Before I start this one, full disclosure: I’m an employee of GearyTech. But that’s why I’m making this post. GearyTech has been working hard for the past several years to become the leader in Managed Services that we are. I’m happy to be a part of the company, and proud of our accomplishments to date. Partnering with ControlScan is just one of many steps we’ve taken to ensure the best service and security for our customers. Looking forward, I’m sure we’ll see plenty of partnerships like this one that will continue to benefit the way we manage our networks, and ultimately the reliability of our customer’s technology.

GearyTech Announces Strategic Partnership With ControlScan - MSNBC Wire Services - msnbc.com

I launched Firefox this morning to find a nasty suprise: My stable release had been automatically upgraded to the 3.0.1 beta release. Why? Because I installed the beta of 3.0, and Mozilla assumes that means I want to be a guinea pig for all off their released.

This is a terrible assumption. I installed FF3 as a beta because the new version of Ubuntu was using FF3, and I liked the features. I wanted the same feature set on my office PC. That does not mean that I want to test the next round of product updates. At the very least there should have been a pop-up that asked me, “Hey, we saw you used a beta before. Care to try again?”. The worst part of this is that it’s not a single-click or automatic process for reverting to the standard version. It seems that Mozilla will go ahead and upgrade me without asking, but when I want to revert I have to manually uninstall the current beta, download the current stable and then manually install the current stable. Poor process, Mozilla. I’m disappointed.

Sometimes I look at the voices in the SMB tech industry and I wonder what side of the fence they’re on. Are you the IT company that barely scrapes a solution together, or are you fully planned and ready for the task at hand? Is your concern that the users will whine too much with tighter security, or that the company will be compromised without it?

SBS MVP Susan Bradley posted the below today, and quite honestly it makes me ask those questions:

Did we have a/v on the blog server?  No, because I’m of the opinion that a blog/web server doesn’t need it and a/v is reactionary.

MSMVPS.com - “So what happened?”, June 19

A web server, the box that has the most exposure to the public web (and hence the largest surface of attack) doesn’t need AV? In what perfect world is that true? Your web server should be sitting behind a firewall that runs an IDS, should be running some type of trip wire software on it, and should definitely be running AV software. Reduce your attack surface as much as possible so that if someone tries to take over your box, they’re stopped in their tracks, and you are notified. And reactionary thought it may be (which in itself is debatable, as heuristics goes a long way towards stopping the unknown), if your server was taken down because of an infection, AV software certainly would have reacted instead of letting you get owned.