November 21st, 2009

Frugal Friday: Joblessness, DROID, Chrome OS, Richard Stallman, V.i. labs

Posted by Jason Perlow @ 12:18 pm

Categories: Business, Linux, Open Source, Personal Technology, Podcast, Security, Software Infrastructure

Tags: Lab, Richard Stallman, Piracy, Business Operations, Corporate Law, Jason Perlow

Frugal Networker Ken Hess and I discuss the dwindling IT employment landscape, my experiences with the Motorola/Verizon DROID, the Google Chrome OS developer code release, Ken’s recent interview with Richard Stallman, and we interview Victor DeMarines of V.i. labs, the anti-piracy and software protection company.

Click Here to Listen to the November 20, 2009 Frugal Friday Podcast.

October 29th, 2009

My Top Scary Technology Trends

Posted by Jason Perlow @ 7:44 pm

Categories: Business, General, Hardware Infrastructure, Networking, Personal Technology, Security, Server, Software Infrastructure, Web Technology

Tags: Digital Media, Phone, Mobile, Information Technology, Smart Phone, E-books, E-mail, Smart Phones, Cellular Phones, Handhelds

Yes, it’s that spooky time of year again, and our “fearless” editors have asked upon the ZDNet contributors to come up with “Scary Tech”, the technologies that are so frightening, they’ll make you evacuate from multiple “interfaces”.

Halloween. All Hallows Eve. Dia de los Muertos. Whatever you call it in your culture, Halloween is a day that for many people evokes images of ghouls, the undead, vampires, witches, werewolves, ghosts and goblins — creatures of fantasy that are meant to scare young children. Although I’ve often been emotionally compared to a child, none of these things frighten me.

However, there are some things, at least in the world of technology, that really do scare the living crap out of me. While there isn’t one particular item that makes me turn completely ice cold with fear this Halloween, there are a number of trends that definitely have been keeping me up at night lately.

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October 20th, 2009

EvriChart: A Linux Success Story

Posted by Jason Perlow @ 6:53 pm

Categories: Business, Desktop, Enterprise Computing, Free operating systems, Hardware Infrastructure, Linux, Open Source, Podcast, Security, Server, Software Infrastructure, Web Technology

Tags: Desktop, Hospital, Imaging, Health Care, Server, Computer, Linux, Microsoft Windows, Document Management, Operating Systems

Tony Maro, CIO of EvriChart, a hospital records management and archiving business, successfully migrated his company’s Windows-based line of business document management extranet application and his employees’ 40-odd Windows-based desktops to a 100 percent Linux-based server and desktop infrastructure.

Jason Perlow interviews Tony Maro, CIO of EvriChart, Inc.

I had the pleasure of speaking to Tony Maro, who is CIO and an owning partner in EvriChart, a medical records management company based out of White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia.

EvriChart had some unique requirements which included replacing a Windows-based line-of-business application for document management that would not scale with the continuing growth of their business. By migrating to a Linux/Open Source-based Web application, it paved the way for full desktop Linux adoption at his company. I asked Tony to summarize his experience so that I could share it with you in the hopes that you might gain some valuable insight from the process he had to go through.

Next –>

September 21st, 2009

Frugal Tech Show with Centrify CEO Tom Kemp

Posted by Jason Perlow @ 5:30 pm

Categories: Business, Enterprise Computing, Linux, Microsoft, Networking, Security, Server

Tags: Centrify, CEO, Microsoft Windows Active Directory, Authentication/Encryption, Directory Services, Security Administration, Enterprise Software, Software, Security, Jason Perlow

Frugal Networker Ken Hess and I talk with Tom Kemp, CEO of Centrify, the Active Directory and Identity Management open systems integration software company.

Click Here to Listen to the Frugal Tech Show Podcast.

September 16th, 2009

Skooba Design backpack sweeps you through security

Posted by Jason Perlow @ 3:21 pm

Categories: Business, General, Personal Technology, Security

Tags: Security, Butterfly, Mobile, Transportation Security Administration, Laptop Computer, Backpack, Compartment, Skooba Design, Notebooks, Hardware

Skooba Design’s latest $129.00 Checkthrough computer bag is a backpack that has rigid edges and has a separate see-through “Butterfly” compartment which allows you to scan the entire bag through the TSA scanning equipment with the laptop inside.

