After reinventing the tablet, Apple always has to redefine the product. In this case, they implanted a high resolution screen, also known as the Retina display, which makes the individual pixels unnoticeable to the naked eye. The form factor is pretty much the same as the iPad 2, with a sleek back and thin case that is also able to use the smart cover designs from the generation before. I have always loved Apple’s screen size, which is at 9.7 inches, because it fits perfectly the size of a 9.7 inch notebook. I often wonder if Apple selected this size based on the book type of feel that they wanted in making a tablet. There still aren’t any USB ports, but there are adapters that one can order that allow for USB, SD, and HDMI mounting.

The battery has almost double the size to compensate for the higher resolution screen, and it does get a bit warm from the back when processing certain applications such as YouTube videos or graphics intense games. The home button is there as usual, and nothing too different from the iPad 2. Although it is about a millimetre thicker as well.

Overall Design

The design carries over from its predecessor, the iPad 2. The smooth and curvy feel is the same, although it’s almost unnoticeable to distinguish the difference between this iPad and the iPad 2. The weight is slightly more as compared to the iPad 2. Being able to fit the highest resolution screen on a mobile device with a larger battery to compensate is quite a feat. Considering the absence of Steve Jobs, the new iPad (3) is an amazing tablet in overall design.

Functionality

Apple’s famous intuitive UI seems to prevail once again. The addition of iBooks 2 and iTunes U make for a great learning distribution environment. The gestures work like before, although I feel some of the gestures and quick tricks aren’t well known or publicized. The Safari browser works great and so does the e-mail function. The integration of iCloud is something to look to in the future as more and more content is shifted from local storage to cloud storage. The App Store continues to grow and there are literally a plethora of apps now that makes the whole user experience all that much better.

Conclusion

For me, moving to the new iPad (3) was an upgrade, not a new product unlike what we had seen with the first iPad and the iPad 2. I still admire the beauty of design of the new iPad and am very satisfied with the screen being awesome. The increase in weight, thickness, and heat does make it harder to accept the new iPad as something revolutionary, but the iPad is still the best bet in battery life, ease of use, and stylish design.

Rating: 4/5

Innovation

Genes play a role in determining the type of person we will be, but the environment has a heavy hand in shaping our personality as well. Jobs was an adoptive child who was on a quest to determine his role amongst the cosmos. He went to India for spiritual guidance, and practised Japanese Buddhism with emphasis on “Simplicity being the ultimate sophistication.” His aesthetic sense combined with a passion for technology would lead to a powerful combination of innovation. He is attributed with combining the arts with the sciences in a way that resulted in what Jobs himself would call “Magic”. This combination of arts and science is what is needed direly in world of technology today. Sadly, many companies don’t appreciate this approach to innovation. Instead, they focus on the engineering aspects of a product and leave out the beauty, or aesthetics, of a product. If they even try to merge beauty with engineering, there is usually a battle between the two fields an both lose out in implementing the best of their respective fields. Jobs was able to ‘distort reality’ and accomplish engineering feats because of his intuitive sense for art.

Apple

Determining the future of a company that was so heavily influenced by its CEO is quite simple. Unless Apple takes on the mentality of Jobs it won’t thrive. Already we can see signs of cracks as the iPhone 4S didn’t seem to ring with people, and the fact that its stock dropped so quickly after that. Rumours of the iPad 3 being thicker than the iPad 2 draw an immediate sign of warning. Jobs would never settle for a product being thicker then is predecessor. It’s just not something Jobs would do. Although Tim Cooks is CEO now, doesn’t draw much comfort. He’s not as tenacious as Jobs, and certainly doesn’t think exactly the way Jobs did. In one of his letters to Apple, Jobs gave advice for the next CEO, which was not to think “What would Steve do?”, but instead to rely on your own intuition. Cooks too relies on his intuition as being one of his biggest strengths, yet doing what Steve would do, I think, would prove more successful.

