In IT security, the terms SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) and SOAR (Security Orchestration and Automated Response) sometimes causes confusion or are used interchangeably. A recent notification on a Tesla App will help to illustrate the differences.
On the Apple Watch, the owner received a notification from the Tesla App that they left the trunk open on their Tesla:
Tesla app lets you tap a button to close the trunk → in the cybersecurity world, this is done by SOAR (because human is needed to press the Close Rear Trunk button, this is the human in the loop version of SOAR)
Techniques for Punchy Writing
In response to "California Pizza Kitchen founder says California has become too difficult for entrepreneurs", I wrote "Florida insurance rates causing a storm of protest". What writing techniques am I using?
Software project management is not about aesthetics, marketing buzzwords, or endless feature lists. It is about one cold, hard truth: delivering software predictably.
To do that, a team needs to track exactly three things: 1) What needs to be fixed (bugs and technical debt). 2) What needs to be enhanced (feature iterations). 3) What needs to be introduced (new, net-greenfield features).
Every single item in this trio requires a clear owner (who will do it) and a hard commitment (by when will it be done). This is the core, unvarnished function of Atlassian Jira. It is why Jira became the industry standard.
But let’s be honest about what happened.
The SaaS Renewal Trap
For years, Jira was a solid, highly configurable, easy-to-use tool. But as the industry shifted fully to a SaaS subscription model, a dangerous pressure took hold. In a world where customers renew every month or year, software companies feel a relentless itch to justify their subscription fees. Product teams are forced to prove they are "improving" the platform with every single sprint.
Software Advice
This pressure created a toxic pattern: Breaking what already worked: Flawless, muscle-memory navigation pathways were suddenly hidden behind redesigned, clunky UI overlays. Fast-loading, utilitarian screens were replaced by heavy, slow-loading pages bloated with white space. Adding features nobody asked for: Or at the whim of the product manager. Instead of mastering core ticket routing, speed, and clean sprint planning, Jira began introducing adjacent features and widgets that turned the product into a bloated solution looking for a problem.
Jira stopped focusing on helping developers ship code, and instead focused on justifying its own release notes. The tool we used to coordinate engineering became the very source of engineering drag.
Fast Forward to 2027: The Era of Judicious Releases
We heard you. The feedback from developers, product managers, and release engineers has been loud and clear: Stop changing things just to change them.
We are fundamentally shifting how we build and deliver Jira. Moving forward, Atlassian will be highly judicious with what we release. We are putting an end to the "forced experiment" era of SaaS.
Every new update, UI change, or feature rollout will now be strictly categorized into two clear, transparent buckets:
1. Must Adopts
These are non-negotiable updates. However, we will only slap the "Must Adopt" label on changes that directly improve speed, security, infrastructure stability, or core issue-tracking reliability. No more unexpected UI overhauls masked as mandatory updates. If we force an update on you, it's because it makes your daily standup faster, your queries snappier, or your deployment integrations more stable.
2. Try It and Tell Us
Want to try a new AI-assisted spec writer, a colorful roadmap visualization, or a new collaboration layout? They will live here. "Try It and Tell Us" features are strictly opt-in. They will remain hidden behind an admin toggle until they are thoroughly battle-tested by actual development teams. If the community tells us a feature is bloat, we throw it away. We will not pollute your workspace with solutions looking for problems.
Returning to the Core
Jira’s job is to get out of your way so you can answer three questions: What are we shipping, who is shipping it, and when is it landing?
By simplifying our release philosophy, we are stripping away the noise of the SaaS feature mill and returning Jira to what it was always meant to be: the reliable engine of predictable software delivery.
As business compute infrastructure shifts from on-premise to the cloud, network security must evolve alongside it. Traditional defenses—like firewalls, IDS/IPS, deep packet inspection, and application-aware firewalls—all need a cloud-native counterpart. But how do you secure an infrastructure that no longer lives in your data center? The answer isn't just migrating your legacy hardware virtually. To truly protect your cloud environment without sacrificing performance, you need a solution built for the cloud—offering seamless scalability, unified management, and cost-effective protection without the burden of traditional hardware maintenance.
