Digital Samurai

Pick Your Poison

It’s not even the fourth of July and we’re still seeing fireworks over supporting Flash on any iProduct [sic]. Apple refuses to support Flash on their devices, supposedly because of security concerns. At least that’s what Steve Jobs has said publicly. The implication is that we’re to believe that iProducts are actually secure. Really? Don’t get us going about how relatively easy it is to get data off a PIN protected iPhone. The latest “finger in the eye” for Apple has been the exposing of over 100,000 e-mail addresses belonging to iPad buyers. Sure you can blame AT&T, but the iPad is not without issues either.

Adobe isn’t without security issues either. It recently patched 32 security holes in the Flash Player. We’re sure that Jobs is running around Cupertino screaming “I told you so.”

So which poison should you choose? Security holes in Flash or data compromises with an iProduct? Tough choice.

- John and Mike

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

Google Chrome OS Coming Soon

Google Chrome is no longer just a browser. It has turned into a full blown operating system. Starting later this year, the web-based, open source operating system will be available preinstalled on Netbooks, providing consumers with an alternative to Windows 7 Starter, Windows XP or even the latest version of Ubuntu.

Is this another piece of the puzzle in Google’s plan to take a bigger chunk of Microsoft’s pie?

Whether the operating system will succeed remains to be seen. Apple has been fighting Microsoft on the desktop battlefield for more than 20 years and has roughly a modest ten percent of the market share.

Law firms are just starting to become receptive to the idea of having Macs in the workplace. Why not Google? Privacy and security advocates are no doubt greatly alarmed at the thought.

- John and Mike

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

Time for Acrobat

Now is the time to get Adobe Acrobat if you don’t already have a copy or to upgrade to version 9 Professional if you have an older copy. Recently, we’ve seen a bunch of vendors selling Adobe’s Acrobat 9 Professional for as little as $86 a copy. That’s a great deal and even cheaper than the $159 upgrade price from Adobe. Where do you get these incredible deals? Google is your friend. Just search for ‘Acrobat 9 Pro’ and you’ll see several choices on the first page in the $86 to $120 range.

-John and Mike

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

Microsoft Discloses Critical Vulnerability Found In Driver Used By Aero Theme

For Microsoft, everything has been rosy to date with the release and continued popularity of the Windows 7 Operating System.  Like any previous Microsoft Operating System, vulnerabilities will be discovered and security patches and Windows Updates will need to be applied to in order to keep your computer secure.

This is a good time to make the recommendation that your computer should be set up to automatically download and install Windows Updates as they’re released. Servers and other critical devices should be configured differently.

Microsoft has announced a critical vulnerability in a device driver used by the Aero theme display affecting Windows 7 64-bit, Server 2008 R2 64-bit and Server 2008 R2 for Itanium systems. A patch will be forthcoming during the next round of updates available on June 8. Until then, users can disable the Aero theme if they have it installed. For those systems that don’t have the Aero theme installed or enabled, your computer isn’t affected by this flaw.

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

Top 10 Reasons to Upgrade to Office 2010

Mary Jo Foley just listed her top ten reasons to upgrade to Office 2010. There’s a lot of collaboration and presentation stuff in the next version and we’ll probably jump over so that we know what our clients are dealing with. Here are the Top 10 reasons for End Users to try Microsoft Office 2010.

1. Edit and enhance photos in Word or PowerPoint 2010.
2. Put your presentation message in motion with PowerPoint 2010.
3. Access, edit, and share from virtually anywhere with Office Web Apps on Windows Live SkyDrive.
4. Organize all of your information in a single place in OneNote 2010.
5. Make presentations from virtually anywhere in PowerPoint 2010.
6. Take control of email conversations with Outlook 2010.
7. Analyze finances easily at home and at work with Excel 2010.
8. Stay connected to your network with Outlook 2010.
9. Find the features you need fast and personalize your Ribbon.
10. Discover all the tools you need to work with your documents with the new Backstage view.

It looks like we’ll have to upgrade just to experience the new PowerPoint features.

- John and Mike

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

Internet Explorer Use On The Decline

Microsoft has recently basked in the success and popularity of the Windows 7 Operating System but one of their other mainstay applications hasn't been so fortunate.

For the first time ever, Microsoft's Internet Explorer web-browser market share has fallen below 60 percent, while the popularity of alternative browsers such as Mozilla FireFox, Google Chrome and Apple Safari continue to rise. Mozilla FireFox's market share is approximately 25 percent according to the most recent estimates.

