Friday 6 November 2009, 4:14 PM
Motorola Droid Drops Today: Happy Droid Day America!
Motorola Droid Drops Today: Happy Droid Day America!
Author: Eric Everson, Mobile Security Expert
If you’re wondering what all of the buzz is about with words like Droid and Android 2.0 circling about, you might think for a moment that there is a new George Lucas film that hit theaters. To the contrary, Motorola’s much anticipated Droid handset hits Verizon Wireless stores today in America. This is a hallmark handset that comes equipped with Google’s Android 2.0 MOPS (Mobile Operating System) and offers what some believe to be Verizon’s answer to the iPhone.
As the official Droid release email from Verizon promotes, “The phone that makes you feel like a four star general with natural charisma, twelve arms and the power of mind control is here and is ready to serve.” Okay so, they might be overselling it a little bit, but this Droid handset certainly pushes the competitive landscape forward within the mobile industry. Having taken some time to tinker with the handset, the quality that stands out the most in comparison to the iPhone is its ability to handle apps (applications). If you’re used to the lag of opening apps on your iPhone, the Droid will feel like a supersonic blast of Star Wars-like hyper-drive in your palm!
Also notable is the 5MP (mega pixel) camera feature which pushes the idea of the camera phone into new territory. While it might not compare to the rumored 12MP Nokia camera phone that is secretly said to be in development, you’ll certainly notice a difference in picture quality compared to the 3.2MP camera of the iPhone. The Droid has the look and also pushes handset design forward with such features as a touchscreen plus QWERTY slider keyboard to the next level. The Droid also comes out of the box with built-in access to Amazon’s MP3 store.
Compared to the thriving Apple App Store and iTunes platform, the novelty of an Android App Store seemingly falls flat, but in all fairness the Android community is still very young. As third-party mobile content developers continue to see opportunities to embrace this new market, they will likewise be motivated to develop more apps. I see a great opportunity here for Google to flex its creative muscle to answer the competitive advantage that the iPhone already has in place.
As your resident mobile security expert, I would be amiss not to acknowledge the undertone of growing security concerns regarding the Android 2.0 MOPS. Are there mobile security vulnerabilities to come? Of course, but as I’ve noted in the past, nobody in the MOPS industry addresses vulnerabilities as well as the Google team. As we uncover new vulnerabilities throughout the MOPS landscape, the Google team is consistently the fastest and most efficient to respond.
If you’re in the market for a new handset or you’re one of many Verizon customers that has been waiting patiently for a smartphone of this caliber to come along, I say to you Happy Droid Day! May the force be with you!
-Eric Everson “The MobileTech”
Eric Everson is a leader in mobile technologies and is the founder of MyMobiSafe.com. If you would like to contact Eric Everson for interview or with consulting related inquiries contact him directly at EricEverson@Hotmail.com
Friday 6 November 2009, 3:19 PM
Ubuntu 9.10 (karmic Koala) on Netbooks - Part 3 (Kubuntu Netbook)
In Part 1 of this series, I looked at the "standard" Ubuntu distribution, and found that with some adjustments, it could be made into what I considered to be a fairly nicely usable netbook. In Part 2 I looked at the Karmic Netbook Remix release, and found it to be significantly improved over the previous releases, at least in cosmetic terms. Now, in Part 3, I am going to look at "the new kid on the block", the Kubuntu "Technical Preview" of the KDE Netbook Plasma-Netbook project.
The first, and probably most important, thing to say at this point is that this is still a development project, and it is still very much in the middle of dynamic development; it is not scheduled for release until February 2010. I was prepared to temper my expectations and comments based on this status, but in fact what happened was that I was completely blown away. It is very, very impressive.
The concepts and implementation of KDE Netbook are quite different from those of UNR, and I have been struggling to find a way to do them justice without getting bogged down in endless descriptions of details. I'm going to try to describe it (at least superficially) in the same way that I did UNR. I have a feeling that won't do it justice, though.
The initial desktop has three main areas of interest. There is a Task/System/Icon/Status/Whatever bar across the top of the screen, with many of the usual icons and controls on it (Battery status, Network/Bluetooth status, Audio control, Notifier, Clock and Lock/Shutdown). There is a rather large horizontal bar across the screen, which contains large, colorful icons for most of the typical menu groups (Office, Internet, Multimedia, System and so on). Between that menu bar and the top of the screen there is another horizontal bar, initially empty, which turns out to be a "Favorites" area.
