Globalize Networks blog

Ok, so maybe Apple isn't pitching this as a corporate vid conf solution...

I received my iPad 2 today and yes, yes, as any of the thousands of online reviews will tell you, it is thinner and lighter. The cameras are crap, the smart cover is cool and really cuts down on the bulk of the original iPad case. It’s not clear to me that browsing really is faster, but the benchmarks all say that it is…well faster than the original iPad anyway. Don’t ask about Android.

One of the first things that I wanted to do was try a FaceTime call. I know, I know, Skype can do video calls. Why even the poor forsaken Yahoo chat can do video calls. My corporate clients have been using high end video conference systems for years, etc. etc. There is nothing new about video calling…except there is.

I opened FaceTime, logged in with my Apple ID, and there were my contacts all waiting to be called. Of course precious few of my friends have the new iPad, but I was able to locate a fanboy, err, iPad 2 owner, in my contact list, and we had a lively, spontaneous video call. The video certainly wasn’t HD quality, but the audio was very clear and lacking in typical VOIP artifacts like echo or stuttering.

It turns out that the iPad form factor is really in a sweet spot. It’s much lighter and easier to handle than a laptop, but the larger screen is much more engaging than an iPhone.

The iPad seems to be following in the iPhone’s footsteps and is wriggling it’s way into the enterprise.  This might be the device that injects ad hoc video calls into every day business communications.

I have been researching hardware-based SSD Full Drive Encryption (FDE) lately and here are some bullet points to consider:

• What is it? FDE is a way to protect data on laptops in case of loss or theft.
• Who cares? If you have any data on your machine that you wouldn’t gladly hand over to any stranger, it suggests that you want to protect your data somehow.
• Don’t file permissions control data access? It’s fairly trivial to circumvent standard file permissions by removing a laptop hard drive and connecting it to a different system.
• Why this method? Using hardware based Full Drive Encryption (FDE) with SSD drives should provide relief to the performance problems that users of other forms of encryption encounter.
• How does it effect users? Implementations vary by platform, but it basically requires an additional authentication step at system startup (password or fingerprint swipe).
• What systems is it available on? The two laptop platforms that business users care about most, Dell and Lenovo both offer hardware based FDE:
  • Dell
    • Dell’s solution is based on “Encrypted Mobility Solid State Drives” and the “Wave Embassy Trusted Drive Manager”.  Make sure that the model you select includes “Encrypted Mobility Solid State Drives” hard drive option.  Not all models do, but at the time of writing, I was able to add this to a Latitude 6410.
    • For more info, check out the bottom of this Dell hard drive description page.
    • Here is an interesting FDE performance study provided by Samsung.
  • Lenovo
    • Lenovo has partnered with WinMagic to provide the “SecureDoc” solution for FDE.  I didn’t research which specific models are available with this, but here is the press release.

Given my recent concerns about security, I have pushed myself and my associates to switch to the Mac OS for our desktop systems (hey, Google did it!). Aside from the standard problems all Windows users will experience in the transition like learning new keyboard shortcuts, I have come to the surprising realization that Mac OS Snow Leopard (10.6.6) really is inferior to Windows 7 in several ways:

1. Finder – Compared to the Windows Explorer, Finder is terrible for managing files. Lack of a proper tree view and inflexible sorting are just two of my primary complaints. I have tried working around this using the outstanding shareware muCommander. But that is only a partial fix, mu is just a Java app and isn’t deeply integrated.
2. Gretchen points out the relatively crippled “Open File” or “Save File” dialog boxes in the Mac OS. In Windows, these dialogs are full-fledged Explorer windows that allow any action to be taken on any file (renaming, deleting, moving, etc.). In Mac OS, no file actions can be taken on other files at all without a $30 add-on.
3. Maximize windows – I understand that some people might want a maximize that allows you to still see the desktop (for dragging and dropping?), but it is annoying that there is no shortcut to properly maximize a window to the entire screen. (though I read this might be fixed in Lion.)

Then there are all the nice gestures and shortcuts that I miss from Windows 7 such as bumping a window against the top of the screen to maximize, or right clicking on the taskbar to launch another instance of a running app.

I had always assumed that the Mac OS was pretty much as usable as Windows, but now I am not so sure. Oh well at least I don’t have to worry about malware anymore…or DO I?