This is where Palo Alto Networks Cloud Next-Generation Firewall (Cloud NGFW) can help. It serves as an enterprise-grade, fully managed network security fabric for you modern cloud ecosystem. Delivered as a cloud-native Firewall-as-a-Service (FWaaS), it integrates Layer 7 visibility, deep learning threat detection, and automated scaling directly into hyperscaler environments like AWS and Microsoft Azure.
Rather than managing complex physical or manually provisioned virtual appliances, NetSec and DevOps teams can leverage Cloud NGFW to enforce unified Zero Trust policies with zero infrastructure overhead.
Modern cloud architectures demand distinct traffic management rules depending on data directionality. Cloud NGFW automatically safeguards three critical vectors:
Inbound (North-South): Inspects incoming traffic to shield front-facing cloud applications, container clusters, and databases from external web-based threats and unauthorized access.
Outbound (North-South): Monitors and controls data leaving the cloud environment.
Lateral (East-West): Protects traffic moving between Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs), Virtual Networks (VNets), or individual workloads.
Palo Alto Networks Cloud NGFW bridges this gap. By embedding Layer 7 visibility, deep learning threat prevention, and automated scalability directly into the fabric of AWS and Azure, it ensures that inbound, outbound, and lateral traffic remain secure under a single pane of glass. Ultimately, Cloud NGFW allows NetSec and DevOps teams to stop managing security infrastructure and start focusing on what matters most: accelerating secure business growth in the cloud.
Sally is selling snake oil but no one is buying. To boost sales, she starts to talk at gatherings to drum up business. She starts by dispelling the fact the she is selling snake oil. "Some people out there don't know how great snake oil is. They haven't seen the real data and the testimonies on its efficacy. They are brainwashed by the controlled media and the crooked government. These are the same people who voted to the party that allowed criminals enter the US and committing crimes." What tactic is Sally using?
Sally is using a mix of rhetorical and propaganda tactics. The main ones are:
In informal terms, this is often described as a form of demagoguery or grievance-based persuasion: redirecting attention from the product’s merits to identity, distrust, and emotionally charged political themes.
Enterprises (aka large businesses) use software to run their business. This software is called "Enterprise Resource Planning", or ERP. Sounds fancier than "business software", no? So what is ERP, and how does it work? Let's create an imaginary company "ACME" that designs, manufactures, and sells its AeroGadget.
ACME, an Apple Wannabe
ACME wants to be the next Apple. So like Apple, it wants to control the entire life cycle of its products. From design to manufacturing to marketing to sales. Meaning ACME owns the entire lifecycle of AeroGadget. ACME will 1) Design 2) Procure 3) Supply Chain Management 4) Manufacture 5) Market 6) Sell 7) Service to keep customers happy.
ERP used in ACME
The creation of the mechanical AeroWidget—a complex assembly of brass gears, engraved plates, and precision-tuned springs—requires more than just skilled craftsmanship. For ACME to successfully bring this gadget to market, it must employ a comprehensive Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system that unifies every department, from the workshop floor to the executive back office.
Engineering, Manufacturing, and Quality Control
The "soul" of the AeroWidget lies in its mechanical intricacy. The ERP system serves as the central nervous system for these physical processes:
Design & PLM: Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) modules manage the technical blueprints and gear-ratio schematics, ensuring that every design iteration is tracked.
BOM & Procurement: The system automates the Bill of Materials (BOM), coordinating the sourcing of raw brass, wood, and specialized gears from global suppliers.
Manufacturing & Quality: As units move through production, the ERP tracks real-time assembly progress and triggers "Engraving Tests" to ensure the high-fidelity aesthetic of the gadget meets ACME's standards.
Marketing, Sales, and Logistics
Turning a masterpiece into a product requires seamless market integration:
CRM & Sales: Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools allow ACME to target collectors of luxury mechanical goods while managing incoming orders to prevent over-promising on stock.
Warehouse & Shipping: The ERP manages the delicate inventory and optimizes "Track & Trace" logistics, ensuring that the fragile glass-and-brass units are delivered safely via specialized transport.
