Tim Kosinski joined Managed Solution as a Network Engineer on June 1, 2015. Tim started his career in Orange County working for Linksys, where he found a passion for networking. Now having over 15 years of experience as a network and systems engineer with multiple industry certifications with Microsoft, CompTIA and VMware, Tim joins our skilled Systems Integration team.
When Tim's not in the office or hanging out with his 4 year old yellow lab Bodhi, he's either snowboarding, hunting, surfing or off-roading. He's an active member of the Sport Car Club of America racing for the Southern California National Auto-X team, as well as a part time professional snowboard instructor at the Bear Mountain resorts. He's climbed the third tallest peak in California along with the tallest peak in Southern California - San Gorgonio. His first attempt at summiting San Gorgonio was with his snowboard so that he could ride down the cornice bowl. Now that's exciting!
Please join us in welcoming Tim Kosinski to the Managed Solution team!
At Managed Solution, we strive to be the best technology based company by investing in our top assets; our people - CAREERS
Student teams who are functioning on little sleep but plenty of excitement have come from all over the world to compete in this year’s Imagine Cup World Finals.
The annual technology competition officially kicked off Monday, when teams from 33 countries registered, posed for photos and practiced demonstrating the innovative projects that brought them to Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington, as Imagine Cup World Finalists.
Microsoft employees gave teams suggestions on how to improve their presentations, and students got the chance to hear Microsoft Distinguished Engineer James Whittaker teach them about “the art of the pitch.”
Nordstrom, a Seattle-based fashion retailer, is going all in on AWS by running its websites, mobile application, security management tools, ecommerce platform, internal development tools and recommendation engine on the AWS Cloud.
Read more customer success stories or search by industry to learn how Managed Solution helps businesses implement technology productivity solutions.
5 Ways Technology and Horses are Similar: from a Non-Techie - by Elizabeth Thomas, Business Development Manager
Elizabeth Thomas at the River Ridge Charity. Liz has experience training horses and instructing riders and horses who have gone on to win world championships.
As many of you know, I have not always worked in the technology field. Before my technology career began, I worked with horses. I have been involved with the equine industry since I got my first pony Lacey for my seventh birthday. Your probably thinking that’s great and all but how do these relate? Through my time in the tech and equine industries, I have found some similarities and think these are the five biggest ones to share on National I Love Horses Day.
1. They don’t come trained.
How many times have you bought a horse/computer and taken it out of the stall/box and expected it to do what you wanted? Well anybody who has had these expectations knows that it doesn’t exactly work like that. For a horse you have to get it acclimated to its new surroundings and maybe tune it up a bit. For a computer or any new piece of technology, you have to make sure it's set up correctly because what’s the point of getting something new if it doesn’t work appropriately?
2. There are different breeds, levels and the cost can change dramatically.
There is that saying “you get what you pay for,” which is true with technology and horses. Sure there is always the exception to the rule when you find a great computer on sale or you find a bargain horse for a great price, however I’m talking about the investment upfront and overtime.
The upfront investment is obvious, if you pay more you're probably going to get a better horse or piece of technology. But the overtime investment is just as important as the upfront investment. You wouldn’t buy a world champion horse and feed it a bad diet so it doesn’t perform would you? Just like you wouldn’t buy a cloud solution and keep your bandwidth low so it slows down your whole network. The point is you have to keep investing in your investment to keep things running smoothly because after all technology is the engine to your business, just like food is to a horse.
3. They are more fragile then they look.
If you're in the horse industry you’ve had that day when you poll a horse out of the stall and its lame. Just like with technology, you thought you hit the save button but really you cleared out your whole document…
Technology and horses are both fragile, end users/riders need the correct training and guidance to make sure their horse/technology stays sound and healthy!
4. They need medical care.
How many times have you known that there is something wrong with your horse/technology and you just can’t figure it out? Any good horse trainer or business owner should have a great connection with the vet/technology expert. As the horse owner or business owner you’re not supposed to know everything so knowing when to ask for outside assistance is a great trait to have.
5. They never behave when you want them to.
This last one is more of a light statement but true none the less. Horses and technology have a tendency to not behave when you want them too. How many times have you gone to present at a horse show or a big meeting and nothing will work correctly? Or you’re working the last horse of the day/sending the last email and that last horse won’t behave correctly just like your last email won’t send? That is why it is always great to have some outside support whether it is someone to help you work that last horse or that always reliable help desk, outside support is always a great thing.
About the author:
Elizabeth Thomas is an Ohio born Business Development Manager. Her role allows her to advise small to medium sized businesses on technology solutions that align directly with their business objectives to provide the best end to end solution for their employees and customers. Her passion to help others succeed allows her to improve businesses throughout Orange County by helping them leverage technology. She is constantly looking for new opportunities to assist companies in understanding the rapidly paced technology world. Learn more about Elizabeth here.
858-429-3063 ethomas@managedsolution.com LinkedIn
Often, gaining technical expertise is top-of-mind when considering training, and the best practices of project management and improved processes get neglected. IT departments are challenged to create and continuously improve processes that provide highly efficient services with more business value. This is where utilizing ITIL, CBAP, PMP, Six Sigma and ITMLP/ ITMLE best practices is beneficial.
