Tag Archive for Apple

| October 8, 2013
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LA Schools iPads Hacked In A Week

– UPDATE 08-28-2014 – Just in time for the start of School reports surface LAUSD is “re-opening” bids for its controversial billion-dollar contract with Apple and Pearson to give all students, teachers, and administrators iPads.

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LA iPads Hacked In A WeekThe second-largest school district in the US is spending at least $1 Billion to complete a 1:1 tablet initiative. The Las Angles Unified School District (LAUSD) plans to deploy 650,000 Apple (AAPL) iPads, one for each student in LA county. The project slated to be completed by December 2014, has had problems that may prevent if from reaching that goal.

Las Angles Unified School DistrictThe project includes 500 million dollars for iPads and 500 million dollars for Wi-Fi and related infrastructure. The initiative is funded mostly by voter-approved school construction bonds, which taxpayers typically pay off over 25 years which the LA Times says “has sparked some concerns and legal and logistical hurdles.”  (rb- I first noted the project here)

The project has run into a series of issues. The first issue focused on the 25 year payback period on a $500.00 device. A second issue emerged in September 2013 when the district recognized that it may need to buy Bluetooth keyboards for the iPads. The LA Times estimated a bill of $38 million for the oversight. The LA Times reports that the included software keyboard on the iPad might not satisfy the needs of older students writing term papers.

650,000 Apple iPads,Also, LAUSD has planned to use the iPads for testing based on new Common Core English and math learning standards. The article contends that the iPad’s touch screen could frustrate students and even obscure portions of a test item that would be visible in its entirety on a full screen. (rb- I talked to many school districts about the SBAC keyboard testing issue, who is going to configure Bluetooth on and off? What about power? Does Bluetooth decrease the battery time on the iPad? Do you have enough electrical outlets to plug in 30 iPads? How is your Wi-Fi?)

In late September 2013, the LAUSD iPad project ran into a bigger problem as they deployed the iPads to high school students. According to the LA Times, it took exactly one week for nearly 300 students at Theodore Roosevelt High School to defeat the LAUSD installed device security. Following the news that students were using the hacked tablets for personal use, district officials halted home use of the Apple tablets until further notice.

Common Core English and math learning standards.Students told the LA Times once they had the iPad home they could not do anything with the $678 device. Apparently, the students began to tinker with the security lock on the tablets and soon discovered all they had to do was delete their personal profile information. With the profile deleted, a student was free to surf, tweet like, and stream music.

The new found freedom prompted L.A. Unified School District Police Chief Steven Zipperman to suggest that the district might want to delay the distribution of the devices. The chief said in a memo obtained by the LA Times, “I want to prevent a ‘runaway train‘ scenario when we may have the ability to put a hold on the roll-out.”

I want to prevent a 'runaway train' scenarioAccording to a March 2013 blog post from Roosevelt HS, LAUSD chose AirWatch as the provider for the mobile device management system. And that when students first get their iPads they will have AirWatch already installed. The district posted an update on their website that indicated they have turned to AirWatch and Apple for better solutions to their iPad problem.

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This really is a story of mismanagement from the top down. A billion-dollar project for consumer devices financed over 25 years – Really? Are the students of LA’s class of 2038 going to have to use the iPad’s from 2013? Where is the refresh program? How are they getting the money to buy 650,000 iPad 9’s in 5 or 6 years?

If the iPads are to be used at home? how is LAUSD addressing the digital divide in LA?

Did the big-wigs consider the equity of using iPads for high-stakes nationwide common core testing? Not only will LA students be compared against each other and the rest of California but also students in 44 other states.  It is my understanding that the current SBAC test is not optimized to display well on small screens. Will the tablet form factor handicap LA students or others across the US using tablets when competing against others using large screens and real keyboards in ergonomically proper positions? Will LAUSD show the test takers how to see the entire question, or how to easily switch between back and forth between screens to review a passage and then write a response.

