I am currently engaged with mentoring some young technology start-up businesses.  What strikes me about these companies is that they spend the majority of their time utilising their skills to deliver their product.  They are agile, knowledgeable and very hungry to succeed and to create.

When do they find time to “learn” new emerging technologies?  They seem to have learnt it “on the fly” as they go along – such is the pace of technology at the moment.  With cloud computing, mobile computing and social media now becoming the current “bubble”, I realised just how easy it is for anyone in IT to become out of date quite rapidly.

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There is an old saying which says “use it or lose it” and I will add “use it, grow it and keep your eyes open to what is happening around you, always”.   In this process we must keep learning.

Stopping learning, even for a few months or a whole year can make a huge difference.  It is like being having a motor car – use it regularly and it works fine (sure it may need a little maintenance), but leave it parked outside for a year unused and the battery will be flat, tires a bit softer, oil a bit tired, the gas will have lost its vitality etc.  (Of course it does depend on where you park it – it may not even be there when you return!)

Learning is the same, especially in IT (and most other professions – like medicine, law, tax etc) we need to keep up to date, and even a few months “out of the game” will render us less sharp, and left with an uphill battle if we want to regain our status.

If “IT” is our career, then we need to learn on a regular basis, via personal learning, e-learning, books, attending classes, or as I am realising, by working with very sharp entrepreneurs who are leveraging the three technology areas listed above without even breaking into a sweat.

What are your experiences of keeping yourself in the best shape you can?

A year after narrowly missing out on the top honors in the Client Security Software category last year (losing by just over a point to Kaspersky Lab), Sophos climbed over the top in this year’s ARC.

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The security company posted top scores in product innovation (94.8) and support (85.5), but Sophos lost the partnership subcategory to none other than Kaspersky.

Sophos has built a strong reputation for sharp endpoint security software and an expanding line of products, thanks to its recent acquisition of unified threat management (UTM) player Astaro Networks. Now, the security vendor is stepping up its partnership plans with the addition of a new channel chief and plans to expand its partner ranks.

Annual Report Card 2011 Home

In May, Sophos hired Steve Hale as its new vice president of global channels; Hale previously served as vice president of global channel sales at Novell (NSDQ:NOVL)’s Security Systems and Operating Platform Group and also worked at Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) and F5 Networks.

“Fundamentally, we have a sound channel program, but we are absolutely working on some things to make it even better,” Hale said. Some of those changes include targeting more security-focused solution providers instead of traditional software resellers. As Sophos builds out its product line into areas like network security and UTM, Hale said the vendor will need to bring in experienced partners.

“If we want to build the next evolution of the partner program, then we need to find ways to invest more in these kinds of partners,” he said. “Security is no longer just a point product.”

Sophos is also taking a more aggressive approach to the small and midsize business market; the vendor recently signed a deal with D&H Distributing that Hale said will help Sophos expand its channel reach. “D&H is an immense set of pipes that branch out to hundreds and hundreds of security VARs,” he said. “With the addition of Astaro, our product line is filling out and that’s made us a lot more relevant in security conversations.”

Get used to it: Malware can’t be completely blocked or eliminated. But you can manage your PCs, mobile devices, and networks to function despite being infected

Malware survival tip No. 4: Be sensible about using consumer devices in the workplace
If you believe in allowing lots of data access for everyone and from every conceivable type of device, it might be time to rethink your data management and access strategy. Limit network access via mobile devices to those users who really need this access, and put in place controls so that those who can get in to the network can only reach certain parts of it.

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Personal portable devices such as tablets, laptops, and Wi-Fi-equipped smartphones are becoming ever more popular in the workplace, and users will want to be connected to the corporate network.

But using diligence when granting access — considering that these devices might be sources of malware — makes sense. “What we’ve noticed is that once devices reach a certain threshold of consumer acceptance, malware appears for those platforms,” says SUNY Old Westbury’s Seybold. “Witness [recent] iPhone and Android attacks.”

According to the Ponemon study, the rise of mobile and remote workers, PC vulnerabilities, and the introduction of third-party applications onto the network are the greatest areas of endpoint security risk today. This is a shift from last year’s survey, when endpoint security concerns were mainly focused on removable media and data center risks.

Even without the “bring your own device” and “use your own apps” trends to consider how to manage, IT could reduce the ability of malware to spread by rethinking how many apps it deploys for users. “In looking at our line staff, there is no reason they need all the tools loaded on all the systems,” says Redwood Credit Union’s Hildesheim.

A report released in April 2011 by PandaLabs, Panda Security’s antimalware laboratory, showed that the first three months of the year have seen “particularly intense virus activity,” including a major attack against Android smartphones and intensive use of Facebook to distribute malware.

The beginning of March saw the largest ever attack on Android to date, the PandaLabs report stated. The assault was launched from malicious applications on Android Market, the official Google app store for the mobile OS. In just four days, these Trojan applications racked up more than 50,000 downloads: “The Trojan in this case was highly sophisticated, not only stealing personal information from cellphones, but also downloading and installing other apps without the user’s knowledge.”

