BroncoDirect is the integrated information system for campus administrative services by PeopleSoft.

It was also a the name of a new service that I was going to launch next year via www.bronco.co.uk so you can image my surprise when my alerts system starting telling me that people a looking for bronco direct. so what would you do go head to head or rebrand ??

DaveN

Every time I think about this I remember the day I was sat in a client meeting and data protection came up, the owner of the business had just told me that they have a zero tolerance policy on storages devices been brought into the company, “No USB sticks or External Drives here Dave” he said, has I looked at my Smartphone I quickly turned to him and bet him lunch that I could find someone in the company with ability to steal data.

I found :

1 Ipod
4 Smartphones
2 Digital cameras
1 Digital voice recorder

and this was in the office next to the meeting room and in plain view connected to the computers, not the whole company or hidden in draws and handbags, I told him the issue he had was all his computers had USB and Card readers, so nearly any device that had any kind of storage could be used to steal data, I could see the fear in his eyes he had tried to ensure that the data in house was protected by stopping people bringing in storage devices in fact it was totally wide open.. you could even send zipped files to hotmail, the email server logged all data transaction but the port 80 was not monitored !!

What I told him was simple :

Know what files are on the internal servers and who has access. the designer shouldn’t be able to get to the accounts data so structure the servers correctly and add some document tracking, to record who accesses what. it doesn’t stop the theft but at least you have some suspects to point fingers at. Dispose of what you no longer need or at least archive the data to a secure server which only authorised management have access.

How do you protect your data ? or are you like me too small to care ;)
DaveN

Ok a couple of things, Firstly, Not sure if I posted that I bought a chunk of the company or not, anyway I did quite a while ago now and while I have been quiet about what’s been happening behind the scenes the development guys emailed me that we should have RC2 ready for the start of 2009 .. awesome !

So what’s in the new update:

Setup and installation is made even simpler via a “1 click” install system for the 20+ most common software systems (wordpress, VBulletin, etc..)

All rules are automatically syndicated from our firewallscript servers, so if a new exploit is released for wordpress, we can push the new rule out to all our users instantly.

Live traffic spy (like digg spy) ,

Easy IP banning and proxy detection with a simple way to block.

Anyway I will post when I get RC2 live and maybe give a away a few copies :)

DaveN

When I got offered the chance to go to the MrSkin Offices in Chicago, it took like two minutes to make my mind up, drink my beer and get my coat ;)

If you haven’t heard of MrSkin well here is my 3 minute breakdown. Remember the first time you were watching a video and you jumped out of your chair ran to the video recorder and had to rewind the tape, because there it was your first ever nipple slip or a side breast shot, yep I’m talking about that teenage adolescent that never left me, seriously it didn’t !

One of my all time favourite movies is “Porkys” … and guess what poster I spotted in the MrSkin Offices

Anyway MrSkin is like a Porn Savant. Name any actress and MrSkin can tell you if, when, where she’s popped a titty or flashed her arse, the man is a Hero. If you don’t believe me test him here on twitter @MrSkin that will most probably get me into trouble some how lol.

but the thing that blows me away was the fact the meeting room is full of every DVD with a Titty or a nude shot of pretty much every actress in the world. If Jim McBride (MrSkin) hasn’t got it then imo it never happened!

Anyway MrSkin has a blog with some awesome but NSFW stuff… I so wish I was 14 again :)

Mr Skins Top 10 Hot and Cold Babes and Mr Skin’s Top 20 Celebrity Nude Scenes of 2008

I can’t quite believe that it has come to this … that Woolworths, a British high street institution for the last 99 years, is about to shut its doors for good. Many people blame the “credit crunch” for Woolies going pop, but the business has been badly run for years and slowly lost its share of the market. From tomorrow they will start the Closing Down sale where every last jelly teddy from the pick n mix has to be sold to try to claw back as much as possible for the creditors.

The problem with Woolies is that it doesn’t focus on any particular sector, it does a bit of everything, but in smaller towns and cities such as Ripon where I live, Woolies is that general all purpose store that keeps you shopping locally. About 12 months ago Ripon lost its Choices / Blockbusters during the takeover due to a dispute over the owed rent on the building, so the only place that we had to buy DVD’s & games locally was Woolies. I would often get really annoyed though as you would find what you wanted on the shelves at Woolies, but once you got to the counter you were told it was out of stock… (no wonder they went under)

But in Ripon, Woolies provides a valuable resource for kids school uniform (now where will we get those black PE pumps from?), kids toys, pick n mix, the odd household item, birthday cards and lots more that we have all taken for granted. Now what will be left… lots of big empty stores on the high street where Woolies used to be and a lack of the “all-in-one shop” that we all use.

Then just announced yesterday the temporary deal done with the banks by JJB Sports to allow them a longer period to repay their debts of nearly £60 million … so will they be next to abandon the high streets?