Employee-Liable Smartphones on Corporate Networks: Five Tips to Boost Admin Control

March 27, 2010 1 Comment

By Al Sacco

If 2009 was the Year of the Smartphone, 2010 is destined to be the Year IT Grapples With Managing All Those Smartphones.

Properly keeping track of and securing employees’ personal devices, or “personal-liable” devices, on a corporate network is sure to be atop the list of mobile administrators’ challenges in the coming year, as more and more staffers file help-desk tickets to have their new iPhones, Droids, or Nexus One handsets linked up to enterprise systems. What’s worse, the technically savvy users in the bunch may link up their devices without your consent–or even knowledge–according to mobile-device-management software company Zenprise.

Creating, instituting, and upholding a plan to keep tabs on which devices are connected to what network resources and when constitute crucial steps in creating an effective mobility strategy. On that note, Ahmed Datoo, Zenprise VP of marketing, sent along the following five tips to help mobile administrators get a better handle on which devices can and/or do access your corporate resources.

I’ve summed up Datoo’s points briefly, and then posted the full text of his suggestions below. Naturally, most of the advice Datoo offers relates to the company’s own Zenprise MobileManager product, but other firms such as BoxTone also offer comparable products that serve many of the same purposes. Smart mobile administrators will want to investigate the wide range of mobile management products on the market today to see which offerings best fits their own organizations’ specific needs.

Five Tips From Zenprise for Securing Personal-Liable Mobile Devices on Corporate Networks

1. Create a formal corporate policy that specifies staffers must check in with IT and get approval before connecting a personal mobile device to the corporate network.

2. Employ a product that lets you see which devices are connected to your corporate network, when they are connected, and to whom they belong.

3. Devise a set of security policies attached to your Microsoft Exchange Server, BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES), etc., to ensure that any and all devices connected to your corporate network meet a predefined set of security standards.

4. Give your users some sort of self-service option that lets them quickly and remotely wipe their devices if they lose or misplace handhelds.

5. Employ a product that lets mobile administrators randomly “audit” users’ devices for potentially problematic applications, to help identify unknown and potentially harmful third-party software.

Keep reading for the full text of Datoo’s five tips, along with further explanation of each.

Zenprise’s Five Tips

1. Require users to proactively seek permission to connect via Exchange ActiveSync (EAS).

Microsoft Exchange ships with EAS enabled by default for all users. This means that employees can enable their iPhone, Android, Palm, and Symbian devices to retrieve corporate mail, without asking the IT department for authorization or approval. In order to secure a device, the IT department must have visibility into which devices are connecting to the network. Therefore, it’s important to set a policy that requires users to contact the IT department for permission to enable ActiveSync.

2. You can’t secure what you can’t see. Gain visibility into which devices are connecting into the network.

A “particularly worrisome trend” cited by a recent Aberdeen Research report found that the vast majority of organizations meeting the demand for individual-liable devices had little to no visibility into device usage and telecom costs. Without full visibility into the devices running on a network, IT is subject to greater security risk from employee liable phones. Once an administrator has authorized and enabled EAS for a user to connect into the network with an iPhone, for example, they do not need permission to add additional devices to the network. Without daily or weekly reports, IT has no visibility when a user switches their smartphone for another type of device.

3. Like everything else on the network, smartphones must also have security policies.

Companies should set up a default EAS security policy so that all phones connecting into the network have a minimum level of security enabled. In many instances, this will force users to do things like set up a security password or enable other security policies before they can access their email for the first time.

4. Smartphones are an extension of corporate data. Give users the ability to wipe their own device in case their device gets lost.

According to Accenture, 10 to 15 percent of all handheld computers, PDAs, mobile phones, and pagers are lost by their owners. More often than not, users will delay reporting their device as lost or stolen, either in the hopes that they can retrieve the device, or because they are embarrassed for losing it. Every second of delay could mean the loss of sensitive corporate data. Providing users with an ability to wipe their own devices will significantly reduce the risk of both personal and corporate data loss.

5. All work and no play? Track applications installed on the device.

The line continues to blur between the personal and corporate use of smartphones. Organizations that allow users to install personal or corporate applications on their device, should audit for rogue third-party applications, and control which corporate applications mobile devices can access. More and more users are unintentionally downloading memory hogging or malware embedded applications. By understanding which applications are installed and running, enterprise IT can avoid potential security and compliance risks.