A lot of small- and medium-sized businesses require a storage solution that centralizes the data and makes it accessible to all the workgroup computers. Also, a lot of home users who use heavy amounts of multimedia such as videos, music, and photos also require a centralized storage system. The solution for both of these scenarios is a network attached storage (NAS) device. A NAS functions much a like data server on a smaller scale. It can also be used to back up data from multiple computers, or as a external hard drive for more storage space. The Synology DiskStation 44j is a very good NAS for a home or small office. It can serve as a centralized data and a multimedia server. Its sleek design and powerful capabilities places the DS411j amongst the top NAS devices in its class.

Capabilities

The DS411j works as a really good multimedia server. It is DLNA and UPnP compliant and can stream videos, music, and photos to your media player, such as a Playstation 3, Xbox, or a WDTV Live media player. Because the DS411j comes with a gigabit Ethernet connection, it allows for high level network transfer speeds that are well-suited to stream high definition videos.

Using the DS411j as a backup solution works extremely well for all types of computer systems. It is compatible with Windows Backup, Apple Time Machine, and Linux systems as well. Because the DS411j comes with RAID architecture, disk redundancy allows for fail-over safety. Basically your data is recoverable even if a hard disk has failed. It has a max capacity of 12 TB.

Functionality

The DS411j functions as a fully operable server with its own web-based operating system that has many utilities. One utility that I really like is the Download Station. It functions as a torrent downloader as well as having FTP, HTTP, eMule, and NZB download capabilities. All of these capabilities make it safer to download it to the DS411j system rather than to a PC because viruses don’t affect it. You can even use eMule to search the web and download files. Music and pictures are available over the Internet and can be streamed to many devices over the World Wide Web.

Conclusion

I am thoroughly impressed by the DS411j NAS. Its capabilities, ease of use, and performance place it amongst the top of all NAS solutions in its home and small business class. If it had a double gigabit Ethernet connection, that would have been perfect for fail-over redundancy.

Rating: 4.5/5

Home Anti-Virus

The home AV market is easier than most people think. A lot of people think they need to pay for an anti-virus solution in order to be protected better. My experience leads me to a different conclusion. I’ve tried a number of paid and free AV solutions, and I can safely suggest that for most people a free anti-virus will be sufficient. One of the most often questions I get asked is “If a free anti-virus works just as good as a paid one, then why do they offer it for free?”. That’s a valid question, and I tell them that most of the free AV programs out there either advertise to you, or they want to you upgrade to their paid version later on – which you don’t have to.

Here’s a list of the top three free anti-virus solutions that I think are very good for home use:

1. AVG Free Anti-Virus – My preferred choice for myself and my clients.
   Download here: http://free.avg.com
2. Avast Free Anti-Virus – A very solid and good choice for home users.
   Download here: http://www.avast.com/free-antivirus-download
3. Avira AntiVir Personal – Works great with the boot up CD when your system is inaccessible.
   Download here: http://www.avira.com/en/avira-free-antivirus

Business/Organizational

Organizations have a different requirement for implementing AV solutions. As opposed to the home anti-virus solutions being free, I would recommend organizations purchase an AV solution as it would be coming with more support which their business requires. Typically organizations need robust AV solutions that come with multiple licenses and that have a customer support centre for customers to call when in need of help. Robust means that the AV solution should be fully integrated with the software components of the operating system, such that e-mail, downloads, firewall access, and software execution should all be under the control of the anti-virus. This approach may use a lot of system resources, but for businesses and other organizations it is critical to have computer systems as secure as possible. Multiple licenses are something that should be considered when purchasing a AV solution for your business/organization. Multiple licenses provide you the legal right to install the ant-virus software on as many computers as the license allows for. A call centre for the AV vendor should be present in case you need to call them up for any help regarding their software.

