Tech News
-
Corsair Carbide Series 600Q EATX Case Review @ [H]
*shudder*
I do like their quote though.
"Minimalist style" and "minimalist noise," is how Corsair describes its new Carbide Series 600Q computer chassis. While some might prefer a case that looks like it was designed by Voltron, Corsair goes the opposite direction with the 600Q and is looking to check all the boxes that make a chassis desirable; easy to use, quiet, and cool.
I'm not sure EATX and Minimalist go well together but "Big Black Box" seems fitting.
-
Sound Blaster Roar 2 @ LanOC Reviews
Sound Blaster, now that is a name I haven't heard in a long time. Well, truth is the name is quite common in the motherboard world. Seems everyone wants to add that Creative logo for the illusion of better sales, it's just software people.
.When it comes to a true Sound Blaster audio device I'm like whoa!
Over the past few years it seems like everyone has been jumping into the portable bluetooth speaker market. You have trendy brands like beats pushing it heavily and even smaller companies bringing them out to slip into the market as well. Well Creative Labs got in fairly early with the original Sound Blaster Roar but I never took a look at it. Frankly portable audio isn’t exactly something that fits in my life very much, I’m typically in my car if outside of the house and in the house I have more than enough to output sound including the Sound Blaster X7 that I recently reviewed. That said a while back Creative Labs asked if I would be interested in checking out the Roar 2 and I figured it was about time I took a look. I’ve been using it around the house and whatnot for a while and now I can finally sit down and dive into its features and talk a little about my experience. So hang on, let’s take a close look at the Sound Blaster Roar 2.
So, it is like a boombox?. When they finally cross over to build a digital alarm clock sign me up!
-
LiveHive Sales Acceleration Platform Wins in 2015 Top Sales & Marketing Awards
SAN JOSE, CALIF., Dec. 23, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- LiveHive, Inc., the industry's most comprehensive sales acceleration platform, today announced that it has been recognized with three awards in the sixth annual Top Sales & Marketing Awards. For the second year in a row, LiveHive has won in the Top Sales & Marketing Sales Productivity Tool category.
Sponsored by Top Sales World, the awards program honors companies and individuals whose work or solutions have had the biggest impact in the sales industry over the past year. Judged by a panel of sales experts, LiveHive was awarded:
* First place, Top Sales & Marketing Video – "The Closer"
* Silver medal, Top Sales & Marketing Sales Productivity Tool – LiveHive Sales Acceleration Platform
* Bronze medal, Top Sales & Marketing eBook – "10 Ways to Gain a Competitive Edge in 2015"
"We're extremely proud to have the innovation and value delivered by LiveHive's sales acceleration platform recognized by a panel of the industry's leading sales experts," said Suresh Balasubramanian, CEO of LiveHive, Inc. "These awards are the perfect ending to what has been a phenomenal year for LiveHive, and we congratulate all the winners in this year's awards program."
About LiveHiveHeadquartered in San Jose, California, LiveHive, Inc. delivers a complete sales acceleration platform that empowers sales leaders with deep buyer-based engagement analytic insights into the effectiveness of their team's sales efforts. With LiveHive's comprehensive analytics, sales organizations can personalize and automate their follow-up to get more time in the day to focus on building sales relationships and accelerating sales.
LiveHive helps sales leaders get insight into reps' email, calling and follow-up activity, ramp up new reps to full productivity faster, and ensure consistent messaging across the organization, empowering them to build a successful repeatable sales process. LiveHive's SmartPath automated email sequencing, and award-winning engagement analytics let sales reps focus on core selling activity and sales leaders quickly understand the effectiveness of their sales teams' efforts. For more information, visit www.livehive.com and follow @LiveHive.
CONTACT: Media Contact: Jennifer Dignum 650-814-2727 (cell) 408-453-6000 (office) jennifer@livehive.com @LiveHive
-
Montgomery County (MD) Adds Bill CAPture with Utility Bill Management Implementation
by Barry Kroeker
STATE COLLEGE, Pa., Dec. 22, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The government of Montgomery County (MD) has successfully enrolled in an electronic utility bill processing program provided by their new utility bill management software vendor.
The County acquired software from EnergyCAP, Inc. in August for utility bill management for all Montgomery County facilities. EnergyCAP will enable the County to measure, track, and report its utilities cost and consumption and to streamline energy accounting processes.