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4G Phones of the Future! CTIA Roundup on PCWorld Podcast 70

March 27, 2010 Leave a comment

PCWorld Staff

Mar 26, 2010 6:00 pm

HTC EVO 4GThis week on the podcast, Ginny Mies and Mark Sullivan are fresh out of Las Vegas and ready to talk about all of the brand-new cell phones and wireless technologies they saw at CTIA 2010.

Ginny Mies talks about two of the most exciting phones she saw at the show: HTC’s EVO 4G for Sprint, the carrier’s first phone built for 4G networks, and the Samsung Galaxy S, which has a beautiful Super AMOLED screen. Both phones run the Android OS.

Plus, Mark Sullivan had a chance to test out Clearwire’s WiMax 4G service while he was in Las Vegas, and he’s ready to tell the tale of the tape when it comes to speed: Downloads went very fast, but uploading was surprisingly slow. Learn about WiMax, the competing LTE 4G wireless technology, and when you can expect to find faster networks in a city near you.

Download the podcast.

You can also stream the podcast via QuickTime:

Subscribe to the PCWorld Podcast on iTunes or via the PCWorld Podcast RSS feed. You can reach us at podcast@pcworld.com and review our podcast on iTunes.

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Is Microsoft squaring-up for a tablet battle with Apple's iPad?

March 27, 2010 1 Comment

Tablet computers are set to dominate 2010 but will you buy one, asks Shane Richmond.

By Shane Richmond, Head of Technology (Editorial)
Published: 8:00AM GMT 27 Mar 2010

Comments 3 | Comment on this article

Apple will issue replacement iPad when battery runs out

Apple will issue replacement iPad when battery runs out Photo: REUTERS

Rumours have been building for months that Microsoft plans to challenge Apple’s iPad with a tablet computer of their own. The Courier, thought to be a dual-screen tablet computer that opens like a book, was implicitly confirmed last week in a post on the Microsoft Jobs website that referred to “the forthcoming Courier digital journal”. The post was quickly edited to remove the mention of the Courier but that didn’t stop the rumour mill.

Those rumours say that Microsoft’s Courier will weigh about a pound and be less than one inch thick. Just as the iPad runs on the same operating system as the iPhone, it’s thought that the Courier will share the Windows Phone 7 Series mobile operating system. Of course, with nobody at Microsoft prepared to officially confirm the device, it’s impossible to be sure.

Apple’s iPad launches in America next week and comes to Britain at the end of April. Such is the hype around the device that analysts are predicting that tablet computers will become one of the growth technology categories of 2010.

Launching the iPad in January, Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, said that he believed his company had successfully created “a third category” of devices that would sit between smartphones and laptop computers. What do you use when a laptop is too cumbersome and too powerful for your needs but a smartphone has too small a screen and is not powerful enough? For a few years the technology industry thought the answer would be so-called netbooks, ultra-portable but low-powered laptops.

But Apple believes netbooks offer the worst of both worlds, not the best, and the technology industry appears to agree. Asus, a company that was instrumental in driving the netbook market, will launch a ‘netbook tablet’ in Europe next month. This hybrid device has a netbook-style full keyboard which folds away to offer a tablet-style experience when required. Then there’s the JooJoo tablet, which launches in the US imminently and boasts the largest touchscreen – 12.1 inches – of the new tablet crowd.

Other industries are looking expectantly at the new devices. The publishing industry hopes tablets will give e-books a much needed boost, while newspapers and magazines are making plans for money-spinning applications.Then there are games, productivity apps and other kinds of software. Analyst Michael Wolf, of GigaOm, predicts that the tablet application market will be worth $8bn a year by 2015.

For tablets to succeed, those who own both a smartphone and a laptop will have to be convinced that a third device offers enough to make it worth buying and light users of computers will need to be sufficiently tempted to make the switch.

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After DNS Problem, Chinese Root Server Is Shut Down

March 27, 2010 Leave a comment

By Robert McMillan, IDG News Service

A China-based root DNS server associated with networking problems in Chile and the U.S. has been disconnected from the Internet.