I would recommend the following Anti-Virus solutions for businesses and organizations:

1. Kaspersky Anti-Virus – Very robust and comes with multiple licenses.
2. Norton AntiVirus – Very good support system and good detection abilities.
3. ESET Nod32 Antivirus – A very resource friendly AV that has good detection abilities.

This article is a continuation of Security for Your Medical Centre – Part 1. We will discuss various statistics related IT threats and security concerns. This article points out clearly the importance and significance of securing your IT infrastructure. Do not hesitate in any way from ensuring proper security measures, as not doing so can lead to damage and theft of your medical data.

Phishing Scams

Phishing scams come under social engineering attacks. They provide a fake e-mail or website that looks like an authentic one and tricks you into putting your username and password. Once they capture your username and password, they now have access to your bank account or whatever website they are pretending to be.

A disputed study by Trusteer showed that spear phishing a hundred LinkedIn users resulted in a failure rate of 68%. That would mean that around 30% of those targeted with phishing attempts disclosed their personal data. That is significant enough for medical centres to lose a substantial amount of money once their bank account information has been captured.

Cnet interviewed Michael Barrett, chief information security officer at PayPal (online payment processor) in April, 2011. This is what he had to say regarding the question of PayPal’s weakness to phishing attempts:

“I joined PayPal almost exactly five years ago and it’s fair to say the company had not realized at that point the true significance of phishing. But since that time we’ve put in place a number of defenses against it. It probably will never go away completely as a problem, but it can be substantially minimized. We’re at No. 8 on a list of most phishing sites, which is better than being No. 1. I’m not satisfied with being No. 8 and I’d really like to obliterate the crime completely, but I realize that will take another five years to get to that state. A few years ago we started digitally signing all our outbound e-mail and we worked with Yahoo and Google so if they saw e-mail that purported to come from us but wasn’t signed they would block it. That has been stunningly successful. Now we’re trying to get the whole industry to take up that type of approach. But it will take several more years of pushing to get the rest of the industry to do that.” (1)

Malware

Malware is software that is damaging to your computer in various ways. Spyware is a type of malware that infects a computer and relays information of your computer use to different parties.

In 2007, Kaspersky Labs was seeing new malware samples every two minutes, but in 2010, just three years later, that had increased to one new sample every two seconds.

This is what InformationWeek has to say about small organizations and virus threats:

“Small organization respondents’ other top concerns were Trojan applications (60%), malware designed by criminals expressly to steal data (59%), data leaks (56%), spyware (55%), and fake AV (52%). Spam and phishing threats ranked lowest. Most of today’s antivirus software suites protect against many viruses and worms. But when it comes to data-stealing malware, 21% of small U.S. organization respondents said that their IT department could do a better job of protecting end users. Notably, only 47% of small organizations install security software to help stop such malware, 30% offer related security policies, and 28% provide relevant education or guidance.” (2)

Some are touting Cloud resources as the answer to fighting back malware spread. That remains to be seen.

Security Breaches – Hacks

It’s interesting to note that organizations attribute 59% of all security breaches to human error. This can occur if the network administrator has failed to set up the proper security barriers, or it can occur by inadvertently giving our information that a hacker can use to compromise the system.

About half of all organizations consider IT security a top priority. This stat indicates two scenarios. One, namely that there are pockets of IT infrastructures that don’t need high security. Perhaps these are small organizations and medical centres that have a wireless network setup, and they don’t see themselves as a potential target from hackers. The network is small and their data isn’t all that critical. The second is that IT security is seen as a big issue for larger organizations. They have important data that cannot be leaked and as such they are prime targets for hackers. Hackers use stolen company data to sell to competitors and it is quickly becoming a lucrative business. Larger organizations need security for their systems and that entails purchasing the right equipment and having it administered properly.

The cost of an individual data breach – including lost business and the burden of responding to the incident – in 2010 increased 13% year-over-year for U.K. companies. That roughly equals $3 million for each breach, which is quite substantial. Needless to say, every organization, small or big, should pay close attention to its IT security needs.

