Determining an organization’s tolerance for loss is a key first step in preparing for disaster recovery. The cost a business incurs to maintain a suitable disaster recovery plan depends largely on how closely it relies on IT for its revenue.

This is true for any sized business from the large online vendors such as Zalora.com or Xinmsn.com to SMEs with a small online cart. …

The threat of mobile malware and large-scale attacks to take down infrastructure may become reality in 2013, according to a report released yesterday by McAfee.

The security company says it is likely that a new Trojan horse mobile worm will trick users into buying and installing malicious apps without user permission. Another danger: unknowingly downloading a malware that cuts off communication with mobile service providers, blocking security updates that help to remove malware.

Such apps would allow the malware to remain for a long time, warned McAfee, who based its predictions on data collected on malware in 2012. …

This holiday season, more shopping is carried out over smartphones than ever before, as people seek to beat the queue and turn to the device they trust the most.

Just how do online merchants and other companies keep their websites accessible during rush hour and despite the frequently clogged mobile networks?

Techgoondu recently caught up with Ravi Maira, vice president of site performance products for Akamai Technologies. The Internet content distribution network, known more for its caching of Internet content all over the work for smooth distribution, believes its smart network technologies will make surfing and buying things on the mobile much easier.  …

Setting up a printer these days should be a walk in the park. After all, these things have been around for nearly as long as PCs have been in homes.

Yet, my latest adventure with HP’s Officejet 6700 Premium, an all-in-one inkjet printer, should give that thought some pause. I only just got it to work properly, several hours after I took it out of the box.  …

Most IT head honchos would cringe at the prospect of allowing employees to use their own personal devices for work. After all, that means giving up the tight control that employers have always had over devices that connect to corporate networks, while facing the risk of corporate data falling into the wrong hands through lost or stolen devices.

Yet, more employees are yearning to use their own personal devices for work. A survey by VMware revealed that over 50 per cent of employees in Singapore already use their own devices for work-related purposes, whether their companies have a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy or not. …

Organisations hoping to buy a little more time to implement IPv6 can now acquire IPv4 addresses from the United States, thanks to a new IP address transfer policy recently implemented by the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN).

According to ARIN, IPv4 addresses may be transferred to organisations in another region if they demonstrate their needs to their Regional Internet Registry (RIR), which allocates and manages IP addresses for a particular region. …

The global Internet industry reached a key milestone on June 6 when a group of Web sites, Internet service providers (ISPs) and router manufacturers banded together to participate in the World IPv6 Launch.

Google, Facebook and Yahoo have flipped the switch to the new Internet addressing system, while ISPs such as Japan’s KDDI and India’s HNS will permanently enable IPv6 for a significant portion of their residential wireline subscribers. Home networking equipment manufacturers will also turn on IPv6 by default in home router products.

The World IPv6 Launch was organised by the Internet Society as part of its mission to ensure that the Internet remains open and accessible for everyone, including five billion people who have yet to connect to the Internet.

“The support of IPv6 from these thousands of organizations delivers a critical message to the world: IPv6 is not just a ‘nice to have’; it is ready for business today and will very soon be a ‘must have’,” said Leslie Daigle, chief Internet technology officer of Internet Society in a statement Wednesday. …

Well, it’s not strictly a complete computer- you’ll still need to stick in an SD card with Linux on it. Yet, the tiny Raspberry Pi, costing just £21.60 (S$43) plus £4.95 for worldwide shipping, has been getting lots of love from the geek community since it went on sale in February.

One of the distributors, RS Components, told reporters in Singapore on Thursday that it had sold the first 700 units in mere hours and has a waiting list no fewer of 200,000 orders.

What’s so hot about this new machine, besides the cost?

For S$43, it has a British-designed Arm-based processor running at 700MHz, a graphics core that can decode 1080p Full HD videos, an HDMI port and a USB port, plus it runs with 256GB RAM and boots from a memory card that you slide into the included SD card slot. …

Microsoft today opened a S$23 million technology centre in Singapore to enable companies to test out new technologies such as cloud computing and unified communications before rolling them out at their own premises.

The first in Southeast Asia, the centre joins another 26 worldwide in showcasing and concept-proofing the software giant’s new offerings to corporate customers.  …

The global spending on IT products and services is expected to reach US$3.7 trillion this year, a 2.5 percent increase from 2011.

The new forecast marks a decline from Gartner’s previous estimate of 3.7 percent growth in IT spending for 2012. The tech analyst firm attributed the lower growth rate to the recent strengthening of the U.S. dollar against other currencies, rather than lower IT spending. …