Jul 29, 2009

In News: iYogi Re-Defines Technical Support – BizTech2.com

Remote managed services are gaining a lot of attraction these days. Companies are looking to outsource the maintenance and monitoring of their IT infrastructure to a third party to improve efficiency and save costs. BizTech2.com caught up with Uday Challu, founding partner and CEO, iYogi, to see what the company has to offer in this space. As far as Enterprise and SME customers are concerned, which verticals are you focusing on? Our focus will mostly be on small companies with around five to 100 users and also firms that have multiple small branch offices like travel agencies, retail stores etc. What kind of support services do you provide to your customers? What is the Green PC service? iYogi provides the next generation of remote computer support services for consumers and businesses. For consumers, our live 24/7 support extends to technologies we use everyday, including hardware, software applications, devices, peripherals and networking equipment. iYogi also offers a full range of business IT solutions including managed monitoring, managed services, set-up and installation services, and incident-based services. Green PC Service With the current state of the global climate and increasing dependency on the computer, iYogi helps PC users reduce their carbon footprint and save money at the same time. iYogi’s Green PC service is the first in the independent computer support industry to offer customers a way to save money, conserve energy and protect the environment by optimising their PC’s efficiency. Consumers and businesses can save up to $200 per year, per desktop, in energy costs with iYogi’s Green PC application. This green application makes the computer environmentally friendly by reducing power consumption by almost 50 percent. Our Green PC dashboard helps customise power settings and calculate power savings in kWh (kilowatt hour). The Green PC dashboard also gives a status on the reduction of CO2 and how responsible usage will benefit the environment by saving trees. A customised service that increases the energy efficiency of computers, undertakes the below-mentioned three primary initiatives: - Computer assessment, analysing settings and PC energy use - Customised efficiency planning geared specifically to the individual’s usage patterns - Implementing setting changes to maximise the computer’s energy use What are the technologies that allow you to offer 24/7 support and ensure there is no downtime at the client site? We have invested significantly in developing a comprehensive monitoring and management tools stack. This enables us to manage and monitor all devices in the office network as well as for branch offices and mobile users. Our tools continuously monitor the customer’s network and notify our NOC (Network Operations Centre) in case of problems. Based on the set of events, tickets are automatically generated and escalated to corresponding teams. Over and above our proactive approach, the customer always has an option to call our 24X7 support line for issues that are not identified via the monitoring tools. Please throw some light on your proprietary iMantra technology. iMantra is a CRM system, which is tailor-made to suit the emerging business needs at iYogi. It allows for the formation of individualised customer relationships with the aim of providing personalised services to each subscriber. This tool is built on the latest java technology with a layered architecture that makes it scalable and secure. This architecture provides a seamless workflow and independent channels for various business needs: sales, support, quality and customer service. The entire system can be exposed in the form of secure APIs and Web services, which makes it a re-usable entity. Your business model is similar to BPOs in India providing technical support to offshore customers. What unique values do you bring to this ecosystem that would help a potential client choose you over a competitor? iYogi’s business model is different from traditional BPOs. Some key factors that differentiate iYogi include: - Direct-to-consumer and -small business: iYogi delivers technical support services directly to consumers and small businesses and is a global technical support brand based out of India. Unlike traditional BPOs in India, iYogi does not provide any private label support and/ or work on behalf of large OEMs or software publishers. - Optmised Processes: iYogi has developed proprietary processes for consistently delivering on a resolution rate of 87 percent, which is among the highest published benchmarks in the support industry, where averages hover in the range of 50 percent. - Comprehensive technology platform: iYogi’s global delivery platform, iMantra, gets smarter with every customer interaction. It documents every problem, the solution and relevant hardware and software aspects, while capturing each customer’s demographic information and creating a behavioural profile. All of this information is at the fingertips of iYogi’s Global Tech Experts. This set-up combines a knowledge base with a comprehensive set of tools and technology expertise. iYogi offers a range of tools that complement its remote support services for helping customers maintain technology at peak performance levels. iYogi’s products include iYogi Smart PC Scan, iYogi Support Dock, iYogi Green PC and iYogi PC Optimization. How do you plan to move up the value chain in the times to come? The growing use and penetration of the Internet and new Web-based applications has consequently opened the door to threats and vulnerabilities, which affect the system performance and ultimately lead to degrading performance. If the threats are diagnosed early on, the impact on efficiency can be minimised considerably. Currently, a user only realizes that he needs technical support once the damage has occurred and reactive methods of support are used to recover from the loss. At iYogi, we are developing our capabilities to not only provide support when demanded, but to also monitor, pre-empt and fix threats before they can cause any damage to the computer. This will be possible only by combining technology with processes that are capable of re-defining the way technical support is delivered today. What is your India strategy? Technically, we are capable of servicing any geography including India. At this stage, we are looking for the right kind of partners to find access to potential customers and provide them a consolidated, 360-degree solution and services for issues relating to hardware, software, network etc. We aim to launch our India services in the coming six to eight months. Our services will offer clients a one-stop solution for all their business needs. Source : BizTech2.com