The Back-Office Foundation: HR, Finance, and Accounting
While the gears turn in the widget, the ERP ensures the business gears turn behind the scenes:
Human Resource Management: The "Talent Pipeline" and "Workforce Management" modules ensure that ACME recruits and retains the specialized master horologists and engineers required for such a unique product.
Finance & Accounting: These modules provide "Capital Management" and "Ledger Control," balancing the high cost of raw materials against revenue. This ensures that every brass screw is accounted for in the company’s financial plans.
Service & Analytics: Finally, the system manages "Calibration Schedules" for field service and uses cross-functional data analytics to refine future production runs based on customer feedback.
Conclusion:
ERP is business software used by enterprises to run their business. ERP encompasses all business software - such as design, planning, supply chain, marketing, sales, human resource, finance, accounting. By integrating these disparate functions into a single "ERP Flow," ACME can transform a complex mechanical challenge into a sustainable, scalable, and highly efficient luxury brand.
Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
Before I begin, let’s start with the basic definitions. Zero Trust is a concept of never trusting anyone, always verify, even if they are in the house. SASE is architecture. So all devices that need to access the corporate network will go to the cloud first to have the user verified. SD-WAN is an implementation of SD-WAN.
Ok on to SASE Secure Access Service Edge!
SASE in a nutshell : SASE is short for Secure Access Service Edge. In the olden days, to secure access to a company network, you had to go into the office to connect to the company network. But modern digital life means you can be anywhere, using any device, at any time. So a new, safe environment that is beyond the office walls is needed. Introducing SASE. With SASE, the office network reach is now global. The security guard now follows the worker - instead of the workers going to the office guarded by a security guard.
Amazon One is a contactless, palm-based biometric identity service. It announced in September 29, 2020 in this news release as being available in Amazon Go mini-market stores. Later on March 28th, 2024 with this news release. Amazon One palm reader payment is used at Whole Foods grocery markets (owned by Amazon). During check out, a shopper just puts their palm on a palm reader to pay. No app. No card. No cash.
Roughly over just 2 years later, Amazon announced earlier in 2026 that Amazon One biometric authentication will be fully discontinued for retail customers on June 3, 2026. It’s officially the end of an era for the "palm wave" at checkout. The decision to pull the plug on the technology—which uses a combination of surface-area imaging and subcutaneous vein patterns—comes down to a few key factors:
1. The "Adoption Gap"
Despite the initial hype, Amazon reported that customer adoption simply never reached the critical mass needed to justify the overhead. Most shoppers remained more comfortable with the muscle memory of tapping a credit card or using a digital wallet (Apple/Google Pay), which offered similar speed without the perceived "creep factor" of biometric scanning.
2. Privacy and Trust Hurdles
Biometrics are a tough sell in the current privacy climate. While Amazon emphasized that the data was encrypted and stored in a specialized "One" cloud rather than on-device, privacy advocates and even some members of Congress voiced concerns about surveillance and data security. For many users, the convenience wasn't worth the perceived risk of handing over a "palm signature" to a retail giant.
3. A Massive Retail Pivot
The discontinuation of Amazon One is part of a much larger strategic retreat. Amazon is simultaneously shuttering its Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go physical locations to refocus its grocery efforts on Whole Foods Market and same-day delivery. Since those experimental stores were the primary "homes" for palm readers, the infrastructure no longer fit the new business model.
4. High Operational Costs
Maintaining the hardware and the complex backend (which required real-time cloud authentication and seamless integration with various payment processors) is expensive. Without the volume of users to offset these costs, the ROI wasn't there—especially compared to standard NFC payments.
What Happens Now?
Data Deletion: Amazon has stated that all user data, including palm signatures and associated payment info, will be automatically deleted once the service is fully decommissioned in June.
The Healthcare Exception: Interestingly, the technology isn't dying everywhere. It will reportedly remain active for patient check-ins at specific healthcare facilities (like NYU Langone) for the time being, where the "identity verification" use case still holds some value.
Alternative Tech: Amazon is shifting its focus to Dash Carts (the smart shopping carts that track items as you go) and its broader Just Walk Out licensing for third-party venues like stadiums.
