Blog

successful (3)

JAMB: No admission for 366,000 successful candidates

Posted by Paul "EFCC" Hawk Adams on July 14, 2010 at 7:49pm
Registrar of the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) Prof. Dibu Ojerinde, has said that 366,000 out of the 867,000 candidates who made cut -off points of 180 and above in the recent Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) would not be admitted in the nation’s tertiary institution because of lack of sufficient places.

He also disclosed that candidates did not apply for admission in some of the institutions, especially private- owned institutions as a result of the high fees charged in such schools.

Ojerinde, who described this year’s admission into tertiary institutions as the “survival of the fittest”, said the total space available for admission in the tertiary institutions is just about 527,000.

Speaking in an interview during the combined technical committee meeting on admission to degree-awarding institutions, National Diploma (ND), Nigeria Certificate of Education (NCE) and National Innovation Diploma (NID) awarding institutions which held at the Kaduna Polytechnic, Kaduna, Ojerinde said except access to tertiary institutions is increased, “we will continue to have this lot of people waiting endlessly for admission”.

He said the committee was meeting to select the first set of candidates into tertiary institutions, adding that most of the institutions attended the meeting and were ready with their lists to rectify them.

He explained further that the Panel Secretary and the Chairman will meet on the lists and decide whether the candidates have met the set criteria for admission or not, adding that once they meet the set criteria, by next week, the name of such candidates should be on the internet as those who have gotten admission.

“With this 180 cut-off points, we have about 867,000 candidates who made 180 and above, and yet the available space is just about 527,000, so the remaining 366,000 candidates will have no place to go. That is the point, except access to tertiary institutions is increased; we will continue to have this lot of people waiting endlessly for admission..

“One of the beauty of this UTME is that we have brought them together and we are saying that they can go to any institution. If university doesn’t work, college of education may work, if not polytechnics or monotechnics may work. But I am not saying that it is to be for everybody because the spaces available are still not sufficient, ” he said.
Read more…

The Internet's most successful scams

Posted by Paul "EFCC" Hawk Adams on March 25, 2010 at 10:44pm

The Internet's most successful scams

Most people think they'll never fall for a scam. In fact, that frame of mind is precisely what con artists look for. Those who believe that they know better are often the last to raise their defenses when criminals are nearby. Yes, people lose money online. A lot of it. They wire cash to London, they can't help investigating the one-in-a-million chance they really are related to a dead prince from Africa, and they sometimes even travel to Nigeria to find out. Just in case.

Verdana;"">Many of the scams you read about are sensational, such as the silly "hit man" scam created by real amateurs (recipients get an e-mail that says send me all your money or I'll kill you). And you've also seen lists that offer oddly skewed results, such as the recent FBI announcement that scammers pretending to be FBI agents are now the most prevalent Internet crime. You’d figure those numbers are a bit exaggerated because victims of FBI scams are a bit more likely to report those scams to the agency.

Verdana;"">Fantastic stories like these only serve to convince many consumers to let their guard down even more, helping to increase the pool of marks for the professional scammers.

Verdana;"">I know, because I hear from victims all the time. My inbox is littered with people whose notes say,"I know I should have known better, but ...." And with that, they beg me for help restoring their ravaged bank accounts. In fact, every single victim I've ever interviewed says they had an inkling that something was wrong from the outset, but they ignored that feeling. That’s why the single most important factor in avoiding fraud is this: Learn to trust the feeling in the pit of your stomach.

Verdana;"">

Verdana;"">Usually, I can't help restore those bank accounts. But I can help you, if your turn hasn't come up yet. And even if you are convinced you'd never fall for any online con, someone in your circle of friends or family is vulnerable. Please forward this story to him or her.

Verdana;"">Because I hear from so many victims all year long, I know what people really fall for. Here are the top 5 ways cyberthieves separate people from their money, based on my 12 years of writing about Net cons.

1.) Online dating scams

Verdana;"">Anyone out there never done anything dumb for love? If you are raising your hand, congratulations. You may now relinquish your credentials as a human being. The rest of you should read on.

Verdana;"">FightPledge Love-based cons are the easiest to perpetrate. Why? Because love always involves a leap of faith -- trusting something you can't see or touch. Just like Internet scams. For years, criminals have made haunts out of dating services and lonely-hearts chat rooms. Broken-hearted folks are rarely in their right minds, so they make easy targets.

Verdana;"">I once knew the FBI agent in charge of investigating cyber-love scams. He put it this way: Men could learn a lot from con artist lovers. They send flowers and candy constantly while wooing a mark (purchased with stolen credit cards, of course). Gifts really do put women in an agreeable state of mind, he assured me.