Malware survival tip No. 5: Build a solid security foundation to protect the organization, rather than to protect devices
Sure, you need antimalware software on PCs and other devices to help prevent infections. But to create an environment where your company can continue to function without malware-related problems even with the existence of malware on some systems, you have to deploy a secure system architecture rather than a security architecture for a system, says USC’s Neuman.

“You need to determine issues such as placement of data with an understanding of the application and the risks of compromise of the data, rather than just bolting security solutions onto an existing system,” Neuman says. “Good architecture will define multiple protection domains, with successive layers of protection deployed, and fewer users legitimately able to access data as it becomes more and more sensitive.”

Along these lines, processor manufacturer Intel has embarked on an ambitious multiyear effort to redesign its information security architecture, which the company hopes will allow it to better keep up with the rapid evolution of malware.

“We believe that compromise is inevitable, and in order to manage the risk, we need to improve survivability and increase our flexibility,” says Malcolm Harkins, vice president of the IT group and chief information security officer at Intel.

The redesign is based on four pillars:

* A “dynamic trust calculation” that adjusts users privileges as their level of risk changes
* A segmentation of the IT environment into multiple “trust zones”
* A rebalancing of prevention, detection, and response controls
* A clear recognition that users and data must be treated as security perimeters and be protected as such

Living with infection is a fact of life
Malware is pervasive and is getting increasingly sophisticated. For many organizations, living with viruses, worms, and other types of malware is becoming a fact of life. In a sense, computer technology is catching up to the reality that biological systems have long had to manage.

As Intel’s Harkins says, “I always assume that there is some level of compromise, [and] organizations who think they are malware-free — or ever will be — are not adequately understanding the true nature of information risk.”

That doesn’t mean your systems and applications can’t continue to function well and support the business. By taking the right steps, your organization can operate a generally healthy IT environment despite malware intrusions.

And should developers build websites or applications?

Is HTML5 the Holy Grail for building next-generation Web applications?

And should developers ditch the browser for client applications that run on specific devices, like the iPhone and Android?

Those are the questions an all-star lineup of Web and application designers from Microsoft, Google, Twitter and other companies debated Thursday during a panel discussion at the annual USENIX technical conference in Portland, Ore.

HTML5 in action: First look at Internet Explorer 9

Moderator Michael Maximilien, a software researcher, architect and engineer at IBM Research, asked panel members whether HTML5 is the answer for building browser-based applications that act like native applications and can be “written once and run everywhere.”

“We have always tried to come up with this universal GUI thing and I don’t think it has ever worked,” said Erik Meijer, a programming language designer who runs the cloud programmability team at Microsoft. “HTML5 in a sense is another attempt.”

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But while HTML5 – which is prominent in the Google Chrome and Internet Explorer browsers – is allowing new kinds of interactive Web applications, even ones with offline storage, Meijer said. “It’s not really native. You still see rough edges. There is no silver bullet.”

Google’s Patrick Chanezon, developer relations manager for cloud and tools, argued that whether to use the HTML5 language comes down to how widely you want your application to be deployed. “If you’re doing iOS only, sure, just do everything native,” he said. But if you want something that works across Android and desktop browsers, HTML5 is the way to go, he said.

“So, build a sucky version in HTML5 but it works everywhere?” Maximilien asked with a smile.

Chanezon countered that HTML5 allowed Google to build some pretty good Gmail clients.

Google’s browser: First look at Chrome 10

But Raffi Krikorian, infrastructure engineer at Twitter, also called out the limitations of HTML5, saying it’s “really nice to look at,” but can’t do things such as send notifications to users.

“A mobile app to me is more than just a UI,” Krikorian said.

The other member of the panel was Charles Ying, an engineer at Flipboard, which builds a personalized magazine for the iPad that gathers in a user’s Facebook and Twitter streams and customized views of media sites.

Ying said HTML5 applications running at 60 frames a second, which Google has demonstrated in Chrome on desktops with WebGL-generated 3D graphics, are fast enough. But that speed is harder to achieve on mobile devices.

“HTML5 is successful because it’s the new moniker for the modern Web browser, the modern Web platform. But it’s still got a ways to go,” Ying said. “We try to build great experiences with it but we find that frame rates just aren’t cutting it when we try to do new animation.”

Most panelists seemed to agree that HTML5 is a big step forward for desktop Web browsers, but is still lacking on the mobile side.

That leads to the question of whether mobile developers should build Web applications or applications downloaded from an app store.

Microsoft is trying to woo Android application developers, offering them help in porting applications to Windows Phone.

The company has released a Windows Phone API mapping tool for Android developers to help them find their way around the Windows Phone platform. Developers should think of the tool as being like a translation dictionary, Senior Technical Evangelist for Interoperability Jean-Christophe Cimetiere wrote in a blog post.

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REVIEW: Developers find a lot to love in Windows Phone 7 Mango

It has also published a white paper, “Windows Phone 7 Guide for Android Application Developers,” describing the differences between the two platforms, including the way they handle inactive applications and multitasking.

