Category: General

This is a guest post by John Brook. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

You are expected to be creative at your workplace. You are supposed to look for new connections and seeking out new horizons while you are working. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to keep the creative energy at full steam ahead. Here are ten ideas to help you get a creative boost.

#1. Chat With Friends
Friends are concerned with your well being. They will be happy to talk about their own passions, allowing your brain to rest from the constant performance pressure. Learn about what they’re doing and listen to them speak about their passions. If you have friends in the field, talk to them about the situation.

#2. Do Something Different
Find something completely different to which you can devote your attention. Actively listen to the music that is playing on the speakers. Talk to different people. Go to any networking events or conventions that are in your area. If you are a writer, everything goes into the catalog of ideas.

#3. Brainstorm
Write down a stream of consciousness list about a subject. Intentionally write a list of bad ideas. Brainstorm a list of the worst breakfast cereals, fictional or not. With brainstorming, there are no truly bad ideas. This exercise is intended to get your brain pumping once more.

#4. Keep a Healthy Attitude
A healthy attitude is quite important to keeping the river of creativity flowing. Know that the current lack of good ideas will not last forever. Your mental batteries just need to be recharged. Keep a smile on your face. If you can’t smile, fake it til you make it.

#5. Look at the Past
Think about the projects that you have done and see if there is anything that you can do to improve upon them. See if there are any openings to expound on your subject matter or polish your words. If you have written a training manual, could your illustrations be more effective?

#6. Mind Maps
Write your subject in the middle of the page. From there, start writing words and phrases which are related to the word in the middle. Start writing the words and ideas that relate to the words and ideas. Allow yourself a limited amount of time, else you will cover the room with related items.

#7. Walk Away
Take an hour to walk around the building or parking lot. Walk through the hallways at your work or walk out to the home garden. Your brain needs to recharge. The break that you give your brain will pay off later in great ideas.

#8. Take a Nap
Take a nap. They give you that necessary time to recharge. You need to recharge, and napping is the perfect opportunity to catch up on some sleep. Don’t allow your nap to go over two hours. When you come back, you should be refreshed and invigorated.

#9. Play the Percentages
Let those bad ideas come out and play. If you have been successful, you have probably had quite a number of bad ideas. You want the ideas to be coming as often as possible because you never know which one is going be the idea that will propel you to superstardom.

#10. Clean Your Desk
The energy within your workspace might be stifling. Take the time to clean off your desk and the floor. Sometimes, ideas will come while you are putting things away. Take a note of those ideas and keep working. As you eliminate clutter, your mind will feel more relaxed.

You will become more creative with the frequency that you use your creativity. When you are slumping, take the time to recharge your creative energies by mind mapping, taking a walk or cleaning your area. While you are doing other things, make sure that you have a pen and paper with you to capture the ideas.

John Brook is a writer who works at Office Kitten, one of the top suppliers of office stationery for businesses in the UK.

This is a guest post by Jesmond Darmanin. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

Today’s Internet connected businesses must be concerned not only with threats originating from the Internet, but also threats that can manifest from their employees accessing the Internet both recreationally and as a part of their job. Employees can expose the company to threats from malware, and from litigation resulting from employees downloading copyrighted material or accessing inappropriate content. An acceptable use policy and a written information security policy are both critical, and great places to start, but more is required.

Packet filtering firewalls are very effective at blocking unsolicited inbound connections, but they can do very little to block malware downloaded by an internal client with Internet access. Nor can they recognise inappropriate content, or copyrighted material. Antivirus software can help protect against malware, but not against pornography or the latest Hollywood blockbuster. Internet monitoring software is another layer of defence that can help protect your network from threats of the technical variety, and your company from threats of the litigation variety.

Internet monitoring software can be run on appliances inline to your Internet connection, on a server acting as a proxy, out of band but in tandem with your firewall, or as an agent installed on your clients. The type of deployment you choose depends on your network architecture, how easily you can manage your clients, and whether or not you want the ability to protect machines when they are remote. Whatever the type of deployment, the purpose of Internet monitoring is to examine all internet activity and, protect against threats, and to enforce policy. Your acceptable use policy should define what is considered acceptable business use, address whether or not any recreational access to the Internet is acceptable, and clearly explain what is considered inappropriate use of the Internet.

Internet monitoring solutions can help protect your users from threats in several ways. Most combine several different methods. One popular approach is to maintain a list of websites by category that is regularly updated through a subscription service. Websites and ip addresses are sorted into categories that make it very easy for the administrator to select what types of sites should be permitted, and what types of sites should not be accessed. When the client makes a request, the traffic is compared against the lists and permitted or blocked based on policy. Another way these products can monitor Internet activity and protect against Internet threats is to examine file types requested; permitting html, text, and graphics, but blocking scripts, executable content, and media files that could contain copyrighted material. Many Internet monitoring software packages also offers anti-x capabilities; examining all files for malware, emails for suspect links, and traffic flows for known patterns related to backdoor programs and bot-nets.

Internet monitoring can, but does not necessarily have to, log all such activities. Whether you log access or not depends on many factors, including your privacy policies, your corporate policy regarding monitoring employee activities, and whether or not you wish to invest the time and storage necessary to review and archive these logs. Some companies expressly choose not to log; taking advantage of the protections offered by their Internet monitoring software without tasking personnel to monitor Internet activity. They get the benefits of policy enforcement without the efforts and potential HR overhead that goes along with investigating policy violations to determine whether the act was accidental or intentional. With this approach you can safely regulate Internet access without being branded as the Internet Police.

Whatever approach you take, monitoring Internet activity is a critical part of a defense in depth approach to securing your network. Look at your options, and select the approach that best fits in with your client base, your Information Security Policies, and your management’s philosophy.

This guest post was provided by Jesmond Darmanin on behalf of GFI Software Ltd. GFI is a leading software developer that provides a single source for network administrators to address their network security, content security and messaging needs. More information about GFI web filtering solution can be found at http://www.gfi.com/internet-monitoring-software