The action by the server’s operator, Netnod, appears to have resolved a problem that was causing some Internet sites to be inadvertently censored by a system set up in the People’s Republic of China.

On Wednesday, operators at NIC Chile noticed that several ISPs (Internet service providers) were providing faulty DNS information, apparently derived from China. China uses the DNS system to enforce Internet censorship on its so-called Great Firewall of China, and the ISPs were using this incorrect DNS information.

That meant that users of the network trying to visit Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were directed to Chinese computers instead.

In Chile, ISPs VTR, Telmex and several others — all of them customers of upstream provider Global Crossing — were affected, NIC Chile said in a statement on Friday. The problem, first publicly reported on Wednesday, appears to have persisted for a few days before it was made public, the statement says.

A NIC Chile server in California was also hit with the problem, NIC Chile said. While it’s not clear how this server was getting the bad DNS information, it came via either Network Solutions or Equinix, according to NIC Chile.

Network Solutions wasn’t to blame as it does not offer backbone provider services to NIC Chile, said Rick Wilhelm, the company’s vice president of engineering. Equinix and Global Crossing could not immediately be reached for comment.

Netnod, which maintains a copy of its root DNS server in China, has now “withdrawn route announcements” made by the server, according to company CEO Kurt Lindqvist. This effectively disconnects the server from the Internet. In an e-mail interview, Lindqvist said he could not recall when his company took this action.

Netnod insists that its server did not contain the bad data that redirected Internet traffic, and security experts agree, saying that its data was probably being altered by the Chinese government somewhere on China’s network, in order to enforce the country’s Great Firewall.

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Google Fiber Candidates: Top 5 Desperate Cities

March 27, 2010 Leave a comment

Jeff Bertolucci

Mar 27, 2010 6:15 am

What’s more entertaining than the sight of civic leaders fawning all over Google for a little high-speed action? In recent weeks, cities across the U.S. have staged some fairly bizarre antics to convince Google to build its proposed 1-gigabit fiber-optic network in their area. The search giant will make its decision by the end of 2010.

Naturally, when the competition is this fierce — at least 600 communities are vying for the fiber network — you’ve got to stand out. And acting a little kooky is one way to show Google you care, even if you come across as, well, a little desperate. Here are five particularly nutty publicity stunts:

Duluth

Nothing says “we care” quite like hypothermia. Perhaps that’s what Don Ness, mayor of Duluth, Minnesota, was thinking when he jumped into icy Lake Superior in February. Question: Will Ness’ plunge sway Google’s execs to choose Duluth? Or will they simply ponder the George Costanza-like effects of 35-degree water on male shrinkage?

Sarasota

Why suffer shrinkage with you can swim with sharks? To win Google’s love, Sarasota, Florida mayor Richard Clapp donned a wetsuit and took a quick dip last week in a local shark tank, according to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

The bonnet-head

Artwork: Chip Taylor

sharks were “well fed,” the newspaper reports. And that’s good news for the Mayor Clapp, unless he was trying to show his support for Google’s dismemberment benefits.

Or maybe sharks use broadband. There’s a deeper meaning here somewhere.

Topeka

Topeka, Kansas is now…Google, Kansas! City leaders issued a February proclamation making the symbolic name change for the month of March 2010. The attention-grabbing stunt did grab headlines, but its ability to sway Google remains unclear.

Let’s up the ante a bit: All first-born children in Topeka shall be named “Google” for perpetuity. Do we have the gig, Google?

Rancho Cucamonga

Like Topeka, the Southern California city of Rancho Cucamonga chose to Googlize its name. But at least it limited its sycophancy to the city’s fiber-optic campaign, which is named Rancho Googlemonga. Come to think of it, “Rancho Googlemonga” may be an improvement over the city’s true name.

Greenville

This stunt has a rave-like feel. Greenville, South Carolina in March created a “people-powered Google chain” with more than 2,000 LED glow sticks to spell out the name “Google.” It’s a cool concept — check out the video below — if sort of freaky in a cult-like way.

One thing’s for sure: The folks at Google are masters of free publicity. All of this adulation — and they’ve yet to lay one strand of fiber.

Contact Jeff Bertolucci via Twitter (@jbertolucci ) or at jbertolucci.blogspot.com .

