The Green Grid, a leading voice for advancing resource efficiency in data centers and business computing ecosystems, today released a case study detailing its industry best practices as they helped drive member company eBay to achieve new levels of energy efficiency in its recently completed data center in Phoenix, Ariz. eBay relied on The Green Grid's Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) metric and Data Center Maturity Model (DCMM) to guide the design and construction, request-for-proposal (RFP) process, and server optimization for its desert-located facility named "Project Mercury."

Faced with the challenge of consolidating its data centers and deploying tens of thousands of new servers in less than six months, eBay turned to The Green Grid to help achieve maximum energy efficiency for a brand new facility. eBay used The Green Grid's best practices to take a holistic, end-to-end view of the space it was using, the servers it was deploying, and how its data centers were designed and operated.

Project Mercury was made possible through a metrics-based approach to guide data center design and server procurement. PUE was a driving tool in eBay's vendor RFP process and the company leveraged PUE in its design criteria to achieve maximum efficiency from the beginning. Project Mercury has reported promising initial results in efficiency with a site average PUE(L3,WC) of 1.35 during one week in January 2012 and a best case PUE(L3,HC) of 1.26. In addition, a partial PUE (pPUE(L3,HC)) of 1.018 was measured in a rooftop container during the same period. eBay reported the same 20-rack rooftop container achieved pPUE(L3,HC) as low as 1.046 with outdoor conditions of 46oC (115°F) measured one day in August 2011. eBay also relied on total cost of ownership (TCO) to assess its servers in terms of the total lifetime kilowatt hours (kWh) used while running the company's workload.

To achieve maximum efficiency, eBay leveraged several best practices from The Green Grid's DCMM, highlighting the value of the Model and how it can impact bottom line results. Aligned with the DCMM, eBay's approach further testifies to the benefits of using metrics to guide design and purchase decisions in data centers. eBay's metrics-based approach optimized the company's data center supply chain for lower PUE and TCO, due in large part to higher server density within the data center and a "hot water" cooling system that requires traditional chiller operation only a few days per year.

Other results include an innovative server rollout to support rapid scaling, dense rack deployments, and a consolidated set of server designs that balance space, power, cooling, cabling, and weight configurations for maximum speed, workload agility and efficiency. The modular, scalable design is ready to handle up to five generations of future technologies and provides a data center space that places servers in the appropriately resilient space, slashing cost in half for hosting 80 percent of eBay's applications.

"We needed to meet an organizational demand to consolidate data centers and deploy tens of thousands of new servers in under six months," said Dean Nelson, Senior Director, Global Foundational Services (GFS), eBay. "As part of that process, we wanted to push the envelope in terms of what had been achieved in data center efficiency to date. eBay was able to achieve both goals because we took a metrics-based approach to the process, which included ensuring that our server and data center RFP processes used PUE and TCO to optimize our supply chain, taking a modular, scalable, and forward-thinking data center design, and aligning ourselves with The Green Grid's DCMM from the beginning."

"By all accounts, eBay's Project Mercury is an advanced data center designed to optimize performance and energy use for eBay's specific workload profile, and one that also meets the five-year horizons defined by The Green Grid's DCMM," said Brad Brech, IBM representative and board member of The Green Grid. "This facility is an example of what is possible by establishing and relying on industry best practices for achieving maximum energy efficiency and low environmental impact in data centers. The Green Grid is at the heart of this mission and the organization will continue to look for new and innovative ways to promote resource efficiency and sustainability within the business computing ecosystem."

The majority of small business owners believe Internet security is critical to their success and that their companies are safe from ever increasing cyber security threats even as many fail to take fundamental precautions, according to a new survey of U.S. small businesses sponsored by Symantec and the National Cyber Security Alliance and conducted by Zogby International.

The survey found that two-thirds (67%) of U.S. small businesses have become more dependent on the Internet in the last year and 66% are dependent on the network for their day-to-day operations. What's more, 57% of firms say that a loss of Internet access for 48 hours would be disruptive to their business and 38% said it would be "extremely disruptive" and 76% say that most of their employees use the Internet daily.

The vast majority of small business owners think their company is cyber-secure as 85% of respondents said their company is safe from hackers, viruses, malware or a cyber-security breach and seven in ten (69%) believe Internet security critical to their business's success. Additionally, a majority (57%) of small businesses believe that having a strong cyber security and online safety posture is good for their company's brand.