It seems the world wasn't quite ready to pay with a high-five. Given the current trend toward Zero Trust and enhanced data sovereignty, a centralized biometric database for snacks was always going to be a steep hill to climb.
Are you looking for a more secure alternative for your own workflows, or were you mostly concerned about the data privacy aspect of the shutdown?
Windows Defender was originally a basic built-in antivirus that protected endpoints (namely PCs) running the Windows operating system. As endpoint attack vectors became more sophisticated, antivirus passively protecting an endpoint no longer sufficed. A holistic protection - including identities, emails, and infrastructure - was needed. This was when Windows Defender was rebranded to Microsoft Defender.
Fast forward to today, Microsoft Defender is now the overarching brand that covers a series of related products that provide integrated threat protection across the entire digital estate, including endpoints, identities, email, applications, and multi-cloud infrastructure. Here are the products under the Microsoft Defender brand:
What Is Microsoft Defender XDR
Microsoft Defender XDR (Extended Detection and Response) is an integrated suite of four security products, each providing a unique and needed defense against sophisticated attacks. Powered by AI, Microsoft Defender XDR provides an always learning, adapting, and automated unified defense across your digital estate. The four included products in XDR are:
What Makes Microsoft Defender XDR Unique?
Microsoft Defender differentiates itself by moving beyond simple signature-based detection to behavioral AI and automation.
Conclusion
Microsoft Defender XDR represents a paradigm shift from traditional, siloed security to a unified, AI-native ecosystem. Unlike third-party solutions, it requires no additional software installation, which eliminates compatibility issues and ensures peak system performance by minimizing CPU overhead By integrating defense across endpoints, identities, email, and cloud apps, Microsoft Defender XDR seamlessly correlates telemetry across endpoints, identities, and cloud applications to eliminate the silos that attackers exploit.
Once upon a time, in a bustling digital world, there lived two companies: Fulcra and Velos.
Fulcra specialized in logistics and inventory. It could track every package in real time, optimize delivery routes with satellite precision, and move goods faster than anyone else. But Fulcra didn’t know what to move — only how to move it.
Velos, on the other hand, was an e-commerce titan. Its storefronts were beautiful, its marketing sharp, and its customer base global. But when orders poured in, chaos followed. Warehouses ran out of stock. Deliveries arrived late. Refunds stacked up.
Each company excelled at what it did. Yet both suffered in silence.
One day, a young analyst named Rina, who had worked briefly at both companies, saw the problem clearly: “These systems don’t talk to each other.”
She proposed something radical: a real-time connection between Fulcra’s logistics engine and Velos’s e-commerce platform. Orders placed in Velos would instantly inform Fulcra’s inventory and routing. Fulcra’s supply chain insights would feed back into Velos’s product availability and delivery promises.
At first, both companies resisted. “It’s too risky,” said Fulcra’s CIO. “We’ll lose control of our data,” Velos’s head of tech argued.
But Rina persisted. She ran a simulation — and it showed that with full integration, customer satisfaction would increase 30%, delivery times would drop by 40%, and operational costs would shrink.
“One plus one doesn’t just equal two,” she said. “It equals three — or more — when the systems are connected.”
With cautious optimism, the two companies launched Project Converge. APIs were built. Dashboards redesigned. Silos torn down.
The results were immediate.
Customers now saw accurate delivery times before they hit "Buy." Warehouses preemptively stocked products in areas with rising demand. Returns plummeted. Profits soared. Fulcra and Velos, once strong but isolated, became unstoppable together.
And Rina? She was promoted to lead a new initiative: connecting more systems across the ecosystem. She understood a powerful truth most businesses forget:
In isolation, systems work.
In connection, systems create.
And when 1 + 1 = 3, that’s the power of integration.
4. Conclusion
Ruby is an object oriented scripting language
targeted for web applications. Rails add a framework around Ruby so that
code with specification functionality has a nature home in the
framework. Rails adopt the MVC design pattern. Ruby on Rails provides a
proven and robust framework for web app development, testing, and
production. Within a few short Rails command, a full web app is
created. Heroku cloud was picked as the public cloud hosting platform.
In order for a business to protect its IT from cyberattacks, here are some basic protections to take.