Verdana;"">Some cons spend months grooming their marks, waiting until after several "I love yous" before asking for $800 to be wired to the passport office in London to help clear up a paperwork mess so he can come to America for a visit.

Verdana;"">Yes, it all sounds ridiculous. It's not. It's so profitable that criminals actually pay monthly fees on some dating services. Generally, the more you pay for a service the fewer criminals you'll see, and free Craigslist personal ads tend to be a cesspool. But I've heard from victims who never joined a dating service but were still conned into fake love from perfectly innocent-sounding places like Facebook groups or chat rooms devoted to hobbies like stitching or horses. It all starts with a simple e-mail, perhaps enhanced by a little Facebook research (“Hey, you love the New York Islanders and the Beatles, too! Wow”)

Verdana;"">Since I've written about this scam many times, I've even heard from concerned family members who beg me to talk the deluded lover down off the cliff when he or she is about to send a bunch of money to a scammer. Usually, I fail. Love is blind; it's also really, really stubborn.

Verdana;"">In the latest flavor of the scam, when a deluded lover actually wises up and confronts the criminal, he or she admits to the crime but then adds this twist: "Yes, at first it was just a con, but while we were talking I've really fallen in love with you."

Verdana;"">For a whole lot more on this insidious, more-common-than-you'd-believe crime, visit romancescams.org. The group, founded by former victims, has been fighting back for nearly 10 years. They post blacklisted photos there, e-mail addresses and typical opening lines from scammers , and lots of additional helpful scam-fighting tools. If you fall in love and have any doubts, visit the site.

2.) Fake or "rogue" anti-virus software

Verdana;"">We've all seen the pop-ups: "Your computer is infected! Get help now!"

Verdana;"">black;"">Verdana;""> at-xid-6a00d83451b0aa69e20120a6792d57970c " title="Herbbox" style="float: left; margin: 6px;" alt="Herbbox" src="http://onthescene.msnbc.com/.a/6a00d83451b0aa69e20120a6792d57970c-800wi" border="0"">If you've ever clicked through such an ad (really, a hijacking), you know that the price for freedom is $20 or $30 a month. At first, the ads were clunky and the threats idle. But now, many pop-ups are perfect replicas of windows you would see from Windows or an antivirus product. Some sites actually employ so-called ransomware, which disables your PC until you pay up or disinfect it with a strong antivirus product. That's why consumers forked over hundreds of millions of dollars to fake antivirus distributors in 2009, according to the Federal Trade Commission.

Verdana;"">Your best bet? Make a plan now. This is the one scam that just about anyone can fall for. The best protection of all is to back up your important files, so the day your computer is hacked, your digital life won't be on the line. It's also important to have a fire extinguisher nearby. A second PC or laptop is often your best help when disaster strikes. Many viruses disable Internet access, so you'll need a second computer to research your infection and download disinfectant software. Have a flash drive nearby, too, so you can move the inoculation from one computer to the other.

Verdana;"">Meanwhile, if you aren't paying for antivirus software, at least employ one of the popular free products like AVG font-family: Verdana;"">or Windows Defender

3.) Facebook impersonation

Verdana;"">Facebook is no longer a Web site -- it's a full-fledged platform, rapidly approaching the scale of the Internet itself. Many young users spend more time on Facebook than on e-mail, and actually use Facebook as their e-mail service. That means scammers are now crawling all over the service, since they always go where the people go. There are hundreds of Facebook scams, such as phishing e-mails, Trojan horse infections, misleading advertisements and so on.

Verdana;"">But the crime you should most worry about is Facebook impersonation. A criminal who hacks into your Facebook account can learn a staggering amount of information about you. Worse yet, he or she can gain trusted access to friends and family. We've seen plenty of stories that show Facebook friends can easily be tricked into sending money in response to believable pleas for help.

Verdana;"">For this reason, it's time to upgrade your Facebook password. Treat it like an online banking site, because it's not a stretch to say that a criminal who hacks your Facebook account is only one small step away from stealing your money (“Hello, First National Bank, I've lost my password. But my high school mascot is the Owl and my mother's maiden name is Smith. Oh, and my first girlfriend's name was Mary. Can you reset the password now?”)

4.) Becoming a bot

Verdana;"">You may not know it, but your computer might be a criminal. Botnets -- armies of hijacked home computers that send out spam or commit other crimes -- remain the biggest headache for security professionals. The various botnets ebb and flow in size, but at any given time, tens of millions of computers on the Web are under the influence of a criminal. No one thinks it's their PC, of course, but look at the odds. If one estimate claiming 100 million infections is accurate, then about one out of every 20 computers in the world is infected. In other words, someone in your extended family is aiding and abetting a spammer.