Viruses

Medical centres still fear the virus according to a new survey of 1,600 end users in Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and United States. Conducted by antivirus vendor Trend Micro, viruses are the leading concern for 63% of small organizations.

A CompTIA stat shows that 33% of law firms admit to experiencing a security issue such as a virus. That’s only law firms, if you total firms from other fields the number is much higher.

Conclusion

The presentation of stats and facts in this article is only intended to create an awareness of various cyber threats. Cyber security is a huge issue and should not be taken lightly.

References

(1) http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-20052310-245.html#ixzz1MvDmlGv5
(2) http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/vulnerabilities/228200171

Cisco Study Finds Internet as Crucial

A Cisco survey of college students and young professionals has found that respondents indicate that the Internet is as crucial to them as food, shelter, and even air. The second of its annual Connected World Technology Report underscores the importance that the Internet serves for a generation that hasn’t been without the connectivity of the Internet. The report found that a full one-third believe the Internet is as critical to their lives as food, water, shelter and air. Also, another half said that it was “pretty close” to that level of importance.

Cannot Live Without

Interesting to note that 55% of respondents said that they could not live without the Internet and 64% said that they would choose the Internet over having a car. Scott Gainey, director of product marketing for Mobility Solutions at Cisco, said the company chose this particular demographic for the survey to help companies gain insight into the future of work. “What do companies need to be ready for?” he said. “They need to prepare for not just the technology shift but the attitude shift as well.”

Pencil and paper, as written about before on this site, were the dictators of communication. Information and technology has changed the landscape of communication and productivity is synonymous with the Internet. When the Internet shuts down, so does productivity and the modern workplace has to reflect that. Colleges and universities are still somewhat lagging behind in using the Internet and telecommunication resources to their fullest. This report surveyed college students as well and indicates that much of the course curriculum should be Internet based.

Cyber Socialism

It’s important to note  that the workplace and the classroom only reflect a growing trend that runs as an undercurrent which is social media. For respondents the Internet is more important than dating, going out with friends or listening to music — at least for 40 percent of the survey respondents. This number says a lot about the human being a “social animal”. Does this mean in the future we would not need to verbally speak to each other? Who knows?

Other Findings

• Many respondents cite a mobile device as “the most important technology” in their lives
• Seven of 10 employees have “friended” their managers and coworkers on Facebook
• Two of five students have not bought a physical book (except textbooks) in two years
• Most respondents have a Facebook account and check it at least once a day

The results proved the inefficiencies of these major retailers in repairing simple computer problems and should thus be an eye-opener to everyone of why you should bring your computer to Soulistech Computer Repair, instead of taking it to useless chain stores.

To display the channel 3 team’s results, Best Buy got a D grade for poor customer service and for not solving the actual problem. Circuit City got an F grade for losing all the data on the hard drive and for charging for a repair that was totally irrelevant to the problem; and Staples got a B for finding the actual problem, but misdiagnosing it first and charging for it, which they later returned.

Internet usage amongst the world’s population has increased significantly. Since 1990, 30.2% of the world’s population uses the Internet. Since the year 2000 there has been a 480.4% increase, which is quite substantial. North America has the largest Internet footprint in the world at around 70%, followed by Oceanic regions such as Australia, and then Europe. This increase in Internet usage has burdened the global Internet infrastructure, and every user is adding to this. One way of lessening the burden is by minimizing our Internet footprint. This basically means that we can adopt a few simple practices that will ensure that we use the least amount of bandwidth and therefore help strengthen the Internet.

Bandwidth Usage

Every click on a web page link, or every search on Google results in Internet traffic being exchanged. This traffic crosses and is processed by network devices that form a web of infrastructure, hence the term World Wide Web. Every YouTube video consumes bandwidth as well, and large movie downloads also result in increased web traffic. This affects both you and me. First, it affects you because if you have an Internet cap limit set by your Internet service provider, then the more Internet you use, the more you will pay if you cross the limit. Secondly, it affects everyone else because the more traffic that you impose on the infrastructure, the slower it becomes for the rest of Internet users that are sharing that same infrastructure.