Recently Skooba Design, whose first-generation TSA-approved “Checkthrough” laptop bag I had looked at earlier this year sent me one of their new backpacks. It was good timing, as I was about to go on vacation to South Carolina and I would be able to test it in a real travel scenario.

While I had liked Skooba’s first generation Checkthrough laptop brief, and still feel it’s an excellent product for people who like traditional laptop bag briefcase designs, for my own routine use over the last six months I ended up moving to a Mobile Edge backpack design instead, as I frequently have an additional piece of luggage with me which I carry on the plane that gets checked at the gate and it is more comfortable for me to hang my carry-on stuff on my back rather than drag it on my shoulder. I can lumber through the airport a lot faster that way.

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August 18th, 2009

Why do email Digital Signatures have to be such a pain in the ass?

Posted by Jason Perlow @ 10:06 am

Categories: Business, Desktop, General, Personal Technology, Security, Server, Software Infrastructure, Web Technology

Tags: Google Gmail, Digital Signature, Digital Certificate, IBM Lotus Notes, Thawte, Certificate, IBM Corp., E-mail, Digital Signatures, E-mail Servers

I spent the better part of my day trying to get Thawte personal email digital signatures to work with GMail and Lotus Notes 8.5. Why does it need to be this hard?

Yesterday I finally had a need to get a personal digital certificate and send somebody a digitally signed email message — I’m working remotely on a project for one of my customers and I needed VPN access into their network. To get the necessary permissions and access, I had to send a digitally signed email to their head of IT security. The head of IT security directed me to Thawte’s freemail certificate issuing authority web site, which generates certificates for several different web browsers and email clients that you can import and use to digitally sign your emails. I figured “ok, no problem”.

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July 18th, 2009

JEFF BEZOS IS WATCHING YOU

Posted by Jason Perlow @ 11:12 am

Categories: Business, General, Networking, Personal Technology, Security, Server, Software Infrastructure, Web Technology

Tags: Amazon.com Inc., Kindle, E-books, Personal Technology, Jason Perlow

Amazon’s removal of George Orwell ebooks from every Kindle with a paid entitlement is not only ironic in context but has frightening ramifications in terms of privacy and content ownership.

Without warning or any sort of advance notification on Friday, Amazon removed every single copy of British novelist George Orwell’s classic paranoid-dystopian works Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four from every Kindle in the world which they had been stored on, and then issued a refund to the Amazon customers that had purchased them. Oh the irony!

As others on the web have commented, this is roughly the electronic equivalent to someone from a large book store chain breaking into your house, walking into your personal library, stealing some of your books which you had purchased from them and leaving you cash in their place. The creepyness and utter wrongfulness of this action is just so unconscionable that Amazon cannot be allowed to continue this practice.

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June 26th, 2009

CLEAR: Your data will be properly disposed of

Posted by Jason Perlow @ 12:13 pm

Categories: Business, Security, Server, Software Infrastructure

Tags: Clear, E-mail, Security, Online Communications, Jason Perlow

The defunct CLEAR service is attempting to re-assure its former customers that their biometric data will not be divulged or misused.

The defunct registered traveler service CLEAR (see previous post) has recently sent out the following communication to its former subscribers, assuring them that their personal biometric data will not be misused:

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June 22nd, 2009

CLEAR Airport Verified Identity Pass calls it Quits (UPDATED)

Posted by Jason Perlow @ 8:08 pm

Categories: Business, General, Security

Tags: Clear, Identity, Security, Jason Perlow

In a brief email sent to customers at 10:45PM EST, Verified Identity Pass notified its 250,000 customers that the CLEAR service was no more (click on photo to enlarge)

Well I can’t say that it was unexpected, but it’s definitely a bummer.

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May 25th, 2009

National Archives: What, Me Worry?

Posted by Jason Perlow @ 12:48 pm

Categories: Business, Desktop, Enterprise Computing, Hardware Infrastructure, Networking, Security, Server, Software Infrastructure, Virtualization

Tags: Data Security, Storage, Security, Hardware, Jason Perlow

I propose that the National Archives change its motto from “Littera Scripta Manet” (The Written Letter Abides) to “What, Me Worry?” befitting it’s current lack of data security controls.

While many of you this weekend were firing up your barbecues, cooking grilled meats and drinking chilled beers, you might have missed a small announcement that the  National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) made last Thursday having to do with a eensy, weensy, rather trivial data loss — it managed to misplace a TWO TERABYTE EXTERNAL STORAGE SYSTEM containing confidential information from the White House during the Clinton administration.

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