1) Identify all attempts to use and login into your IT system : people, machines, and now with AI - AI Agents. Following the IdAAA framework, your cybersecurity system must 1) Identify the user - who are you?! 2) Authenticate the user - prove who you are with what you know, what you have, what your are 3) Authorize the user - once identified and authenticated, look up the permissions. You don't want an engineer accessing HR or Financial systems 4) Accounting - log and track all interactions
2) Endpoint : this is the ENTRY POINT into your critical IT systems : the programs, the network, the data. Early days of antivirus were passive and one dimensional. Today's attack sophistication means that your endpoint protection needs to keep up with new and complex attack vectors. EDR (Endpoint Detect and Response) and XDR (Extended Detect and Response) are the bare minimum of today.
3) Network security : Old generation IDS (Intrusion Detection System) and IPS (Intrusion Prevention Systems) were static and not ready for today's AI and Quantum Compute attacks on network. Start at the very least with Next Gen Firewall (NGFW)
4) Server : These are hardware that runs everything in IT. Server hardening, including secure boot, patch management, continuous monitoring, strict access controls (don't share root password!), redundancy
5) Application : This is the direct interface to your customers and hackers. Secure your apps with passwordless & MFA. Leverage OpenID Connect & OAuth 2.0 instead of building your own login system, modern apps use established protocols to outsource authentication to trusted identity providers. Define and implment fine-Grained Authorization: Moving beyond simple "User" or "Admin" roles to Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC), where access is granted based on time, location, and the specific sensitivity of the data.
6) Storage: This is where your data ultimately lies, and hence a target for ransomware. Make sure your business performs backup, snapshoting, fine grain partition, encryption of data at rest, access anomaly detection.
7) Database : Programs rely on database to provide searchable, indexed, reliable curated data. Authorization by programs, users, and now AI agents is critical to keep business safe (confidential, with integrity). Like storage, need to backup, snapshoting, fine grain partition, encryption of data at rest, access anomaly detection.
Storage has sort of been a interest of mine. Not only did i use it for primary storage, but also for backup, and in some cases, to boot an OS. As I dug through my boxes of drives, I became amazed at the changes of storage through the years. I have owned several different types of hosts (Windows, Mac, Linux), connector (Firewire, USB, SATA, IDE), and media (3.5" HDD, 2.5" HDD, 2.5" SSD). Here is a quick walk through of some of my setup:
1) Firewire to iMac HDD : on the "Intel Aluminum" iMacs, the Fireware port was supposedly a cool thing to have. So I bought a Firewire enclosure to fit a 3.5" HDD. Worked great, but later on found that USB drives were ok too.
2) 3.5" SATA HDD : this might have been one of my first SATA drives that pivoted away from messy IDE.
3) USB DAS : I used this Direct Attached Storage as a desktop unit to backup my Windows laptop. Its slick shape made it look appealing on my desk.
4) NAS : this was my first Network Attached Storage, configured to RAID 0 because I really needed space (so there is no redundancy of data - bad!). This particular model also can host an Apache Web Server with a MySQL database.
5) 2.5" SATA SSD : this small for factor was idea for laptops and NUCs. I found this cheaper than to buy a "proper" flash USB drive. Had to buy a SATA to USB connector to use the SSD as plug in storage.
6) Boot macOS from 2.5" SATA SSD : I wanted to have a sandbox macOS environment, and so I installed macOS on to the external 2.5" SATA SSD and boot my Macbook from it.
A data professional is an individual with expertise in managing and analyzing data to derive meaningful insights. They work with various data sources, databases, and tools to collect, organize, and interpret information. Data professionals may have skills in data cleaning, transformation, and visualization, as well as statistical analysis and machine learning. They play a crucial role in helping organizations make informed decisions based on data-driven evidence. (1)
Because the data profession is such a deep field, the major includes :
Each title in its own right is a full profession. In future blogs, I will cover in detail the responsibilites of each profession - as told by Dr Data 2024!
