CyTRAP Labs - info about us - creating more value

To see what we do, register your blog at My.ComMetrics.com - benchmark your blog - sign up for FREE.

We have a job opening. Consider applying and read more about this opportunity below.

Who you are

- You have IT experience designing, implementing and supporting web-based software, high availability systems, and customer solutions.
- You have created web-based software solutions for all phases of a custom software systems development life cycle (SDLC).
- You bring knowledge of software testing practices and version control systems.
- You are comfortable taking the lead creating and improving technical solutions for the established business needs of the company.
- You have excellent verbal, written and visual communication skills.
- You can articulately communicate concepts and have the ability to clearly explain complex technology solutions to non-technical audiences when necessary.
- You place a premium on customer satisfaction.

What you will be doing
Your job entails support of CyTRAP Labs GmbH and the ComMetrics production infrastructure, including but not limited to the list below.

- Provide ongoing support of existing production infrastructures and ensure their day-to-day availability and health.
- Respond to alerts and take corrective action to ensure high-availability of our production environments.
- Create and maintain controlled repeatable QA environments and procedures.
- Measuring and ensure ongoing performance metrics are maintained for our production application.
- Support all security-related solutions, including as firewalls, vulnerability testing and intruder detection and response.
- Implement new technology solutions that support ongoing business needs.
- Work with the Projects Manager and the Chief Technology Officer on planning and scheduling assigned service improvement projects and initiatives.

What you can do

- Web and server development with emphasis on Apache and Debian-Linux.
- Scripting, PHP5, CSS, HTML, JavaScript and Java.
- MySQL database administration, troubleshooting and (fine-)tuning.
- Experience with CSS, SEO and remote server administration via SSH or FTP.
- Experience and demonstrated understanding of best-practice approaches to maintaining full-time, high availability, online web servers and back end database servers.
- Experience working with external software vendors and obtaining service and support.

Please note that we will not be sponsoring or relocating candidates for this part-time position.

Submit your application and apply TODAY!

Find out more about job openings and what happens after you apply.

Related to this post: our favorite WordPress plugins and what’s new at My.ComMetrics.com.

Posted in job openings |

How do you rank compared to your competitors? This question is answered in part by the FT ComMetrics Blog Index, which ranks FT Global 500 and Fortune 500 firms’ corporate blogs. It will appear in the Financial Times newspaper’s regular supplement on Digital Business as well as on its webpage on Thursday, May 14.

You can download this document as a PDF file here:

-  Press Release - CyTRAP Labs and the Financial Times release the FT ComMetrics Blog Index (FTCBI)

More information about the index can also be found here: FT ComMetrics Blog Index - case studies (Kleenex, Coca-Cola, Daimler, Nike, Wells Fargo, etc.)

Our press releases are available here:  CyTRAP Labs - press releases

Relevant blog metrics for diary, personal and business blogs
Please subscribe now so you can claim your personal and/or corporate blog AND trace those that you want to compare yourself to.
For Twitter, please use #hashtag ➡ #FTCBI

Posted in Uncategorized |

My.ComMetrics.com – measuring blog performance

April 16, 2009 - progress report

Work on the FT ComMetrics Blog Index, which ranks FT Global 500 and Fortune 500 companies’ corporate blogs.

The 2009 index will appear in the Financial Times newspaper’s regular supplement on Digital Business as well as on its webpage (www.ft.com/digitalbusiness) on Wednesday, May 13.

What is My.ComMetrics.com useful for?
[Read more →]

Posted in Ft ComMetrics Blog Index FTCBI |

CyTRAP Labs has recently conducted on behalf of ENISA a stock taking of national policy and regulatory environments of 23 countries. Protecting our e-communication networks is critical in a society where we are becoming ever more dependent on communicating and exchanging data as well as information. Here we present you with the results of another dependability, reliability and resilience study about public e-communication networks we conducted on behalf of ENISA involving 21 Member States and 2 EFTA member countries.