The Bill CAPture service, effective this month, will enable the County to more quickly access and process utility data. The new process will provide more timely energy analysis and reporting, and facilitate bill record-keeping, data sharing, and payments.
"Enabling greater visibility to energy data, facilitating benchmarking of County facilities, and streamlining utility bill management is core to the County's efforts to conserve energy and lower operating costs," said Eric Coffman, Chief of the Montgomery County Office of Energy and Sustainability.
The EnergyCAP software will be used to track approximately 750 utility meters and over 400 Montgomery County buildings. Working with the County's ten principal energy vendors, EnergyCAP's Bill CAPture service will import data from the County's monthly paper and electronic utility bills into the EnergyCAP database.
In addition to enabling resource savings, EnergyCAP will allow the County to easily incorporate its portfolio of facilities into the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's portfolio manager software. Montgomery County was the first County in the United States to mandate energy performance benchmarking for public and private facilities, and the County is leading by example by incorporating its facilities.
"Montgomery County government joins a number of city and county governments in the Maryland-Virginia area that are highly dedicated to energy conservation, energy efficiency, and to optimizing how they handle their utility data," said Steve Heinz, Founder and CEO of EnergyCAP, Inc. "It is encouraging to see so many government organizations practicing good stewardship of their resources by implementing EnergyCAP software and services."
The County purchased EnergyCAP through a bridge contract with another EnergyCAP client, the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority. The Montgomery County implementation process could be completed early in 2016.
Montgomery County serves 1,000,000 residents; its website is http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov.
EnergyCAP's website is http://www.EnergyCAP.com.
About EnergyCAP, Inc.For more than 30 years, the award-winning EnergyCAP software has helped 10,000 energy managers to track more than $25 billion in energy spending. EnergyCAP utility bill and energy management software helps users get value from their utility bills and meter data. Software features include bill entry (manual, spreadsheet import, and EDI), bill tracking, an optional AP/GL interface, customizable bill approval workflow, audits, rate schedules, interval and production data tracking, cost avoidance (M &V), issue tracking, submeter tracking, virtual meter formulas, re-billing, greenhouse gas tracking, 300+ reports, automated ENERGY STAR building data submittal, building benchmarking, and graphical PowerViews. Discover why EnergyCAP is America's #1 utility bill management software at http://www.EnergyCAP.com.
CONTACT: Chris Heinz Chief Marketing Officer EnergyCAP, Inc. Phone: 877.327.3702 x24
-
Legal Software Company Aderant Announces Next Generation of Business Intelligence for Law Firms
ATLANTA, Dec. 18, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today legal software company Aderant unveiled the next generation of business intelligence software, Aderant Spotlight™ Analytics. Spotlight represents a dramatic departure from prior BI products by enabling far greater adoption, deeper analysis and, most importantly, immediate action via Impact TechnologyTM. Earlier this year at ILTACON, Aderant EVP Product & Strategy Mike Barry discussed Aderant's belief that business intelligence technology is a critical tool for firms to continuously improve operations and boost profitability.
The 2015 ILTA Technology Industry Survey reported that 51% of law firms have invested in business intelligence, putting the legal industry ahead of the general business community. However, law firms have struggled to successfully adopt and fully utilize BI technology. The reasons include: complexity of the software, difficulty in data integration and the inability to take direct action. Firms tell of BI delivering interesting information but failing to trigger actions that result in business improvements. Aderant designed Spotlight to specifically address these challenges.
Based on interviews and usability sessions with over 100 law firms, Aderant developed an entirely new user interface based on easy-to-use configurable screen tiles. Aderant Product Manager Derek Schutz commented, "Our design goal was to enable anyone at the firm to use BI. In the past, only a few highly technical individuals within the firm could use BI tools. Spotlight enables non-technical staff to use and leverage the power of business intelligence technology."
That ease enables wider staff adoption of BI, but it's Spotlight's Impact Technology that will drive law firm managers' desire to use business intelligence. Spotlight Analytics shines a light on specific business performance issues and with just a click of the Impact Technology button, Spotlight links into the Aderant Expert module for the user to take immediate corrective action. For example, via set thresholds and color coding, Spotlight will identify a potential problem area in billable hours. The Impact Technology button will take the user directly from Spotlight into the specific area within the Expert Time & Billing system to immediately understand the issue and take corrective action.
Chris Cartrett, SVP Global Sales noted, "Every day we work with sophisticated and ambitious law firms that want to pursue continuous improvement and increase profitability. But, they often struggle to find the right technology that can create real business results for their firm. We believe that Spotlight can be the next generation tool that helps them create short term and long term business improvement."