When you click on any of the menu icons, the contents of that menu are shown in the bar, and a "Home" icon appears at the top left of the screen which will get you back to the top level menu. I assume from this structure and action that menus are by definition only one level deep, but that is arguably a good thing anyway.
I will say again here that the icons are very large and colorful, and seem to me to be particularly well suited to a netbook display. I think they are much better than those of the other two major contenders in this area. I would say that UNR is not bad, but the menu bar icons are too small and the text too large - the goal here is supposed to be to make things simple and intuitive, and good pictures beat reading text at that every time. Moblin... well, uh, Moblin... What the heck are those stick-figure icons supposed to represent, anyway? Why use icons that are so abstract that the user is going to have to read the associated text to figure out what they mean anyway?
Getting back to Kubuntu Netbook, when you click on a launcher and start a program, the window does NOT automatically come up maximized (unlike UNR). It is a window with normal decoration and controls, so you can minimize, maximize or close it as you wish. It seems to me that average users are often disturbed or confused when the click on something and the whole screen changes, so I find this approach better than UNR automatically maximizing everything you start, or Moblin creating new "Zones" and putting things into them every time. There is one other interesting effect when you start a program - the Task Bar (panel) across the top of the screen disappears. If you move the mouse cursor to the top edge of the screen, or if you return to an empty desktop, it comes back. This is an interesting variation on "Autohide" that I have not come across before, and I find it nice and intuitive.
Things get interesting when you want to start another program. If you either minimize the open window, or just click on the desktop outside of that window, the window disappears! Gone without a trace! Well, not entirely without a trace, but at least without the usual icon on the task bar or whatever. If you look at the top left corner of the screen, you will see that it says "1 running app". Click on that, and if you have a graphic card that supports advanced graphics (the Intel Atom/945 is good enough), you get a tiled presentation of the main desktop and all currently active applications, and you can then click on any of those to select one. If your graphic driver isn't good enough (neither my HP 2133 VIA nor my HP 1010ez Radeon was), nothing happens. Don't despair, just fall back on the old standard Alt-Tab to select windows. Again, if your graphic driver is good enough, you will get a spiffy "rotating wheel" of windows to choose from; continue holding the Alt key, and each time you press and release Tab it will move to the next window. Wow! This is a sure-fire way to impress your friends. If your graphic card isn't up to that, you will get a more typcial-looking list of active applications to choose from.
Ok, enough already about the user interface. It's good, it's flashy, and I could write about it for a lot longer and I don't think you would get a lot better feel for it. I'll just add a few words about specific applications included in Kubuntu Netbook.
As this is a KDE distribution, I suppose it is not too surprising that it has the Konqueror browser installed, but at least it has a link to install Firefox. The really good news for most users, though, is that it includes OpenOffice, rather than the more obscure Koffice. It has Dragon Player and Amarok for Multimedia, a reasonable selection of games and educational programs, and Ksnapshot and Gwenview for digital picture viewing and organization.
Finally, there is the "Newspaper" panel. Here's my theory on that. The KDE developers have taken a lot of criticism since the release of KDE 4. They have said all along that they are working toward a much larger goal, and the changes would pay off in the long term. I think the Newspaper panel is included as an example of how that payoff can come. When you select it, you actually get a different desktop from the original "Application" panel. It includes a news feed reader, weather reader, calendar and note block. I haven't really investigated it yet, but I assume all those and others are selectable and configurable, so you could have things like micro-blogger applets and such on there too. I suspect that this is one of the areas where there is going to be a lot more development before the final release comes out, but it already looks very interesting.
To wrap it all up, if you need a finished, stable desktop then you probably don't want to risk loading Kubuntu Netbook quite yet. There are some quirks, rough edges and bugs still in it. But if you want to see some of the latest, greatest ideas in netbook desktops, or if you just don't find either UNR or Moblin very pleasing, this could be just what you are looking for. Trying it from a Live USB stick is quick, easy and painless, so go for it!
jw 6/11/2009
Thursday 5 November 2009, 11:17 AM
Ubuntu 9.10 (karmic Koala) on Netbooks - Part 2 (Netbook Remix)
In Part 1 I discussed some generalities about the new Ubuntu 9.10 distribution, and some issues related to using it on netbook computers. Now it is time to move on to the Ubuntu Netbook Remix, a special version produced by Canonical themselves, as opposed to the various "Community" remixes and other derivatives. As I did for the first part, I am using my ASUS N10J netbook for this evaluation. It is a relatively standard netbook, so these comments and observations should be applicable for most netbooks in general.