Yet a closer look reveals that most small businesses lack sufficient cyber security policies and training. Seventy-seven percent said they do not have a formal written Internet security policy for employees and of those, 49% reported that they do not even have an informal policy. More small business owners also said they do not provide Internet safety training to their employees than said they do – to a tune of 45 versus 37%. And a majority of businesses (56%) do not have Internet usage policies that clarify what websites and web services employees can use and only 52% have a plan in place for keeping their business cyber-secure.

At the same time, small businesses may not understand how to respond to online threats or the danger they pose. For example, 40% of small businesses say that if their business suffered a data breach or loss of customer or employee information, credit card information or intellectual property, their business does not have a contingency plan outlining procedures for responding and reporting it. Two-fifths (43%) also say they do not let their customers and partners/suppliers know what they do to protect their information.

The respondents' sense of security is especially unwarranted given that 40% of all targeted cyber attacks are directed at companies with less than 500 employees. In 2010, the average annual cost of cyber attacks to small and medium sized business was $188,242. What's more, statistics show that roughly 60% of small businesses will close up within six months of a cyber attack. According to the Norton Cybercrime Report, the total cost of cyber crime to consumers and small business owners alike, is greater than $114 billion annually.

"We recognize that most small business owners are focused on running their businesses, and have limited resources and IT staff dedicated to managing their cyber security needs. Unfortunately, cyber criminals are increasingly making small businesses their targets, knowing they are likely to have fewer safeguards in place to protect themselves," said Cheri McGuire, Vice President of Global Government Affairs and Cybersecurity Policy at Symantec. "It's important for small businesses to educate their employees on the latest threats and what they can do to combat them. Education, combined with investment in reliable security solutions, provides small business owners with a well-rounded approach to protecting their businesses and managing cyber risk."

"The threats grow in number and complexity each day, but too many small business owners remain naively complacent," said NCSA Executive Director Michael Kaiser. "The stakes are high for individual businesses and the nation as a whole: a single malware attack or data breach can be fatal to a small enterprise but the collective vulnerability of all our businesses is a major economic security challenge."

The survey also found that 69% of their businesses handle customer data while about half (49%) handle financial records, one-third (34%) handle credit card information, one quarter (23%) have their own intellectual property, and one in five (18%) handled intellectual property belonging to others outside their company. When asked to rank the top concern of small business owners while their employees are on the Internet, 32% reported viruses, 17% spyware/malware and 10% reported loss of data. Yet only 8% are concerned about loss of customer information, 4% about loss of intellectual property and only 1% worry about loss of employee data, even though cyber security experts believe the loss of any of this kind of information would be devastating to a business.

Overall, cyber vulnerabilities and threats are steadily on the rise, according to the "Symantec Internet Security Threat Report, Trends for 2010," the latest version of the company's annual cyber security study. For example, the report found a 9% increase in web-based attacks.

In addition to struggling with the basics, many small businesses are failing to keep up with the increasing adoption of mobile and social media platforms. Just 37% of U.S. small businesses have an employee policy or guidelines in place for remote use of company information on mobile devices and just over one in three (36%) maintains a policy for employees' use of social media.

Social networking platforms now provide hackers with the ability to easily research targets and develop powerful social engineering attacks. Smart phones and other mobile devices are also poised to play a large role with a sharp 42% rise last year in the number of reported security vulnerabilities, according to Symantec's 2010 report. Experts say that strong password protections, protecting USB devices and wireless networks matter to a firm's security posture. Yet, a majority of firms (59%) do not use multifactor authentication (more than a password and logon) to access any of their networks. Only half (50%) reported they completely wipe data off their machines before they dispose of them and 21% never do. Two-thirds (67%) of U.S. small businesses allow the use of USB devices in the workplace.

The study was an online survey of 1,045 small business owners conducted by Zogby International from September 9-21, 2011. The survey had a margin of error of +/- 3.1 percentage points.

On September 9th YouTube rolled out video editing tools that can be used in your browser to tweak various elements of an uploaded video on your channel. The current set of tools includes features that allow you to tweak the brightness, contrast, color temperature, and the start and end points of the video. There are also built-in tools to automatically stabilize shaky footage and an option to rotate footage 90 degrees at a time in any direction.