The goals are simple to state, but more complex to deliver, which is why these best practice systems are so important:
Reduce costs to deliver, but improve value of service.
Improve customer satisfaction while remaining aligned to your businesses’ needs.
Offer balanced and flexible service while increasing productivity.
Have services well-designed for current needs, but adaptable to future changes.
In a survey by Iron Mountain 5,500 companies, results reveal that most participating companies are not satisfied with how their core processes run, even though they have formal programs for how they should be managing information. 90% of respondents consider process efficiency imperative to the business goals and overall success of their organization, but 93% were dissatisfied with their business-support processes and are actively trying to improve them.
A research team from Penn State University will try to find out how student learning can be enhanced by applying what's known about self-regulation and learning strategies.
by Jessica Hughes
We know wearable technology gets people moving by quantifying steps and calories burned. What's unknown, however, is whether -- or how -- wearable technology can influence other areas of behavior, like self-regulated learning.
One Penn State University faculty member is teaming with technology staff to seek answers, and to pursue wearable technology as a learning tool. The university's research team will be applying what's known about self-regulation and learning strategies to test how student achievement can be enhanced with the Apple Watch and comparing its use across other technology formats.
"The thing with wearables is that these are highly personal devices, even more personal than your smartphone," said Ben Brautigam, manager of advanced learning projects for Teaching and Learning with Technology (TLT) at Penn State University. "We can take this customized point of view to provide recommendations to students to enrich certain aspects of their learning."
The research is targeting self-regulated learning, or learning that students monitor and control through their knowledge, self-awareness skills, strategies and motivation. These are powerful tools that can change student academic achievement, according to Rayne Sperling, a self-regulation researcher and associate professor of educational psychology at Penn State.
Sperling is heading up the research, and wants to help students not only track their learning progress and remind them to study, but also present course-tailored strategies and content via mini quizzes to elevate student learning.
"I'm really excited about it because I think that there's some versatility here that we haven't seen before in this type of application," said Sperling, who is also director of undergraduate and graduate studies in educational psychology, counseling and special education.
Although there is uncharted territory, like the FitBit, the university's TLT unit plans to push data points together in interesting ways for dashboard visualizations that help students reflect on their learning progress, said Bart Pursel, who coordinates faculty programs within TLT, one of which is its fellows program.
Sperling's research joined forces with TLT when this spring she was chosen as one of five TLT Fellows. The program brings together technology staff with faculty to pursue cutting-edge technology projects, and then bring successful tech efforts to the larger Penn State community.
But even before the large-scale research begins, Sperling is planning how best to design and conduct the research, and is pinning down the right learning prompts to help students in regulating their learning.
"One way that prompts can support students’ awareness of their own learning is through modeling the types of questions students should ask themselves," Sperling explained. "Further, our scaffolds can prompt awareness of whether [the student] understands content and will also provide strategy suggestions."
The strategies Sperling will use are backed by research that prove they facilitate learning. One example is giving students in a calculus course who are studying related weight problems a specific prompt, such as a drawing strategy, and describing how it works and the best way to employ it, she said.
In addition to piloting these concepts, this summer Sperling is surveying students' existing self-regulation strategies and experimenting with the amount of learning support needed to enhance their learning.
The final scaffolds will be presented in a large-scale study to student volunteers in fall STEM courses so the team can look across technology formats and students to see what effects the formats have on self-regulated learning and student achievement, and when.
"My guess is that depending on the nature of the type of prompt or type of scaffold that we're providing for them, it's going to vary what sort of medium is going to best reach students," Sperling said.
Another important foundational issue is conducting design experiments to gauge how best to present the learning supports and to receive student feedback. With the Apple Watch, Brautigam said, there is a lot of flexibility; for instance, students can respond to prompts simply with a "yes" or "no" button, using sliders or meters to gauge their responses, or by replying with a voice message. Even if students dismiss a prompt, this still gives the research team information, he said.
"We're trying to find the simplest way possible to get a lot of information," said Brautigam.
Ideally these prompts will be managed in one place, but delivered across various formats including the Apple Watch, smartphones and the university's Web-based learning management system, as well as other wearable devices in the future, he said.
Meanwhile, Sperling's work is an extension of Brautigam's, who manages TLT's advanced learning projects group, which designs and develops new technologies and has experience building applications on Apple devices.
The self-regulation research also builds upon earlier learning analytics research conducted by TLT with input by Sperling. During that study, students tracked their individual progress and compared it to classmates' progress and behaviors, and saw behaviors correlated to higher achievement, such as regularly signing onto the university's course management system.
The new study will culminate in the ability to make predictions about which types of students are best able to use which types of technologies, and also how the tools are supporting their academic achievements, said Sperling.
Up until now, much of the academic research has been limited to other technology devices, like phones, where students were asked for motivational feedback and didn't receive specific learning tips or scaffolds, like Sperling plans to use.
In the end, the success of wearable-technology-mediated learning on a larger scale may depend on the adoption rate of the technology across the student body. But if it's anything like the iPhone, there may be something to it.