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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480

March 27, 2010 Leave a comment

First Look: Nvidia GeForce GTX 480

Reviewed by Nate Ralph on March 26, 2010

Is the GeForce GTX 480 fashionably late, or just plain late? ATI has been tooting the DirectX 11 horn for quite some time now, while their competitors labored on a rebuttal. At long last, Nvidia’s first DirectX 11 graphics card is here — and for better or worse, it’s quite a beast.

The card is based on Nvidia’s new Fermi architecture. The feature-list is considerable: over 3 billion transistors, double the processing units of its predecessors (though ATI and Nvidia count these differently), and a strong emphasis on geometric realism. Nvidia’s Fermi page is chocked full of information and demonstrations, and includes white papers detailing the strides they’ve made.

Priced at $500, the GeForce GTX 480 is squarely aimed at . . . no competing product. The obvious target would be the reigning graphics card champ, ATI’s Radeon HD 5870 — but that card can generally be found for about $400. The 5870′s bigger brother would be the next logical step, but that’s a dual-GPU card, and it typically falls into the $700 range.

As the GTX 480 is Nvidia’s fastest single-card GPU, we opted to center our first look at the part around ATI’s fastest single-card GPU, the Radeon HD 5870. To even the playing field a bit, we also took a look at MSI’s R5870 Lightning — a factory overclocked HD 5870 priced at $500.

High-end components deserve a high-end test bed: Ours is equipped with Intel’s Core i7-975 Extreme Edition processor, a DX58SO motherboard, 6 GB of RAM, and a 1300W power supply. All tests were performed at 1920-by-1200 and 2560-by-1600 resolutions on a 30″ display, and highest settings (unless otherwise noted).

Synthetic Benchmarks

While generally not indicative of real-world performance, synthetic benchmarks are a generally accepted industry standard, and can help us get an general idea of how these graphics cards will perform in the wild.

We started with a look at graphics tests using Futuremark’s 3DMark Vantage. 3DMark offers a pair of DirectX 10-based game demos, which emulate a typical game’s strain on a graphics card. One test emulates an indoor action sequence, simulating cloth, light and water reflection, and static object rendering. The second test takes place in outer space, simulating shadow-mapping, and rendering large scenes consisting entirely of moving objects. The scores were close: the GTX 480 saw a neglibeble 0.1% gain over the 5870, while the overclocked R5870 took the lead with a gain of almost 4% over the GTX 480.

For our second synthetic test, we used the latest release of Unigine’s Heaven Benchmark. Heaven is a DirectX 11-based game engine, designed to make the most of next-generation technologies. There is no actual game behind the benchmark’s fantasy setting, but the benchmark cycles through a few scenes, offering an idea of what navigating the world under a variety of settings could look like, and how strenuously it would tax your system.

Nvidia has been beating the geometric realism drum for some time now, and Heaven’s tessellation feature set made for an ideal test scenario. Hardware tessellation consists of breaking down polygons into smaller pieces. This results in an improved level of detail, with visually complex in-game models. While the technology isn’t new, it has typically been relegated to 3D models in films — to date, graphics cards haven’t been able to achieve a satisfying level of performance while employing tessellation.

The results of our Heaven benchmark are pretty much in line with that assessment. The GTX 480 leads the pack, particularly once anti-aliasing is turned on. Of note: we performed these tests at Moderate tessellation, which is generally indicative of the level of tessellation we’d see in games today. The Heaven benchmark also offers Normal and Extreme tessellation modes, but both of our 5870s posted exceedingly low frames — on the order of 1 – 3 frames per second — when we pushed the benchmark to its upper limits.

The fault lies with the video memory: Nvidia’s card is bundled with 1.5GB of video memory, while our 5870s are limited to 1GB. When pressed, the GTX 480 didn’t post playable frame rates, but managed to complete the benchmark. At the 1920-by-1200 resolution under Extreme tessellation at 16x anti-aliasing, we saw an average of 25 frames per second. With the same test at a 2560-by-1600 resolution, we saw 17.3 frames per second. Neither one makes a very good gaming experience, but it does show quite a bit of potential for tessellation, later on.