Beyond just basic editing tools, YouTube, in collaboration with Picnik, also included a selection of various color filters and effects that can be used on your video.

These features are a great addition to YouTube’s already fantastic interface and make it significantly easier for users to tweak their point and shoot videos for optimal format without having to purchase an expensive video editing suite.

You can check out some of the tools in action via YouTube’s preview video below:

The YouTube clip does a pretty good job depicting what exactly you can do with the new editing tools. I recently gave the tools a go myself and here are some of my initial thoughts:

The I’m Feeling Lucky button, which automatically optimizes the Fill, Contrast, Saturation, and Color Temperature of your video, is actually quite good. The video I tested came out looking considerably better after using this filter.

The stabilize button is hit or miss. Dependent on the quality of the video you provide, the stabilized version may come out quite pixilated, which seems to be symptomatic of the fact that the stabilize button more or less just zooms in on the action of the video to create stabilization.

The trim feature is fine and does what you would expect, allowing you to cut the beginning or end of the video off. Unless your video is just a tad long or has a long dead-air lead in, it’s not all that useful. It would be awesome if they could incorporate some more legitimate trimming, cutting, and editing functionality, but I imagine it’s actually probably quite difficult to do well in an online setting.

The Picnik style effects filters are fun, but fairly generic. Unless you’re going for a particular old-timey feel or something just out of this world (neon and cartoon filters abound) you likely won’t end up posting your video using any of them.

I also like the intention behind the audio tab in the editor, in that it allows you to replace the audio of your video with one from youtube’s library of approved audio selections. This of course prevents your video from being pulled or having the audio pulled due to a copyright claim. That said, it’s not particularly flexible. You can really only replace your own audio with a full song or leave your audio as it is. There is no option to kind of splice in a section of audio or add a particular song as backing music behind the audio of your original video.

All in all the available editing features are quite good and extremely easy to use. The tools provide users that are new to video a great jumping off point and I think in the end it may interest more consumer only YouTube users to start contributing. I think it’ll also improve the overall quality of content on YouTube.

If you’re into video, editing, or just YouTube in general I would definitely recommend checking out the new tools, and if you’ve had a chance to give them a go yourself, drop us a line in the comments and let us know what you think of the new tools!

If you're new to YouTube, or streaming media in general, you've no doubt wondered how you can download your favorite videos directly from YouTube to your computer. The concept seems so simple yet YouTube, and nearly all streaming media providers, have somehow neglected to implement this functionality into their interfaces. There is a good reason for this. YouTube's main income is derived from advertising sold on video pages. The more hits their videos get, the more valuable they are to advertisers. By making it difficult for users to access their videos outside of YouTube they ensure that users will come back to the site again and again, further ensuring the company's value to its advertisers.

Fortunately for us, and somewhat unfortunately for YouTube, there are dozens of addons, plugins, and standalone applications meant to enable users to download streaming media from any number of online sources. Though if you're like me, you don't need another unitasker freeware app that you'll use once in a blue moon to download a particularly interesting YouTube video, but will just take up space on your hard drive the rest of time. The only alternative then is a browser plugin or addon. While the browser extentions in question make it undeniably easy to download streaming media, many allow you to do so in one click, I find that most of them are quite clunkly and a major drag on the overall speed of my browser. Unbeknownst to many web surfers, the more addons or plugins you have enabled in your browser the slower that browser will function. So, you may be pulling down videos on your 100mb broadband connection but if you've got 25 clunky FireFox addons running in the background you may still end up waiting for your favorite videos to buffer or load.

So what's the solution? Believe it or not, each time you watch a streaming video your computer actually downloads the entire video and stores it on your hard drive. Streaming videos are generally saved to your temporary internet files folder. This folder is full of all of the images and text files your browser uses to display each website you visit. By changing some of the settings on your computer you can actually access these files and copy downloaded videos to your desktop or the folder of your choice. That way you can watch it whenver you want!

