May 2014 Newsletter

1
IDS
May 2014 Newsletter
1
MAY
2014
A Tennis Ball, A Circle,
And The Number
30,000
WHAT IS HAPPENING
IN I.T INDUSTRY?
LEAD
Whats
In This
Month
MAY
2014
Newsletter
E-MAIL
I am
Dropbox CEO Drew Houstons
cheat sheet for entrepreneurs
02 03
Until Microsoft patches latest zero-
day, run a diferent browser,
says cyber watchdog
04
The top fve things before
sending any important
business email.
WHAT IS HAPPENING
IN IDS?
www.idigitalsystems.com
Us-Cert To Americans:
Stop Browsing With IE
IDS Announcement
Happy Birthday
Welcome New Employee
5 Easy Ways to
Write Better
Emails
idigitalsystems.com
May 2014 Newsletter
2
Find your tennis ball
I was going to say work on what you love, but thats
not really it. Its so easy to convince yourself that you
love what youre doingwho wants to admit that they
dont? When I think about it, the happiest and most
successful people I know dont just love what they do,
theyre obsessed with solving an important problem,
something that maters to them.
They remind me of a dog chasing a tennis ball: their
eyes go a litle crazy, the leash snaps and they go
bounding of, plowing through whatever gets in the
way. I have some other friends who also work hard and
get paid well in their jobs, but they complain as if they
were shackled to a desk.
The problem is a lot of people dont fnd their tennis
ball right away
Be deeply, brutally honest with yourself. Is what you
are doing fulflling? Is it challenging? Are you moving
mountains or are you making mountains out of mole
hills? Stop the self-deceit. Create a positve cognitve
reward loop. Instead of internally chastsing yourself for
being conscious of the fact that you are wastng your
tme with a dead-end projectreward yourself. Tell
yourself that you have just moved one step in the right
directon by not ratonalizing away a poor choice. It is
beter that you are conscious of the fact that you have
room to improve than to falsely convince yourself that
you are where you want to be.
If you are unhappy and unfulflled, recognize that and
use it to fuel you toward where you want to be. Dont
convince yourself that you are doing what you love if
you arent.
Build your circle
They say that youre the average of the 5 people you
spend the most tme with. Think about that for a
minute: who would be in your circle of 5?
Dont setle for anywhere else. Meetng my heroes and
learning from them gave me a huge advantage. Your
heroes are part of your circle toofollow them. If the
real acton is happening somewhere else, move.
Get Started Now
The last trap you might fall into afer school is getng
ready. Dont get me wrong: learning is your top
priority, but now the fastest way to learn is by doing.
If you have a dream, you can spend a lifetme studying
and planning and getng ready for it. What you should
be doing is getng started.
There are 30,000 days in your life
Bill Gatess frst company made sofware for trafc
lights. Steve Jobss frst company made plastc whistles
that let you make free phone calls. Both failed, but its
hard to imagine they were too upset about it. Thats
my favorite thing that changes today. You no longer
carry around a number indicatng the sum of all your
mistakes. From now on, failure doesnt mater: you
only have to be right once.
I used to worry about all kinds of things, but I can
remember the moment when I calmed down. I had
just moved to San Francisco, and one night I couldnt
sleep so I was on my laptop. I read something online
that said There are 30,000 days in your life. At frst I
didnt think much of it, but on a whim I tabbed over to
the calculator. I type in 24 tmes 365 andoh my God,
Im almost 9,000 days down. What the hell have I been
doing?
So thats how 30,000 ended up on the cheat sheet.
That night, I realized there are no warmups, no practce
rounds, no reset butons. Every day were writng a few
more words of a story.
Think about the day you lived today. Would you want
to repeat that day 10,000 more tmes? How much did
you pack in? How much did you learn? What type of
relatonships did you build?
Your life is just a collecton of days. It is much more
manageable to think of it that way. How is tomorrow
going to help you get you to where you want to be next
year?
a tennis ball, a circle, and the number 30,000
Dropbox CEO Drew Houstons cheat sheet for entrepreneurs - His advice to graduates at his alma mater
LEAD
Drew Houston is the founder and CEO of Dropbox,
an online backup and storage service recently valued
at 4 billion dollars.
I am IDS
May 2014 Newsletter
3
The U.S. governments top cyber-security agency is
telling Internet Explorer (IE) users they should consider
running a diferent browser untl Microsof fxes a
critcal vulnerability.
The U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-
CERT) added its voice to the growing chorus of security
organizatons and companies that have warned people
of the faw, which afects IE6, IE7, IE8, IE9, IE10 and
IE11.
US-CERT is part of the U.S. Department of Homeland
Security, and regularly issues security warnings and
threat alerts.
US-CERT recommends that users and administrators
enable Microsof EMET where possible and consider
employing an alternatve Web browser untl an ofcial
update is available, the agency said in a Sunday
statement.
EMET refers to Enhanced Mitgaton Experience
Toolkit, an ant-exploit utlity that lets customers beef
up security defenses on select applicatons.
Windows XP users are especially at risk to exploits
of this IE vulnerability, because they will not receive
patches for IE6, IE7 or IE8. Microsof will be writng
patches for all three versions, but will not ofer them to
Windows XP customers; it terminated support for the
12-year-old OS on April 8.
Security experts had warned Windows XP users that
they would be targeted by hackers afer support ended.
They believed that cyber criminals would quickly fnd
faws by examining Microsofs patches -- using a
before-and-afer code comparison -- in those products,
like IE, that contnue to receive updates on other
editons of Windows.
This happened a bit quicker than I expected, but it is
a sign of things to come, said Wolfgang Kandek, chief
technology ofcer of Qualys, in a Monday blog. Since
you will not get a patch for your operatng system,
deregistering the DLL will be your best opton to defend
your systems.
