Tag: news

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Security Consulting & Testing Services

For most of my professional career, I have been involved in security in one way or another. When I started my career in the Army, I trained as a Unix System & Network administrator. During that time, I often tinkered with security on our systems. In my first job outside the Army, one of my responsibilities was network security as well as managing offsite backups. Later in my career, I would be responsible for testing software applications for PCI compliance.

This year, I decided to start gaining certifications in the security realm. In March, I earned CompTIA’s Security+ certification. Then, in May, I took the Beta version of CompTIA’s PenTest+ version 2 exam. Today, I received notification that I passed that exam. These certifications shows that I am qualified to test systems for security issues and provide feedback to customers wanting to ensure their systems are as secure as possible.

In addition to computer security testing, I have previously studied locksmithing and physical security. Adding these two skills together gives me lots of avenues to approach security and vulnerability testing for clients – both on their networks and their physical facilities.

If you are interested in having your network security tested, please reach out to Talixa Software & Service, LLC for more information.

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Progress, Reflection, and Refocus

Over a year has passed since I started working with Talixa. When I look at how far the company has come, I feel a need to take a step back and reflect on the progress and positive change taking place. From the outset, I have maintained a bold confidence in Tom’s ability, both as owner and chief engineer, to consistently deliver top-notch service and capitalize on key relationships. These have helped to build a foundation upon which the company will develop and grow, though we only continue to grow after helping our clients do the same.

At the beginning of this year, I transitioned to take on a new role as business strategist for the company. While I won’t get into the specifics regarding our goals and ambitions, we quickly realized that Talixa was growing much faster than anticipated. I can’t stress enough how Tom’s hard work and dedication to the Talixa team contributed to the company’s continued success. With work pouring in, the company went from part-time to full-time, and “Team Talixa” has since tripled.

With that being said, we did suspect that businesses in our community had an unmet demand for quality software (and other tech-related) services. One of the challenges, however, has been keeping up with all of the opportunities that arise. I am personally blown away by how often I hear about good news and new projects when getting company updates from Tom. With exciting week after exciting week, the need to refocus and set the bar higher became apparent much earlier than expected. This resulted in redefining roles and goals, since along with meeting goals come new challenges for new endeavors.

A year has come and gone along with its challenges, and a new year is approaching with a new set of mountains to climb. For those of you who read these articles through the end, thanks for being a part of our journey. As you look back, refocus, and look forward, please don’t forget to think of us. After all, we’ll be thinking of you.

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Net Neutrality

Many are very unhappy with the notion of repealing Net Neutrality. Shouldn’t the internet be free of corporate interests? Shouldn’t we be able to have access to whatever we want without infringement on our rights by our ISP? But what about the rights of the ISP? Do they not have rights too? In our nation, the first amendment freedoms we enjoy apply to all – business and individual alike. As such, isn’t Net Neutrality an unconstitutional infringement on the rights of the ISP?

Let’s look at some other big issues over the past few years that share similarities with Net Neutrality. First, the case of the baker who did not want to bake a cake for a gay couple. The bakery argued that their religious convictions prevented them from supporting a gay couple in that way but the courts disagreed. This greatly upset Christian groups and other conservatives across the nation. They argued that the business’s first amendment rights were violated by that decision.  How about the revelation that Facebook was curating the news to push down conservative views and increase visibility of liberal views. Of course, liberals thought this was ok – after all, Facebook has a first amendment right under the constitution to engage politically. The arguments for birth control under Obamacare, and Twitter’s removal of conservative voices are more examples where many argued that it was unconstitutional to limit the free speech of businesses on both sides of the political aisle.

So, both the left and the right has agreed in the past that businesses should have first amendment rights. Now, with Net Neutrality, the American people are unhappy that those rights will be extended to internet service providers. But we can’t have it both ways – whether our political views are liberal or conservative – we need to find a consistent voice in determining what (if any) limits exist in the first amendment rights of corporations.

While I personally want my internet to be free from manipulation by my ISP, as a supporter of the first amendment I struggle how to say such a law is constitutional.

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Now on WordPress!

Today, I have upgraded my blog to use WordPress. Woohoo! Up till this point, I had been using the built-in blog plugin for RapidWeaver. It works nice, but WordPress will help me take my blogging to the next level. Most importantly, I can now blog from anywhere instead of just my home machine. The bad news? Links I have tweeted or posted on my LinkedIn page are now broken. So, I’ll be working to fix that and to make the style between my main site and my blog look more… well… consistent.

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