Entries by Garin Livingstone

Pros and Cons of Private Cloud versus Public Cloud

Cloud computing is the grouping of Internet-based computing resources to provide efficient, effective, agile access at a pre-defined price; it has been compared to a utility, where costs are metered against usage.  (Visit Wikipedia’s definition.) Organizations turning to the Cloud can select from these deployment options: Public Cloud – Available to all paying users (public) […]

Audrey Baker & Greg Livingstone Join The Bryley Team

Bryley Systems Inc. Continues to Grow as a Managed IT Services Provider Hudson, MA-February 6, 2015-Bryley Systems Inc. hired Audrey Baker as Sales Administrator and Gregory Livingstone as Network Engineer. Ms. Baker brings over 20 years of experience in sales administration and management, with intimate knowledge of and expertise in IT and IT-security issues. She […]

Bryley Basics: Introducing Microsoft Windows 10

With the usual hoopla, Microsoft previewed Windows 10 at its Redmond, WA offices on Wednesday, January 21st.  What they unveiled was a solid attempt to provide one operating system for both PCs and for mobile devices that adapts to the device on which it is installed. Prominent, new features include: Internet Explorer 12 and a […]

Recommended practices – Part-6: Manage end-users via Active Directory

This is a multi-part series on recommended IT practices for organizations and their end-users. Additional parts will be included in upcoming newsletters. End-users and their equipment (PCs, tablets, mobile devices) need access to network resources (servers, printers, scanners, etc.); basically, a network administrator connects the end-users with the appropriate resources while matching that access to […]

Bryley Basics: Android app-rating site PrivacyGrade

PrivacyGrade, developed by a team of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University, rates Android-based applications for privacy and security. Apps for Android devices are rated based on “the gap between people’s expectations of an app’s behavior and the app’s actual behavior”. If an app’s privacy does not meet expectations, it will score poorly. For example: Google […]

Bryley Basics: Scammer YGDNS.org

We received a seemingly legitimate email from YGDNS.org professing to square-away the ownership use of our domains, Bryley.com and Bryley.net, in China; the email was marked “urgent” and came with a person’s name, business address, etc. I queried Mike Carlson, our CTO, who gave this reply:  “No serious problems, but certainly a scam. If you […]

Merchants should get ready for EMV credit cards in 2015

The aging, magnetic-stripe credit cards are being replaced by EMV, a new standard with an embedded microchip that stores encoded user credentials with an optional PIN.  These two capabilities combine to reduce fraud by making EMV cards harder to clone and more difficult to use if stolen. However, retailers and other merchants will need to […]