Digital Samurai

THE FIRST BLACKBERRY - DID WE HEAR THAT RIGHT?

After completing his first week in office, President Obama has faced and won his first tough challenge, the right to keep “BlackBerry One.”  His battle against the lawyers finally came to an end with an agreement that he could keep his BlackBerry, while at the same time addressing all of the security concerns that come with using a mobile device.

Because of those concerns, it’s speculated that Obama will have to use an upgraded smartphone capable of keeping hackers at bay. Don’t know if in the end it will be an actual BlackBerry or not (actually reputed to be a Sectera Edge, which is a repurposed Treo 750 costing over $3000), but something right out of the Bond series sounds about right.

However, other staff at the White House aren’t so lucky. His advisors, a group of tech-savvy individuals, are finding it hard to adjust to the outdated computer equipment present at the White House.  Among some of the adjustments his aides will have to make include working with old and outdated computer software, Windows-based computers, and a ban on instant messaging. Welcome to the White House! For the rest of us, it sounds like your typical business computer network – old, outdated and slow, slow, slow.

In fact, during the transition, his aides had not been issued e-mail accounts and instead had to rely on their Gmail accounts to coordinate the efforts. Wonder what information Google has collected?  Hopefully, they will switch over to an e-mail account that’s a little more secure as soon as possible.

- John and Mike

(703) 359-0700
digitalsamurai@senseient.com
www.senseient.com

JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE SAFE

Perhaps you have heard of Google’s Safe Browsing. If not, it is an extension to Firefox that alerts the user when they visit a web page that may request personal or financial information. Chrome tries to protect the users as well by implementing Safe Browsing. Unfortunately, Google’s Safe Browsing only ranks sites at the domain level. This means that URL shortening services like TinyURL bypass the security features of Safe Browsing. Cybercriminals have figured out that they can send users to malicious sites without warning by using TinyURL. So be careful where you click.

- John and Mike

(703) 359-0700
digitalsamurai@senseient.com
www.senseient.com

THE FUTURE OF HARD DRIVES – SOLID STATE

Most people don’t know what a hard drive looks like or how it works, only that it holds data. Hard drives come in many different types, sizes and interfaces. Some made for laptops, desktops and external drives. Who knew there could be so many?

Gone are the days of IDE hard drives with SATA drives soon to follow. Enter solid state drives (SSDs). The latest generation of hard drives, SSDs contain no moving parts, are more reliable, much quieter and faster than older types of hard drives. However, the big downside is the cost. Man, are they expensive. And they don’t have as much storage capacity, yet.

Dell, leading the push to use the new technology, now offers a 256 GB SSD model in its XPS M1330 and M1730 laptop lines. Apple also offers a 256 GB SSD model in the Macbook Pro. The upgrades will cost you a pretty penny, almost $400 in Dell’s case. A very costly upgrade, indeed.

Is the premium price currently worth it? Not for business systems. Our advice? Wait a few months and watch the price tumble. Then the time will be right.

- John and Mike

(703) 359-0700
digitalsamurai@senseient.com
www.senseient.com

IS CHROME COMING TO A MAC NEAR YOU? VERSION 2.0 RELEASED

Propeller heads listen up, Chrome is coming to Macs. Specifically, OS X. Not just yet though. You'll have to hold onto your pocket protectors for just a few more months. However, for everyone else, a Chrome update has been released.

Google has released a new version of Chrome this past week, version 2.0, that contains a number of new features and enhancements including faster safe browsing, an auto-complete feature, support for browser profiles and an updated JavaScript engine. All-in-all good updates, but nothing earth shattering. The auto-complete feature should be the most useful to users, allowing users to recall data they've previously entered into web forms.

But, what was lost in the announcement of the new release was the tidbit that Chrome will be made available for both Macs and Linux distributions sometime before the first half of 2009 is up. Currently, developers have been testing both a “basic shell browser” for Mac and Linux versions with user friendly features to be added in the coming months. One of hurdles Chrome has faced in getting users to switch over to the new browser has been the lack of support for Macs.

For those eager ubergeeks, more information on Chrome for Macs and Linux and the downloadable test shell can be found here:

http://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/dev/developers/how-tos/mac-detailed-status

http://code.google.com/p/chromium/wiki/MacBuildInstructions

- John and Mike

(703) 359-0700
digitalsamurai@senseient.com
www.senseient.com

NEW YEAR EQUALS BAD START FOR TWITTER

Welcome to the New Year. Unfortunately for Twitter, the New Year came with an unwelcome BANG. If you happened to follow Bill O’Reilly on Twitter, then yesterday you received a shocking tweet regarding the sexuality of the Fox News host. Other false and inappropriate tweets were posted and sent out to the followers of Britney Spears, Barack Obama, Rick Sanchez and other celebrities.

In total, roughly 30 known Twitter accounts of famous celebrities, politicians and our future President were hacked on Monday. The accounts were compromised after the hackers accessed tools that the Twitter support team uses when a user requests the resetting of their login information. The support tools have since been taken offline and will remain that way until the security vulnerability can be addressed. Twitter has since recommended that all users reset their passwords, in case more accounts have been compromised.

Twitter has grown in popularity over the past year and Twitter is (certainly after yesterday) well aware that the security and unreliability of the service will have to be addressed for the growth to continue.

Although it’s a fad that we don’t find worthwhile, at least one person in our office is out to prove us wrong. And maybe in the New Year she will. If you think you heard a glove fall to the floor, you did.

- John and Mike

(703)359-0700
digitalsamurai@senseient.com
www.senseient.com