkin pie
. or put it on hold to take part in that other american pasttime, shopping.
VDT Communications Limited - We are a leading broadband communications company with operations in major cities in Nigeria.
The following vacancy currently exist in our organization:Job Title: Pre-Sales Engineer The successful candidate would be responsible for developing customer solution in the sales cycle, based on the understanding of customer requirement and aligning such requirement to product development and product management. She/he shall support the Sales and Marketing team with the required product information, communicate sales strategies and effectively support the sales team in the entire Customer liaison required.Must be experienced in Communication Network related activities and Technical SalesFirst rate network and support services experienceSound applied/theoretical knowledge of core and access network infrastructure design for data, voice and video servicesExceptional communication and interpersonal skillsFully aware of the contemporary, evolving technologies and services in the field of broadband communications and internet.First Degree in Engineering or other Physical science plus Professional certification of CCDP or equivalent.Experience: 5 years minimum.Due Date: 7 December, 2012
Sunday is a young Entrepreneur running a number of sites from his living room. I am a Professional Blogger and currently studying software engineering at Aptech Computer Education. I am a certified Carbon Credit Network member and a distributor of Green Commodities. Join Us and become financially FREE! | See Products | Place Order
WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama is hailing a ceasefire agreement to end a week of fighting between Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.
The White House says Obama talked to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Wednesday and commended him for agreeing to the Egyptian ceasefire proposal, which the Obama had recommended the prime minister accept.
The deal would end a week of fighting that has killed more than 140 Palestinians and five Israelis.
The White House says the United States will use the opportunity offered by a ceasefire to intensify efforts to help Israel address its security needs, especially the smuggling of weapons and explosives into Gaza.
Obama also said he would seek more money for the Iron Dome defense system that has protected Israel from rocket attacks.
Understand this now, the ongoing assault of Gaza by the Israeli military harms the people of Gaza, harms the people of Israel and harms the people of the United States, and ...
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If you're a dolphin (are you?), the Gulf of Mexico isn't exactly the place you want to be right now. The dolphins there are already dealing with a myriad of health issues stemming from the Deepwater Horizon explosion, and since June, a number of dolphins have washed ashore after having been killed and mutilated. The latest incident happened this past Friday, when researchers in Gulfport, Miss. found a dolphin whose lower jaw had been removed.
This came on the heels of a dolphin who was found last weekend after having been shot with a 9mm bullet. Over the course of the year, a dolphin has been found after being slashed by a knife, another was stabbed to death by a screwdriver and one had its tail cut off. One possibility is that dolphin-on-dolphin violence has erupted after military-trained killer dolphins escaped into the wild after Hurricane Katrina or some asshole/a group of assholes is spending his time massacring dolphins.
Moby Solangi, the director for the Institue of the Marine Mammal Studies, is choosing door two.
"Animals don't eat each other's tails off," Solangi said.
"We think there's someone or some group on a rampage," he said. "They not only kill them but also mutilate them."
Agreed! So, what the fuck is going on, Alabama/Mississippi/Louisiana? Who is shooting dolphins with handguns and STABBING them with SCREWDRIVERS?
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) ? The soldiers began to shoot students at Rangoon University at 6:30 p.m. Hla Shwe watched, cowering in a nearby building, as his friends died. "I heard the shouting," he recalled. "They shot whoever they saw."
It was July 7, 1962, the day rage at the military's recent coup boiled over and a date now seared into the memory of Hla Shwe, who is 75 years old.
"I got the idea that if they used the gun against students, why shouldn't we use guns to fight them?" he said.
When President Barack Obama speaks at Hla Shwe's alma mater Monday, he will be treading on ground heavy with political and historical significance.
Since colonial times, the fight for change in Myanmar has begun on this leafy campus. It was a center of the struggle for independence against Britain and served as a launching point for pro-democracy protests in 1962, 1974, 1988 and 1996. Myanmar's former military junta shut the dormitories in the 1990s fearing further unrest and forced most students to attend classes on satellite campuses on the outskirts of town.
Today, few students walk the broken pathways of what was once one of Asia's finest universities. Birdsong fills the halls of cracked buildings. For many, the school ? which was renamed University of Yangon in 1989 ? has today become a symbol of the country's ruined education system and a monument to a half century of misrule.
