Upgraded to WP 2.6

July 22, 2008 Misc No Comments

This was my first major upgrade using Wordpress since moving from Drupal for the blog. The upgrade was not unlike the way Drupal does it and was fairly smooth.

The difference is that Drupal provides built in Maintenance mode, but I had to add a Maint Mode plugin. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to login once I made the code changes and before I ran the db upgrade. I got around that by renaming the directory containing the plugin.

The purpose of this entry is really to test out some additional plugins that I have submitted and saving the above note in case I run across this problem again…think of it as extended memory.

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Apple’s iPhone Enterprise Application Delivery- REVISTED

July 14, 2008 Enterpise, security No Comments

On June 13th I posted about the misteps Apple made regarding iPhone Application Delivery for the enterprise. It got several comments to the tune that I was jumping the gun.

I began reading through the iPhone Enteprise Deployment Guide. Some interesting thoughts here noted in this document that I pulled out while I skimmed through.  It says in Chapter 1: “It [iTunes] is also required for downloading and installing software updates for devices and installing your enterprise applications.”

Later on in the same chapter it adds: “If you are planning to deploy enterprise iPhone and iPod touch applications, you install the applications on your devices using iPhone Configuration Utility for Mac OS X or
iTunes for Mac and Windows. Once you deploy an application to user’s devices, updating those applications will be easier if each user has iTunes installed on their Mac or PC.”

One positive that I pulled out from the document is that Apple is documenting some registry changes that can be used to help “lock-down” iTunes and limit functionality such as automatic updates and discovery of AppleTV devices.  However, it seems that it does not go on to completely prevent Library sharing using Bonjour/mDNS.

Chapter 5 is all about application deployment. Apple seems to confuse the procedure a bit by first saying: “Your users use iTunes to install applications on their devices. Securely distribute the
application to your users and then have them follow these steps” and then saying “You can use iPhone Configuration Utility for Mac OS X to install applications on connected devices.”

There is a web version for Mac or Windows of this latter utility, but it is limited only to creating config files for mail settings, application certificates, etc., while the Mac desktop version (Windows version not available) additionally allowed the viewing of log files and application installs. These tools are primary used for device configuration by an administrator, not by an end-user.

Hopefully Apple will expand the web version of the iPhone Configuration Utility to provide application delivery such that iTunes can be bypassed OR provides more details on how to lock iTunes down further.

One of the commenters asked what my security concern with iTunes was. GNUCITIZEN did a nice write-up on this some time ago, so I figured its best to link to those:

The lines are still too long for me…but i’ll get there eventually. I am also looking to buy an MBA, but after the last price drop I smell a new version (bigger drive? more memory?) coming. Maybe its wishful thinking.

iWelcome your comments.

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Productivity apps for the iPhone?

July 10, 2008 Misc No Comments

While I was trolling through my news feed, I was looking at the new iPhone App Store in iTunes.  I was curious about productivity apps since I’ve been using Evernote (oddly its under Lifestyle). But I found this in one in productivity.

Apparently the purpose of this application is to time how long you can hold the single button on the middle of the screen.

Hold On iPhone Application

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School’s Out, What are Your Kids Doing Online?

June 24, 2008 Family and Kids 3 Comments

This is something I wrote about last year but was lost when I converted to WordPress. I figured it would be good to revise/rewrite it now.

Now that school is out, what are your kids doing online? Summer months are always a time that is exciting for us and also poses some challenges. The school year brings a natural structure to the day and activities that surround it such as soccer, baseball, art club, music, etc.

I like to provide my kids as much freedom as possible on the computer and the Internet that is age appropriate. Of course “policing” this is a challenge. There are filtering and monitoring applications that are available, however just like in corporations you need to lay down your house rules (corporate policy) before you select and/or implement “parenting software.”

All of my kids are under 12, so our method is to keep the computers within sight at all times. The shared laptop is kept near the kitchen and is always used with one of us around to know what sites they are visiting or what applications they are running. We do use the built in Parental Controls on the laptop where we white list web sites as they need them and I utilize some of the rudimentary filtering in OpenDNS.  Again, part of the problem with software or services that do this is that if your kids want to find away around it they will.  This is why we keep the computer within sight.

How about when they go to their friends’ homes?

Good question. We will ask our kids to tell us where the computer is in their friends’ homes and if the computer is out of sight such as in a play room that’s in the basement or in their bedroom, then they cannot use it. I trust my kids and all I can do is hope that they do the right things.  In the past, my kids have walked out of their friend’s rooms or done something else.  The only way I know is that the other kid’s parent has told me.  So, so far so good.

The other part is of course educating your children on issues related to privacy, proper use of social networks (if at all), and online safety. My guess is that most of you who are tech savvy probably end up doing this for all of the children in your family. The “virtual” world is anything but that. The Internet, social networks, chat rooms are all part of the real world and encouraging that brings the point home. Although I was negative early on on social networks for younger kids, sites like Webkinz and Club Penguin have allowed us to ease into social networking with a safer environment and teach our kids how to interact with people they know and those they don’t know online. Our hope is that carries into more “mature” social networks. Review your kid’s social network profiles, preferably with them there.

There are a lot of great resources online regarding online safety

Here are a few:

Know where they are going and what they are doing, whether its online or not.  Good parenting in the online world is just good parenting. At the end of the day, the best thing you can do is to talk with your kids.

What do you do with your own kids?

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