For Windows Phone to become a success, Microsoft and partners like Nokia have to convince developers to add the operating system to the list of platforms they target.

Android and Apple’s iOS are the most popular operating systems among developers, according to a survey by VisionMobile published this week. It found that 67 percent of developers target Android, and 59 percent target iOS.

Windows Phone is the seventh most popular platform, with just 36 percent of developers working on apps for it: More still target Symbian, the OS that Nokia is abandoning in favor of Windows Phone, the survey found, although Symbian’s share fell to 38 percent in June from 46 percent a year earlier.

Microsoft has already reached out to iPhone app developers with specific Windows Phone guidance and an API mapping tool for iOS.

This summer, it plans to expand the scope of the API Mapping tools to include the features in Mango, the next major upgrade of Windows Phone.

Enterprise software developers are starting to show an interest in having their applications running across a range of mobile devices. Last week, German company Software AG acquired Metismo, developer of a platform that can convert Java apps to run natively on Android, BlackBerryOS, Windows Phone and webOS.

Welcome to this morning’s edition of “First To Know,” a series in which we keep you in the know on what’s happening in the digital world. We’re keeping our eyes on four particular stories of interest today.

Apple Unveils iCloud, iOS 5 & More

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At its developer conference Monday, Apple announced its much-anticipated iCloud service; that the next version of Mac OS X, Lion, will be out in July for $29.99; that its next-generation mobile software, iOS 5, will be deeply integrated with Twitter, offer wireless syncing, its own messaging service and Newsstand, and more.

Rep. Weiner Admits to Tweeting Lewd Picture

Admitting that he had “not been honest with myself, my family and my constituents,” Rep. Anthony Weiner confessed at a press conference Monday that he sent a lewd photo via Twitter and that he had since lied about his account being hacked.

HTC Reports Strong May Sales

HTC says it generated $1.42 billion in sales in May, which is more than double than the same month in 2010 and a solid improvement from April’s $1.35 billion.

Xbox Live Getting Live TV, YouTube & Voice Search

Microsoft unveiled a redesigned version of Xbox Live at E3 Monday, one that includes more voice commands, YouTube integration and live television.

Further News

* Tuesday is World IPv6 Day, and Google is leading the charge to test and adopt the new Internet Protocol.
* As expected, former CBS Evening News anchor Kate Couric has signed a multiyear contract with Disney/ABC Television Group to host her own nationally syndicated talk show and join the ABC News team.
* Sony’s next-generation handheld gaming system, the PlayStation Vita, made its official debut at E3 Monday.
* Microsoft has released a trailer for Halo 4.
* Note-taking platform Evernote now has more than 10 million registered users, up 67% from January.

Consultants? That’s probably your best bet, but to paraphrase a wise saying: A problem has increased by an order of magnitude before the consultant has had a chance to get his pants on. Yes, bringing a boatload of consultants in to address an emerging issue may in fact result in problem resolution, but it’ll take far, far longer to fix than if the primary care admin was there to begin with.

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Could complete, readily available documentation be the key? Perhaps, but only in a limited fashion. Recurring problems that have been accurately documented with steps to resolve the problem can certainly help when a key admin is out of contact, but once a problem stretches outside the boundaries of a known issue, it all reverts to square one.

We’re left with the fact that there exists in every IT organization one or more indispensable people who find themselves trapped by their own expertise. On the other side of that coin is a point I made last week about the Terry Childs case — people with such a deep level of knowledge of the infrastructure are sometimes considered as a threat to the organization if they leave under any circumstances.

What’s the solution? Unfortunately, there isn’t one. When computing infrastructure reaches a certain point of complexity, there will always be one wizard who can work his or her magic to solve problems and return things to a stable situation. They’re resigned to being the backstop, occuping the desk at which the buck stops, and ideally they’re well compensated for such duties. The business just better hope it can reach the wizard by phone when all hell breaks loose.

In a blog post, published Thursday, Villeneuve outlined other attacks, including one that leveraged a Hotmail Web programming bug to suck email messages from users’ accounts. This attack worked by tricking victims into reading a maliciously encoded email message. It hit Taiwanese victims.

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Another attack, spotted recently by Trend Micro, attempted to break into Yahoo Mail accounts by stealing the browser’s cookie files and then using that information to try and trick Yahoo’s servers into divulging sensitive information, Villneuve said. However, it looks like this attack didn’t actually work thanks to technical difficulties, he said.

Microsoft was unable to immediately comment for this story, but earlier it did confirm that it fixed the Hotmail flaw. A Yahoo spokeswoman declined to comment on Trend Micro’s report, but said that the company does “take security very seriously.”

“We invest heavily in protective measures to ensure the security of our users and their data,” the Yahoo spokeswoman said in an email message. “We also use a multi-faceted approach to further protect against spam, phishing and other online scams, which includes rapid response, industry collaboration, public policy efforts, and consumer awareness.”

Although Gmail is now getting the most attention, Yahoo Mail is actually the most targeted Web mail platform, according to one researcher, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is involved in sensitive investigations into these attacks. “It’s been going on for a very long time,” he said. “Campaigns go on every day.”