Digital Samurai

Hotmail Password Reset

Remember how easy it was to “hack” Sarah Palin’s e-mail account during the campaign? Supposedly, information freely available on the Internet (e.g. High School, town of residence, etc.) was used to reset the password. Hotmail (a/k/a Microsoft) has just changed the password reset options to make it a lot harder for someone to compromise your e-mail account.

You now have four available pieces of information that can be used to reset your Hotmail password. First there’s the alternate e-mail address, which is pretty common for most reset systems. Second is the question, where you provide an answer. The questions are pre-canned, so you have to select from those provided by Microsoft and can’t make up your own. You can now define a mobile phone number as a reset option, along with a trusted computer. In order to select the trusted computer option, you will need to install Windows Live Essentials, which brings along all kinds of other stuff, including unwanted software.

We think this is a good move by Microsoft to make Hotmail a little more secure. However, for a business e-mail account we would rather see you using a hosted Exchange solution instead of web-based e-mail.

- John and Mike

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

The Battle of the Tablet

For the past year, the iPad has dominated the tablet marketplace. It’s estimated that Apple will sell 21 million iPads by the end of 2011.  Why have they been so dominant? Partially because they’re one of the few vendors who currently sells a tablet, but mostly because it’s an Apple device.

Well, things might change. This past week, BlackBerry released details about its upcoming tablet device, the BlackBerry PlayBook. The PlayBook is perceived to be the business class tablet, with a slightly smaller touchscreen display, weights 2/3 less than the iPad, and comes standard with hardware that blows the iPad out of the water.

The PlayBook comes with a dual core mobile processor, currently much faster than the processor in the iPad and supports 1080p high-definition video. The PlayBook also comes with a built in 3 Megapixel camera, something even the most die-hard iPad users desire. The BlackBerry tablet is set to be available as early as this upcoming January.

The question is, will the features of the second generation iPad be able to catch up?

-John and Mike

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

The 2010 Solo and Small Firm Legal Technology Guide Webcast

We’ll be doing a webcast for the ABA that discusses the 2010 Solo and Small Firm Technology Guide on September 22, 2010 at 1:00 P.M. – 2:30 P.M. Eastern. Sharon will be joining us and our friend and colleague, Mark Robertson, will be moderating the session. You can register for the webcast at the ABA site. We’ll be discussing some of the technologies we wrote about in the book and some of the trends we are seeing for the future. As an added bonus, you’ll get a copy of the book too.

- John and Mike

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

Sharing Wireless

Our good friend and colleague, Jim Calloway, entered a blog post about his “discovery” of a shared wireless data connection. Jim apparently has a Sprint data plan and was all excited about the mobile hotspot device that they offered. This technology has existed for a couple of years now, but we thought that it would be appropriate to mention some of the wireless capabilities that exist today.

First off, there are the femtocell devices, which extend the cellular voice network to those areas where the cell towers can’t reach. Essentially, they are mini cell towers to allow voice access in remote and desolate areas. We have had personal experience where our Verizon network wasn’t available at the lake house of Sharon’s parents in N.H. We connect up a Verizon femtocell device to our Internet connection and we can have up to 5 Verizon phones access the cellular network. The other cellular vendors have similar equipment to “extend” their cellular coverage to any place that has an Internet connection. Effectively, this looks to the phone as a mini cellular tower. Cost of these devices is around $200 to $300 and this offers a great way to have cellular voice access while in a fringe coverage area. Perhaps if every AT&T customer plugged in a femtocell, there would be acceptable coverage for the iPhone.

The other option is to extend the data coverage. This is the type of device that Jim spoke about in his blog post. You buy a WiFi (also known as MiFi) hot spot device that connects to your cellular provider’s data network and shares up to 5 WiFi connected devices. They share this data “cell” by creating a WiFi hotspot that uses an EVDO, 3G or 4G broadband data connection to the network, depending on the carrier. These WiFi deices typically cost $300 plus and share the subscriber’s wireless data connection. Check out the carrier’s promotions and you may be able to get the hardware for free.

These devices and services are a cost effective alternative to dedicated services, but may not be for everybody. Thanks Jim for reminding us that we can share our cellular voice and data connections if we elect to do so. It just takes another piece of hardware and a few more bucks.

- John and Mike

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