Verdana;"">How can this be? Victims typically don’t notice the criminal activity. Cyberthieves can easily use your machine without leaving a trace or slowing down your PC performance. They do not deposit e-mails in your sent items folder. Instead of sending 1 million e-mails from your machine, they send one e-mail every hour from 1 million infected machines.

Verdana;"">Any honest antivirus company will tell you that there is so much new malicious software created every day that the good guys simply can't keep up. The Web is jammed full of e-mails and Web sites that can turn your home computer into a bot. Your PC could very easily be safe today but at risk tomorrow. That's why it's so important to keep your computer's security tools up to date. But you shouldn't assume that this will keep you 100 percent safe. Avoid the Web's seedier side, and don't let the kids download illegal music or games, a main source of infections. And always keep on the lookout for strange programs, files or surprising hiccups from your machine.

5) The fakosphere

Verdana;"">The Web is now littered with fake blogs, fake ads, fake acai berry products, fake work-at-home jobs and fake Web sites saying how great all these things are. You'll even see ads for such products on all major media Web sites, as they've become the Web's answer to late-night infomercials.

Verdana;"">The FTC recently issued an opinion clarifying that fake testimonials on Web sites are a violation of federal law, and some of the over-the-top ads have disappeared. But the fakosphere is far from dead.

Verdana;"">I know it's tempting to obey one rule that will make your tummy flat, make your bank account fat or make your cancer disappear. But you can't believe everything you read online. Never purchase a product without searching Google using this search term: "(Product name) scam" and "(Product Name) complaint." Then, spend three minutes familiarizing yourself with the reputation of the item you are about to buy and the price you are about to pay. One or two complaints might say one thing, but 500 complaints should certainly scream at you that you should put that credit card back in your wallet.

Verdana;"">Here are a few other top scam lists worth checking:

Read more…

CEO Interview: Brian Gentile jaspersoft on How to Build a successful Open Source business

Posted by technology on February 14, 2010 at 10:21pm

CEO Interview: Brian Gentile on How to Build a successful Open Source business

http://blogs.olliancegroup.com/wp-content/themes/k2/images/time.png); background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; min-height: 16px; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; ">Published by Miriam Tuerk on January 27, 2010 in General. 0 Comments ...

Olliance will be running a series of CEO Interviews throughout the year. I sat down with Brian Gentile, CEO of Jaspersoft ( www.jaspersoft.com ), to get his thoughts on Open Source software and current market trends. This is the first in a two part series with Brian where he shares his thoughts.

Part 1: A discussion on open source today – challenges and learnings for commercial Open Source vendors and customer CIOs.

Miriam – Some analysts believe 2010 will be a year of explosive growth for Open Source. What are your thoughts on the 2010?

Brian – Gartner recently issued an open source business intelligence report forecasting a 5-fold increase in the next three years. 2010 will be the third consecutive year where there will have been large jumps in the successful use of open source products; so yes, I am bullish about the up-coming year.

Above the infrastructure layer, more than ever open source will become necessary – more than acceptable . . . expected, mainstream and validated. It is important to distinguish between open source as an underlying infrastructure layer and the layers of software above that are more application like. This marks an important transition in the adoption and use of open source software.

Miriam – So you think that the Open Source B.I. space has moved out of the early adopter stage and is now moving to the top of the curve from a Crossing the Chasm perspective?

Brian – I would say it is early majority – it has crossed the chasm and is now in the early majority. That’s important socio-graphically, because now not just “Type A” customers (those companies and IT teams who see innovative information technology as the means to competitive advantage) are adopting, but “Type B” as well.

Miriam – How many years has it been for the Open Source B.I. segment in the market place – from when it started out in the marketplace to get to that point up the curve? Four years?

Brian – The earliest point would be late 2001 when the first mainstream open source BI project appeared, called JasperReports. Early users were developers that used this open source reporting engine and library. Then, I’d estimate that mainstream use of open source BI began in 2005, when Jaspersoft introduced the first full-fledged BI Server (JasperServer) and other vendors appeared as well.

Miriam – That’s part of cycle maturity, when multiple vendors are in the market. What about other segments above the infrastructure? What are the characteristics that you think would make it possible for another segment to become like Open Source BI?

Brian – Not all software sectors necessarily represent a good market for the open source model. There are characteristics that make certain sectors better for open source.

Miriam – What are they?