Tips On Lessening the Internet Footprint

Here are a few simple tips that can help lessen the online footprint.

1. Download actual music files instead of playing YouTube videos. This tip basically means that instead of playing a YouTube video to hear your favourite song, you can download the actual MP3 and just play that. This will reduce your Internet traffic because every YouTube video you watch, it consumes bandwidth in order to download it to your system. YouTube downloading is also known as streaming media, and every time you watch or listen to a different clip, you are consuming bandwidth.
2. Don’t use short URLs. Short URLs are provided by different web services such TinyURL.com and help make a lengthy hyperlink into a short one that can be pasted or written out easier. How does this increase the online footprint? Well, every time you click a short URL, it has to trace itself to the real URL or hyperlink, which results in slowing down the Internet. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t use short URLs at all, but what I’m suggesting is basically using less of them in order to keep Internet speeds up.
3. Work offline when viewing common websites. If you’re commonly viewing the same website over and over again, you can use the offline feature of your web browser and download the material to your computer so you don’t have to send traffic on the Internet. Even if you need a certain site for any reason when you don’t have a link to the Internet, say you’re out of the house, you can use the offline feature prior to leaving and download the website to view later.
4. Keep track of downloads. Often people keep downloading the same file over and over again, even though they have an original copy of it in their downloads directory. Keeping track of all your downloaded files can help in knowing when not to download a duplicate file. This too will reduce unnecessary Internet traffic.

By reducing the traffic on the Internet we can help make sure that the Internet stays fast and responsive.

Why is Security for Your IT Systems Important?

If your security is breached it means that your data can be stolen, altered, or destroyed. Serious issues such as the loss of privacy and theft of information can land your company in legal turmoil. It is hard to determine how secure your network should be because the more secure your network is, the less accessible are the resources on the network. Your organization has to determine the fine balance between having more access to certain network resources, but having less security, or having less access to network resources and having more security.

Security Threats are Rising

Attack tools and methods have drastically evolved and have become easier for even novice users to break through data security walls using the simplest of tools. Here is a brief look at how attacks have evolved over the years:

• 1985: Password guessing and code replication
• 1990: Password cracking and war dialing (calling lists of numbers to hack into phone systems, fax machines, and computers)
• 1995: Viruses, including Love Bug, Nimda, and Code Red
• 2000: Trojan horses such as Back Orifice
• 2005: Worms including Blaster, MyDoom, and Slammer
• 2010: Packet sniffing, social engineering, and phishing

Attacks that once involved deep knowledge of computer and computer systems can now be performed by entry level computer enthusiasts. This is because many of the attack tools, such as password cracking, have been simplified to the extent where even beginners can take advantage of them. Some of these tools come with easy-to-use graphical user interfaces that make them easy to understand and use for beginners. This has resulted in people committing computer crime where they previously would not have.

Terminology You Should Know

White Hat: A hacker who seeks vulnerabilities in systems and exposes them for the purpose of having them be fixed. A white hat hacker is a good guy who uses his or her knowledge to improve the security of a system.

Hacker: A computer programming expert who can use his/her computing knowledge to bypass systems. This term is usually associated with a negative connotation and generally refers to anyone who bypasses security systems.

Black Hat: A hacker who gains unauthorized access to systems and uses it in a negative way. For example, one who steals information for monetary gains or compromises systems with a malicious intent.

Phisher: A person who sets up fake links to websites and dupes people into giving their personal information, such as passwords, and then uses that information for personal gain, i.e. stealing money from their bank account.

Attack Methods

There are many types of attacks and they can get confusing. A few attacking methods mentioned here are intended to give you a “heads up” on how these attacks are executed.

