It’s funny, I started writing this a week ago when this was just a rumor, but now that’s it’s official I can use facts.

On Tuesday, Apple announced a variety of things around the corner. The most notable is iCloud, which is a set of fully integrated apps that tie all your Apple devices together. This replaces the MobileMe service and makes it free, which is a welcome change as I was never thrilled with the performance of that service versus the promise.

Check out Gizmodo’s great 8-minute version of the keynote if you don’t want to spend two hours of your life watching the whole thing.

The word “cloud” has been tossed around a lot in the past couple of years. If you’re not sure exactly what that means, here’s how I see it:

Technically, a cloud is a bunch of computers linked together to distribute the workload they’re given. Much in the same way that a single computer may have two or more processors to distribute the task load, you can think of a cloud as any number of computers working in harmony to get the job done.

Philosophically, a cloud allows you to store any amount of data or serve any number of applications. Most importantly, it allows you to access data and applications from any device or location. Anytime, anywhere, anyhow. The goal is true ubiquity of personal data for you.

Competition exists with companies wanting you to use their cloud versus the cloud next door. Ideally, all devices would work with all clouds and we’d all just be able to access our information from any terminal, regardless or brand or creed.

Apple is making a significant play here to unify their tight ecosystem of devices and software. They are in the best position to do this, as they have the most control over their ecosystem, delivering software, hardware, and networks that tie together.

Similar things exist on Android and other platforms, but like many things in the “Wild Wild West,” they may offer more or different capabilities but they’ll likely take more tinkering to get going. Apple tends to “just work.”

I recently presented at the SIPA 2011 Publishing Conference in D.C. on mobile (about 4 hours after this announcement) and one of the hot topics on people’s mind was the huge gap between how great the iPad is and how limited it seems to be when it comes to full-on productivity.

The iPad is here to stay through 2015 at least, as the following chart clearly indicates. Android tablet growth will be much slower than the phones since Google’s decided to license its Honeycomb tablet OS. This will be good for quality and consistency of apps, but creates a barrier for developers that will slow growth.

While Microsoft is late to this game (again), their advantage is the embedded standardization of MS Office products (Word, Excel, PowerPoint). Getting these staple apps fully useable on the iPad and other tablets is essential for sales teams and other professionals, giving Microsoft a shot at this volatile market.

I’ve heard creative approaches such as running MS apps on a server and using the iPad as a thin client or dumb terminal. In this usage, the iPad is just used as a remote screen for a computer somewhere in the cloud. This grants full software capability, but the dependence on a constant Internet connection is a deal breaker for some.

This led me to Documents to Go, which is a native iPhone/iPad app that allows me to edit MS Office files directly on the device. I’m still getting used to it, and formatting retention isn’t 100%, but it seems to solve the issue of office productivity for many issues. Perhaps some day apps like this will exist in the cloud, but no matter how good the server infrastructure is, full adoption will always depend on local bandwidth for the user, which is far from perfect.

Comments(2) - Join the Conversation

Andy Swindler Categories: Technology

I’m going to keep this short and sweet, since other blogs have already rehashed the recent Juniper Networks mobile threats report. I first heard about it this morning on NPR and figured it’s worth a mention. The big scary number is the 400% increase in Android malware observed from June 2010 to January 2011. There are Android security apps that you might consider to safeguard against malware, but as far as I know the only way to get a nefarious app on your phone is to actively download and install it yourself. There is no Android virus yet, and I don’t believe that’s something to be worried about.

I would again harken back here to the point that I (and Tom Hickey) keep coming back to: be skeptical and use some common sense. Don’t download and install something if it doesn’t have overwhelmingly positive reviews in Google Marketplace or Amazon Appstore.

This post was featured in ePiphany, Astek’s Monthly Newsletter |  Other ePiphany Articles

Haven’t experienced an ePiphany yet?  Sign up!

Comments(0) - Join the Conversation

Andrew Crowe Categories: ePiphany Featured Story, Gadget, Technology

Until recently, if you had been browsing Facebook in a Starbucks, using their wifi, anyone else on that network could have stolen your Facebook identity using free and easy to use tools. For instance, the Firefox plugin Firesheep listens on unsecured wifi networks for the cookies that sites like Facebook use to keep you from having to login after each click. When it finds one it allows the user to start browsing Facebook as if they were you – with one click! Someone with bad intentions could then change your password AND set the email address associated with your account to their own.

Firesheep isn’t meant to be used for nefarious purposes, although it could and probably is being used that way. It was meant to shed light on the problem of browsing sites like Facebook over unsecured networks. And it seems like Facebook has directly responded to the recent fervor about that. You can now set Facebook to automatically encrypt all communication between your computer and their servers. I would recommend anyone to do that immediately. Turn it on by clicking “Account” in the upper right hand corner in Facebook, then “Account Settings”, and then “Account Security”. Make sure the box under “Secure Browsing” is checked, and then click “Save”:

This will keep anyone from hijacking your Facebook account over an unsecured wifi network.  Other websites you visit may still leave you vulnerable.  If you’re unsure, don’t use it – especially if any sensitive information is involved.  Look for the padlock icon in your browser – it varies between browsers but is usually near one of the corners.  That means a site is secure.  For complete security you would need to set up an encrypted proxy for all traffic on your computer, which is too involved and situation-dependent to get into here.  If you’re curious check out this Lifehacker article about it, or email us at info@astekweb.com.

