The move away from traditional text books in the class room

Hi all,

I'm not sure when it began but I believe we are experiencing the culmination of decades of incremental change.  It started out with introducing computers to children in the 80's when it was apparent that they were to be a significant part of everyone's future.  If I remember correctly it was an elective in high school to give you a taste of rudimentary computer programming.  This was effectively the education system dipping it's toes into a cool river.

Now we have the Apple ipad 2 completely taking the place of a traditional text book.  What an incredible turn of events.  Who in the world would ever have thought that some small, hand held electronic device weighing next to nothing would be able to replace six or seven books each weighing more than that little thing!?  Well, it has now happened and I'm a little conflicted about the whole thing.

First of all I absolutely love gadgets and I acknowledge the usability of these devices.  But...it just seems like you loose something when you can't flip through a book.  It also seems a little bit opulent for a school to get for all of it's students.  But I think the case can be made that it's actually cheaper but get a student an ipad 2 that can hold all of those books that each one costs money and most of the time either get damaged or lost and cost money to replace.  I'm sure time will tell.

Thank you for your time!

The Wedding

The Wedding This guest post from Werner Rogers Going to HTTP://Direct.TV to get satellite was the best decision ever especially this close to my wedding. I say it’s close but I actually just got engaged a couple of months ago but I’m still in the process of looking for a dress so I really like watching Say yes to the dress whenever I get the chance. It’s like I get to go wedding dress shopping all the time without leaving my house which is great since I don’t live anywhere near New York or Kleinfeld’s! I haven’t decided what I want yet but I’m thinking mermaid or possibly A-line but I guess I’ll have to see when I go in and actually try some on. I have an appointment a few weeks from now but I better get on it since the wedding’s 8 months away and I’ve got to get it ordered if there’s any chance it will be here and get altered in time! I can’t wait to see what works well on my body and what I’m going to wear down the aisle!

A little firewall debate is healthy...right?

Hi all,

I recently ran across an opinion piece from a few years ago where a guy posted the question "Why WOULD you buy Check Point firewalls?"
 http://etherealmind.com/checkpoint-buys-nokia-security-appliances-time-to-change/

First of all I'll go one better than this guy and clearly state my allegiance...I have been working with Check Point firewalls since 1998 v3.0b and feel quite strongly that as an overall product the Check Point firewall is a far superior product to either Cisco or Juniper products.

I'll summarize my opinion of this article by saying this...although it is true to say that Check Point products are expensive to license...but when  you factor in all of the costs associated with actually operating a firewall in the enterprise it is clear that the Check Point firewall is actually very competitively priced.

When comparing price a lot of people will fall into the unrealistic trap of just comparing licensing/cap-ex costs and not taking into account the soft costs.  Such as effort to operate them in the enterprise...this gets very sticky but one thing is abundantly clear.  If you have an environment that is distributed AND you process a large number or rules every month then you are MUCH better off with a Check Point firewall.  This bold statement can be empirically tested and proven.

Here is a good example...

Lets say you are an administrator for a large enterprise and you are given a rule request with 5 sources, 10 destinations, and 5 ports and this rule needs to be applied to 30 firewalls (this is not an unusual request in large enterprises).  With a Check Point firewall this request can be completed in a matter of minutes from a single User Interface with a single rule.  This is a HUGE time and effort savings for a Check Point firewall admin over Cisco or Juniper admins.

Here are his main points:

"Let me give you a brief list of my complaints and problems with Nokia / Checkpoint firewalls:

• The price of Nokia and Checkpoint maintenance contracts is astronomical.
• New features and capabilities take a l-o-n-g time to appear in the product, usually after every other vendor has delivered.
• Upgrading and managing Provider-1 is much harder and more painful than Cisco Security Manager or Netscreen Security Manager. Yes, I have installed and operated them all.
• Using Cisco Security Manager and Netscreen Security Manager is much easier and intuitive than using Provider-1
• The process for upgrading IPSO / Firewall-1 software is painful compared to Cisco ASA / Juniper NetScreen.
• IPSO / Firewall-1 performance is low and poor value for money. Delivering multi-gigabit performance is pointless exercise since its costs so much in licenses and hardware.
• legendary support – so legendarily bad that many people don’t even bother contacting Checkpoint with problems.
• poor integration – loading a static arp in IPSO for every NAT rule in Firewall-1 makes my teeth ache.
• Documentation is atrocious, and hidden behind a paywall.

and I could go on. And on."