From the user's perspective, UNR has been changed in two critical ways from the "standard" Ubuntu (Gnome) distribution. First, the usual Gnome desktop with upper and lower Panels has been replaced with a more obvious (blatant) Launcher which lays everything out directly on the desktop. Those who have previously tried the UNR 9.04 release will notice that the desktop has been refined somewhat, and I think the changes make it quite a bit better. The large vertical bar on the right side of the screen, which basically contained the "Places" menu, has been merged into the single remaining left side vertical menu bar. This makes the desktop look much less cluttered and leaves more room for launcher icons, which really should be one of the highest priorities for limited-size netbook screens. In addition, I think the entire desktop looks more "refined", rather than just sort of "everything slapped up there" as it was previously, but that is a very subjective evaluation. Second, application windows are automatically maximized (made full screen) when they are started. They are also represented in the task list, at the top left of the screen, by an icon only, without text. Those icons are your most convenient means of window control and selection, by the way. Simply clicking on them will minimize/unminimize/select the window, and by right-clicking you can then unmaximize, if you really want to have several windows open together on your (presumably small) netbook screen.
Other than merging in Places (now called "Files & Folders"), the content of the menus is essentially the same in Karmic as it was in Jaunty. One nice touch is the "Favorites" menu, which I consider to be sort of the equivalent to having launchers on the Panel or Desktop of the standard Gnome desktop. It gives you a way of having things handy, rather than having to slog through the menus every time to find commonly used programs. When you are in the other menus, you will see a "+" at the top right of the launcher highlight, which you can click to add that launcher to the Favorites menu. I don't recall this from the previous UNR release, and I think it is a good addition.
The top Panel/Task Bar/Title Bar/Whatever has been improved a bit in the Karmic release as well. It resembles the standard Ubuntu (Gnome) panel more closely, with the notifier, shutdown options and the like there, rather than taking space in the main screen menu bar, which seems much more logical to me.
The "selection" effect, which is show when the mouse is over an icon on the desktop, has been completely changed in the new release. Instead of "growing" the icon (my term, I don't know what the proper name for it is), it displays a box with a darker background around the icon. This is certainly less overhead than the old effect (although arguably less "cool" or "flashy"), so I was quite disappointed to find that UNR still needs 3D/GL support in the graphic driver to perform in any reasonably usable way. That means that for netbooks such as my HP 2133 Mini-Note (VIA Chrome 9) and HP Pavillion dv2-1010ez (ATI Radeon 3410), running UNR is out of the question. Of course, by far the most common graphic hardware for netbooks is the Intel 945/950 chipset, and those drivers are more than adequate for UNR.
The Netbook Remix distribution includes a few more packages than the standard Ubuntu distribution, presumably to make the netbook more "user friendly", and a few others have been removed, either to save space or because they aren't considered "typically useful" on netbooks. In the added category are things like Adobe Flash and the Cheese webcam program; while removed includes CD/DVD creators (most netbooks don't have optical drives), GIMP (perhaps they think most netbooks are not up to it, or most netbook users?), XSane (scanner support) and Remote Desktop and Terminal Server Client (not relevant?).
Ok, so much for slogging through a lot of the details. Overall, I like the Karmic Netbook Release better than I did the previous ones. I think it is visually better, clearer, easier to understand and use. Some time ago I set up an HP Mini 2140 with UNR for a friend. I will be seeing her again soon, and I will show her the new UNR release and ask if she would like for me to upgrade it for her.