For our final synthetic test, we used FurMark — an open-sourced, OpenGL benchmarking tool. It’s tests are based on fur-rendering algorithims to test, and place rather extreme levels of pressure on a GPU in the process. Our tests were conducted at a resolution of 1920-by-1200 pixels, at 0x-, 4x-, and 8x-multi-sampled anti-aliasing. As our handy chart shows, the GTX 480 lead the pack, followed by the overclocked 5870.

Keep in mind however that synthetic benchmarks are not the greatest measure of actual performance — and this disclaimer goes doubly so for FurMark. You’d be hard pressed to find an application that will stress a graphics card as exhaustively as FurMark does — and there have been instances where warranties were voided.

Where FurMark does excel, however, is in giving us a good idea of what these cards would look like when operating at their upper limits. During a minute-long FurMark run we saw the GTX 480 get as hot as 95 degrees Celsisus — that’s 203 degrees Farenheit. Our stock HD 5870 peaked at 75 degrees Celsius (167 degrees Farenheit), while the overclocked R5870 Lightning reached 78 degrees Celsius (172 degrees Farenheit).

Games Performance

With the synthetics out of the way, we can get down to the real-world performance. All of our tests were performed at 1920-by-1200 and 2560-by-1600 resolutions, at the highest available settings, alternating between disabling and enabling anti-aliasing.

Tom Clancy’s HAWX

There were no real surprises in our testing of Tom Clancy’s HAWX, a DirectX 10.1-based combat flight simulator.This particular test models cities, which are summarily destroyed by dogfighting aircraft and attack helicopters. Lighting and shadow-mapping are important here, with large outdoor environments bathed in sunlight. While the GeForce GTX 480 is fastest here, it’s sort of a moot point; only at 2560×1600 with anti-aliasing do any of the cards ever fall below an average of 60 frames per second.

Ubisoft’s World in Conflict

Performance results for Ubisoft’s World in Conflict were equally unsurprising. It’s a DirectX 10-based real time strategy game, offering up plenty of detailed models and volatile explosions to challenge the GPUs. Nvidia’s new high-end card typically runs this game around 16-20% faster than the less expensive Radeon HD 5870, except at lower resolutions without anti-aliasing applied. As with HAWX, only at 2560×1600 with AA do any of the cards really start to break a sweat.

Codemasters’ Dirt 2

Dirt 2 is the first of our DirectX 11 game tests, and it incorporates several enhances features in its DX11 mode including tessellation, ambient occlusion, and high dynamic range texture formats. The GTX 480 continues to pull ahead, this time the margins grow wider as the resolution and AA modes drop. At 1920×1200 with no AA, it’s as much as 30% faster. Crank it up to the highest resolution and quality settings and the gap shrinks to less than 10%. All three cards exceed 60 frames per second at 1920×1200 with 8x anti-aliasing applied, which is all most users will need.

GSC Gameworld’s S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat

Finally, there’s S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat, another DirectX 11 title. This test was interesting: until we pushed the settings to their upper limits, the GTX480 was dead last. While this does look like an anomaly, we may have puzzled out the issue by taking a closer look at the cards’ specifications: the GTX 480 is equipped with 60 texture mapping units, as compared to 80 inside the 5870s. As a result, the card is ultimately texture-bound — a limiting factor in our Pripyat benchmark, which relies on spacious, heavily textured scenes. At the absolute upper limits the GTX 480 clambers back on top, eking out a single frame of performance higher than the competition. Superior anti-aliasing, but fumbling on textures — it’s ostensibly a case of shirking the basics, in exchange for superior top-end performance.

The Big Picture

Whether or not the GTX480 is worth your hard-earned funds will boil down to practical concerns. Across our gaming tests (synthetic benchmarks excluded), we generally saw a 15 – 20% performance gap, with the GTX 480 sitting ahead for most of them.

On the dollars per frame front, its rating is actually not too shabby. At a resolution of 2560-by-1600, with anti-aliasing activated, we averaged about $11.56 per frame-per-second (FPS) on the GTX 480, as compared to $11.41 on the 5870, and $13.18 on the overclocked 5870. On a strict price-per-frame metric, the 5870 is the better deal — by about 15 cents.

