Good times, bad times

Find out why Ice bucket salesmen are doing better than dogs in CRN's fortnightly channel barometer

Good times

Ice bucket salesmen

The Ice Bucket Challenge may be wearing a little thin by now, but that doesn't make watching endless videos of tech tycoons dousing themselves with freezing water in the name of charidee any less amusing.

Bill Gates and Meg Witman (pictured, right) are among those to have endured a sub-zero soaking alongside UK channel names such as Softcat chairman Martin Hellawell, Kelway boss Phil Doye and CRN's very own Sara Yirrell. In fact, if you've not been challenged by now, it's probably time to ask why and consider ordering a copy of How To Win Friends and Influence People.

Clean freaks

Repeat hand-washers and rubber-glove enthusiasts received welcome news this week as Tech Data signed a deal with washable keyboard manufacturer Seal Shield.

The US-headquartered vendor makes washable electronic goods which it coats in an anti-infection layer it dubs Seal Shield. Its new partner claims the latest addition to its linecard will be a big hit in the education and healthcare markets.
Judging by the eating habits and personal hygiene of the average journo, we'd say they'll do pretty well in the media industry too.

Cloud awareness

Whatever would we do without the Daily Mail? That's a question a lot of people ask themselves every day. But now, it has proved its weight in gold after explaining in great detail that cloud computing is "not an actual cloud, but a bank of gigantic humming and whirring computers... thousands of miles away in California or North Carolina".

This fantastic explanation was prompted by the numerous celebs whose naughty photos were stolen by hackers from their personal iClouds and distributed across the interweb. We hope that sharing it with our readers will clear up any questions they may have too.

Bad Times

Dogs

Canine lovers recoiled with despair as new research from security vendor Trustwave found that workers who use their beloved dogs' names as passwords could be at risk of being hacked.

Of the sample of 626,718 passwords it analysed, 10,000 users had a password made up of one of the top-100 dog names. Trustwave's sneaky boffins were able to recover more than half in a matter of minutes.

The vendor advised users to develop "longer ‘pass-phrases' instead of simple, predicable, easy-to-crack passwords". We would argue that anyone who uses a dog password and gets hacked has merely suffered ‘ruff' justice. Anyone?

Multitasking

Money can buy you many things, but time is not one of them. Ex-Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer found that out the hard way recently, announcing his resignation from the firm's board due to being "very busy" with other commitments.

After retiring from the top job in February, Ballmer was quick to snap up US basketball team the LA Clippers - outbidding a joint offer from Oracle boss Larry Ellison, Oprah Winfrey and David Geffen.

As the new season approached, Ballmer's diary began to fill up at such a rate that he felt continuing his Microsoft board duties was just too much and so stood down. But he did promise that he could be relied on to "keep ideas and inputs flowing". We're sure his phone will be ringing off the hook.

Trustmarque

York-based VAR Trustmarque was facing uncertain times as CRN went to press, with sources suggesting it had just days to secure new funding or find a buyer following financial issues. CVs were flying around the channel last week after the private equity-backed firm told staff on Tuesday that it is "reviewing its strategic options". We wish the company and its staff all the best.