Call me cynical after working in K-12 and living in the Detroit area, but a public $1 Billion dollar government project seems like a magnet for mismanagement, fraud, waste, and pay-to-play scams. It already seems to be at least $20 million over budget to buy keyboards even at K-12 discounts. Hopefully, the iOS and AirWatch updates are already included in the existing contracts.

While the headline-grabbing hacking story may be resolved in Apple’s iOS7. AFAIK Apple does not let anybody into its BIOS or whatever chip it is on an iPad. That is why students can easily delete the AirWatch agent. LAUSD still has a task on its hands to get all the deployed devices up to iOS 7.

LAUSD is missing 71 iPadsIn more signs of mismanagement, The LA Times reports that LAUSD is missing 71 iPads. They deployed 69 of the missing iPads last year at the Valley Academy of Arts and Science. PadGadget reports that after the fact, the District ramped up its tracking efforts by adding stronger safeguards. Global positioning can now be activated for every tablet. Plus, an electronic inventory system registers who is now responsible for a particular device, and District officials can remotely shut down iPads reported stolen.  Lt. Jose Santome of the school district’s Police Department stated, “We know what’s going out and deployed on every campus.”

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| September 5, 2013
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Six Steps to Avoid BYOD Pitfalls

Six Steps to Avoid BYOD PitfallsIn a recent article on the Forbes CIO Central blog, Dan Woods interviewed Brian Madocks, CEO of PC Helps, a services firm that provides supplemental help desk services for more than 1.6 million end-users. He has been on the front lines as many of its clients have opened up BYOD.

I want an iPadIn the article, Forbes offers advice on how IT departments can respond to users who show up at work and declare: “I want an iPad.”  The author warns that ignoring the corporate use of personal devices (smartphones, iPad’s and other tablets) leave both end-users and the IT department quite unhappy.

Mr. Madocks says the biggest myth is that allowing personal devices to be used for work-related purposes reduces the support burden. At first, this seems strange. If people use devices they know well, shouldn’t they need less help? Also, if an employee is using an iPhone or iPad, won’t their support questions be handled by AppleCare, Apple’s support arm? Mr. Madocks says no. Consumerization reduces some types of support but generates others. Here’s what happens.

ConsumerizationThe number of calls about how to use the device may go down. People know how to use their phones, get on the Internet, and use Facebook. But the number of calls about how to get their corporate email, calendar, and contacts working on phones or tablets may go up. With Apple (AAPL) iPhones and iPads and the fragmented Google (GOOG) Android versions out there it’s even more complicated. The PC Helps CEO reports that users can be frustrated when they go to Apple’s Genius Bar, AppleCare, or to Google for Andriod support and find out that they won’t get any help there because the staff doesn’t know how to support your corporate environment or the applications used within it.

With a multitude of personal devices in your workforce, the support burden may increase and your help desk may not be able to keep up with the unique features and aspects of all the devices. Mr. Madocks concludes that no matter how you allow access to the corporate resources the support burden NEVER disappears.

The support experts from the PC Helps brain-trust, developed a playbook for organizations considering a Bring Your Own Device model:

Don’t just say no to “bring your own technology”: The cat is out of the bag. End users are more productive when they have a vote on the tools they use and their support. PC Helps suggests IT show some leadership and help figure out how to get BYOD (PDF) right so that the company is protected and the users are happy. Recognize that consumerization means giving up some control; learn to live with that.

Listen to the end-users: Create an internal customer advisory group to allow end-users to explain what they want and what they don’t. The article says one of the primary drivers of consumerization is the wish to have work and personal content and capabilities on a single device. Craft a draft set of policies and guidelines based on this input.

Help deskResearch and test your approach: Consider a pilot program before full rollout that includes a mix of key users. Discover the range and types of preferred devices as well as the corporate systems, networks, and applications users will need access to. The blog recommends that you incorporate your findings into the broader rollout plan.