Fitness talk

Hello all,

Well, I have to admit that I've never been very fit.  I've always struggled with exercise...mainly because at my core I've got a fair amount of laziness.  Hows that for honesty?  Well, this week I decided to push myself with my running.  Normally I'll mostly walk with a little bit of running.  I've always struggled to run more than a half mile and had heard of people experiencing a "runners high", which I couldn't even fathom.  Well, I was talking with my cousin about exercise and he mentioned something when I brought up the subject of that elusive "runners high"...pace...he said he could run for eight or more miles at ~7 or 8 mph.  He said that if he slowed it down or sped it up that he couldn't last.

So this week I decided to push myself and try to find "my speed"...well, I believe I've found it.  I was able to run 1.5 miles at 5.5 mph on Monday.  Then yesterday I was able to run for 1.75 miles at 6 mph.  Today I was able to run 2 miles at 6.2 mph.  The worst thing I can say is that my thighs, calves, and shins are super sore but I was still able to run with no problems.  My breathing was actually fine, which I've never been able to say.  I really think this pace thing is the whole key to being able to run for any sort of distance.

I'll update you guys on my progress but hopefully it will be nothing but positive.

Thanks,

Brandon

The quest for telecommuting

Hi all!

So I've gone from in the office 5 days a week at Bank of America from 2000 to 2002.  Then we went to telecommuting 1 day a week until about 2006.  During this time there was a study done to determine what kinds of cost savings could be had if there was mas-telecommuting.  Between 2006 and 2008 I was a full time telecommuter...which I loved!  I love it for so many reasons, not the least of which is saving money.  After I left the bank I went to do professional services for Crossbeam...overall it was a difficult experience.  I was able to telecommute for the most part but unfortunately there was too much traveling for my taste.

After about 6 months of travel and pro-serv work I was approached to join a new team to build a strong group of firewall engineers for an MSSP for Fujitsu America.  I had to go back to an office environment for a short period of time before I began telecommuting again...unfortunately, not long after I joined FAI the company began to decline in a hurry.  The group had gone from 10+ engineers on the team to 3 and there were still talks from senior leaders of layoffs coming in the future.  I saw the writing on the wall and fortunately I was approached by a former co-worker about a position at Experian.  I interview and got the job with a slight bump in pay...unfortunately I am now having to drive to work 5 days a week :-(....  I did however express my expectations of being a full time telecommuter at some point in the near future...which I was told would happen at some point after we brought the team up to speed on getting things done.  Initially I am telecommuting 1 day a week.

As you can imagine, when you take out all of the emotions on both sides of the argument, the good far out weighs the bad with regards to telecommuting.  There are soooo many aspects to this topic that there is no way I will be able to cover it effectively but here are a few if I remember correctly.

• Electricity
• Floor space
• Network connectivity
• Cubicles
• Coffee
• Maintenance (cleaning crews, etc)

I will have the task of creating a process to enable all the guys on the team to telecommute if they choose and at the same time putting senior leaders at ease with the idea of telecommuting.

Thank you for reading!

Brandon

First Post

Hello all!

I've never been the type of person that could sit down and write so this may be a failed attempt.  But since this is my first attempt perhaps introductions are in order...

Hi!  My name is Brandon Stevens and although I don't believe that what you do is who you are; I do believe that what you do is a huge part of your life.  I am a network security specialist and more specifically a Check Point firewall specialist.  Here comes the humble brag...I don't know it all but probably more than most.  After 12 years working on these things I would hope to be above average.

Personally I have been married to a beautiful and talented woman for almost 16 years!  We have two wonderful boys (Sam 14; Ryan 9) who we love with all our hearts.

My wife is a terrific photographer and has a growing business which she began about five years ago...

www.kaygrahamphotography.com

kaygrahamphotography.blogspot.com


I look forward to updating my blog in the near future!

Thanks for reading,

Brandon