Current cite-ings from the Popular and Trade Computing Press

Article Type: Current cite-ings from the Popular and Trade Computing Press From: Library Hi Tech News, Volume 28, Issue 2

With the expanding universe of computing, comes a greater focus on security and privacy issues. WikiLeaks has been highlighted in the media but there are many other threats to individual users on their personal computers and mobile devices. Just as we go to press, Apple has come out with the iPad2, an evolutionary rather than revolutionary device. iPads are already finding their way into libraries and are being used for roving reference, weeding projects,and replacements for laptops and netbooks. Other mobile devices and services are highlighted in this issue’s column.

Computer security

It is claimed that 2011 should be the year of the botnets with Zeus being the most powerful. There will be botnet infighting, where operators will patch vulnerabilities in PC’s to prevent another botnet from infecting it. There are opt-in botnets that will let users who submit a cause get their PC’s to participate. There will be more denial-of-service attacks. There will be small botnets too. There’s already some use of botnets for keystroke logging, and more audio logging is expected. Major 2010 attacks included Kneber, Rustock, Waledac,and Zeus. Kneber is an exploit that is thought to have emerged in a fake White House holiday greeting designed to steal law enforcement data from federal workers. Rustock is an older prolific botnet that sends out spam and redirects to a Viagra site. Waledac sends out spam. Zeus is a trojan that uses keystrokes to steal financial information (Wilson, 2011). Another article on botnets discusses how they perform tasks from collecting private information to sabotaging networks. Botnet programs contain spreaders that search for weaknesses in computer software. Botnet herders control infected computers. Botnets are sold on the black market. Three protocols are used for herder-bot communication. They are command and control, internet relay chat, and peer-to-peer. Two methods computer security experts use to reduce botnets are honeypotting and sandboxing. Honeypotting collects malicious traffic on grids that expect no traffic. Sandboxing is running malicious software on isolated computers to see how they work. Botnets affect 25 percent of all computers worldwide (Bryant, 2011). Employees want access to resources and data through mobile devices, many of which they personally own. This paper talks about lowering their security risk. Basic device management includes rudimentary security such as device wipe, lock, and authentication policies. Microsoft’s ActiveSync is a good product for this. Enhanced device management goes a little further with finer device control settings. Walled Garden builds a hard barrier between personal data and enterprise data Good Technology has a good product for this. The fourth option is risk-based data management. Enterprise data are limited or revoked if there is unauthorized apps or out-of-date policies, or data protection is disabled with MobileIron as a good product (Moerschel, 2011). Kugler (2011) lists five things to do to maintain Facebook privacy. First,disable Facebook Places. Second, control items posted to your profile. Third,hide your app activity. Fourth, disable Facebook apps. Fifth, control what friends reveal. The last resort is deletion. Go to Find.pcworld.com/71057 to do this permanently.

Media

Controlling your television from your computer is becoming more commonplace with products such as Google TV and Apple TV but Web TV networks started out in the 1990s without much success. Now, there are options that goway beyond co-axial cables,DVD players and satellite dishes. Some of the other options available for turning your TV into a channel surfing, gaming, and internet powerhouse are Boxee, Xbox 360, Play Station 3, WII, and Roku. All these devices put the TV into the control of the user, watching the content they want at a time that it is convenient to me. This is definitely area that will continue to evolve (Hof, 2011). Snell (2011) provides a nice overview of streaming media with Apple TV using Apple’s AirPlay. AirPlay works with a variety of devices including PCs, iPads, and iPhones. Alternatives to cable and satellite TV are becoming more attractive as it is otherwise possible to spend $100 ormore for these services. So many television episodes of your favorite television shows can be found online. Services such as Hulu.com aggregate these options in one place. The basic Hulu service is free but Hulu Plus costs $7.99 per month and pads HD support, more shows, and compatibility with Apple iOS devices, PS3, and Internet-enabled TVs. Netflix Watch provides streaming-only services for movies. Other options include Windows Media Center built into Windows 7, Amazon.com’s video on demand, and CinemaNow. Free legal downloads of older movies can be found Entertainment Magazine online (www. emol.org; Maximum PC, 2011). Which is better – Plasma or LCD televisions. Maximum PC found that Plasma is better because of color quality, off-axis viewing, black level, and price. Where LCDs still excel are in life span (Bouman, 2011).