Document and communicate a clear set of policies and guidelines for end-users: Everyone should know what the company policies are for personal devices and where to find them. Explicit review of policies and testing for understanding should be performed from time to time, or as new devices arrive and raise new issues. The policies should set forth:

  • Which devices will be supported.
  • How to request new/more devices,
  • Which apps are authorized,
  • Which apps are forbidden,
  • How to get approval for new apps,
  • What company data is allowed on personal devices,
  • How to get support for devices and applications.

The policies should also answer the following questions:

  • When a device is no longer used for work or an employee leaves, what are their responsibilities to securely deletion corporate data?
  • Where and how will devices be backed up?
  • Who is responsible for backup?
  • Are lock and password-protection required, and how is it managed?
  • Who will provide support?
  • What kind of support questions should be directed to device manufacturers?

ComplexityPlan for a more complex support burden: Allowing personal devices means a world with more devices, which in turn multiplies the knowledge needed from the help desk. There will be more questions on setup, remote access, and use of corporate applications, as well as problems unique to the different devices. There will be more complex support scenarios, such as, how to use Microsoft Office applications on non-PC devices. Be sure you have a support plan and trained people in place.

Don’t rely on device manufacturers for support of your end-users: Manufacturers can handle break/fix and warranty support on products, but they won’t know your corporate policies, processes, nor the core office applications your users work with every day. Apple iPad owners have access to AppleCare and Genius bars, but this is all geared to consumers. AppleCare won’t help with many synchronization issues related to accessing corporate email on the iPad, nor provide urgent support for deadline-related business situations.

a risk to IT’s reputationEnd-users may get the run-around, going to the manufacturer and then to their wireless service provider, to your internal help desk, and to peer support for help, wasting time and productivity on something that could be solved in a single call. Devices for corporate use should have corporate support or they will present a risk to IT’s reputation in the organization.

Prepare your help desk for the task: The help desk in a BYOD IT environment is a different type of organization, one that must be able to respond to the unexpected. Mixed device environments require specialization and expertise, as well as ongoing training and skill-building. Your existing help desk staff may need to be retrained, expanded, or supplemented.

In the end, Mr. Madocks reports that the firms PC Helps assists in consumerization don’t regret their decision. “While consumerization creates complexity for support … The company’s workforce is happier and more productive, and the reputation of IT as a supporter of the business is greatly enhanced.” The end result is generally happier users and happier IT, but there are complications.

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It is my experience that most people who push consumer devices into the enterprise, don’t have a plan. They want their iPads, for valid or not so valid reasons. Some staff seemed surprised when they could not print to the enterprise printer on the enterprise network with the iPad they just brought in.

I place a great deal of the blame at the feet of Apple. I have had Apple engineers look me straight in the face and tell me that iPads are consumer devices and not designed for the enterprise and that Apple does not intend to fix it.

They do not use standard protocols and BYOD proponents don’t even know what Bonjour is, let alone the limitations of Bonjour.

http://blogs.forbes.com/ciocentral/2011/02/07/i-want-my-ipad-avoiding-it-consumerization-pitfalls/
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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| August 13, 2013
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Data Growth Tests Storage Capabilities

 Data Growth Tests Storage CapabilitiesData Center Knowledge had an article by Steven Rodin, CEO of Storagepipe Solutions, that lays out the challenges that those of us charged with managing backups face every day. Storagepipe Solutions, which has been a provider of online backup services for business since 2001, has identified several emerging storage trends that organizations will need to overcome in the future.

Storagepipe Solutions logoIn the early days, the author says, organizations were primarily concerned with data protection, encryption and automation. The era of “Big Data” has changed those demands. The new demands are overwhelming most backup and storage systems. The article cites data from IBM (IBM), which claims that worldwide annual data production has actually exceeded worldwide storage capacity. Big Blue believes that demand for storage capacity is growing nearly 60 percent a year. The gap between the data that organizations produce and their ability to store it will continue to grow for years.

