GSA Technology Council

The GSATC recently funded a small technology project proposed in the classroom of a local Title 1 school. We got a nice thank you letter from the teacher in August and today we received a link to some photos that were taken with the equipment we provided. I thought we’d share them with you, our readers, members, and sponsors. Thanks for helping us help those around us.

Dear GSA Technology Council,

Words can not truly express my joy and gratitude for your generosity in funding my classroom project! The students are so very excited about this new venture in their learning experience!

Photographs will allow each child to look at their accomplishments and reflect on the experiences that they had. This will also enable the children to share their education with their families at home.

Again, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Your generosity is sincerely appreciated!

With gratitude,
Mrs. P.

See the photos, notes, and project outline posted at DonorsChoose.org.

At 1PM ET, Google will offer an update on Google Chrome OS and provide a look at the work that has been done thus far, an overview of the technology, and launch plans for next year. Speakers will include Sundar Pichai, Vice President of Product Management and Matthew Papakipos, Engineering Director for Google Chrome OS.

When: Thursday, November 19th, 1 PM Eastern

Where: http://investor.shareholder.com/googpr/eventdetail.cfm?eventid=75092

via: Google

Personalized invitations with maps for each recipient include door to door driving directions for each card.

Individual invitations with maps are now being offered by Astonishingcards. This program draws a map from the front door of each and every recipient to the front door of the event. In addition, Astonishingcards provides turn by turn driving directions for each person on the invitation list making the holiday party invitations unique and personalized to each guest.

Invitation With Personalized Map

These cards are ideal for holiday party invitations, wedding invitations, bridal showers, rehearsal dinners, baby showers, anniversary parties, business moving announcements, grand opening announcements and invitations, company parties or even charity golf tournaments. The invitations with maps can be from the recipient’s home to the hostess’es home, to a church, a restaurant, event center or even a golf course.

Personalized mapping is also ideal for moving announcements. Take a picture of a new home and put it on the front of the card and then order the personalized mapping option and Astonishingcards will create a door to door map for each family member and friends.

Individual Personalized Maps may be even more important for businesses. When a company opens a new store or moves to a new location, customers may have a difficult time finding the location, and that means lost business. Not any more. Send each customer or prospect a map directly from their front door to the front door of the new address. Include turn by turn directions from their front door (either their home or corporation) directly to the new location.

All cards automatically print in full color, but can also be printed in black and white. Choose to have no border, or match the invitations border to create a complimentary suite of invitation and other materials. Personalized maps are created on 5” x 7” flat cards and are printed in full color on both sides.

via: Astonishing Cards

How will tomorrow’s wealth be created? Who will get it and how? Alvin and Heidi Toffler believe there will be an upheaval in our social, political and cultural institutions & values. In their new book, Revolutionary Wealth, they write about everything from education and childrearing to Hollywood and China, from everyday truth and lies to what they call our “Third Job” — the unnoticed work we do without pay for some of the biggest corporations in our country. Join us in March as former Kemet President/COO, Terry Weaver offers a technology entrepreneur’s view and guide to Toffler’s latest important work in this podcast episode.

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Acumen I.T., a Greenville-based technology company, has announced the addition of Jennie Fowler to its team. Fowler will serve as the director of project management for the company’s growing Project Management division.

In this new position, Fowler is charged with building the company’s project management-for-hire team, enabling customers to have on-site strategic project management oversight without having to hire employees on their own payroll. Fowler’s team will also assist internal and external customers to better recognize and understand the implementation of best practices for their ongoing projects.

In addition, Fowler will assist with enhancing and strengthening the Application and Development department while overseeing current projects in that department and helping to acquire new opportunities.

Fowler brings more than 16 years of experience in the Information Technology and Project Management fields to this position. Ten years of that experience included Departmental Management at the director/executive level. Prior to joining Acumen, Fowler served as the head of the Enterprise and IT Project Management office for Advance America and worked with the headquarters of Toyota Motor Sales as their lead Project Manager. She has also managed high-level planning, resource allocation, training and coordination for a number of large companies. Fowler holds a Masters Degree in Adult Education and received her undergraduate degree in Computer Technology. She is a certified Master Project Manager™ (MPM), as well as a member of the Project Management Institution (PMI).

“Jennie is an excellent addition to Acumen, as she brings outstanding project management and leadership skills to our team,” says Acumen’s CEO David Pence. “She will be instrumental in assisting our customers with growing and nurturing their businesses by helping them best utilize the skills and expertise made available through our for-hire project management professionals.”

via: Acumen I.T.

Acumen I.T., a Greenville-based technology company, has been named one of South Carolina’s Top 25 Fastest Growing Companies by the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce in conjunction with the Capital Corporation, an investment banking firm located in Greenville. The company comes in at number 19. This is the second consecutive year Acumen has received this prestigious honor.

The Fastest Growing Companies list recognizes the achievements of top-performing private and publicly owned companies that have contributed to the economy of South Carolina. The companies are ranked based on a combination of increases both in gross revenue or assets and in full-time employment in South Carolina in the two most recently completed fiscal years.

“Receiving this recognition two years in a row is quite an honor,” says Acumen President and CEO David Pence. “Adding employees, particularly in this economy, tells you that we are doing something right. We strive to provide consistent value as all companies must do in order to maintain and increase market share.”

via: Acumen I.T.