Mobile services

The iPad has had an incredible impact on companies and according to a report from the Aberdeen Group, 88 percent of enterprises officially support or allow the use of the iPad. The new iPad2 adds capability for Verizon’s CDMA cellular data network and the dual-core A5 processor give a boost to performance. A new 4.3 version of the Safari web browser is also supported.But, there are a few drawbacks such as lack of USB ports or Adobe Flash support and the inability to work with Microsoft Office files. The new Android-based Motorola Xoom provides competition but is heftier and more expensive. It is probably best to think of the iPad2 as an evolutionary step for this evolutionary device (Cox, 2011). Vargas (2011) suggests the use of iPads in cars and why not? The device provides video, music, and a GPS. Vargus compares and demonstrates the advantages of the iPad over other automobile products such as those from Alpine, which comes with a miniscule 2.2”TFTdisplay aswell as products from Pioneer and Jensen. Here’s a way to have a bookmobile in your own car! According to Brown (2011), the perfect mobile display has not been developed yet. There are many competing technologies working on this: A-SI TFT LCD, LTPS TFT LCD, IPS LCD, Amoled, multi-mode LCD,electrowetting, mems shutter, and reflective mems. Many companies, particularly retailers are providing smartphone apps to maintain customer loyalty and provide convenient access to their products. Smartphones provide an ideal medium to connect employees and customerswith various e-commerce capabilities. A French grocery and convenience chain, Group Casino, lets customers with loyalty cards,search their purchase histories, create shopping lists, enable drive-through grocery pick-ups and home delivery, and provide personalized services. These are good ideas for libraries too!! (Henschen, 2011). An important feature needed by Smartphones is the ability to webconference and collaborate with others without being tethered to a computer. Several start-up companies are developing apps that provide for group chat and the use of shared text messaging. The services,some of which are free, include GroupMe, FastSociety, Beluga, Kirk, Text-Plus,PingChat, HurricaneParty, and Yobongo. These companies currently fill a niche that has not yet been challenged bymajor players such as Facebook, Apple, and Google (Wortham, 2011).

The web

Google engineers have tweaked their algorithm to eliminate 12 percent of sites that produce cheap abundant useless content that ranks high in search results. An example of a lowquality site is eHow.com. Ehow hires 13,000 freelance writers to produce stories on hot topics, and then sells ads alongside the content at its own web site (Ortatay, 2011). There are new ways to get your web site noticed. Submit your site to Google, Yahoo, Bang, and www.dmoz. com. Include keywords that target your potential customer. Name the photo files included in your web site. Links from other sites to yours can boost your rankings. Meta tag each page on the web site (Tilbrook, 2011). Opera version 11 can be downloaded for free at opera.com. It is available in versions for Windows, Mac Os X, and Linux. It performs on par with Internet Explorer, Safari,Firefox, and Chrome. It can be customized with extensions that use Opera’s API. It uses combinations of reputation and fraudreporting services to provide users with more information on the web sites they visit (Sturdevant, 2011).

Software

Bellamy provides tips for the best use of popular software. Applications include Google Chrome, Google Voice, PhotoShop, DropBox, iTunes, Windows Media Player, Skype, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft Excel (Bellamy, 2011). LibreOffice 3.3 is reviewed as a slightly better open-access alternative to Open Office, a product that provides many of the same features as Microsoft Office. The LibreOffice 3.3 suite provides a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation creator, draw capabilities, a math equation editor, database manager, and a PDF creation tool (Connolly, 2011).