It will be interesting to see what the future brings for the Ubuntu Netbook Remix. Canonical has announced support for Moblin v2, and are providing an "Ubuntu Moblin Remix" for the Dell Mini 10v. I wonder if that will have any impact on the future of the Netbook Remix? Time will tell.
jw 5/11/2009
Wednesday 4 November 2009, 1:07 PM
Ubuntu 9.10 (karmic Koala) on Netbooks - Part 1 (Overview)
I have promised several people that I would take a look at Ubuntu 9.10 and several of its derivatives on netbook hardware. My intention is to consider the following:
- Ubuntu (plain vanilla, Gnome desktop)
- Ubuntu Netbook Remix
- Kubuntu (KDE desktop, both with and without KDE netbook)
- Xubuntu (Xfce desktop)
I will be trying each of these on my ASUS N10J netbook, which I believe is very typical of netbook hardware configuration - Intel Atom 270 CPU, Intel 945 GME graphic controller, 10.2" 1024x600 screen, wired and wireless network connection, and bluetooth. The one thing that makes the N10J unique is that it also has an nVidia GeForce 9300 graphic controller which can be switched on and off.
First up, before diving into the Ubuntu derivatives, is the standard distribution. The basic installation, and the standard Gnome desktop, work just fine on the N10J. All of the devices are recognized and supported with no trouble. There are several things that you can change in the standard Ubuntu desktop to make it more netbook-friendly. One of the first things I always do (and not only on netbooks, but it is particularly important here), is right-click on each of the panels, choose Properties, and enable the Autohide attribute. That helps squeeze every last bit of usable space out of the small screen. In that same Properties panel, on netbooks I have recently been disabling the Expand attribute. That lets the panels be only as wide as necessary for their current content, rather than always spanning the entire screen. That sometimes helps by not obscuring parts of windows, but I think it also helps by simply making the screen appear less "full". I am also of the opinion that space on netbook displays is more critical in the vertical direction than the horizontal (as they are typically 1024x600 or even 1024x576), so I also change the Orientation of the Bottom panel to one of the sides (choose whichever you are more comfortable with).
Another useful area to adjust on netbooks is Power Management. You can get there either by right-clicking on the battery icon in the top panel, if it is visible, or by going to System/Preferences/Power Management. In addition to power saving adjustments, you can choose what action to take on various events; I want my netbooks to continue running when I close the lid to carry them around the house, so I set that attribute to Blank Screen rather than Suspend. Also on the subject of Power Management, both the Suspend and Hibernate operations work properly on my N10J. It's worth knowing, though, that when awakening from Hibernation, it will initially look as if the netbook is going through a new boot, but as it comes up it will notice the hibernation image and will then resume the state it was in when it hibernated.
The Fn- keys work for hardware control as they should, which has not always been the case with previous releases. I am able to adjust screen brightness, audio volume and mute, turn the wireless receiver on and off, and Suspend the N10J.
One slightly fun note. Most netbooks that are based on the Intel Atom CPU also have the Intel 945/950 graphic controller. The driver for that is good enough to support Extra Visual Effects. Some people like those, some hate them, and some say they feel sick when they watch the squiggly windows. You can turn them on by going to System/Preferences/Appearance, then the Visual Effects tab. Try it, and see if you like it. It's easy enough to turn off again.
If your netbook includes Bluetooth support, it will be detected and activated automatically when Ubuntu is installed. To use a Bluetooth mouse, just click the icon in the top Panel, choose Set up new device, and then press the Connecct button on the mouse. Once a mouse is configured, it will continue to work after rebooting the netbook. I have also used Bluetooth connection to transfer pictures from my mobile phone to the netbook. Bluetooth support is even better in 9.10 than it has been in previous releases. For one thing, Bluetooth printers are automatically detected by the Printing Configuration process, which makes getting them connected much easier than it was previously. Connecting my HP Officejet h470 printer was a breeze this time, and as with mice, once it has been connected, it will automatically reconnect when Ubuntu restarts. By the way, if you don't intend to use any Bluetooth devices, you can save a tiny bit of screen space by right-clicking on the Bluetooth icon, choose Preferences, and un-check the Show Icon box.
When you install Ubuntu, during the user definition you can specify if you want the user to be automatically logged in on boot. If you change your mind about this setting after installation, you can change it by going to System/Administration/Login Screen.