"If it does become prevalent, I think we'll have a leg up here," Brautigam said, "because we've been sort of investing in this and exploring this since the inception."
For Sperling, it will be interesting to check back on her research a year from now, she said. "It's possible that some really little prompt could change the way that [students] engage with the academic content."
Tesla Partners With Battery Researcher to Lower Costs By Mike Ramsey
Nova Scotia professor Jeff Dahn is known for work innovating lithium batteries
Tesla Motors Inc. has locked a leading advanced battery researcher into an exclusive partnership designed to help the Palo Alto, Calif., electric-car maker sharply lower the cost of its batteries.
Jeff Dahn, a professor at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia known for his work innovating lithium-ion batteries like those Tesla uses to power its Model S sedan, will cooperate with Tesla researchers. Now working on a project with 3M Co. , he will enter a research partnership with Tesla when his current work is completed.
Financial terms weren’t available, but Tesla said it would sponsor Mr. Dahn’s research efforts roughly 6,400 kilometers from Northern California in return for his help solving Tesla’s cost problem. JB Straubel, Tesla’s chief technologist, said this week that lithium-ion battery costs need to come down significantly in coming years so the auto maker can offer lower-priced vehicles.
Tesla is the largest user of lithium-ion batteries in the world, and its cost of between $20,000 and $25,000 to produce a battery for the 85-kilowatt-hour Model S sedan is considered to be the lowest cost for a battery of that size. Based on Mr. Straubel’s expectation, battery costs will need to be cut in half for Tesla to meet a sales target of a cumulative one million vehicles by 2020.
“At this point, we don’t believe that range is the thing slowing EV growth. It’s cost,” Mr. Straubel said in an interview. “If we had twice the range, it would be more range than people needed. We are definitely on a road map to achieve half the cost.”
Mr. Dahn will focus on trying to put more voltage into batteries without damaging their longevity and reducing the cost of materials.
He patented a nickel-cobalt-manganese chemistry for battery cathodes that is now commonly used in the industry. He is also the leading researcher on why lithium-ion batteries fail.
“I am very excited in putting our tools to work to help improve the energy density and longevity of their cells,” Mr. Dahn said in a joint interview with Mr. Straubel.
Tesla’s Nevada factory is expected to produce 50 gigawatt hours of battery packs a year. In 2014, all the lithium-ion battery plants in the world only produced 30 gigawatt hours.
It was Tesla’s factory goals that attracted Mr. Dahn. “Once I heard of that I went to Tesla and wanted to know if they would be interested in sponsoring our work.”
One of his areas of expertise is silicon anodes, an alternative to graphite, which is more expensive.
In addition to improvements in chemistry, Tesla is aiming to reduce its battery costs by bringing in-house the suppliers and processing of lithium, cobalt, graphite and nickel. Experts estimate that materials make up 60% of battery costs.
“We are making steady progress on all that. Want to be cautious and take our time and make sure we have partners that have the right road map,” said Mr. Straubel. “I am happy with where those internal discussions are at.”
Venkat Viswanathan, a Carnegie Mellon Universitybattery researcher, said news of the partnership has swept through elite research institutions.
“It’s a pretty big deal. The partnership with Jeff makes perfect sense. He is a true pioneer in the field,” Mr. Viswanathan said.
If you’re one of the millions of users of a Samsung Galaxy phone, you might be a potential target for a malicious hacker.
A report released on 6/17/15 by NowSecure, a security firm located in Chicago, found that a glitch in Swift, the keyboard software used by default on all Samsung Galaxy devices could allow a remote attacker to compromise your phone.
This particular bug makes the phone vulnerable to what is known as a “man in the middle” attack. The Swift software consistently sends requests to a server, checking for updates. To someone with the right knowhow, though, it’s possible to impersonate Swift’s server and send through software that can be used to gain control of the device.
The main problem with this vulnerability is that there’s no real solution. The Swift keyboard is so integrated into Samsung’s software that it cannot be removed or disabled — even if it is switched out with a different keyboard app. Steering clear of unsecured Wi-Fi networks will make you less likely to be targeted, but it won’t render you invulnerable.
Swift runs with elevated permissions, giving it pretty much free rein around the phone. This means that a hacker that worms his way into it can also access the Galaxy’s microphone and camera, track the user’s location or listen to their calls. They can even install apps.
NowSecure claims to have made Samsung and Google’s Android team aware of this vulnerability in late 2014, and Samsung reportedly has made a patch available to network providers. It’s not clear, though, whether providers have pushed out the patch to users yet. Many networks have a record of being notoriously slow to push through updates and security patches, and NowSecure’s tests found a number of Galaxy phones on different carriers were still vulnerable as of Tuesday.
If you’re of a more technical bent, you may be interested in seeing the details of NowSecure’s report on their blog. If you’re of a less technical bent, you might want to check with your carrier and try to avoid insecure Wi-Fi networks.
Article by: Andrew Lumby, MSN
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If you’re one of the millions of users of a Samsung Galaxy phone, you might be a potential target for a malicious hacker.