1. Social Engineering: This is one of the simplest of attack methods. One simply dupes the other party into giving critical information that is in turn used to gain access. Phishing, as mentioned above, is of this classification. I have heard of companies who have had their security systems compromised simply by a phone call of a person pretending to be the president of the company, who had forgotten his/her password. The employee on the other end believes it is the actual president and offers him/ her access to the computer systems. This attack can be mitigated by constructing and following a security policy for your company.
2. Viruses: These little pieces of software code can do a lot of damage to the integrity of your computer systems. These codes are written to infect computer systems and to either render them useless or take over the systems. Some of them ask for money in return for leaving the system unharmed. I would include worms, Trojan horses, and malware in this category as well. This attack method can be mitigated by using an up-to-date virus scanner.
3. Password-cracking: One of the most used password-cracking methods is known as Brute Force. Basically this techniques cycles through different combinations of characters hoping that eventually it will get the right combination and break through the system. It is always recommended that the password you set should be a “strong” password, meaning that it should contain small and large letters, numbers, and unique characters, such as “$”, “@”, or “&”. Setting a strong password will hinder the brute force method.
4. Sniffing: This method commonly refers to the ability of the hacker to “listen” in on network traffic and thereby discover the passwords. This can be easily accomplished by using network tools (i.e. WireShark) to drop in on computer conversations on the network and capture the usernames and passwords. There are many other techniques that allow the hacker to gain access, such as the man-in-the-middle technique that places the hacker in the middle of the conversation of two network computers, and then the hacker is able to intercept the username and password to gain unauthorized access.

Data Security for Your Medical Centre – Part 2
The next article in this series takes a look at the statistics of IT security.

Medical clinics running on IT infrastructure need certain support systems that can allow them to run more efficiently and reliably. Managed services, as offered by Soulistech, help ensure that the medical centre is being monitored 24/7 and that backups are taking place, not only locally, but remotely as well.

Remote Monitoring

When a full-time IT person cannot be hired, Remote Monitoring is the next best thing. This managed service monitors the computer systems of the clinic 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It checks for system vitals and among other things for hard drive failure, low memory, updated antivirus, etc. As soon as there is a problem with any one of your computer’s services, Soulistech is notified and we can resolve the problem either remotely or through an on-site visit. Most managed service plans come with free antivirus and firewall solutions. This is great for medical centres on a budget, as they would not need to buy a separate antivirus solution every year.

Since the checks happen around the clock, it is quite possible that a problem can be detected before the clinic opens and therefore resolved in time for patients to check in the next day. Most of the time, Soulistech is notified of a problem before the clinic becomes aware of it and therefore speedy resolution of the problem can be carried out. Reporting can also be done daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly. These reports are free and can be delivered on a certain schedule. The reports indicate the availability of systems and services on the network as well as an executive summary of usage of computer vitals and services, such as CPU usage over time.

Backup Monitoring

Many, many organizations loose their data daily and have no backup plan in place to recover from the loss. This managed service of having a local and a remote backup plan is vital and crucial to all medical clinics, whether with EMR/EHR or not. Hard drives have a mean failure rate of 4 years and the longer the hard drive with the patient data runs, the more likely it is to fail. Backup monitoring not only backups up locally and remotely, but monitors the backups around the clock. This ensures that Soulistech is notified if a backup has been missed for any reason.

One of my personal experiences has been that a walk-in clinic lost their main computer with the patient scheduling data in it. When I asked for the backup, they gave me a file that was more than two years old! They had been backing up to the wrong destination, thinking that the actual backup was being done on their USB drive. Luckily I was able to extract data from the downed hard disk and restore it.

It just goes to show that backup is extremely necessary. Most clinics have local backup, but remote or off-site is equally needed to help data loss from fire or theft.

Benefits of MSPs with Soulistech

Clients who sign-on with both a Remote Monitoring plan and a Backup Monitoring plan are entered into a Partner program where they receive discounts in pricing. This helps clinics signed-on for both Remote Monitoring and Backup Monitoring get significant discount off of services.