ENISA is helping the European Commission, the Member States and the business community to address, respond and especially to prevent Network and Information Security problems.
Resilience of e-communication networks - particularly dependability and reliability - has been one of the core activities undertaken by CyTRAP Labs GmbH On behalf of ENISA we recently conducted a study regarding policy, technical and resilience issues for improving dependability of public e-communication networks.
[Read more →]

Posted in InfoSec |

Measures are based on empiricism while metrics are a composite of measures. This affects how we benchmark social media efforts.

So what about your CEO’s blog is it worth the effort? We are working on tools that will help you answer these questions including metrics, benchmarks and rankings

Find out - read on we tell you the story.

The Financial Times has been publishing a few articles about Web 2.0 developments from experts in the field. I was asked to prepare an article myself and it just got published. So I thought I share the information with you.
[Read more →]

Posted in Ft ComMetrics Blog Index FTCBI |

As part of ENISA Work Programme 2008, CyTRAP Labs has secured a contract from ENISA.

The work involves stock taking of the NIS (network and information security) regulatory framework related to the resilience of the public e-communications in the EU Member States.

Below we tell you more about this exciting job AND the CyTRAP Lab team delivering the output for this project.

Recently the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) sent us documentation regarding their call for tender: “for Stock Taking of the NIS Regulatory Framework related to the resilience of Public eCommunications in the Member States.”
We submitted a bid and were informed on May 15 that we had won. The kick-off meeting was held in Brussels on May 26.

What will we do for ENISA?

The work CyTRAP Labs will perform for ENISA is part of the Enisa Work Programme 2008 - 2.1 MB pdf file.

The study CyTRAP Labs will be conducting during Summer and Fall 08 is part of the
– MTP 1: Improving resilience in European e-Communication networks

Our services will focus on taking stock regarding regulatory work and challenges experienced by Member States and listed as WP1.1 (Work Package).

You can find more information about WP 1.1 by downloading this 2 pages out of the ENISA Work Programme 2008.

Stock Taking of the NIS Regulatory Framework related to the resilience of Public eCommunications in the Member States

Who is a member of our ENISA project team?

For this project we have a three member team that brings several decades of experience and in depth knowledge about the subject to this assignment. Members of the team are:

• Helga Treiber - senior consultant
• Outi Alapekkala - senior analyst
• Urs E. Gattiker - CTO

If you watch these pages or subscribe to the e-mail or RSS feed (subscribe) you will receive reports about this work in the future as they appear here in this part of cyberspace.

Also of interest:
InfoSec - follow us on Twitter	sign up to our alerts about zero-day exploits and newsletters here
CASEScontact follow us on Twitter	What is Twitter good for

Posted in Uncategorized |

Previously we addressed the blogosphere or mediasphere challenge:

7 reasons why building and hosting your corporate Wordpress blog is the best choice7 steps to success - organic web traffic that matters

expertise-driven blog versus content-driven marketing site - that is the question

Should you use a corporate blog ?

Some people have very strong opinions about this such Jakob Nielsen who says:

Blog postings will always be commodity content: there’s a limit to the value you can provide with a short comment on somebody else’s work. Such postings are good for generating controversy and short-term traffic, and they’re definitely easy to write. But they don’t build sustainable value.

Jakob Nielsen - Write Articles, Not Blog Postings

Do geographical location and language matter

We have pointed out in our previous post that in Europe at least, people are less likely to check corporate e-mail on weekends than during Tue through Thur. For other regions this might differ.

When will the blog be successful?

Apparently it’s really easy to get zillions of subscribers to any corporate blog. Just follow a few steps, work hard and write good content. I know this, because I read it every week on various pro-blogging sites which are keen to dispense the wisdom of their own success whilst making you feel inferior for having less than 20,000 RSS subscribers.