Brian – Firstly, the software sector has to be at a maturity level where you don’t have to explain what the software is, what it does, and why it is beneficial. Open source companies don’t have the time or money to educate. You won’t see successful open source companies in new software categories where you have to prove that the software is necessary.

Secondly, it has to be a big enough market where the volume needs of a commercial open source company can be met.

Thirdly, incumbent players should be leaving a portion of the market under-served or over-charged. If these three market characteristics are in place – it can be very fertile for an open source company to come in.

Miriam – What about the customer side? What are the attributes that you have to look at from the customer side in order to benefit from open source.

Brian – The early adopter market was a technical group. Technical audiences – the developers of the world, have historically consumed successful open source projects. In 2010, business users will more and more advocate using open source. It’s kind of like the early days of SaaS where end users said “I am not going to pay the internal IT prices for access to Siebel or Peoplesoft. I am going to use Salesforce because it is a better product and I can use it today not in 6 months.” The business benefits of open source are being widely recognized by business users who will pressure IT to use open source to benefit their business.

Miriam – The open source mantra has always been that the buyer and downloader of the product is technical. As it crosses over to the business side, is there a certain business function that is going to be more predisposed to come to the community, sign up, download, etc.

Brian – I don’t think so. I think that we are now technically savvy enough in every department to be able to do this. So, I think you’ll see pockets of business user adoption and endorsement across all functions in an organization.

Miriam – Even in sales? LOL?

Brian – Yes. There are big pockets everywhere and those pockets grow as the demographics in the workforce change. The most significant demographic shift of all time, at least in the western or developed economies, is underway. It is going to continue to have a dramatic effect on the technical skills of the individual knowledge worker.

Miriam – Jaspersoft is your first Open Source company as a CEO. What were some of the areas that you found critical? Lets start on the sales and marketing side. What are the unique challenges of the open source model from a sales and marketing perspective?

Brian – The biggest challenge is to recognize the value of the open source model and the community that forms over time – it requires patience. You must have an investment and operating model that allows you to get out there with a product in volume that is essentially free and solves some real business problem.

Sales and marketers want to sell something to everybody. Many are just not going to buy your product but they are going to use your product – this is discomforting to sales people. They have to be patient– because if they aren’t, you won’t have a successful open source model.

Secondly, you have to find clever ways to have that community collaborate with you on the product. Product development can’t be fully in charge of the features of the product and where it is going.Your development model must embrace that and take back contributions that originated with the community. That’s uncomfortable for everyone if you have never done it before but getting good at it is a distinction between successful and mediocre open source companies.

Miriam – Your second point is particularly interesting. Many organizations hit two walls – the first how to scale. Once people do want the commercial edition, it can become a people intensive business. How do you scale from 1 to 100 to 1,000? You also have to change the support and services model. Any insight around those challenges?

Brian – The bigger the community, the greater the need for scalable services. One must spend meaningful time trying to put in place mechanisms for community self support and knowledge-based services. So it has to be organic and scalable. There are absolutely acceptable distinctions between classes of services for a community user and commercial customers. Done correctly, it actually becomes a benefit to the P&L. Done incorrectly, it could sink a company.

Miriam – Lastly, how is product management different – you have a background in marketing and product management – you’ve done it both in a traditional company and an open source company. What are the critical success factors?

Brian – In a proprietary software company, the product management function is essentially a guardian of the secrets of where the product is going. The watchwords for open source companies are transparency, participation and collaboration. The product function owns transparency and collaboration. The beginning points for community development is where the website becomes an ideagora – a gathering place for swapping ideas. The product management function has to provide dialogue and the community has to be invited to engage. Using the ideagora, there is voting and dialogue about the direction of the product. The combination of these principles can create unparalleled value – again, if done correctly.

Miriam – So when we look forward to 2010, what do you see as the opportunities and challenges for Jaspersoft and for open source software market in general.

Brian – For 2010, we have five strategic company objectives. They are aligned with where we think the market is going. One of our five objectives is to diversify our revenue stream – ensuring a growing commercial contribution from Latin America, Asia Pacific, and Europe.

Miriam – So do you think 2010 will be easier in terms of the market and the economy – from a software sales perspective.

Brian - I think we will see continued recovery – and as we move through the year, we will pick up momentum. It won’t be a banner year – it will be a solid year but an important one to lead into even bigger growth in 2011.

Read more…

Latest Blog Posts

Most Popular Blog Posts

Blog Topics by Tags

  • in (506)
  • to (479)
  • of (339)
  • ! (213)
  • as (166)
  • is (157)
  • a (156)

Monthly Archives