So why the decline? Security vulnerabilities combined with slower browsing speeds might explain things. Or users are just looking for an alternative, rather than use what Redmond has to offer.

We made the switch to Mozilla FireFox from Internet Explorer about 3 years ago and haven't looked back since.

- John and Mike

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

Case Management with SharePoint

We had a friend of ours ask us about using SharePoint for a case management system. He works for a government agency and has been tasked with investigating whether SharePoint would be an acceptable environment for their case management needs. Having received this somewhat “off the wall” query, we turned to our friend and colleague Ben Schorr. Besides the fact that Ben is incredibly bright, he’s also a wiz with SharePoint. Ben has graciously allowed us to post his response.

SharePoint is, at its heart, just a browser-based front-end to a big database.  It supports lists, document libraries, tasks, events, workflow, integrates with Outlook, Word, Excel, OneNote…  I don’t see any reason why a firm couldn’t adapt it for use as a case management system.  That said, I’m not aware of many firms that actually do.

The two best resources on the topic that I’m aware of would probably be OpenText’s case management framework, and the government agencies document from Microsoft.

OpenText: http://www.opentext.com/2/sol-products/sol-pro-extensions-microsoft/pro-ot-casemgmt-sharepoint.htm

Microsoft: http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/2/f/22f21dfd-87db-4318-9b11-6a48fc8cdbee/tdm_casemanagement.doc (opens a Word doc)

SharePoint is like walking into a gold mine with a bunch of wooden sticks and some metal plates.  You could get down on your knees and scrape away at the ground with that stuff, but if you have somebody who can craft the sticks and metal into shovels and pickaxes you’ll get a lot more done.  A good SharePoint developer could probably make a pretty good case management system out of it.

Of course once you’ve got a pretty good case management system you’re back to the time-honored problem of getting people to commit to using it.

Thanks for the great response Ben.

-John and Mike

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

Details Emerge About BlackBerry OS 6.0

We recently made the decision to switch from using Windows Mobile-based Palm Treos to RIM’s BlackBerry smartphones. It has only been a month, but we are already wondering why we didn't make the switch much sooner. One of the first things we did when powering on our shiny new handhelds was to update the software to OS 5.0.

Soon, we will have to do it again. Details surrounding the next update to the BlackBerry OS have been leaked and it appears to contain a number of enhanced features and upgrades, with most of the upgrades adding support for the multi-touch screens soon to be included in new BlackBerry handhelds. A device with multi-touch screen support and kinetic scrolling, sound familiar? It looks like BlackBerry is preparing to go head to head with the iPhone, at least with the user interface.

Some of the other upgrades that we're excited about are tabbed browsing and a redesigned home screen. For now, we will have to contain our excitement a few more months until the update is available.

-John and Mike

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

Is that the Internet in your Pocket?

First off, we apologize for being off the radar screen the last several weeks. The good news is that we’ve been bouncing around the country making money as part of our real jobs and haven’t really had much time to devote to this blog. We hope that things will (only slightly) slow down so that we can get back to a more regular schedule.

However, we just have to comment on the recent announcement by Google that they have rewritten Google Docs. According to InformationWeek, this is in direct competition to Microsoft Word. Google has taken an interesting turn with the rewrite. Google Docs now updates in a near real-time mode rather than the 15 second or so delay for the previous version. This is intended to improve the collaboration experience by providing “immediate” updates for all participants. Another interesting decision is the dropping of off-line access to the documents. Apparently Google thinks that everybody has the Internet in their pocket and can access their information at all times, whether in the bathroom, hotel or at 35,000 feet. Technically, anytime Internet access is a near reality, but we doubt that this decision will be very popular.

Make no mistake about it; Microsoft Office is here to stay, at least for the near term. The majority of users will keep Office even if they move to Google Docs. The primary reason to use Google Docs is for the collaboration aspect. Microsoft plans to counter this by providing this same function in Office 2010.

- John and Mike

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

Fake Lawyer E-Mail Scam

Apparently there are a lot of people that aren’t totally honest and can’t resist clicking on something to see if they really are in trouble. It’s bad enough that lawyers have a bad reputation with the general public, but now there’s an e-mail scam that’s coming from “fake” lawyers.

US-CERT has announced another e-mail scam that appears to be coming from legitimate attorneys and their law firms claiming that a copyright lawsuit has been filed against the e-mail recipient. The message has either a malware attachment or a link to a malicious website. Either way, your computer gets infected with some nasty stuff. It tells you something about the character of the recipient if they open the attachment or follow the link.

- John and Mike

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