Getting Started:

Before we dive into operating system specific solutions I want to take a moment to address YouTube video formats and playback options. Videos hosted on youtube are automatically converted upon upload to FLV (Flash Video) format. YouTube converts videos to this format to save on both space and loading time as FLV files tend to be significantly smaller than other video formats but retain video quality. Despite these obvious advantages, many popular media players, like Apple's Quicktime player and Window's Media player, do not support playback of this file type. In order to play these files on your computer you will need a media player that supports FLV video playback. There are two very populer alternative media players that support this format and both are free to download. I strongly recommend that you download one of the following media players before you download any videos directly from YouTube:

VLC Media is actually my media player of choice as it supports a plethora of video formats and can be updated to support new formats as they are developed.

Solution For Mac Users:

For those luckly Mac users out there, Apple has integrated an embedded media download option directly into the Safari web browser. Using the following 6 step process you should be able to easily access any YouTube or streaming media file and download it directly to your downloads folder:

• Launch Safari and navigate to YouTube.
• Click play on the video of your choice and wait for it to load completely.
• Hold the Apple (command), Option, and 'A' keys down while you double click on the video. This should bring up the Safari "Activity Monitor".
• In the Activiy Monitor window find the *.flv file (usually the largest file in the monitor window) and Double click on it. Safari will automatically download the video file to your downloads folder.
• Navigate to your downloads folder and rename the file with your desired file name.
• Enjoy!

Solution For Windows Users:

The solution for Windows users requires quite a few more steps and a bit more resolve, but once you get the hang of it, it'll be second nature. For users that prefer Firefox, Chrome or another alternative browser, you'll have to break out your current version of Internet Explorer for this.

For Windows XP and previous Windows versions:

• Open Internet Explorer and Navigate to YouTube.
• Click play on the video of your choice and wait for it to load completely.
• Open the Windows Control Panel and click the switch to classic view option in the sidebar.
• Click on Folder Options.
• Click on the "View" Tab and scroll down to the hidden files and folders section.
• Click the radio button labelled "Show hidden files and folders" and make sure that the "Hide extensions for known file types" and "Hide protected operating system files" checkboxes are unchecked
• Exit the control panel and go to My Computer.
• Double click on the C drive (or whichever drive windows is installed on).
• Double click on Documents and Settings.
• Double click on your user name folder.
• Double click on Local Settings.
• Double click on the Temporary Internet Files folder.
• Click view and select "details".
• Organize the folder by file size, largest first, by clicking on the "Size" column.
• All video files from YouTube have file names starting with "videoplayback?sparams=id" followed by several percent signs and a lot of numbers and letters. Unfortunately, Internet Explorer doesn't name video files according to YouTube title, if you've watched a lot of YouTube videos recently it may take you some time to find the video you're looking for.
• Start by copying one video file at a time over to your desktop. Once you've copied a file to your desktop rename the file "filename_of_your_choice.flv".
• Open the file in your media player to see if it's the right video. If not, move it to the trash and repeat the previous step until you find the video you want.
  
  *tip* You can get a pretty good idea which video is which based on the size. Longer videos will have larger file sizes.
• Once you've found the right video rename the file with your desired file name.
• Enjoy!

For Vista and Windows 7:

• Open Internet Explorer and Navigate to YouTube.
• Click play on the video of your choice and wait for it to load completely.
• Open the Windows Control Panel and click the switch to classic view option in the sidebar.
• Click on Folder Options.
• Click on the "View" Tab and scroll down to the hidden files and folders section.
• Click the radio button labelled "Show hidden files and folders" and make sure that the "Hide extensions for known file types" and "Hide protected operating system files" checkboxes are unchecked
• Navigate to your system drive.
• Paste "Usersname\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\" (without quotes) into the navigation bar and hit enter.
• Double click on the Temporary Internet Files folder.
• Click view and select "details".
• Organize the folder by file size, largest first, by clicking on the "Size" column.
• All video files from YouTube have file names starting with "videoplayback?sparams=id" followed by several percent signs and a lot of numbers and letters. Unfortunately, Internet Explorer doesn't name video files according to YouTube title, if you've watched a lot of YouTube videos recently it may take some time to find the video you're looking for.
• Start by copying one video file at a time over to your desktop. Once you've copied a file to your desktop rename the file "filename_of_your_choice.flv".
• Open the file in your media player to see if it's the right video. If not, move it to the trash and repeat the previous step until you find the video you want.
  
  *tip* You can get a pretty good idea which video is which based on the size. Longer videos will have larger file sizes.
• Once you've found the right video rename the file with your desired file name.
• Enjoy!