The Storagepipe Solutions CEO identified a number of important storage trends which are accelerating the growth rate of corporate data.  He provided a few of the most important factors.

Cheaper Storage Hardware

Cheaper HardwareHard drive capacity has fallen exponentially in price ever since Moore’s Law was introduced. This has changed attitudes to backups. The article says that today, hardware is so cheap and abundant that attitudes have shifted to a “Better keep this. We may need it someday” mentality.

New technologies, such as advancements in compression, deduplication and hardware virtualization, have improved overall storage utilization and further accelerated the rate at which the cost-per-gigabyte of storing data is falling.

Cheap and Abundant Bandwidth

Abundant BandwidthInternet bandwidth is no longer a bottleneck. Bandwidth availability has accelerated the growth of file sharing and online storage. Now large files are copied and distributed at an exponential rate which has caused duplicate data to become a major source of storage waste and data growth. The CEO of the firm based out of Toronto, calculates that if one person shares a 1GB file with 500 people, that’s half a terabyte of storage consumption.

Business is Going Paperless – Email has replaced letters, eBooks and tablets have nearly replaced paper books, and digital imaging has replaced photographs and x-rays. Not only are paperless offices better for the environment, but Mr. Rodin writes, they are also more productive, flexible and better able to extract value from their business data. Many industries are using more and more video (which is highly storage intensive) for marketing online, security and communication.

Enhanced Automated Data Collection Capabilities

Automated Data CollectionAutomated data collection is one of the fastest-growing areas in the “big data” space. With every move we make, the article says we’re generating GPS data, web traffic statistics, power usage data, surveillance video, and a broad range of data which companies and governments are collecting.

The author calls automated data collection the “Pandora’s Box” of the big data revolution. The information being collected about us through the electronic devices we use every day could present a threat to our privacy, but they also have the potential to offer tremendous value to society.

Advances in Data Analysis Technology

Data AnalysisThe blog says that until recently, data analysis was almost exclusively performed on structured relational databases, maintained and organized by humans. But now, a  new approach to data storage which focuses on rapid analysis and processing of vast data volumes. Technologies like Hadoop, Cassandra, MapReduce and NoSQL have given birth to a whole new class of services, and have revolutionized the way organizations think about the data they collect. Organizations can now get more insight into their internally generated business data by integrating external feeds and databases into their reporting and analysis.

The Growing Strategic Importance of Data

In the past, data was simply a tool which assisted in decision-making and helped companies execute on their strategic objectives. But recently Google (GOOG), Facebook (FB), Apple’s (AAPL) iTunes and other brands have built their entire corporate strategy around the data they own. The DCK article states, information is power, and it’s now more powerful than ever.

Regulatory ComplianceRegulatory Compliance

Even if companies wanted to cut the amount of data they store, they wouldn’t always be able to. Laws like PIPEDA, HIPAA, Sox404 and many others are forcing companies to keep historical archives of their exponentially growing business data going back several years.

As this data grows, storage increasingly becomes a major business problem. Also, companies must plan for cost-efficient search and retrieval of these large historical data volumes to stay ready for an unexpected electronic discovery request.

As the scale and complexity of big data storage grows, it’ll quickly reach a point where manual handling is no longer practical, desirable, economical, or even possible. Automation will become absolutely essential when it comes to backing up big data.

Many big data applications have serious privacy implications for the customers that benefit from their use. So security will become a top priority for backup administrators. Gone are the days of unencrypted backup tapes.

The big data applications has created a whole new class of applications built on real-time data. These applications require much more frequent  backups to optimize Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs). Strategic big data apps will need minimized downtime. This means smaller backup windows, built-in redundancy, and server fail-over to disaster recovery sites.

That’s why many organizations are opting to outsource their data backups by partnering with experts who run ahead of the trends and who can help with the complexity of some situations.

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him at LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

Category: Data protection | Tags: , , , , , , ,
| August 8, 2013
Comments Off on Is Your iPhone Turning You Into a Wimp?