So, with these changes I have ended up with what I consider to be a very usable netbook desktop for the standard Ubuntu distribution. I think it is good for experienced users, who know their way around and don't need to have everything spread open in front of them all the time. Next up, I'll take a look at the Karmic Netbook Remix, and see what has been done to make Ubuntu even more user friendly on netbooks.
jw 4/11/2009
Tuesday 3 November 2009, 6:15 PM
Mobile Security Profile: BlackBerry Storm2
Mobile Security Profile: BlackBerry Storm2
Author: Eric Everson
BlackBerry handsets are a staple of office culture; from syncing calendars to sharing business-related data, the BlackBerry handsets are seemingly everywhere you look around the office. Most recently BlackBerry introduced the Storm2, a second generation touchscreen handset into the market. As the resident mobile security guru, I wanted to take a deeper look at this handset to gauge its real mobile security profile in the corporate environment.
As mobile handsets have become ubiquitous within the business environment, significant levels of proprietary business data has migrated from the security of the computer-based environment into the vulnerable setting of the mobile handset. Simply put, mobile devices have become the weakest link in enterprise security, which is something that the BlackBerry Storm2 does little to address. In fact, the security specifications detailed at BlackBerry.com for the Storm 2 merely include two features: Password protection and Screen lock.
Like every BlackBerry the Storm2 should come with a barebones version of The BlackBerry Enterprise Solution. The BlackBerry Enterprise Solution is a platform that can be purchased “with corporate data security in mind.” (BlackBerry.com; 2009) Essentially this is a security software offering that allows businesses to decide how much mobile security they are willing to pay for rather than a one size fits all security platform. There are pros and cons to this model, but it does allow a tailored approach for enterprise mobile security which many IT professionals enjoy.
If you are looking for a hacker-proof handset, the Storm 2 is built on the BlackBerry OS 5.0 MOPS (Mobile Operating System), which introduces the vulnerability that JavaScript has been enabled by default in the Internet browser. While no direct threat has been identified that exploits this feature, it is a prospective area of concern. From the standpoint of a standard (non-enterprise) user the security features of the Storm 2 will likely be sufficient.
If you’re simply looking for a new handset, many of the business/enterprise users of BlackBerry handsets will likely not find the Storm 2 as an adequate replacement for a handset such as the BlackBerry Tour. Some users have already reported less battery life than what is found on the Tour and many new users of the Storm 2 have complained that the audible clicks from using the touchscreen cannot be silenced. For anyone who “multitasks” on the BlackBerry while in meetings is sure to find the audible clicks as a serious annoyance.
Personally, I love the Storm 2 as a personal handset, but compared to the Tour (or other similar BlackBerry models), the Storm 2 is no enterprise handset. In short, Storm 2 is good for home but not so much for the office. On the bright side, the security profile of the Storm 2 can be tailored to fit the needs of the enterprise environment to the same degree as any other BlackBerry model.
Eric Everson is a leader in mobile technologies and is the founder of MyMobiSafe.com. If you would like to contact Eric Everson for interview or with consulting related inquiries contact him directly at EricEverson@Hotmail.com
Ref: http://na.blackberry.com/eng/devices/blackberrystorm/storm_specifications.jsp
Tuesday 3 November 2009, 5:19 PM
Series 60 phones get Google voice search
Google has released a version of its voice search application for users of Symbian Series 60 handsets.
Series 60 is mostly used in Nokia smartphones such as the E71 but also in some handsets from other manufacturers such as Sony Ericsson. Based on Symbian, it is one of the most popular smartphone platforms in the world.
On Monday, Google software engineer Elke Michlmayr wrote that many Series 60 handsets that do not have Qwerty keypads would benefit from having the free location-aware app.
"The new version of Google Mobile App places a shortcut to Google search on your Nokia phone's home screen, allowing you to search using your voice or by typing," Michlmayr wrote. "You can search for anything — from 'movie times', to 'fish 'n chips', to 'masala dosa'. It doesn't matter if you're in London or Bangalore: we'll use your location to give you nearby results."
The new Google Mobile App also recognises Mandarin Chinese for the first time — Series 60 users will be the first to benefit from this addition, although Android and iPhone users may also get this functionality in time.
Michlmayr also noted that the app would only work, for now, on handsets running S60 3rd Edition — so, not for users of the Nokia N97 or Sony Ericsson Satio, both of which use the 5th edition of S60.
Tuesday 3 November 2009, 3:30 PM
Gyration Air Mouse
Mice fascinate me. I don’t mean the little furry mammals, though actually they do fascinate me. In this context I mean computer mice. I’ve a bit of a thing about trying different types of mouse, and the latest to hit the desk is Gyration’s Air Mouse.