That minute gap starts to get quite a bit wider when you factor in your monthly electric bill. Saddled with the GTX 480, our system utilized 140W of power when idle — the 5870 used 106W, the overclocked 5870 used 118. Under load, we saw a whopping 365W with the GTX 480, versus 256W and 276W with the 5870 and the overclocked 5870, respectively. Translated into watts-per-FPS, the 5870 is about 21% more efficient than the GTX 480. Its overclocked sibling is about 16% more efficient. Even if you were willing to eat the 15 cent price-per-frame measurement, the noticeably higher power consumption rate will ultimately take its toll.

Fun Fact: When we pushed the cards during our FurMark test, we saw 460W at load on the GTX 480, versus a maximum of 336 on the 5870. Again, Furmark isn’t a realistic measurement, but it’s always an interesting number to keep in mind.

All things considered, there’s a lot to like here. The Fermi architecture has a lot to offer, particularly where anti-aliasing or tessellation are concerned. The 5870 does have a considerable advantage over the GTX 480 in a number of places. It’s overall power draw is lower, it often delivers comparable performance for less, and some perks — powering 3 displays from a single GPU — have yet to be addressed by Nvidia. As it stands, until the more games start to take advantage of the technology that Fermi hopes to offer, we’d advise weighing the performance, power, and price benefits before handing over your credit card.

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Bad BitDefender Update Clobbers Windows PCs

March 21, 2010 Leave a comment

By Robert McMillan, IDG News Service

Users of the BitDefender antivirus software started flooding the company’s support forums Saturday, apparently after a faulty antivirus update caused 64-bit Windows machines to stop working.

The company acknowledged the issue in a note explaining the problem, posted Saturday. "Due to a recent update it is possible that BitDefender detects several Windows and BitDefender files as infected with Trojan.FakeAlert.5," the company said.

The acknowledgement came after BitDefender users had logged hundreds of posts on the topic. Some complained of being unable to reboot their systems.

"EVERY file that is trying to run is getting quarantined," one user, identified as lhmathys, reported. "Windows Explorer and even Bitdefender update itself is being quarantined. Someone really screwed this one up."

"We are in a really terrible position now," wrote another user, identified as ufitec. "We have 150 business clients and most of the pcs [on] which BitDefender thinks everything is virus does not boot any more!!!!”

In its note on the issue, posted around 4 pm Pacific Time, the company said it had issued a fix for the problem and offered instructions on how to repair the damage, saying that customers should remove files from quarantine and reboot.

Users who can’t do that need to either use Windows’ Last Known Good Configuration restore or System Restore options.

Earlier in the day, the company had advised users to disable the BitDefender antivirus module and wait for a new definition update, which is supposed to correct the problem.

BitDefender did not reply to several messages asking for comment.

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Banish Seven Bad Tech Habits

March 21, 2010 Leave a comment

Seven ways to improve your computing life by changing the way you use your computer.

Rick Broida

Mar 11, 2010 9:30 am
  • 291 Yes
  • 82 No

Recommends

You floss daily, rotate your tires regularly, file your taxes on time, and exercise at least twice a week. In other words, you have lots of good habits. But when it comes to technology, well, we need to talk. You know all the icons cluttering your desktop, and the passwords you keep in Notepad, and the half-baked backup you make once a month? Those are the results of bad habits–and they’re not the only ones.

Fortunately, it’s easier than you might think to correct bad tech behavior, to handle your computer with the same care and wisdom that you use in safeguarding for your gums.

Bad Habit #1: Creating Too Much Desktop Clutter

Stardock Fences; click for full-size image.Your Windows desktop looks like the inside of your junk drawer, with icons stretched from one end of the screen to the other. How can you find anything in that mess?

If you need a good way to organize everything, try Stardock’s Fences. This free utility corrals icons into semitransparent desktop pens, thereby reducing clutter and improving organization. Best of all, the first time you run it, Fences offers to sort and “fence” your icons automatically. It’s like having a maid swoop in and clean your desktop!

For the ultimate in desktop decluttering, double-click in any open area, and watch as Fences hides all of your icons–or leaves only a select few visible. Another double-click brings everything back. Now you can enjoy your pretty Windows wallpaper without having to sweep your icons into the Recycle Bin.

