We live in a convergence era of infinite computation, sensors, and materials that can be combined to create brand new possibilities. The speed of making a material transition from concept to production has increased and the cost has decreased exponentially. Decades ago, it would take you years and thousands of dollars to develop a product, but now it can take you hours and less than one-hundred dollars. This has happened because digital manufacturing is now mostly open source and open design, allowing people to utilize a community to create a better product.

In this edition: Cloud Superstars Have Their Heads in the Cloud; Why You Should Pay for Open Source Software; Identity Management Is Complicated; Converged Infrastructure is the Future of Data Centers; Red Hat’s Jim Whitehurst Looks 20 Years Into the Future; 12 IT Predictions from the Federal Government.

DLT Solutions and [acronym] Magazine cosponsored the Public Sector CAD Awards last week. This two-part, four-question series will recap a conversation with the four judges called “Digital Design Tech, Trends, and Talking Points for 2013 – A Q&A with Public Sector Industry Pros.”

Yesterday, before his fifth State of the Union address, President Obama signed a cybersecurity executive order. This is what you need to know about "Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity."

In October, I used “We the People” as an example of how to get citizens engaged with government in an open manner. In November, those engaged citizens petitioned the government to consider building a Death Star. By January, enough signatures had been gathered to garner the administration's consideration and, in my mind, a well authored response. The exercise may have been a geeky back and forth which you may see as a joke, but I feel any citizen engagement is good engagement. Here's why.

In this edition: DLT Solutions Adds AWS GovCloud To Its Cloud Services; NIST Wants Your Advice on Cybersecurity Document; Red Hat Embraces BYOD; Steps for Protecting Your Data Center After Virtualization; State of the Union to Discuss Cybersecurity.

A CAD event isn’t one without a certain Autodesk Evangelist showing up. Thankfully, Lynn Allen not only made an appearance during [acronym] Magazine Public Sector’s CAD Awards virtual event, she gave the keynote talk. 60 AutoCAD Tips in 60 Minutes provided users with more valuable tricks and shortcuts than a magician carries up his infinite sleeve and within his endless hat. We caught up with Lynn afterward to bring you her thoughts on her most useful tips, cloud, and the next five years of digital design.

Having AWS on GSA is just the first step. While it’s now very easy to procure AWS, there’s still a lot of educating we need to do to explain how these services should be procured.

Yesterday, Symantec and Microsoft technicians, together with U.S. federal marshals, raided data centers in Manassas, VA and Weehawken, N.J., shutting down servers, preventing users from accessing the internet, and pushing the above message to an estimated one million infected computers. If you were one of those caught in the process, while it may have been inconvenient, you were playing a small part in taking down a very big global cyber crime operation known as the Bamital botnet.

The New York Times selected a premier vendor of security products, Symantec Corporation, to provide antivirus software. Recently, they were attacked by hackers originating in China. After the attacks, the Times’ security consultant reported that the antivirus software did not protect the company. I consult for DLT Solutions with some of the most secure government agencies in the U.S. My primary suite of products comes from Symantec. Their security solutions are among the best in the industry. If they had fully deployed and properly utilized Symantec’s anti-virus software in their enterprise, most, if not all, of the attacks could have been prevented.