"Aderant wants to work with law firms seeking real change and profitability growth," said Aderant CEO Chris Giglio. "The legal industry is undergoing tremendous change and Aderant intends to remain a partner for firms that embrace change as an opportunity to grow."
About Aderant
Aderant, headquartered in Atlanta, is a global provider of comprehensive business management software for law and other professional services firms. With a 35-year history as a global industry leader, Aderant supports nearly 3,200 clients in more than 30 countries, representing 77 of the top 100 Global Law Firms and more than 88 percent of the Am Law 200. Aderant maintains a combined customer retention rate of more than 95 percent and a customer support Net Promoter Score of 81. Aderant's complete suite of solutions includes: business development, calendar/docket matter management with built-in court rules, practice and financial management, time and billing, case management, document management, and business intelligence. More information is available at www.aderant.com.
Aderant and Aderant Expert are registered trademarks of Aderant Holdings, Inc. All other trademarks mentioned herein are the properties of their respective owners including, if so indicated, Aderant Holdings, Inc. or its subsidiaries.
CONTACT: Megan Hall Aderant Public Relations, North America megan.hall@aderant.com 404-889-8553
-
Largest third-party data center in eastern U.S. to locate in Grand Rapids, Michigan
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., Dec. 17, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today The Right Place, Inc., and Las Vegas-based Switch, confirmed the company will establish a new $5 billion SUPERNAP data center in Gaines Township in greater Grand Rapids. The final decision coming after legislation approved by both the Michigan House and Senate and submitted to Governor Rick Snyder for signature.
These state legislative changes not only welcome Switch to Michigan, but also enable the state to compete for the attraction of future high-tech companies. This legislation, and Switch's decision to locate in the state, firmly establishes Michigan in the epicenter of the U.S. data center industry.
"Today, Michigan not only welcomes Switch, it welcomes an entire industry to the state," said Birgit Klohs, President and CEO, The Right Place, Inc. "I often remind our partners in the region that economic development is a team sport. This project epitomizes this. Without the assistance and support of countless elected officials, business and community leaders, Switch would not be coming to West Michigan."
The Right Place played an integral role in the business attraction process, bringing together private business leaders and public elected leaders to ensure this project became a reality. The organization partnered with several key leaders, including The Grand Rapids Area Chamber and The Right Place Board of Directors. This project would not have been possible without the strong support and leadership of Senate Majority Leader Arlan Meekhof, Speaker Kevin Cotter, Representative Rob VerHeulen, Representative Ken Yonker and Representative Winnie Brinks, as well as the sponsors of the legislation.
The new SUPERNAP data center will be located at the former Steelcase Pyramid in Gaines Township, establishing the beginning of a 2 million square-foot state-of-the-art, high-tech campus in West Michigan. The project will create over 1,000 badged IT professionals at the site. The campus will also create numerous local construction jobs over the estimated 10-year build out of the entire project. A majority of Switch's subcontractors will be engaged from the local workforce.
The SUPERNAP Michigan will be the largest data center campus in the eastern U.S. and will serve the company's current clients in geographic redundancy and new clients with national connectivity. The company's clients include major internet companies and several Fortune-level enterprises. The campus will provide transformational infrastructure and serve the eastern U.S. by offering the only Uptime Institute rated Tier IV Gold carrier-neutral colocation data center location outside of the SUPERNAP facilities in the western U.S.
Switch's 1,000 clients include eBay, Intel, Shutterfly, Machine Zone (Game of War), Amgen, Dreamworks, HP, Intuit, Hitachi, JP Morgan Chase, Sony, Boeing Cisco, EMC, Google, Amazon, Time Warner, Eli Lilly, Activision (Call of Duty) and Fox Broadcasting, among many others.
Why Nevada and Michigan?
The Nevada SUPERNAP Prime data centers are the largest independent tech ecosystems in the world. Switch builds its SUPERNAP Prime interactive, super-scale facilities at inland locations that are still within the millisecond protocols needed to safely serve major markets without the obvious increased risk of natural disasters associated with coastline locations. Switch's enterprise business clients will collectively place billions of dollars of equipment at these selected Prime hubs, which is why geographic safety is critical.
