I was surprised to find out that the largest cloud computing user isn’t Google or Amazon or any of the other common brands you think of but the people who developed the botnet Conficker. I thought this was a good article on how malware is evolving and ways to protect yourself. http://www.infoworld.com/d/security-central/fighting-todays-malware-869?page=0,0 The article went into how bad these attacks are (hint: worse than you think) to how they work and surprisingly how easy it is to develop one. As more and more business and activities are conducted over the internet it’s good to be aware of how best to defend yourself from malware.

FREE Networking event for Apple business clients, friends-fans-clients of Chive and fellow entrepreneurs and sustainable business owners! Open to the public!

CHIVE- Sustainable Event Design & Catering is a local, small business comprised of women entrepreneurs- Jen, Lindsey, Julia & Anne, who have started and grown their business on Macs and Apple products. Making a big impact in their business and industry, Chive utilizes Apple technology, software and support- like the Business Team, to help them effectively brand & market the business, manage daily operations, stay connected with staff, keep the books and propel their business to success.

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If you are looking to easily add value to your blog or website you’re in luck. I stumbled upon WolframAlpha’s Widget Builder that will add value to any website or blog. WolframAlpha Widget Builder This quick 7minute instructional video shows how to create a widget and add it to your site. There are also a gallery of widgets that are already done and you can select from. Now it’s all up to your imagination on what to create for your site that will add value to your audience. An empire of widgets is waiting.

G2 is sponsoring a new Boston Area Sustainability Group event at the House of Blues Boston on July 28th, 2010.

Summer is the time when it does a body good to relax, unwind, and get ready for the end-of-year push. Rather than not meeting at all this summer, we at the BASG are taking a different approach and having a “Sustainability Open Mic Night” at the House of Blues. No, we aren’t going to be singing any songs, but what we are offering is an opportunity for you to come share your stories – both successes and challenges – and to learn.

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Late last week was the annual Summer BBQ at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, located outside of Harvard Sq. This event and the Holiday party mark the two biggest events where hundreds of scientists, along with their friends and family enjoyed a couple hours of festivities (and luckily some great weather as well). This year the Harvard Green Team, with support from the Harvard Office of Sustainability, teamed up with the event’s long time organizers: the Harvard-Smithsonian Social and Recreation Committee. The organizers tried to make it a zero waste event – not an easy task with that many people and the “this is how we’ve always done it, we’re not changing a thing” mentality.

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You know when you have a problem and you’re having a hard time figuring it out. You eventually ask a friend for advice, then move on to a family member or another friend, seeking more opinions and advice. When you finally make a decision, you’ve essentially crowdsourced to come to that decision and you feel much more confident and comfortable with that decision. That’s only with a small group, imagine hundreds or thousands or more. I came across this article about InnoCentive and thought it’s a great tool to help solve any problems your company might have. I also think it’s a critical tool to help with the current problems of BP’s oil spill disaster. Share this with as many people as you can. Through the wisdom of the crowd, maybe the solutions can get to the ears of BP one problem solver at a time.

http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2010/06/02/how-crowdsourcing-can-help-solve-bp-nightmare

I came across this article and thought it was funny as well as intriguing that a datacenter could be powered by…crap. HP is studying this issue although they say they are not currently exploring where to put this technology to work. Cullen Bash, a member of HP’s Sustainable IT Ecosystem Lab team says, “It can be done today.” I initially thought that the majority of US dairy farms are located in the Midwest but after doing some quick research I found that California is where the large farms (2,000+ cows) dominate and is the Nation’s largest milk producing state. I thought that is a perfect situation as most of the tech giants, Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Intel and HP are headquartered in the Golden State so proximity wouldn’t be an issue. Although these dairy farms aren’t located in the Silicon Valley they wouldn’t be relatively too far away either. I also thought it would be a great application to use for underdeveloped countries because generally speaking their economies are agriculturally based so it would be great synergy helping to diversify and grow an economy using none other than the power of BS. http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2010/05/18/hp-envisions-cow-powered-data-centers?page=0%2C0

I was recently invited to appear on “Money Matters Radio with Scottie McCall” where I spoke about Green IT and Cloud Computing for small and medium businesses. I had my choice of anything I wanted to talk about, this was an easy decision. My logic was if the show is called “Money Matters” why not talk about two great things that can easily save you money and add to the bottom line. There is nothing like saving the planet and money at the same time, especially in this economy. Check out the interview below. If you have any questions or want to learn how you can leverage these in your business feel free to reach out.

Listen to the interview:
Glenn Grant – Money Matters Radio – May 11th 2010

“Money Matters with Scottie McCall” is broadcasted Monday through Friday at 2:00PM on WBNW AM 1120, WESO 970 and WPLM AM 1390.   moneymattersradio.net

I came across this interesting mockup tool with hand-drawn UI elements that looks useful for designers and engineers. Collaboration is a big part when deciding on a product or design and this seems to be speedy with real time functionality and easy to use. At $79 a desktop I’m not sure if that is on par with the rest of the marketplace but with Adobe’s Indesign CS5 substantially more and Balsamiq’s simple tutorial videos it appears that ability to move to this is easier. With G2 being a young IT consulting firm I was intrigued with Balsamiq’s, a tiny software company founded in ’08, success (20,000+ customers & $1.6million in ’09 sales) and green credentials (free licenses to non-profits). I thought at the very least it was a helpful tool worth sharing with our online community. Check out a demo here: http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mockups

So I thought this is pretty cool. Imagine while I’m watching the film “Taken” at home I get an unease and fear that something like that could happen to me. I pause the movie and click a button with my wireless remote to check the motion, smoke and glass break detectors in my house. With no alarms or unusual activity I also check on the remote to see that all the doors and windows are secure just to be safe. I don’t have to imagine any longer, one of our clients is making these cool futuristic tools a reality. See more here:
http://www.ember.com/press_release.html?id=395