This is an ordinary looking cordless mouse and it works in an ordinary looking cordless mouse way. Plug the provided dongle into a USB port, hit its Connect button, hit the Connect button on the mouse, and you are in business.
But there’s more. This is one of those mice that you can wave about in the air. There’s a trigger button on its underside and if you hold this down while waving the mouse around you can move the cursor and left and right click.
In addition to the main large mouse buttons there are three programmable buttons sitting just beneath the scroll wheel. Two are simple tap buttons, the third you hold down to swipe the mouse in eight directions. To programme these and two shake control functions you need to install some software, and here I hit a snag. I was installing the mouse on a netbook without an optical drive. Copying the installation file to a USB stick was no bother, though.
The range of activities you can attach to the button presses, swipes and shakes is vast. They include launching software or issuing commands within applications, actions like image capture, zooming and opening the display configuration, and functions like closing windows, cut, copy and paste.
If the variety here is not enough you can set up screen hotspots to trigger actions. There are eight in all – the four screen edges and the four screen corners. And you can even invoke an Alt, Shift, Ctrl or Windows based keystroke combination.
And yes, all those options work both when the mouse is on the table and when it is wielded in mid air.
The Gyration Air Mouse is designed for both left and right handed users. On the desk I had no trouble at all with it. However in the air I found holding down the ‘trigger’ button on the underside was fine for cursor movement and using the two large mouse buttons, and for the shake controls. The smaller three programmable buttons were a bit tricky to reach though.
Gyration has second guessed this potential problem, and you can double click the trigger button to force the mouse into ‘motion mode’ so you don’t have to hold it down. This makes things a whole lot easier.
I am ready to pack the Gyration Air Mouse in its little travelling pouch and take it with me next time I work away from the office. I want to see the look of amazement on the faces of those on the train when I start waving my mouse in the air.
The Air Mouse costs £85 if you buy it online from Gyration.
Tuesday 3 November 2009, 1:33 PM
That's how they did it: VAIO X Series uses Sandisk
When I picked up the ultra-thin Sony VAIO X this summer, I actually did a double-take; it was so light I had a momentary impression that local gravity had failed. It was so light, when I went to pick it up I ended up jerking it into the air because I'd expected something twice the weight. That was a prototype sample, so I have yet to find out if the shipping model is quite that unfeasibly light in my hands, and I'll need to take it on the road with me to see if it's robust enough for a life of travel- but this is what I expect an Atom netbook to be. It's got an 11" LED screen, and despite being only 13mm thick (including the screen) it has VGA and Ethernet ports and while the keys don't travel very far, the feet underneath (which are mainly there to improve the airflow) also give you a nice typing angle. I'm not normally a fan of 'chiclet' keyboards with widely separated keys but I found I was typing more accurately on this than on the average netbook.
Sandisk dropped me a mail this morning to say they're part of the anti-gravity effect. Their 64GB pSSD weighs 7 grammes. 7 grammes! That's the same as a silver cufflink,an MVS-HF LONG RANGE rocket transmitter,a 2.5mm jack plug or two paperclips (according to a quick Bing search). An egg weighs 50g. While we're at it, a chocolate bar, a bottle of shampoo and a Psion Revo PDA all weigh around 200g, as I remember Stephen Fry noting at the Revo launch. The whole Sony VAIO weighs 13 eggs or as we usually put it, 655g for the very lightest version (presumably with the Sandisk SSD) or 780g if you go for the meatier model with a 256GB Samsung SSD instead (Sandisk tops out at 64GB).
The prototype I was flinging around had a 4 cell battery, which Sony promised 7 or 8 hours from, and weighed 600g (oddly, even with a 128GB SSD). Clip on a slab the size - and probably the weight - of the machine itself and Sony says the 8-cell battery will take you up to 16 or 20 hours on the go.
You pay for the portability; prices are north of £1,200, which is high for an Atom processor. But what you pay for is pretty amazing portability - and when the high end is this light, expect a lot of only-a-bit-heavier models at a more reasonable price. My back thanks you...
-Mary
Monday 2 November 2009, 8:30 AM
Adobe Reader in the Enterprise
This week I had the pleasure of working with some of the Microsoft Premier Field Engineers (PFE's) in an effort to further understand some of the application compatibility issues that might occur when sequencing for Microsoft App-V (formerly SoftGrid).