The Michigan SUPERNAP Prime would join those ranks and share the infrastructure attributes as well as follow the Switch site selection criteria. SUPERNAP Las Vegas is 7 milliseconds from Los Angeles and 14 milliseconds from San Francisco. SUPERNAP Tahoe Reno is 6 milliseconds from Silicon Valley and 14 milliseconds from San Diego. SUPERNAP Michigan will be 2 milliseconds from Chicago and 14 milliseconds from New York. Nevada is in the Pacific time zone and Michigan is in the Eastern time zone and the prime campus locations have low millisecond access to the largest people hubs in the U.S without being burdened with the high power prices, taxes and earthquake/hurricane risks associated with those cities.
Michigan's New Data Center LegislationSenate Bills 616 and 617, sponsored by Senators Tonya Schuitmaker and Pete MacGregor, exempt all data centers and co-located businesses from the sales and use tax on data center equipment for 20 years. The legislation applies specifically to those companies in which data centers operations are the primary source of business, generating 75% or more of its revenue from the operation and business of a data center. The legislation no longer includes a personal property tax abatement, as local communities currently have the ability to exempt taxes on a business per local review.
About The Right Place, Inc.The Right Place, Inc. is a regional non-profit economic development organization founded in 1985 and supported through investments from the private and public sector. Its mission is to promote economic growth in the areas of quality employment, productivity and technology in West Michigan by developing jobs through leading business retention, expansion and attraction efforts. For more information visit: www.rightplace.org
About SwitchSwitch is a transformational technology idea engine corporation. It was founded by Rob Roy in 2000 to be the platform for all of his sustainability-focused patents and differentiated technologies.
About SUPERNAPRecognized as the best data centers in the world, SUPERNAP Tier IV Gold data centers are the physical manifestation of Rob Roy's patents and Switch's revolution in the technology infrastructure industry.
Colocation primes, on-premise edge products, $3 trillion purchasing cooperative, super scale operating ecosystems and extreme collaboration are all present in these industry-leading living data centers. SUPERNAP is a wholly owned subsidiary of Switch. Learn more at supernap.comPhotos accompanying this release are available at:
http://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=38227
http://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=38228CONTACT: Tim Mroz, (616) 881.1038, mrozt@rightplace.org
-
BIOSTAR GeForce GAMING GTX 750 Ti OC: The Gamer Graphics Card
More performance for the gamer advantage
December 17th, 2015 Taipei, Taiwan – BIOSTAR is proud to bring gamers the best in performance and value and brings both to gamers with its GeForce GTX 750 Ti graphics card for mainstream gaming. Powered by the high-efficiency Maxwell architechture, the BIOSTAR GeForce GAMING GTX 750 Ti OC delivers stunning visuals with low power draw. Complimented by 2GB of GDDR5 on a 128-bit wide bus, you can play the latest games smoothly thanks to this Special GAMING OC revision designed to meet competitive gamers’ needs, its 640 CUDA cores are factory overclocked to 1127Mhz with a Boost frequency of 1178Mhz for that extra kick.
The FPS unique dual-fan cooling design helps keep the GTX 750 Ti OC cool and running in top condition while looking the part as well. Designed to complement the BIOSTAR GAMING line of motherboards. The BIOSTAR GeForce GAMING GTX 750 Ti OC supports multiple displays via dual DVI and mini-HDMI output.
FACTORY OVERCLOCKED FOR HIGHER PERFORMANCE
Enjoy a higher level of gaming with the higher clocks thanks to BIOSTAR’s GAMING OC. Faster than reference clock speeds improves gameplay by shifting the GTX 750 Ti to overdrive, churning out more frame rates for a smoother gaming experience.
UNIQUE DUAL-FAN COOLING DESIGN
Keeping your card cool is important to get the most out of your card. The new BIOSTAR GAMING FPS design cooler cools the full-sized PCB card and maintain ideal temperatures. Quiet operation also ensures no distraction so you can game in full immersion without worrying about noisy fans. -
CPU GUARD 1151 to protect your Skylake CPU from bending
CPU GUARD 1151 to protect your Skylake CPU from bending
Perfect for overclockers looking to delid their processor
MSI has received news from various media websites about possible bending of Intel® 6th Generation Processors when using heavy-weight cooling solutions. Possible bending might not occur straight away, however, as your system sits on its desk or moving it anywhere, could result in unwanted effects. To make sure you will never encounter this problem we developed the CPU GUARD 1151 to protect your Socket 1151 Intel® Xeon® E3 v5 / Core™ / Pentium® or Celeron® processor which strengthens the corners to withstand more vertical pressure.
