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Karl Geppert

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CTO, Chemwatch

26 points

Computer science major with a wide education in engineering and science.
Fifteen years of experience in a variety of roles from lab-admin to being CTO of a multi-national independent software vendor in the chemical risk management space. I have worked ...

Computer science major with a wide education in engineering and science.
Fifteen years of experience in a variety of roles from lab-admin to being CTO of a multi-national independent software vendor in the chemical risk management space. I have worked with this company to develop software that has taken it from being a single-country small business to having customers on every continent of the planet.

I have a wide ranging interest in many areas of science, technology and business and get a lot of professional satisfaction through designing business and technology processes to optimal solutions. I'm also a Roman history geek.

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Karl Geppert and 4 other people answered this question

April 8, 2010

Thoughts on outsourcing IT services?

My experience at that size is it is better to build a group within with good vendor relations for backup on the bigger issues.
For example, you are less likely to get immediate attention required when sale's workstation breaks at 11am and their sales telecall ... more

Information Technology

Karl Geppert asked a question

April 8, 2010

Firewall of choice

Information Technology

Karl Geppert and 1 other person answered this question

Feb. 24, 2010

Computer Lease: Is this the most cost effective option?

This is very dependent on your business requirements. We looked into leasing and found that you end up paying much more than buying an entry level computer and maintaining it with an existing support department. If we had no support mechanism, it'd be much more ... more

Information Technology

Karl Geppert answered this question

Jan. 31, 2010

Focus Research Insight: What do you expect out of a vendor's demo?

This depends heavily on what we're buying. If it's a word-processor or a BI tool then screen shots and power point are probably okay. If it's a new QOS traffic throttler then I need to see it in action doing the advertised job on site. more

Focus Research Insight

Karl Geppert and 1 other person answered this question

Jan. 10, 2010

How to code iPhone apps?

I used 'iPhone in Action - Introduction to Web and SDK Development' by Chistopher Allen and Shannon Appelcline, published by Manning (www.manning.com) and available as an electronic document more

Information Technology

Karl Geppert answered this question

Jan. 10, 2010

Who makes the best color laser printer?

Depends heavily on a lot of factors. Epson made one that was very good on initial price, but the consumables cost a lot. HP make some that are pretty good on price and the consumables cost less than the Epson. Xerox make some that are ... more

Information Technology

Business Expense

Color Laser Printer

Karl Geppert answered this question

Jan. 10, 2010

Bang for buck: what is the best laser printer?

Not really an answer to your question, but a food for thought type answer.
What we found is that our printing requirements for a 75 person office are pretty variable. So we went to a company who sold refurbished printers and bought the highest-spec one ... more

Information Technology

Business Expense

Karl Geppert asked a question

Jan. 10, 2010

How do you test a new OS for business approval

Information Technology

Karl Geppert and 7 other people answered this question

Jan. 10, 2010

Which Windows are you running -- XP, Vista or Windows 7 -- and why?

We run anything to hand on the desktop - winXP,Vista,7, Solaris, RedHat and for the right hardware MacOS. Windows 7 is pretty usable but like all OSes it's easy to pick flaws with the bit that doesn't work quite like I imagine it ought to ... more

Information Technology

Karl Geppert and 4 other people answered this question

Dec. 21, 2009

I need to know how to find an IP address?

Many companies try to address this issue by having a sign-on process to ensure that it is a little bit more difficult to access the system, and that you can then block by username. more

Information Technology

Karl Geppert and 2 other people answered this question

Dec. 21, 2009

Any drawbacks to using an open source firewall?

We used an OpenBSD based pf for our corporate firewall for some considerable time with good success. It's main disadvantage is you have to figure out the setup yourself and to some extent know what you're doing. more

Information Technology

Open Source Skills

Karl Geppert and 14 other people answered this question

Dec. 21, 2009

Who are the Cloud Computing Leaders?

There are interesting newcomers to the field every day. There were some good additions to the cloud in Australia starting up in Canberra recently. They are selling under the auspices of keep your cloud in your own legal jurisdiction.
We have a lot of business in ... more

Karl Geppert and 2 other people answered this question

Dec. 21, 2009

Penetration test: Black box vs. white box?