Quickly, the topic turned to compatibility issues surrounding Folder Redirection as this appeared to pose a serious compatibility problem for Adobe.
A quick scan of the web, raised a number of forum posting where numerous IT personnel could not get Acrobat or Reader 9 deployed to C# debugging and "file not found" issues.
For a few samples look here:
http://thinmaillist.blogspot.com/2008/08/thin-re-watch-out-with-adobe-acrobat_9472.html
http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.59b5c03a
It looks like there were some pretty drastic solution paths explored here, especially for Citrix deployments. Yikes... I am really glad that I don't have to do this stuff anymore...
Before I dive too deep into the Adobe deployment problems, let's have a little introduction to Microsoft's Folder Redirection .
The idea of re-directing user local data folders onto the network was introduced with Windows XP and is defined as, "the automated re-routing of I/O (operations) from local standard folders to use a different, storage elsewhere on the network". Translated, this means that some standard user folders (i.e. My Pictures, My Documents) are redirected to store your files on a network server. This greatly increases the chances that your files (and Pictures) will get backed up in the laptop being nicked or knackered.
Windows Vista uses folder re-direction on the following directories; Contacts, Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Favorites, Music, Videos, Pictures, Searches, AppData, Links, Saved Games.
If your browser has a spell checker AppData would appear with a red underline, which is appropriate as the AppData folder is one which caused us and to my great surprise, Adobe quite a lot of trouble.
Through our trouble-shooting exercise it became Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9 were attempting to write user specific data to the AppData folder. This is fine and according to the Microsoft logo application development specifications, this is OK.
So, in an enterprise environment, a user will logon to their desktop or laptop and if their IT department has done their job, the AppData folder will be redirected to something like; \\servername\region\department\username\AppData
And, here is the big issue. As folder re-direction takes place prior to logon- the user will not have any mapped drives. So, the fully qualified path to the final resting place on the target server for AppData will be a UNC path.
Hint: It will be a UNC path.
As you can probably guess where I am going here;
Adobe Acrobat 9 and Adobe Reader can not store their AppData files onto a UNC path. After a little debugging through their code, it appears that there is a failure to "read from left to right" and correctly parse the full path.
Hence, the file not found, app crashes and C# debugger errors that present themselves to users upon application start-up.
So, I did little more digging and loading Flash and version 6,7 and 8 of Adobe Reader. All of these packages use the redirected folder "AppData" in the same way - and I am sure that they will experience the same issue.
I will write more on the Adobe issues in forthcoming posts. And, there will be plenty to write about as it looks like there are over 400 application level conflicts between Adobe Reader 9 and Acrobat 9.
References:
Folder Redirection has a brief mention here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folder_redirection
Thursday 29 October 2009, 5:09 PM
HTC Hero to get Android Eclair, skip Donut
HTC's Hero handset will be upgraded to Android 2.0 at some point, the manufacturer has confirmed.
A tweet from the company's official account late on Wednesday read: "The rumors are true! Hero will be getting an Eclair update. We ask for your patience as we update Sense for the fancy new Android OS."
Android 2.0, the so-called 'Eclair' revision of Google's open source mobile operating system, introduces a refreshed user interface, Bluetooth-based peer-to-peer connectivity and native Exchange support.
European Hero users will not, however, get the 'Donut' revision of Android, also known as version 1.6. In an email sent to a customer by HTC, the company said: "The Hero will not be receiving the Android 1.6 upgrade, it will however get the 2.0 one".
When a new version of Android is released, manufacturers such as HTC then integrate the new version into their own customised implementations of the OS. The result then often goes to the operator so branding and operator-specific functionality can be added.
Donut is currently being rolled out over-the-air to users of 'Google experience' phones such as the T-Mobile G1 and HTC Magic. However, these handsets do not have the HTC Sense user interface skin, so it is likely that HTC has simply decided to skip Donut because Eclair — which has already appeared on Motorola's Droid handset — is itself almost ready for a wide rollout.
The HTC Hero, not being a Google experience handset, has to receive firmware upgrades through being connected to a PC via USB cable. This requires a wipe of the old OS version and reinstallation of all user settings and applications, so skipping Donut might make life easier for Hero users after all.
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