Kandek was talking about another suggeston from
Microsof, that users deregister the vgx.dll fle.
That .dll (dynamic-link library) is one of the modules
that renders VML (vector markup language) within
Windows.
VML is only infrequently used on the Web,
so disabling it in IE is the best way to prevent
exploitaton, Kandek contended.
Instructons for deregistering vgx.dll can be found in
Microsofs security advisory for the IE vulnerability.
US-CERT rarely goes as far as to recommend that
Americans switch browsers because of a bug, but it
has done so in the past. Last month, for example, the
organizaton said Windows XP users would be safer if
they stopped running IE.
US-CERT to Americans: Stop browsing with IE
Until Microsoft patches latest zero-day, run a diferent browser, says cyber watchdog
WHAT IS HAPPENING IN IT INDUSTRY?
KEEP
CALM
AND
DONT USE
INTERNET EXPLORER
Gregg Keizer covers Microsof, security issues, Apple,
Web browsers and general technology breaking news
for Computerworld. Follow Gregg on Twiter at @
gkeizer, on Google+ or subscribe to Gregg's RSS feed.
His email address is gkeizer@computerworld.com.
I am IDS
By Gregg Keizer / computerworld.com
May 2014 Newsletter
4
1. Keep it short.
I believe it was Mark Twain who said, If Id had more
tme, I would have writen you a shorter email.
Regardless, keep your word count low. Just as you keep
your tweets under 140 characters, keep your best emails
under 150 words. (For comparisons sake, this column
runs about 700 words.)
Heres a master example. If you ever have a complaint
about Amazon, youre welcome to email Jef Bezos
directly, at jef@amazon.com. If he in turn thinks it merits
a response, hell forward it to relevant employees with
a single additon--a queston mark--which according
to author Brad Stone, prompts recipients to react as
though theyve discovered a tcking bomb.
2. Be direct.
Get to the point. Delete adjectves and adverbs. Its
very unnecessary to add many additonal words that
make your most important emails seem overly lengthy.
(See what I mean?) Otherwise, you risk tl;dr.
If you cant follow rule No. 1 and keep your emails
short, at least include a brief summary at the top, and
indicate whatever acton is required. (In the Army, we
called this a BLUF statement--botom line, upfront.
3. Reply quickly.
Last year, Snapchat CEO Even Spiegel tweeted some of
the frst emails hed traded with Mark Zuckerberg before
turning down a reported $3 billion takeover ofer. Most
interestng from these is how short and fast these
introductory messages were.
Zuckerbergs frst 46-word email came at 6:23 p.m.;
Spiegel replied a half hour later with 19 words (plus
an emotcon). Zuckerberg replied again with 14 words
just three hours later. Even though the deal didnt
come together in the end, theres a clear lesson: When
something is important, reply fast.
4. Reread before sending. And do it twice.
Speaking of emails that werent supposed to be public,
when Steve Jobs died, one of Samsungs top sales
executves emailed fellow company leaders to suggest
seizing the moment to atack the iPhone. Within a
month, they pounced with commercials mocking people
who waited in lines for new Apple products.
While it was a smart strategy, it looks a litle skeevy
now, which is probably why these emails are marked
Highly Confdental--Atorneys Eyes Only. You can
read them here. The lesson: Reread your emails before
sending them--a task that is much easier, of course, if
youve kept them short to begin with.
5. Add the address last.
You may have notced that I have a very common name.
(Ill wait here while you scroll up and look at the byline
on this artcle.) A few years ago, I was negotatng to buy
a company, it turned out that one of the top executves
of the target company actually had the same name, with
only a middle inital separatng us. As a result, some
of the people on their side of the deal kept ccing me
by mistake on confdental emails in which they talked
about their negotatng positon. (I let them know, but it
kept happening.)
The deal didnt work out, but it led me to learn an
important lesson: Make darn sure that you double-
check the addressees on any important email you send.
Even beter, dont address an email untl youve fnished
reading and editng it. Theres nothing like accidentally
hitng the send buton too early, and fring of your
unfnished thoughts to an important business contact.
5 Easy Ways to Write Better Emails
Email has been around forever, yet few of us know how to send good messages.
Here are the top fve things you should think about before sending any important business email.
E-MAIL
By BILL MURPHY JR. / inc.com
BILL MURPHY JR. is a journalist, ghostwriter, and entrepreneur.
He is the author of Breakthrough Entrepreneurship (with Jon
Burgstone) and is a former reporter for The Washington Post.
@BillMurphyJr
I am IDS
May 2014 Newsletter
5
What is
Happening
in IDS?
What is Happening in IDS?
MAY
2014
HOLIDAYS
Development Team
successfully completed
the Pandridge SCM
clouding service.
IDS will be having a
company dinner on
Thursday, 5/15 @ 6:30PM
at Dave & Busters.
Address: Palisades Center
(4661 Palisades Center Dr,
West Nyack, New York
10994)
May 20
Infrastructure Team
Manager
Best Wishes!
COMPANY DINNER COMPANY DINNER COMPLETED
SUNG HYUN CHO HAN HEE PARK
TAE HWAN AN
Infrastructure Member
Welcome!
NEW EMPLOYEE
May 14
Development Team
Associate Consultant
Best Wishes!
HAPPY
BIRTHDAY
SUNG HO PARK
Infrastructure Member
Welcome!
NEW EMPLOYEE
MEMORIAL DAY
May 26
The synergy from your dedication, efort,
and being team player, drives us to success.
Success is Doing What
Everyone Says is
Impossible
Success is Doing What
Everyone Says is
Impossible