"Obama knows very well about the history of Yangon University, I think. This is an enemy place for the authorities," said Hla Shwe, who fought with Communist insurgents and spent 25 years as a political prisoner. "The American government is trying to show in a delicate way that they are not only working for the government but will also take care of the Burmese people."
A movement has been building within Myanmar to reclaim the university's history and restore it to its former glory. Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has repeatedly stressed the importance of upgrading the country's feeble school system and has been fighting in Parliament to repair the campus as part of sweeping educational reforms. U Myint, an adviser to Myanmar's reformist president, Thein Sein, in May wrote an open letter urging the government to fill the campus's empty classrooms with students, reopen the dormitories and reconstruct the Student Union building, which the junta blew up the day after Hla Shwe watched his friends get shot.
"For those who have reservations about our students and young people forming associations like other members of our society, the question we need to ask ourselves is: when we are striving so hard for reconciliation on many fronts, even with foreigners who have not been particularly kind to us, then why not also with our own young people?" wrote U Myint.
The government ramped up education spending in the last budget but critics say it hasn't moved boldly enough to catch up after years of neglect.
"If there is one area where America can help most it is in education," said Thant Myint-U, another presidential adviser and a historian, who is the grandson of the late U.N. Secretary General U Thant. "Myanmar's university system has been decimated after fifty years of army rule. American universities are still second to none. There's no better way for the U.S. to project its soft power than through a real partnership to educate Myanmar's brightest students."
Some repair work on campus began about six months ago, but it is nothing compared with the frenzy of preparations for Obama's arrival.
Inside the school's Convocation Hall, where Obama will deliver his speech, is a riot of staple guns, buzz saws, sandpaper, hammers, spackle, drills, brooms, and fresh paint. But the facade of the building remains cracked with a black crust. Local superstition holds that scrubbing the building clean would unbalance the resigned calm that has settled on the campus and spark another round of unrest.
The curbs, lampposts and buildings that line the main road to the hall have been covered with fresh paint, but elsewhere the campus is a picture of moldering neglect. Broken desks lie stacked in the rain and shunted into unused cobwebby rooms. Teachers in bright blue sarongs walk past buildings sprouting weeds. Stray dogs nap in dilapidated corridors.
"This is a prominent place which taught students to love the truth and to fight for it," said Zaw Zaw Min, who participated in the 1988 student demonstrations and, like his father and his son, served time as a political prisoner. He said before the recent renovations, the state of the campus made him deeply sad. "It was like a damaged city," he said.
There is a real hunger for learning among many young people in Myanmar.
Aung Kaung Myat, 19, studies English at Yangon's University of Foreign Languages. "Everything is messed up," he said. "I don't want to blame my teachers. They are just the things in the system."
Literature class involves reading out loud and poetry is mostly memorization, he said. For books in English, he heads to the well-stocked library of the American Center, a cultural outpost of the U.S. Embassy in Yangon. He got so frustrated at the poor syllabus and teachers who seemed to know little about their subjects that he wrote an angry letter to the Ministry of Education, which he convinced a bunch of his friends to sign. His professor found out before he could send it, called his parents and threatened to expel him, he said.
Still, he'd like to pursue a master's degree at the University of Yangon.
"Maybe it's better than the Yangon University of Foreign Languages," he said.
July San, 23, is pursuing a master's in computer science at the University of Yangon. She said there are only 5 students in her class.
"We want more students. More and more and more! And we don't want to see this long grass anymore," she said, gesturing at the weeds behind her.
"We should thank Obama," she added. At least he managed to get the Convocation Hall spruced up in time for her graduation.
--
Associated Press writer Todd Pitman contributed to this report.
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Protests are a unique method of communication, because they combine three essential components of effective civic speech: participants are publicly counted in them; they publicly convey a message; and they give reasonable evidence that participants are constituents. But soon we?ll have better ways of conveying that information without having to brave the Wisconsin winter.
If you're a dolphin (are you?), the Gulf of Mexico isn't exactly the place you want to be right now. The dolphins there are already dealing with a myriad of health issues stemming from the Deepwater Horizon explosion, and since June, a number of dolphins have washed ashore after having been killed and mutilated. The latest incident happened this past Friday, when researchers in Gulfport, Miss. found a dolphin whose lower jaw had been removed.