Northstar Creative, based in downtown Greenville, announces the launch of a website for OnSite Health (www.onsitehealthonline.com), located in Spartanburg, SC. OnSite Health’s team of healthcare professionals helps businesses improve the health of their employees to increase productivity and lower insurance rates. OnSite Health hired Northstar Creative to develop a website that reflects their professionalism and highlights to potential clients the benefits of the programs and demonstrated their results. Northstar Creative developed an informative site that makes the company look like the high-quality company that it is and communicates the benefits of working with the company.

“OnSite Health provides an excellent service to their clients that positively affects both their corporate culture and bottom line. They needed to communicate this important message on the web, and we were happy to help them do that,” says Laura MacPherson, president of Northstar Creative.

via: Northstar Creative

Join us and Qualys (www.qualys.com) for this month’s presentation on PCI Compliance and keeping your network secure. While organizations that process and store credit card information must adhere to the PCI Compliance Regulations, every organization that is looking to secure their organization or is currently maintaining a secure environment can learn various aspects of network security from the same Compliance guidelines. Every network, system and security administrator is guaranteed to take away valuable information in helping to secure their environments from this presentation.

Qualys, Inc. is the leading provider of on demand IT security risk and compliance management solutions – delivered as a service. Qualys’ Software-as-a-Service solutions are deployed in a matter of hours anywhere in the world, providing customers an immediate and continuous view of their security and compliance postures. The QualysGuard® service is used today by more than 3,500 organizations in 85 countries, including 40 of the Fortune Global 100 and performs more than 200 million IP audits per year. Qualys has the largest vulnerability management deployment in the world at a Fortune Global 50 company. Qualys has established strategic agreements with leading managed service providers and consulting organizations including BT, Etisalat, Fujitsu, IBM, I(TS)2, LAC, SecureWorks, Symantec, Tata Communications, TELUS and VeriSign.

Special thanks to Qualys and Chris Hill for being one of Upstate SC ISSA’s Platinum Sponsors!!!

* Door prizes to include Amazon gift cards and other exciting items! * Bootable Live DVD versions of the latest beta version of BackTrack will be made available to attendees. * Lunch from a downtown eatery will be provided at a nominal cost of $10 per person. If you’d like to eat lunch with us, please make sure to RSVP to webmaster@upstate-issa.org at least 24 hours prior to the meeting and mention you would like lunch ordered. Lunch may be paid for in either cash or check on the Chapter meeting.

AGENDA – November 20th, 2009 – 11:15AM to 12:30PM

11:15 – 11:25 Lunch/Networking
11:25 – 11:30 Introductions/Announcements
11:30 – 12:25 Presentation
12:25 – 12:30 Q&A/Door Prizes/Wrap-up

For directions, please visit http://www.upstate-issa.org/directions.htm.

via: Upstate ISSA

In this episode of our podcast we share upcoming events in the week ahead, answer and share a review of the Motorola Android smart phone and present some interviews conducted during the October Tech After 5 event featuring John Yeary, Mike Gottenauer, Don Crews and Kirbe Crowe. Thanks for listening and don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast via the iTunes link below.

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Click to listen or download this recording
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Subscribe via iTunes

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GSATC Radio on iTunes

Logitech International (SIX:LOGN) (Nasdaq:LOGI), a leader in PC video communication, today announced that it has agreed to acquire privately held LifeSize Communications of Austin, Texas for $405 million in cash. LifeSize is a global leader in high definition (HD) video communication solutions, with more than 9,000 video conferencing customers across 80 countries in large enterprises, small-to-medium businesses (SMBs) and public healthcare, education and government organizations.

LifeSize’s industry leading HD video conferencing solutions provide superior quality of experience and are flexible, easy to use, install and manage – with unmatched price/performance.

“We expect this acquisition to enable Logitech to extend our leadership in video communication beyond the desktop,” said Gerald P. Quindlen, Logitech president and chief executive officer. “Together we can make life-like, HD-quality video communication as mainstream and seamless as a telephone, for meeting participants in the boardroom, at their office desk, in a remote-location meeting room, telecommuting from home or on the go with a laptop.”

“LifeSize was founded on the vision of providing life-like visual-communication solutions to change the way the world communicates,” said Craig Malloy, LifeSize co-founder and chief executive officer. “We believe that together with Logitech, we can realize that vision for all enterprises – private and public – and small and medium businesses. Our combined proven innovation can accelerate mainstream adoption of video communication by anyone, anywhere.”

Logitech and LifeSize plan to pursue existing and new relationships with unified communications, collaboration and VoIP industry partners and competitors to drive the development of an open eco-system for interoperable video communication.

Logitech and LifeSize also expect to further video communication growth by leveraging their combined technology expertise as well as Logitech’s world-class manufacturing and supply chain operations, extensive R&D, expertise in user experience and globally recognized brand.

Logitech plans for LifeSize to operate as a separate division in Austin under the leadership of Mr. Malloy as the LifeSize Communications chief executive officer, reporting to Mr. Quindlen. LifeSize expects approximately $90 million in revenue in CY 2009, with CY 2010 revenue expected to grow between 40 percent and 60 percent. Logitech expects the acquisition to be neutral to slightly positive to its operating income (excluding acquisition-related charges) in FY 2011, ending March 31, 2011, and positive thereafter.

The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions, including antitrust approval, and is expected to close in December.

via: Logitech