Bad Habit #2: Using the Power Button to Shut Down

When you’re done using your laptop, your impulse is to press the power button to shut it down, right? Not so fast: On many systems, the power button’s default function is to put the machine into Sleep mode. That’s not necessarily a bad thing: A “sleeping” PC resumes operation in a matter of seconds, which is quite handy; but it still constitutes a bad habit, for two reasons.

First, because Sleep mode is not the same as Off, your laptop will continue to consume battery power. So unless it’s connected to an AC outlet, you may return to a drained, dead PC–one that took any unsaved work with it when it gave up the ghost. Second, if you rely exclusively on Sleep mode, your PC rarely gets a chance to reboot–and rebooting is essential to keeping Windows running smoothly.

To banish this habit, simply change the function of your power button so that it actually shuts down the system.

(The only time you should press and hold the power button to turn off your PC is when the system is locked up and you have no other way of resetting it.)

Bad Habit #3: Storing Passwords in a Text File

LastPass; click for full-size image.Oh, the irony: You come up with a hackproof password to use on your banking site, and then you store a copy of that password in an unprotected spreadsheet, Outlook note, or smartphone memo. Goodbye, protection.

You need a password manager–a heavily fortified database for important data such as passwords, PINs, and Social Security numbers. We’re partial to LastPass, which generates secure passwords, applies them when you visit various Web sites, organizes any and all private data you care to store, and also syncs across multiple platforms and devices so you have access to your passwords anytime, anywhere. Amazingly, LastPass is free, though you’ll have to upgrade to the Pro version (at a mere $1 per month) if you want the companion Android, BlackBerry, iPhone, Palm, and/or Windows Mobile apps.

Bad Habit #4: Using the Mouse to Launch Programs

Old habits–like reaching for the mouse every time you want to run a program–die hard. Here’s a little-known but much faster alternative: In Windows 7 (and Vista, if you enable the Quick Launch toolbar), you can launch any program to the right of the Start button by using the Windows key and a number.

For example, the icon in the taskbar that’s closest to the Start button (usually Internet Explorer) is linked to ’1′. By pressing Windows-1, you can launch that program directly from your keyboard. Pressing Windows-2 is like clicking the second icon, and so on. This method works for the first nine icons pinned to the Windows 7 taskbar (or to the Vista Quick Launch toolbar). Still running XP? Try Launchy, a terrific keyboard-powered launcher that lets you open programs, files, and even Web favorites with a few keystrokes.

Bad Habit #5: Carrying an Unencrypted Flash Drive

TrueCrypt; click for full-size image.Flash drives are great for transporting data, but they’re easy to lose, which could mean big trouble for your private data.You can correct this vulnerability (and overcome the bad habit of leaving yourself in jeopardy) by installing TrueCrypt, an open-source encryption utility that password-protects the data on your flash drive.

TrueCrypt works on-the-fly, meaning that it encrypts and decrypts data as you access it. (The software also works with individual files and entire hard drives, in case your bad habit extends to your laptop.) If you don’t supply the correct password or encryption key, your data remains locked tight, thanks to a variety of very secure encryption algorithms. TrueCrypt is pretty easy to use and is totally transparent once it’s up and running; get started with this handy beginner’s tutorial.

Bad Habit #6: Blindly Clicking ‘Next’ When Installing Software

Ever wonder by what means mysterious new icons appear on your desktop? Why unknown toolbars appear in your Web browser? How spyware manages to sneak onto your PC? One possibility: You gave them permission.

If you’ve installed more than a handful of programs in your computing life, you’ve probably gotten in the habit of automatically clicking every ‘Next’ button an installer throws your way. Big mistake. During the setup process, some programs ask if you also want to install, say, trial versions of the company’s other programs, or maybe a new search tool for your browser. If you blindly click your way through the setup screens, approving things left and right, you’ll miss your chance to opt out of these offers–and you’ll end up with stuff you probably don’t want.

So slow down, speedy. Take a few extra seconds to read the fine print, and avoid unwelcome surprises.

Bad Habit #7: Relying on a Single Backup Method

We’re not going to harangue you yet again about the importance of making backups. But making smart backups bears some haranguing. Most users who take the trouble to back up rely on a single method, and usually a sloppy one at that–namely, dragging the contents of their My Documents folder to a blank DVD, or running a backup program without knowing how to use it to restore files in the event of disaster.