Is Your iPhone Turning You Into a Wimp?

Is Your iPhone Turning You Into a Wimp?New research from Harvard implies that consumerization and BYOD can have an impact on how staff behaves. Carmen Nobel at HBS Working Knowledge wrote about research from post-doctoral research fellow Maarten Bos and Associate Professor Amy Cuddy of Harvard Business School. They claim Your iPhone is Turning You Into a Wimp.

Your iPhone Turning You Into a WimpThe research says that in an experiment, people who had been using smartphone-sized iPod Touch devices were 47% less likely than desktop users to get up to try to find out why a researcher hadn’t come back after leaving the room to fetch paperwork so that participants could be paid. And of those who did take action, the iPod Touch users took 44% longer than desktop users to get up and look for the researcher. The research suggests that your hunched posture as you use a smartphone-sized device for just a few minutes makes you less likely to engage in power-related behaviors than people who have been using desktop computers.

Back painThe researchers claim that body posture inherent in operating everyday gadgets affects not only your back but your demeanor. A new study entitled iPosture: The Size of Electronic Consumer Devices Affects Our Behavior. It turns out that working on a larger machine causes users to act more assertively than working on a small one (like an iPad).

The study proves the positive effects of adopting expansive body postures – hands on hips, feet on the desk, and the like. According to the article, deliberately positioning the body in a “power pose” for just a few minutes actually affects body chemistry. They increase testosterone levels and decrease cortisol levels. This leads to higher confidence, and more willingness to take risks. According to a 2010 report by Andy Yap, Cuddy, and Dana Carney good posture leads to a greater sense of well-being,

Contractive body posturesContractive body postures like folded arms have the opposite effect.  Contractive body postures decrease testosterone and increasing cortisol. Bos and Cuddy wondered whether there might be behavioral ramifications from using electronic devices. The author says that many of us constrict our necks and hunch our shoulders when we use our phones. And statistics show that we use our phones a lot.

Americans spend an average of 58 minutes per day on their smartphones, according to a recent report from Experian Marketing Services. Talking accounts for only 26 percent of that time. The other 73% is devoted to texting, e-mail, social networking, and web-surfing – in other words, activities spent hunched over a little screen.

assertiveness and risk-taking behavior.Bos and Cuddy hypothesized that interacting with larger devices would lead to more expansive body postures. That in turn would lead to behaviors associated with power—including assertiveness and risk-taking behavior.

To test their hypothesis, Bos and Cuddy paid 75 participants $10 each and randomly assigned them to perform a series of tasks on one of four devices, each successively larger than the next: an iPod Touch, an iPad, a MacBook Pro laptop, or an iMac desktop computer. Each participant sat alone in a room during the experiment, monitored by a research assistant.

ClockWhen the participants were done with the tasks, the researcher pointed to a clock in the room and said, “I will get some forms ready for you to sign so I can pay you and you can leave. If I am not here in five minutes, please come get me at the front desk.” Rather than returning in five minutes, though, the researcher waited a maximum of ten minutes, recording whether and/or when the participant had come out to the front desk.

The article reports that device size substantially affected whether the participant left the room after waiting the requisite five minutes. Of the participants using a desktop computer, 94 percent took the initiative to fetch the experimenter. For those using the iPod Touch, only 50 percent left the room.

And among those who did leave the room, the device size seemed to affect the amount of time they waited to do so. The bigger the device was, the shorter the wait time. On average, desktop users waited 341 seconds before fetching the experimenter, for instance, while iPod Touch users waited an average of 493 seconds.

expansive body postures“The steady increase of waiting time is locked in step with the size of the device,” Harvard’s Bos says. “I have never before in my life seen such a beautiful effect.” The results indicate that expansive body postures lead to power-related behaviors. This happens even in cases where the posture is incidentally induced by the size of the gadget or computer. Mr. Bos concludes that a break from your  mobile phone is needed to be powerful,  “...  you need at least a few minutes of interacting with a device, or, more importantly, of being in a specific posture related to that device, before you find effects.”