Prevent this
Besides protecting your CPU, the CPU GUARD 1151 is also the perfect tool for anyone looking to ‘delid’ their 6th Generation Intel® processor. When re-applying the IHS, the design of the CPU GUARD 1151 tightly locks the HIS ensuring it will stay in its place and you will never have to worry about optimal thermal performance or it moving. Recently the CPU GUARD 1151 was used during an overclocking event, helping top overclockers push their Skylake CPU to the max, breaking world records.
-
Samsung SSD’s will survive
Some time ago the Tech Report did a SSD endurance test by continually writing and clearing data to the drives. The intent was to cause the drive to fail and record the time it took. If I remember correctly this started around the time everyone was discussing NAND chip degradation and speculating how long a chip would last. Nobody really knew the answer and while the chip makers would supply a range nobody knew how accurate it was or if that translated into anything bad.
In case you are unfamiliar SSDs have a lifespan and will eventually no longer be able to store data. TR set out to test this and the winner of the endurance test was a Samsung SSD.
As you can imagine Samsung wanted to take advantage of this marketing opportunity and created. *shudder* These two videos.
Check out this Interview on the incredible endurance of Samsung SSDs.
Samsung SSD’s will survive… and more! An uplifting song about Samsung SSD endurance.
Honestly the music video is a little scary but the talk show interaction was kinda fun to watch. On a side note, I wonder how many times they said "Samsung SSD"?
-
Kanguru Offers New Password Recovery Service for IT Admins
Convenient Password Recovery with the New Kanguru Self-Service Password Management for Secure USB
MILLIS, Mass., Dec. 17, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Kanguru announces the launch of its new Self Service Password Management™ (SSPM) service for Kanguru Defender® line of secure USB flash drives, providing users with a safe, convenient way to reset their own password with ease through registered email accounts if it is ever forgotten.
Everyone can be forgetful from time to time, but for IT administrators of large organizations managing a fleet of secure USB drives, forgotten passwords by end-users could become a dynamic and significant problem.
For an end-user of a non-managed, password-protected USB drive however, a forgotten password could spell disaster by locking them out of the very data they sought to protect, simply because the user cannot remember their password. Self Service Password Management eliminates both of these issues with an easy, convenient recovery method through registered email.
Organizations whose IT Administrators use the Kanguru Remote Management Cloud Console (KRMC) to manage a fleet of Defender Secure Flash Drives can immediately take advantage of this new option within the console to provide end-users the ability to securely reset their own password(s). This new Self-Service Password Management tool removes the interruption from the administrator's workflow saving time and aggravation, reducing cost and overhead. Administrators will still be able to maintain full management capabilities, with the ability to select whom, and who cannot reset their own password, along with all of the robust permissions, restrictions, disabling and deleting features that come with managing secure Kanguru Defender Secure Drives with KRMC.
"Administrators and end-users alike will love this new tool," says Nate Cote, Executive Vice President. "Now rather than forgetful staff members having to approach the overburdened IT administrator each time a password to their secure flash drive is forgotten, they can simply reset it themselves by using Self-Service Password Management, reducing IT overhead."
For non-managed end-users, Kanguru Self-Service Password Management (SSPM) is now available for purchase as an optional service in one or two-year licenses. This provides a secure, easy way to reset the password in the event it is forgotten to regain full access to their secure USB flash drive.
The following Kanguru Defender USB drives are supported:- Kanguru Defender 3000™
- Kanguru Defender 2000™
- Kanguru Defender Elite300™
- Kanguru Defender Elite200™
- Kanguru Defender Elite30™
- Kanguru Defender Elite™
- Kanguru Defender Basic+™
SSPM can be purchased at kanguru.com, with a one-year license at just $6.95 and a two-year license at $9.95. For more information about Kanguru Self-Service Password Management, Kanguru Remote Management Console or Kanguru Defender Hardware Encrypted USB drives, please visit Kanguru.com to learn more.
Kanguru is a global leader in providing exceptional-quality hardware encrypted secure USB flash drives, hard drives, solid state drives, portable USB storage devices, remote management applications, duplication equipment and more. Kanguru is committed to offering the highest level secure products and services to enterprise, government, healthcare, organizations and consumers worldwide with easy-to-use, certified IT products and data storage. For more information on Kanguru, please visit kanguru.com.
CONTACT: Don Wright, Marketing Manager Kanguru Solutions marketing@kanguru.com 508.376.4245
