racoma.com.phJ. Angelo Racoma on technology, economics, writing, problogging, and getting things done

Mobile devices are gaining popularity as preferred communication and productivity devices in the workplace. In fact, mobile devices are set to overtake wireline access (cable, DSL) in terms of Internet use by 2015. But before you start using your iPad or Android device as your main work device while mobile, consider investing in a few apps, including unified messaging services, virtualization software, document management and cloud storage.

Convert Your Content Into HTML5 Tablet Apps

Meanwhile, if you’re on the other end of the content production business, you might want to consider optimizing your website for tablet computers. Apps like Pressly will turn your website into a format for tablets, which will include support for touch interfaces, gestures, swipes and the like. No need to build an iPad or Android app from scratch, since the service will do the conversion for you.

Chrome 14 On Its Way to Secure Browsing?

Google has just rolled out version 14 of its Chrome Browser, with support for the Native Client or NaCl platform. This is a secure environment for developing applications in C/C++, which can securely run in their own memory space.

SSL No Longer Secure?

But before you think you’re securely accessing your email, bank and other secure websites, consider that SSL/TLS transactions may have already been compromised. Security researchers have found a way to undermine the confidentiality of SSL/TLS, and even encrypted traffic can be viewed.

Mac OS X Lion Also Vulnerable

Aside from SSL potentially being broken, OS X Lion users might also want to watch out for possible intrusions. Security researchers have discovered a serious flaw in OS X Lion that lets any user change passwords with local access, without the need for admin access.

Linux, Android Concerns?

If you’re a fan of free software (meaning free as in speech, not free as in beer) you might want to think about how free Android really is. FSF’s Richard Stallman says Android still severely limits user control over the firmware and hardware. And if you use Linux, the introduction of unified EFI in Windows-8 certified computers might limit your options, as dual-booting or even booting Linux may not be possible.

LastPass, the online password manager that saves all your username and passwords to your chosen online services on their servers, may have just been cracked.

According to the online company’s CEO, they noticed some “network traffic anomaly” and decided to go full alert and inform the public via their blog:

After delving into the anomaly we found a similar but smaller matching traffic anomaly from one of our databases in the opposite direction (more traffic was sent from the database compared to what was received on the server). Because we can’t account for this anomaly either, we’re going to be paranoid and assume the worst: that the data we stored in the database was somehow accessed.

I’d rather have the CEO go paranoid rather than just be complacent and hope it’s not a breach of security. Feel free to check your account there now and change not only the masterpassword but all the passwords of your critical sites and services (bank, email, etc.).

Article via: Lastpass Blog | Image via Open Clipart (Public Domain)

It was widely reported yesterday that someone saw a keylogging program on two Samsung laptops bought from different stores.

The news broke saying that a well known keylogging program called Starlogger was discovered by a security software on two laptops bought at different locations. When the user called customer service, the person on the other line said that it was placed there to “monitor the performance of the machine and to find out how it is being used.”

After this news was spread all over the Internet, Samsung immediately investigated the situation and saw that it was a “false positive”. The user’s security software mistakenly identified a file as Starlogger when it was not.

[Article via: Engadget | Image via: Samsung]

Perhaps you’ve seen the videos earlier this year showing how a nanny abused her charge. In the video, the nanny is seen hitting the toddler, and throwing him around. This is probably a big concern shared by parents who have to leave their kids with supposedly trustworthy individuals while they went out to make a living.

Or how about reports in the evening news about burglars making off with gadgets, jewelry or money, only to be caught later on because they were caught on surveillance video? It’s not only banks and retail shops that have hidden cameras these days. Even homes and offices usually have cameras hidden out of plain sight, sometimes motion-activated, and sometimes catching sight of the strangest of events.

A hidden camera can come in quite handy when you need to protect your interests. Whether these are vaults containing money, office equipment, or even people (such as your kids), having surveillance video can help detect potential problems, and even prevent these before they happen.

Last year, the quietness of our neighborhood was stirred with a few petty thefts. While the losses were small, the very idea of strangers coming into our fences and taking stuff was very jarring. We thought those small thefts might be precedents to more serious incidents in the future. I considered upgrading my car alarm, and installing a spy camera that can let me record surveillance video or even access these remotely through the Internet.

I haven’t come around to upgrading my security-related gadgets yet, but my family and I have been more vigilant in making sure we sleep more soundly by double-checking the door locks and car locks at night. We also bring in anything that might be of interest to thieves, no matter how small. Security, after all, is as much about attitude as it is about the tools and gadgets.

These days, when I visit a retail store, mall, bank, or any establishment, I try to figure out where their surveillance cameras are installed or hidden. I know I’ll never be as good as Jason Bourne in staking out the stakeout, but I do satisfy my fascination with gadgets and how people use these gadgets to watch other people from behind the safety of invisibility.

For almost a decade now, I’ve been a loyal AVG user. I liked how AVG was lightweight, free (for personal use), and had daily updates. It wasn’t bloatware like McAffee or Norton, and it was a decent enough antivirus software.

Through the years, though, one would notice that as software becomes more sophisticated, it becomes more bloated, too. Perhaps it’s because of the big size of the virus definitions (or the heuristics engine). Or maybe because it’s due to the popularity of low-powered netbooks.

Thus, as I reformatted and reinstalled Windows 7 on my old-school Asus EeePC (the 8.9-inch 900), I tried to look for alternatives to AVG. I read that Microsoft’s own Security Essentials, which comes free with any genuine installation (however you may define that). Then another good option was Panda’s Cloud Antivirus.

Panda calls it collective security. And because all (or most?) of the processes occur in the cloud–either on Panda’s servers, or shared across the network of users–it also has a smaller resource footprint.

Wanting to try this out, I’ve uninstalled AVG on all of my Windows computers, including netbooks and laptops, just to see how it fares. At this point, I’m mostly online, and most of the computers I use are always online, save for the netbook, which I take almost everywhere I go (which means there may not necessarily be a wireless connection).

As I see it, a cloud-based antivirus program has a few pros and cons.

Pros:

• Light resource use: Panda Cloud Antivirus uses about 15MB of system memory during idle state, and about 60MB during active scanning. Also, being on the cloud, scanning essentially happens offsite, so your computer doesn’t have to contribute precious processing cycles just to see if your files have some badwar.e
• It’s on the cloud, so you don’t need to download virus definitions frequently.

However, there are a few cons to a cloud-based setup like this. I can think of a few.

• What if you’re not connected? Granted, viruses usually come in emails and links. However, what if someone plugs in a USB flash drive onto your computer, and it’s offline? Panda does have basic on-site scanning, but you might need to be connected to be assured newer virus will get caught.
• Is this an intrusion of your privacy? You’re essentially sending bits and pieces of the files you access while Panda is active. To the security-conscious, this might constitute a breach of privacy.

Still, the biggest come-ons of Panda Cloud Antivirus are its small size, quick scanning, and the concept of sharing the load. I’ll give it a try for a few weeks, and I’ll report what I find out.