You need is a diversified backup system that covers all of your bases, not just one or two. First, use an external hard drive to clone your primary drive, and pair it with software (like Casper 6.0) that will perform the operation regularly. Next, sign up for an online backup service (like Carbonite or Mozy) that automatically archives important data (documents, photos, financial records, and the like) in the background while you work.

Now it’s time to get more granular. Install Xmarks to synchronize your browser’s favorites (and passwords, if you like) to the Web and/or to another PC. Use Google’s free Google Calendar Sync utility to make an online backup of your Outlook calendar; or spend $15 on gSyncit 2.0 to sync Outlook’s contacts, calendars, and tasks to your Google account. Speaking of Google, a mere $5 per year buys you 20GB of online Picasa Web storage, enough to hold (and preserve) any modest family-photo collection. Bottom line: The more automated methods you use to back up your PC, the better off you’ll be.

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Google Reconsiders Privacy Practices

March 21, 2010 Leave a comment

Paul Suarez

Mar 21, 2010 4:56 am

Google isn’t exactly known for its respect for privacy, but a recent blog post shows the search giant may be attempting to turn a new leaf on what has been called an “irresponsible” stance on user privacy. Maybe.

The Google Analytics team has been working to give users a choice on how their Internet browsing data is collected by the analytics and marketing tool, according to a blog post by Amy Chang, group product manager.

“We concluded that the best approach would be to develop a global browser based plug-in to allow users to opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics,” Chang said in the post. She said the plug-in is being tested by engineers and should be globally available “in the coming weeks.”

Sure, more privacy always sounds great from a user standpoint, but analytics tools typically are used to the benefit of consumers whose privacy is being “violated.” What’s more: the information that’s collected isn’t generally made public and is only given to folks who operate the particular Web site.

google analyticsAllowing users to opt out of Google Analytics monitoring could prevent companies from understanding how long users are spending on their sites, where they are coming from, and what they are looking at. Ultimately it could prevent sites from becoming more profitable and offering users more of what they want.

I’m not saying that people don’t have rights to privacy online or that they shouldn’t be able to surf the Net unnoticed. I’m just saying most privacy concerns are generated when someone’s private information is made available to the general public, a la Facebook, Google Buzz and Google Street View. This isn’t necessarily the case with Google Analytics.

Either way, Google Analytics’ move is a far cry from Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s famous saying: “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”

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Tiny Telecom to Google: You Want 'Nexus One?' Let's Talk

March 21, 2010 Leave a comment

Jeff Bertolucci

Mar 21, 2010 4:10 am

OK, what genius at Google came up with the “Nexus One” name for the company’s first smartphone? The moniker has been giving the company nothing but headaches since the device debuted in January.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) recently denied Google’s trademark application for “Nexus One” because Portland, Oregon-based Integra Telecom already has rights to the name. As first reported by TG Daily, the small telecommunications company registered “Nexus One” two years ago and uses it for its telecom services.

“Integra does have trademark rights to ‘Nexus.” Integra Telecom spokesman John Nee told PC World via e-mail. “We appreciate that the PTO is protecting our trademark rights. Integra Telecom has over $60 million in annual revenue associated with our Nexus brand.”

Integra is willing to negotiate, however. According to Nee, Google hasn’t contacted his company since the PTO decision. But he hopes the two companies “can work together to achieve our respective business goals.”

Nee has yet google nexus oneto respond to a follow-up e-mail from PC World asking if Integra Telecom would accept financial compensation for the “Nexus One” trademark rights.

Google plans to fight the PTO ruling.

“We continue to claim rights to the Nexus One trademark in the United States, and plan to respond to the office action from the United States Patent Trademark Office,” a company spokesperson told PC World.

This isn’t the first time “Nexus One” has given Google trouble. Soon after the phone’s launch, the family of late science fiction author Philip K. Dick asked Google to stop using the “Nexus One” name, which it says is too similar to the Nexus 6 cyborgs that appear in Dick’s novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?“

Contact Jeff Bertolucci via Twitter (@jbertolucci) or at jbertolucci.blogspot.com.

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