Yeah - very heavily depends on what answers you want to get. The best answer is both, if you have unlimited money, resources and time. The most important thing is the analysis, and the management of what happens in the results. If you don't have ... more

Information Technology

Karl Geppert answered this question

Dec. 21, 2009

How do I safeguard against a malicious network scan?

Ensure proper network segregation. Put firewall rules in to close all ports that should be inaccessible. Put in a deep packet inspection firewall that ensures that packets reaching ports are of the correct format to be allowed in. Have an active NOC to detect scanning ... more

Information Technology

Karl Geppert and 4 other people answered this question

Dec. 21, 2009

Which spyware removal tool would you recommend to the non-techie?

We recommend Sunbelt's Vipre - combined anti malware/spyware/virus. Great customer support and cheap price. (www.sunbeltsoftware.com)
We've also used spybot s&d and adaware as two free products. more

Information Technology

Karl Geppert asked a question

Dec. 21, 2009

How to use 2 DSL lines best

Information Technology

DSL Sharing Network Design

Karl Geppert and 1 other person answered this question

Dec. 21, 2009

Which firewall router is the best deal for the money?

Personally I'd say separate the firewall and the router. We use linksys and billion modem/routers and then have "Secure Computing" Snapgear firewalls behind.
The firewall appliances are in general more powerful than the ones built into the modem. It also separates the firewall from the modem, ... more

Information Technology

Karl Geppert and 1 other person answered this question

Sept. 15, 2009

Power consumption on an HP9530 printer

Yes, that's a pretty good way to do it. I'll have a hunt for manufacturers who do an Australian plug 240v model. more

Information Technology

Karl Geppert and 3 other people answered this question

Sept. 13, 2009

Have you ever attended a virtual trade show or conference?

They are a great idea and AMD have executed the best ones I've been involved in. You talk to people and get a virtual-show bag with pdf datasheets and other give-aways. You can avoid the crowds and deal with automated replies where appropriate and talk ... more

Information Technology

Karl Geppert and 1 other person answered this question

Sept. 13, 2009

How do I attract users to my direct sales pages on ebay?

Reputation is inded the key - you need people to know that it is worth the difference to come and find you. If you have unique products then you have to have them know where to find you. If you are selling similar thing to ... more

Karl Geppert and 2 other people answered this question

Sept. 13, 2009

How much to spend for a decent overhead projector for mobile business use?

There are three types of projector you can get and price varies according to function. They fall briefly into the following categories;
Full sized - these are good for halls, large meeting rooms. They are very bright and do everything. They got for over one thousand ... more

Karl Geppert and 3 other people answered this question

Sept. 13, 2009

The idea of performance appraisal is good or bad?

We use the PA as a means to evaluate expectations on both sides. It shows how well the staffer fulfilled the expectations we had in the role. However it also goes the other way and shows how well the company met the staffer's expectations - ... more

Human Resources

Karl Geppert and 1 other person answered this question

July 21, 2009

How does my company protect itself from botnets?

Outsourced services are the way to do it. We have used Messagelabs service to filter email and to act as an active web proxy for all traffic. We block access to the web except through the proxy and that covers all primary routes of access ... more

Information Technology

Karl Geppert and 2 other people answered this question

June 15, 2009

I would like to get a Web site up and running in no time. What web hosting solution would you recommend?

All I can offer is the one we use - rackspace.com. We looked at lots and chose on the basis of they let us concentrate on our software and they did the rest for a fairly reasonable fee. You get an enormous amount of traffic ... more

Information Technology

Hosting and Bandwidth

Karl Geppert and 3 other people answered this question

June 15, 2009

What are the advantages of a LAN vs. a WAN? The disadvantages?

Broadly, everything is trending towards the WAN. Most functions are available as online services from somewhere else. It's a simpler model for companies to control centrally, update regularly and not have to worry about helpdesk for installation queries. As the network hardware is building up ... more

Information Technology

Karl Geppert and 1 other person answered this question

June 14, 2009

Disaster Recovery

Risk management of your points of failure is how we manage this. We have a lot of servers in house. The vulnerable places for them is power, network access, disk drives and overall server life.
For the power outages, we can do nothing except manage surges ... more

Information Technology

Servers and Storage

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