In the meantime, the article suggests it may be a good idea to avoid the smartphone immediately before your next big meeting. Texting up until the boss starts speaking may make you look busy, but it may make you act meek. “We won’t tell anyone not to interact with those devices just before doing something that requires any kind of assertiveness,” Bos says. “Mostly because people won’t listen: They will do it anyway...”

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Professor Cuddy’s power poses theory says that certain body stances, such as standing with your legs apart and your hands on your hips, or opening up your chest area, bathe your cortex in testosterone, a hormone associated with assertiveness and the willingness to take risks. Meanwhile, they also reduce cortisol, the stress hormone. On the other hand, low power poses—crossing your arms over your chest, say, or bunching your shoulders—increase neural levels of cortisol and reduce testosterone, resulting in more stress and less confidence.

Does this have implications for BYOD? The evidence seems to indicate that staff seeking advancement will gravitate toward tablets. Offering a larger device to a normally shy worker will make them more assertive.

Look around the office do your observations match the researcher’s implications?

 

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| July 30, 2013
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Smartphone Screen Kill Germs

Smartphone Screen Kill GermsCell phones are filthy. I wrote about portable petri dishes back in November 2012. CNET found that 75% of Americans use their mobile phones in the bathroom to make calls, text, and play with apps. Your mobile phone carries more germs than a toilet seat. There is speculation that they have even spread Ebola. Now, thankfully, Corning has your back.

Gorilla Glass kills germs all by itselfEric Limernewest revision of Gorilla Glass is more resilient and kills pesky germs all by itself. Gorilla Glass covers 1.5 billion mobile phones worldwide, including all Apple (AAPL) iPhones.

Corning discussed its upcoming display tech at the MIT Mobile Technology Summit. The antimicrobial coating on the new glass can kill virtually all nasty microbes on the screen’s surface over a course of two hours. It’s not instantaneous, but it’s way better than having a pocket petri dish, Mr. Limer observed.

Signe Brewster at GigaOM wrote that during the presentation, Corning senior vice president Jeff Evenson reported that the company is working on glass that kills viruses and germs — even the drug-resistant variety. GigaOM says that the VP noted a study that found smartphones carry more microbes than the average public toilet. He displayed how the glass kills microbes over time with slides depicting them as bright green dots. After two hours, the antimicrobial glass had a million times fewer bacteria than standard phone glass. Corning’s Evenson said

“You’re eating your sandwich at your desk. Your smartphone rings. You answer it. You complete the call, put your smartphone down and you go back to eating your sandwich with the same hand. Which piece of glass do you want on that device?”

Gizmodo reports that Corning said the antimicrobial displays will be available sometime in the next two years.

Corning antimicrobial glass kills germs

And that’s not all, either. GigaOM’s Brewster also reports that Corning is developing a new transparency treatment that will make the next revision of Gorilla Glass tens of times more transparent than purified water. This should result in seeing your phone in broad daylight is about to get way easier.

 rb-

Until Corning releases Gorilla Glass 3, washing your hands is a good idea, and licking your iPhone screen is probably a bad idea. In order to clean your iPhone, Apple recommends:

Wash your handsTo clean iPhone, unplug all cables and turn off iPhone (press and hold the Sleep/Wake button, and then slide the onscreen slider). Use a soft, slightly damp, lint-free cloth. Avoid getting moisture in openings. Don’t use window cleaners, household cleaners, aerosol sprays, solvents, alcohol, ammonia, or abrasives to clean your iPhone. The front and back glass surfaces have an oleophobic coating. Simply wipe these surfaces with a soft, lint-free cloth to remove fingerprints. This coating’s ability to repel oil will diminish over time with normal usage, and rubbing the screen with an abrasive material will further diminish its effect and may scratch the glass.

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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