This post was featured in ePiphany, Astek’s Monthly Newsletter |  Other ePiphany Articles

Haven’t experienced an ePiphany yet?  Sign up!

Comments(0) - Join the Conversation

Andrew Crowe Categories: ePiphany Featured Story, How To, Social Media, Technology, Web

As much as I’m enamored by the potential of all the new social media tools such as Twitter, Facebook, and blogs, it’s important to reflect on the one technology that still ties many of these others together. Email, or electronic messaging, has been around in some form for decades, but it wasn’t until the 1980s that standards began to tie together the various systems that had evolved. The 90s saw a sharp increase in usage with ISP’s like AOL getting into the game. Universities have always led the effort as well.

We take it for granted most of the time. Everyone has an email account these days, or at least everyone with an Internet connection, but we’ll talk digital divide another time. The point is that I don’t see email going away anytime soon. Even as new social media sites pop up, I still generally use my email accounts to keep track of all the updates and messages. Nothing compares to email in terms of being able to ignite a word of mouth campaign and empower someone to send direct trusted messages to their network.

In terms of generating a message that resonates with people, we can all take a cue from the Obama team, which managed to keep 13 million subscribers even after the campaign was over. It’s a delicate balance of appropriate messaging and respect for people’s cluttered inboxes and busy lives.

Is it safe? Generally, yes. But it’s important to remember that email is unencrypted and therefore anyone who intercepts it (or has access to one of the many servers your message passes through) could read your mail. There are tools that help you protect your email, but until everyone adopts a new system, we won’t be able to reliably call email “safe.” For now, it’s best just not to send anything through email that’s sensitive. If you must, create a password-protected PDF for the information and attach it to an email.

Comments(1) - Join the Conversation

Andy Swindler Categories: ePiphany Featured Story, Marketing, Social Media, Technology, Web

My mother and friend each lost computer data recently, so I’ve been thankful for having a comprehensive backup and recovery set-up for the office. I outlined it for my friend after he asked, so thought I would share it here as well. It’s inexpensive, efficient, and covers me for incremental file versioning, immediate system recovery with no reinstallation downtime, and offsite backups for full contingency. This is based on our primarily Macintosh network, but the principles apply to any computer system.

For many years I’ve used Retrospect software, which is especially great for multiple machines on a network (Mac/PC). But even if you are just backing up the files on your local machine, it’s nice because you can script it very precisely (more efficient) and it’s incremental, so you can recover a version of a file from, say, 30 days ago.  Apple’s Time Machine is a slicker interface, but incremental backups work fine through Retrospect. And darn the timing, I just got an email from EMC that Retrospect 8 for the Mac is out. I’m still on 6.2, so I think they skipped a version, but it works fine with Leopard.

Retrospect:
http://www.emcinsignia.com/products/software/retroformac/

I have many layers of backup myself.  My main file server has RAID mirrored drives for sensitive company data (RAID means if one drive fails the machine will keep running until you replace the other drive. Both drives must fail to take down the machine).  This data is then backed up to Retrospect software running on a trusty 1st gen Mac Mini with 2TB of storage hanging off it that doubles as music server for the office.

Another layer of backup strategy addresses the issue of getting you back up and running quickly in the case of catastrophic failure.  Retrospect and Time Machine are great for incremental file backups, but there is an application called Super Duper that clones your entire hard drive.  In the case of drive failure, you can easily boot off that external USB drive and start with all your data and apps right where you left off, even from another computer.  After replacing the defective drive or fixing the computer, you can hit one button and it will dupe everything back to the new destination.  Never skip a beat.  We have this on everyone’s laptop to complement Retrospect’s incremental backup.

SuperDuper:
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html

Now this leads to the final layer of contingency, which is off-site backups.  We’d still be up a creek in the event of a fire, etc.  Extreme and rare, but it’s still a possibility.  I finally got MobileMe last year, mainly for photo sharing, but also for remote backup.  I’ve been less than thrilled with the backup performance, but it’s okay.  It almost seems like an afterthought, as you have to download a separate Backup application and configure it.  It’s also not very efficient as it zips up all your files into a single file which is uploaded every day, or whatever your schedule is, rather than uploading only the files you changed.  It works, just slowly. You can also set up backups to local drives and devices if off-site isn’t a priority for you.

For off-site backups, I would give this a serious look:

Mozy:
http://mozy.com/

Unlimited remote backups for $4.95/month.  Pretty insane deal, though you might consider using it for smaller files and do music/photos/videos locally.  I’m going to start using it to offsite all the Retrospect backups from the network, then I think I’ll finally be covered!  Unless, of course, aliens attack or Bush pushes the WWIII button on the way out of office.

Comments(4) - Join the Conversation

Andy Swindler Categories: Entrepreneurship, General, Technology, Web

1. Larry Seltzer, Internet Freedom and Security Are Necessarily at Odds

Security comes at the cost of flexibility when it comes to computers. Within an enterprise, things are much easier to control than on the open Internet.

2. Michael Lewis, The End of Wall Street’s Boom

Frightening and enlightening insider look into Wall Street to know there really was no wizard behind the financial curtain pulling levers.

Comments(0) - Join the Conversation

Andy Swindler Categories: Entrepreneurship, General, Technology

An interesting read on how lax many companies are about mobile data security.

Comments(0) - Join the Conversation

Andy Swindler Categories: Technology