Get two good viewpoints about this challenge here:

Bryan Eisenberg

Jakob Nielsen

Bottom Line or WHAT IT MEANS FOR US BLOGGERS OUT THERE

What it comes down to is to is to provide

- in-depth versus superficial content

- original and primary postings versus derivative or reflective musings about other people’s research, AND

- driven by your staff’s expertise versus being driven by other news sites or outside events.

A philosophy we have been following with our benchmarking and ranking blog over here:

ComMetrics - measure the rest against the rest

And no:

Google, Digg.com and Twitter: Why such Drive-By Traffic is of Little Value

kind of traffic may do little to improve your sales.

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60% OF THIS ITEM’S READERS SUBSCRIBED ALREADY

CyTRAP Labs invites you to get info about zero-day exploits, tools, benchmarking and regulatory intell, SEO marketing.

BETTER, just become one of our readers by subscribing right now to one or more of our highly acclaimed services.

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More information on this topic you can find here:

How to Move From Blogger to Wordpress in 7 Easy Steps

Thoughts on The Future of WordPress and MovableType

The Ultimate SEO Tool - Wordpress?
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Posted in blogging |

We have talked about risk management before and shown you images about the near crashes by the SAS Dash 8 Q400 planes manufactured by Bombardier here:

- SAS risk management - after 2 crashes we expected proper risk assessment but got another crash-landing instead (UPDATE 1)

- risk assessment and risk management - Scandinavian Airlines fails to use the six-step process

- SAS risk management - after 3 near-crashes investors are paying the price for bad risk assessment

Last weekend Northern Europe was experiencing a low pressure system that caused strong winds. The storm, dubbed “Emma,” caused millions of euros in damage across Europe. It caused the deaths of at least 13 people.

Saturday an A320 from Lufthansa had a rough time trying to land at Hamburg-Airport.

See the video and some text right here:

- video captures near crash during x-wind landing of A320 in Hamburg

Incidentally, the footage shown with the above link is unlikely to make it into any commercials for Lufthansa.

Posted in Uncategorized |

Tata will make 500,000 of these Nano cars each year and once they become available used in India, they might cost little more than a motorbyke. But we have had affordable vehicles in the past that have been produced in the millions.

The Volkswagen Beetle made it to number 1 with 21mio, while the Ford T is a not so close number 2 with 15mio being sold.

If you cannot view the above image click - timeline with cars

The above timeline (taken from the FT (Jan 11, 2008, p. 3) is interesting because it also shows the car prices using converted exchange rates at the time. These prices were all well below Chery, Maruti or even the Tata Nano

The “People’s Car” is also the cheapest in the world at 100,000 rupees ($2500) – the same price as the DVD player in a Lexus.

Hence, while the Tata Nano seems to cost little compared to other cars sold today, it is quite pricey compared to the VW Beetle or the Fiat 500. So does it add many features that warrant such a steep price increased compared to the Trabant manufactured in East Germany at the time?

If you cannot view the above image click - Chery,Maruti and Tata Nano

So what do you get for your money? Well, the Tata Nano is 3 metres long, seats four comfortably or five at a squeeze (how many on its rough - remember Indian trains?), does 65 mph and aims to revolutionise travel for millions.

Tata cut costs by minimising components, particularly steel, and taking advantage of India’s low production costs. Because of its size, it uses less sheet metal, has a smaller and lighter engine than other cars, smaller tube-less tyres and a no-frills interior. The company has applied for 34 patents to cover its innovations.

But let us be clear, the lowest price version offers little more than just the basics and will, in its current form, unlikely to be sold anywhere else than India soon. But does it matter, the 500,000 annual production will easily be sold out to the growing Indian middle class.

CyTRAP Labs’ take on this

We think that the Tata Nano will have a great impact upon India’s already congested roads.

No doubt about it but how they might affect gasoline consumption considering how far ahead the U.S. is (see below) remains to be seen.

If you cannot see the above graphic you can get it here US is guzzling more than all the others (thanks to the Economist for creating this nice graphic)

The left bar above shows how much the U.S. consumes compared to many other countries. One explanation is surely the low price Americans pay at the gas pump to fill their Honda Civic. The bar chart on the right side of the above figure shows how much it costs to fill up a Honda Civic’s tank at the gas pump. Turks pay a hefty price compared to Saudi or US drivers.