(1) ChatGPT "User give a summary of a data professional"
(2) DALL-E "mad scientist, name tag is "Dr Data", surrounded by data, cartoon style"
Introduction
Virtual Reality (VR) has found moderate success in consumer applications, such as gaming. Major gaming manufacturers including Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft, all have dabbled in VR to a limited success. For example, Nintendo hastily released its Virtual Boy back in 1995. Due to a combination of poor design and headaches from use, it was unceremoniously pulled off the market in 1996. Note : I was one of the few who benefited from this and was able to snag one from Target's clearance shelf. Augmented Reality (AR) early usage was in Heads Up Display (HUD) in aircraft to overlay important information in front of the pilot, in car information system, and now consumer and industrial use. Mixed Reality (MR) is now helping to drive the future of VR and AR with product releases such as Meta Oculus Quest family of MR googles, Microsoft Hololens Mixed Reality googles adoption by the U.S. Army Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS), and awaiting Apple to finally launch its Vision Pro to validate the MR market.
Quick Definitions
Enterprise Adoption
Fast forward to 2018. I am at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona to explore how emerging technologies, including VR and AR, is making inroads into industrial applications. Here at the show, AR seem to have gained a stronger traction over VR. VR is a bit "intrusive" in its use model - usually requires donning special glasses or goggles - and if the Nintendo Virtual Boy is of any predictor, adoption might be resisted. AR, on the other hand, is less intrusive - usually only requires holding up a tablet (such as an iPad) or mobile phone (such as iPhone) towards a "re-conditioned" environment.
Gaming Adoption
In spite of early failures, gaming manufacture continue to power through early design challenges to try to bring VR back to dizzy gamers. SonyVR, Microsoft Hololens 2, and new challengers such as Meta Quest VR Headsets are not giving up the fight to make VR right. In fact, Meta's vision for VR is not squarely targeted at gamers. Rather, it is targeted at those who want to be transported to an alternative reality called The Metaverse. Meta has already sunk over $20 billion in 2021-2022 and will continue to invest in it - in hardware, software, and content. As an Oculus Quest owner, I have already enjoyed transporting myself to space, looking out at a serene and calm environment - away from the polluted and contentious planet that I want to escape from.
Daily Life Adoption
AR has now been quietly gaining traction as a utility to improve daily life. In a recent trip to The Hague, I exited the metro and had no idea where to go. On my moderately new iPhone (Android has this feature too), I have already installed the Google Map app. Google Map gave me the option of using my iPhone to augment information on top of what my camera sees. So from the metro station, I pointed my phone at a nearby building, and Google Maps was able to identify the building, and it proceeded to guide me on where to walk to. Digging into the technology a bit - Apple has made combining maps and camera data easier via its ARKit software libraries.
E-Commerce Adoption
With the mobile phone as the primary way for consumer to discover, learn, and buy products, AR is now enabling the consumer to explore, visualize, and imagine the product more immersive. This picture was taken at MWC. But if you are a Amazon Prime subscriber, you probably have seen AR features to overlay products (such as a lamp) onto your living room.
Keys To Adoption : Content
As a semi-avid gamer for decades, I have owned almost every major gaming console from Atari, Sega, Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, and Meta. And from a casual observation, I can say that games sells consoles. That is why every gaming console has a must have launch title - such as Microsoft's Halo and Nintendo's Legend of Zelda. Looking at VR, AR, and MR, it will be games and content and a killer app that drives adoption. In Oct 2023, wedged between the launch for Meta's Quest 3 and the 2023 holiday season, NPR writes Meta Quest 3 review: powerful augmented reality lacks the games to back it up. And Microsoft's long and contentious $70B acquisition of Activision highlights this phenomenon - Bill Gates was right 20+ years ago when he wrote the "Content is King" essay.
How to Scale Contention for VR, AR, MR
Make creation of virtual worlds easier by further leveraging tools that have already been used to do this such as Unity3D or Unreal Engine. Enable easier 3-D modeling of real world assets, perhaps open source versions of builder tools such as Blender, Maya (Autodesk), or 3ds Max. Lower Write code to implement the functionality of your VR experience. This includes user input handling, interaction mechanics, and any custom features. Use the chosen game engine's scripting language (e.g., C# in Unity, C++ in Unreal
Conclusion
