Initial Take From CITE 2013

I spent yesterday and today at the CITE Conference & Expo in San Francisco. It was really a very good conference dealing with the immense change that consumer technology is bringing to the business, the enterprise and information technology. It addresses consumer devices like the iPhone, MacBooks, Samsung tablets and so forth, but also cloud consumer services like Dropbox and how to bring all of this in to your enterprise reliably.

I will have more to say tomorrow or Thursday. Meanwhile, you can find out what people think by reading the Twitter hashtag, which includes my own thoughts: #cite13

Also, at some point, @bmkatz will have a podcast interview with me posted. Look for it!

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CITE 2013 Presentation on Mobility, BYOD, etc.

My presentation at the 2013 CITE Conference & Expo. If you didn’t know before this, now you do. I am a heretic when it comes to cloud, consumer devices, BYOD and …. well many things. I am reasonably sure on any given day that 30 – 40 percent of all IT security practitioners want to burn me at the stake for my deviation from the gospel of security.

So far, I am #winning.

CITE’13 – Cowperthwaite

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What I Did This Weekend

On Friday our dryer died. Totally dead, won’t turn on, makes no noise, etc. Motor is burnt out, I suppose. We’ve repaired it twice … it’s time to get a new one. While we are at it, my wife wants to remodel the laundry room. This sounds good to me, so I agree.

Here’s what the laundry room looked like on Friday

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Here’s what we want it to look like.

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On Saturday we bought a new washer and dryer (Whirlpool, wife really likes them). We also bought the new linoleum, paint, etc. I haven’t bought the cabinets or counter tops yet, but I have a couple weeks for that. Painting and floor will get done by next weekend, then I’m off to DC for a week.

On Sunday I demo’ed the laundry room. Tore all the shelves down, hauled the old appliances out, pulled all the mollies out of the walls, and pulled all the baseboard and door frame molding. Going to replace all of that too.

Part way in to the tear out

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Everything is out and the walls have been patched and repaired.

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Next thing is painting and then replacing the floor. That will get done by next Saturday. And the new appliances will be delivered. After that will be baseboards and door frames and hanging cabinets.

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Mr. Consumerized Mobility

Here’s how I roll …. and yes, I am a very serious security professional. I believe that consumer devices and BYOD is at least as secure as current Enterprise IT practices in most organizations today.

Here I am working … smoking a cigar, in my backyard, on a MacBook Air 11″ … with a virtual desktop for my work apps and data, plus corporate email, calendar, contacts and IM running on the MBA. Corporate services are based off Exchange Server, like most. Works well and I don’t have to put up with a clunky HP corporate laptop offering.

Eric Working BYOD

And this is how I roll most any day I’m working, whether in my physical office or on the road somewhere.

Eric's "office"

I love mobility, BYOD, cloud, and consumer IT!

Yep, security heretic here. Good thing I’m the boss!

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Life Updates

Okay, so things have been going on in my life that you may or may not be interested in. But I figured I’d share them anyhow and you could read or not read as you see fit.

Continue reading

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Biz Insider’s 23 Thought Provoking Tech Execs Article

Recently Business Insider published an article on 23 Tech Execs they think folks ought to follow on Twitter. I had a few thoughts after reading the article (when don’t I?).

The first one was “how cool that they used Allison (@snipeyhead) for the cover photo!” Seriously, anyone who describes themself as a chaotic neutral blacksmith certainly deserves to be followed on twitter. And, besides, Allison and her mohawk are way more interesting than all the big company exec types they featured. And good grief, there were a lot of them. Did Microsoft go on an ad buying spree in BI this month?

It was good, though, to see Chris Hoff (@beaker) and Rafal Los (@Wh1t3Rabbit) on the list. Each is thought provoking, in his own way. All three of these folks ought to be followed …. they are interesting and make Twitter a better place.

In fact, there’s tons of great folks on Twitter. Most of them aren’t featured in this article. The thing about Twitter is that it’s like being at the world’s largest cocktail party, hosted in your own living room. Check it out and see what I mean.

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Whiskey and a Cigar – My Memorial

My tribute to the ones who didn’t come home. I’m gonna smoke it and drink it for you … Thanks boys!

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Red Poppies

If you are wondering, the red poppies in the background are for Memorial Day. They grow in Flanders, in Belgium, on the graves of the British, Canadian, American, French, Belgian and German soldiers who died there in 1World War I. They are a symbol, today, of our war dead.

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Memorial Day Grilling

I usually grill or smoke every weekend, even the depths of winter (which isn’t actually that horrible in the Pacific Northwest). On big weekends, I do something big like ribs or pork shoulder. Today I’m doing a pork shoulder. It’s 8.5 lbs, bone already removed.

For prep, I rub some olive oil on it and then Craig “Meathead” Goldwyn’s Memphis Dust, which is simply the best pork rub there is. I let it sit in the fridge overnight, as much as 24 hours or so. This one got the rub on it and in the fridge about 11 AM yesterday.

Here’s what it looks like before going on to cook:

pork_shoulder

I cook on a Hasty Bake Gourmet grill, which is simply the best grill I’ve ever owned. You can do indirect, high heat cooking like an oven, low and slow smoking or very direct, high heat like a traditional grill.

Since it does rain and snow around Seattle fairly frequently and I love to grill and smoke on the weekends, my lovely wife got me an awesome gazebo for my cook station on the patio.

grill-gazebo

I’m going to make both a creamy coleslaw and a sweet n sour coleslaw to go along with the pulled pork. And a homemade mustard based sauce for it too. Serious Carolina style bbq going on here today!

I’ll add more as I go along throughout the day. Right now that pork shoulder is 40 minutes into the cook, temp starting to rise, second batch of apple wood chips is on for smoke flavor. The waiting is the hard part now!

Okay, that shoulder is almost 4 hours along now, about 140 internal temp. Looking and smelling delish!

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And here’s that pork shoulder when I brought it in the house.

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In Flander’s Fields

You guys will get used to me eventually. I’m a Gulf War vet (first one), plus Cold War and a bunch of other stuff over my 11 years of service. Memorial Day is a big deal to me. Flander’s Fields is my personal favorite poem related to Memorial Day and honoring the men and women who have died serving in the military in wartime. Charge of the Light Brigade comes second to this, I’ll post that tomorrow. 😉

In Flanders Fields
by John McCrae, May 1915

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

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