July, 2011

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Featured Course: Power Excel for Power Users

Wednesday, July 27th, 2011

Excel has been a well-recognized tool for some time, primarily used for elementary functions, simple spreadsheets, and basic calculations. Yet Excel holds the power for enabling sophisticated reporting and complex analysis – it just needs to be brought to light. ASPE is excited to offer Power Excel for Power Users to do just that.

Taught by Dr. Issac Gottlieb, who has taught this course to more than 120,000 MBA students at Columbia, NYU, and Temple University, this two-day course provides new insights into how to use the power of Excel in a whole new world of decision making, analysis, marketing, accounting and finance. You will become more efficient and proficient using Excel, ultimately saving you valuable time, improving your decision-making skills with advanced techniques, preparing complex and extraordinary charts and presentations, and much more.

If you are using Excel more than 10 hours a month, you should take this course! Business analysts, executives, executive assistants who aid management, and any professional who utilizes analysis for accounting, finance, marketing, sales, human relations can benefit from learning how to integrate Excel into day-to-day decision making on all levels, and create charts, graphs and projections that become a critical part of continued success.

Public courses for Power Excel for Power Users begin in November. Not coming to a city near you? ASPE offers group and company onsites and virtual courses for Power Excel Power User as well.

Posted in ASPE, Excel, Microsoft, Project Management, Training | Comments Off

Google and Information Privacy

Tuesday, July 19th, 2011

Google has reported it gave user information to the Federal Government 94% of the time the government requested it.

These requests are allegedly parts of criminal investigations.  Still, it raises the question:  Does government have the right to demand information from a private company?

Yes, it does in any of three ways:

  1. A grand jury can send a subpoena to a company.
  2. A Federal judge can sign a search warrant; an FBI agent delivers it to the company.
  3. An FBI agent, or any Federal agent, may write his or her own search warrant; authorizing himself or herself to search the company.

    4. Click to continue »

Posted in Google, IT Professionals, IT Solutions, Security | Comments Off

Congratulations to the Winner of the Ultimate Office Giveaway

Thursday, July 14th, 2011

The wait is over!  You’ve heard about it for months, now a winner has been chosen. Congratulations to Mike Eason of the American Board of Anesthesiology in Raleigh, NC! Mike is the winner of ASPE-IT’s Ultimate Office Giveaway! His new office is one to be coveted complete with:

iPad 2
Bose ® Speakers
15″ Dell Laptop
22″ Samsung LCD Monitor
Yoda USB Desk Protector

Since the ASPE headquarters are located in Cary, North Carolina and Mike is only a few miles away in Raleigh, the ASPE staff has the rare opportunity to personally deliver the prizes and deck out Mike’s office will all his new gadgets and gizmos! Stay tuned for the full story complete with photos.

The Ultimate Office Giveaway may be over, but there is plenty more to look forward to for 2011.  We like giving away freebies about as much as you like receiving them! What’s up our sleeve this season? Free Gas for a year! Register Now for your chance to win 1 of 3 gas cards worth $2,000 from ASPE.

Free Gas for a Year

Posted in ASPE, Contests, Free, Giveaway, Giveaways, Special Offers | Comments Off

Malicious Attack and Consequence: It’s Not Always from the “Outside”

Monday, July 11th, 2011

The subject of Data Breach, and potential for subsequent harm, is never far from any serious “business” or “IT” mind.  Breaches happen with dismaying regularity.  Not a week goes by without an attack and subsequent access to the most sophisticated environments:   DataBreaches.net provides a sobering appreciation – and it’s not even a comprehensive list.

Of course, the other side of the coin is Security.  In that realm, often overlooked is any organization’s inside liabilities, opening a wide risk for exposure and bad outcomes.  Most often, these liabilities involve lack of user education/qualification, resultant avenues of risk, and ensuing human error.  But there is yet further inside liability that the organization cannot afford to overlook. Click to continue »

Posted in IT Professionals, IT Solutions, Security | Comments Off

Business Continuity and These Modern Times: Not so modern?

Wednesday, July 6th, 2011

I frequently counsel businesses:  Technical enablements and progressions have created extreme vulnerabilities.  These vulnerabilities – breach, corruption to data, outages, etc. (the list can go on and on) – put businesses in a zone of great risk.  And, as I’m fond of saying:  In the realm of risk, unmanaged possibilities become probabilities.

A recent incident at my local Starbucks made me aware of extremely large vulnerabilities to society in general.  The incident serves as a nice model, but first, a disclaimer:  I love Starbucks coffee.  Of course, I may risk looking unsophisticated with some here; on the other hand, I’m sure there are some Starbucks fans around too.  As for me, maybe I’m just used to the taste (and my local baristas), but in any case, this isn’t meant to be an endorsement, nor an indictment.  But as a big chain, they can afford to serve as a relevant example here since an incident recently led me to an observation. Click to continue »

Posted in IT Solutions, Security | Comments Off