Just to keep in mind, India does have (on average) the world’s most densely populated urban areas. It is exceeded only by Hong Kong and Macao, which are part of China.

Considering this, we wonder if Tata Nano driver’s will ever be able to drive at top speeds on those congested roads in India’s cities?

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PS 1. Who says Tata cannot produce quality products. Tata software helps Ferari’s F1 cars gain an edge over such rivals as McLaren Mercedes or Renault.

PS 2. The word Tata is an endearment for Grandfather in Mexico.

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Posted in Uncategorized |

Derk-Jan Eppink, a Dutch civil servant and a journalist has written an account of his years working for the European Commission in Brussels. His book got some rave reviews from such illustrous people as Gideon Rachman (Financial Times). Rachman attests the author rare insight and having a witty conversational writing style that makes this book something special.Well we put it to the test and asked for a copy from the publisher in Belgium to check out and enjoy, so we thought. Originally, this book was written in Dutch to be translated into English (398 pages). So some things might have gotten changed during the translation process.We read the book from beginning to the end and must say that in various places Eppink has managed to take something that sounds very dull - European postal directive - and make it far more fun to read (going out with postal union representatives in Strassburg discussing the matter, of course)

But not all is fun. While calling the Commission ‘the Princess’ is funny for the first 50 pages it starts to grate after a while.

Eppink points a picture of the Commission that can be horrifying to a non-bureaucrat but when comparing his examples to what happens in Member States’ own agencies things might not be that bad.

On p. 337 Eppink talks about the CDU / CSU party apparachiks such as Helmut Stoiber or Angela Merkel and comes to the interesting conclusion (to put it politely) that thanks to their contacts in Brussels and wooing the people there these savvy people could claim an election victory in state elections.

Herr Roland Koch running a tough compaign right now to be re-elected in Hessen. His platform based on recent news reports about youth brutality in subway stations deals with crime prevention. Neither his visits to and contacts within the Commission will make him win or loose his re-election. Reading p. 338 of Eppink’s book, one could believe that it is the bureacr4ats in Brussels that will make the difference… We prefer to wait and see how the ballots will look like.

On p. 264-267 Eppink talks about a visit he made with his Commissioner Frits Bolkestein to Zurich having been invited bei the Neue Zuercher Zeitung (a well respected daily) to talk to some invited guests. His account of the visit is quite funny but at the same time he seems a bit full of himself. For instance, just because the Neue Zuercher Zeitung puts the Commissioner’s speech on p. 2 (grated a few days after he visited and made the speech) instead of p. 1 he seems a bit miffed. But even some of the illustrous speakers at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week did not make it on p. 1.

Most of what Eppink writes is quite interesting but besides being sometimes witty it is often without much depth and reminds us of children’s play chatter, part of the game but not necessarily earth shaking. As well, throughout the book we get a few anectodes from his younger days about how the young Eppink managed to start writing speeches’ ins for local politicians at a rather early age (e.g., p. 250).

If you know how the Commission works, this book will give you little what you do not already know. If you lack any insights about the ‘Princess’ workings, do not fear Eppink is hear. So this is a nice book to read before you fall asleep and if you withstand the fluff that comes up from time to time, take a chance and have a look

I passed on my copy to a European mandarin to read certain passages I had marked for her. She found them amusing but seems tto concurr that the book begins to grate after a while. hence, we disagree with Gideon Rachman that Eppink has written a genuinly entertaining book about the European Commission. While entertaining it might be on a few pages for sure, unfortunately, it lacks the substance and beef to bring it beyond a very personal and jaded account.

Life of a European mandarin
Inside the Commission
Derk-Jan Eppink, Lannoo, Brussels: Euro 24.95 plus shipping.

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Posted in Uncategorized |