Jul 17, 2009

First discovered vulnerability in Firefox 3.5

Mozilla has a leak in its latest Firefox browser confirmed. Version 3.5 contains a bug that allow third parties to take over the computer. The hacker who discovered the exploit did so through the tracking system of the server program Bugzilla. The error is in the Trace Monkey JavaScript component that was introduced in Firefox 3.5, Mozilla reported. According to the company code can be activated once the browser to an infected page is surfing, a so-called "drive-by download". Mozilla says that the hacker who leak to the outside brought not the first time. According to the company were the developers of Firefox bug last Thursday when they discovered themselves faced with incorrect code. The Danish security company Secunia called the leak "critical". Exploitable in its ranking system on-a-second-highest label given. The company adds to the description of Mozilla now that it is a leak in the handling of fonts in HTML by Trace Monkey in 'font tags. "The Mozilla developers are working on a solution. Once a fix is, there will be as soon as possible a Firefox update is released, notify Mozilla. Until then, users of Firefox 3.5 operating around the "just-in-time (JIT) component of Trace Monkey off. This is done by "about: config", type in the address bar of the browser, then "javascript options, JIT content" double-clicks and the value of the key to "false" to continue. Even the popular NoScript add-on for Firefox prevents operating the computer can be turned. The patch for the vulnerability is now on the nomination to be included in Firefox 3.5.1. This update was planned for the last weeks of July, but by the publication of Bugzilla forward. Even Internet Explorer has leak Earlier this week, the biggest competitor to Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer, again affected by a leak in the Active X component system. Even Microsoft has not released a patch for its security problem exists, which some security experts forces for an alternative browser to select reports The Register. If researchers choose the Security Institute SANS Internet Storm now for Opera, Safari or Google Chrome.

Jul 10, 2009

Why is Mozilla Firefox a good web browser?

Mozilla Firefox is a free web browser, which provides a safer, faster, better way to surf the Internet and display web pages the way they intend to, because there is no follow-up to the official website of the Firefox standard. Firefox also gives you more room for web browser, so you can view more pages do not scroll. Show more clearly the text in Firefox. Firefox can import your existing settings from Internet Explorer. Import Wizard will be one when you install Firefox (and renewable), it can import (copy it to Firefox) on your collection, preferences, history, cookies, stored passwords and other data. How do I install Mozilla Firefox? Mozilla Firefox browser software can be installed to run Edskes silent install Mozilla Firefox browser first. From the silent Edskes software installed Mozilla Firefox browser is very easy: 1. Click Edskes software silent install for Mozilla Firefox. 2. Click to run (usually twice). 3. Choose your preferred language and click OK. 4. Close your web browser (such as always). 5. From now on, everything will automatically (this may take a few minutes). 6. You will be asked to import (copy it to Firefox) settings. 7. Firefox will start, you'll see the way the site should be.

Jul 7, 2009

Mozilla wants to XSS vulnerabilities-block

Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) attacks have been a scourge on the Web, including well-known and popular websites. Mozilla has the last year on a technology for these attacks to stop: Content Security Policy Cross-site scripting attacks are possible because all browsers JavaScript code and other content on a webpage in the same security context execution. The Content Security Policy (CSP) Mozilla provides a mechanism for sites to tell the browser what content is legitimate. Any script that is not accepted by the website, is blocked by the browser. Mozilla's proposal requires that all JavaScript on a web page to external files to be moved, CSP can not be distinguished from legitimate scripts injected or modified JavaScript code in the page. Inline scripts, Javascript urls and HTML attributes that will handle events CSP therefore ignored. Only JavaScript code via a tag referring to a url on a host that has been approved by the site will be carried out. A protected website can also display a warning if a CSP XSS attack is blocked. A detailed description of the possibilities can be found in the CSP specification. While websites should therefore be adapted to support CSP, it may happen in stages. The Mozilla Security Team has many sites and proved to be no site met that could not be adjusted. There will be documentation of best practices for a site to migrate to CSP. A reassurance that the policy is also fully backwards compatible: it has no effect on websites or web browsers that do not support the specification.

Jul 2, 2009

Firefox 3.5 is available

This is the day for the Mozilla Foundation. After a few weeks late and online three Release Candidate, Firefox 3.5 final version is already available for all people or all languages. Evolution of the major red panda, this new version is expected to meet the offensive of Microsoft with its Internet Explorer 8 or 4 Safari and Opera 10. HTML5 The innovations announced are many (even if they concern primarily the engine of the browser and not necessarily the user functions): Firefox 3.5 is expected to be faster with TraceMonkey JavaScript engine to boost including navigation and viewing of web 2.0 applications. The application will also propose a new HTML rendering engine (Gecko 1.9.1), again allowing more speed. JSON and Web Workers will be supported natively. Furthermore, this new version will include audio and video tags from the HTML5. From the user side, no significant changes noted on aesthetics but the integration of a navigation mode that will allow private surfing without leaving a trace (a function already present in IE8). Firefox 3.5 also offers "floating tabs" that allow you to switch easily from one window to another and managing favorite rewritten.