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Google is now responsible for your Wi-Fi Security

March 14, 2013 By Gary Leave a Comment

It now appears that if you are a technical neofite, Google has the legal responsibility to teach you how to properly configure your home router.

This all stems from an incident in which the famous “Google Car” (of which there are several) which drives around and takes pictures of your streets for the street view of Google Maps apparently was fitted with a device to also sniff out unprotected WiFi networks. Google claims that the decision to do this was made by engineer acting completely on his own. Nevertheless, it happened and if your home or church WiFi network is unprotected AND your street is mapped, chances are Google knows about your network.

Google apparently settled out of court, but according to an article in the New York Times:

The new settlement, which requires Google to set up a privacy program within six months, is more specific. Among its requirements, Google must hold an annual privacy week event for employees. It also must make privacy certification programs available to select employees, provide refresher training for its lawyers overseeing new products and train its employees who deal with privacy matters.

Several provisions involve outreach. Google must create a video for YouTube explaining how people can easily encrypt their data on their wireless networks and run a daily online ad promoting it for two years. It must run educational ads in the biggest newspapers in the 38 participating states, which besides Connecticut also include New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, California, Ohio and Texas.

Hard to believe that Google would be able to cram any more activities into that festive holiday season that we all know and cherish: “Privacy Week”. But, it looks like they will now be legally required to do so. I don’t know about you, but this is the kind of thing that drives me nuts and makes me glad to be out of the “corporate” world. And, really, is it Google’s fault that people don’t know enough to protect their networks? I think not.

On the other hand, what was the guy who decided to sniff out unprotected WiFi networks thinking? What possible value would that have to Google? For a punishment, he should be made to sit in the corner and wear a tall, pointy hat (calling it a dunce cap is probably politically incorrect).

I know that I am mostly talking to tech people here who already know this, but just in case, the lesson here:

You should have your main wireless network protected with at the very least, WPA security.

If you have a really old router, it may only have WEP security and if that is the case, go spend $30 and get a new router with WPA. WEP is really just a little better than nothing. Or, you can just wait for the Google Movie (just kidding … do it now)!

I plan to do an article in the near future regarding security of your network in a church setting. This would also be applicable to a home network. Stay tuned!

Chromebook Review – Part 3

February 24, 2013 By Gary Leave a Comment

Chromebook 3G with Dell Bluetooth Travel Mouse

It’s time to put the wraps on the Chromebook review. After 3 months of using in the real world, I can say that this is a great little machine.

To recap some of the information from the past reviews:

I have two of these machines: One for me (tech guy) and one for the wonderful woman is my wife, and to whom God did not bless with much in the way of computer skills. I always grab on to new technology quickly, but I figured that if my wife liked it, that is something to take note of.
My machine has 3G, and, as all 3G Chromebooks, it came with a 2 year contract for 3G service from Verizon (100Mb / Month). My wife’s system is the wifi-only version.
I purchased a bluetooth mouse. I used the wireless mouse from my wife’s old notebook (which is a Logitech Keyboard and Mouse Combo) on her Chromebook.
I actually took my wife’s Dell notebook away from her and replaced it with the Chromebook. She uses it every day for browsing the web, facebook, etc.
I have a plethora of computers and the Chromebook for me is just another in my arsenal. I use it places I would use my iPad, but want to have a keyboard. (I do have a keyboard for my iPad … but it still is kind of clunky to use).

Now for the results:

In a word, SUCCESS! Samsung has put together a great little system in a small package that is great for web browsing and just about any other task that doesn’t require local computing. If this was your own computer, you might be a bit apprehensive about using Google Apps (instead of Microsoft Office), but remember … it’s free! Unless you are doing a lot of sophisticated tasks with office, Google Apps will work just fine for you.

In addition, don’t forget that you get 100gb of cloud storage with your Chromebook, so you can store documents to your heart’s content. This 100gb of storage (via Google Drive) is available to the Chromebook similarly to a hard drive, but it is also available to all of your other computers as well. If you have used DropBox, you will know how to use it. The Google Drive Icon shows up on the explorer under “My Documents” and acts just like locally connected storage. You have to “sign up” for it to have the 100gb turned on, but what a deal this is. After the two years are up, you can either pay the monthly fee to continue with the 100gb of storage or you can just continue to access what you have put out there (you won’t be able to add to the google drive (assuming you have more than 5gb on it by then … which is the amount of free space everyone gets with Google Drive).

Chromebook for the Non-technical user

This machine is great for non-techies. My wife loves this machine. It does almost everything she ever does. The one thing that she hasn’t been able to do is to print some coupons from a coupon site which requires that you install some software on your computer. This doesn’t work because it requires local execution. Frankly, as a tech guy, I’m not wild about that anyway, but it is something she used to do that she can’t do now.

The other thing that hasn’t been great is the mouse. I took the USB dongle for the keyboard/mouse combo and plugged it in to the Chrome Book. It works, but it is really slow and unresponsive. I plan to replace it with a bluetooth mouse soon (read about my experience with the Chrome Book and Bluetooth mouse below).

I have her connected to our home “network printer” via Google Print. Once set up, it gives her trouble-free printing, just as if she was printing from her notebook.

From a technical support standpoint, I love this machine. Despite anti-virus software and training on what to do and not to do when surfing the web, her Windows notebook would inevitably get virus and malware programs that would slow her system to a crawl. About every 6 months, I would have to back stuff up, wipe the hard drive and reinstall windows and her other programs. This was a real pain … and it will never happen with the Chromebook!

Chromebook for the technical user

This machine is also great for techies. I love taking this with me to a meeting, using it on the couch or just playing with it. The other day, I took it to the dealership when I got my oil changed and used it in the customer lounge. It was perfect for that. Since it has 3G, I can take it anywhere and be on the internet. You can do a lot on this little machine even when it isn’t on-line (word processing, spread sheets, etc), but lets face it … it’s made to browse the web. I could see using it on an airplane in off-line mode on occasion, but I wouldn’t want to do it on a regular basis (though in all fairness, I haven’t used it off-line extensively).

The keyboard is good, but if I was going to use it a lot, I’d want a regular keyboard, just as I do for my notebooks.

As I have said in previous articles and previously in this post, I have a bluetooth mouse that is connected to my Chromebook. It works well, though some times when the computer “wakes up”, it doesn’t connect with the mouse. The track pad is also quite usable … I use the “two finger drag down” when surfing the web, and it works great.

Summary

Honestly, for what these machines cost, I don’t know why anyone would buy an iPad or a notebook. Google and Samsung have put together a winning package that has VALUE written all over it. When you look at the features of these systems and initial cost, there is no way to beat them. Oh, and I almost forgot … they look GREAT! The are thin, small and silver. Think Mac Air thin. While they don’t have the feel of metal like the Mac Air (because they are plastic), you are also getting them for about $1000 less than the Mac Air.

The WiFi-Only version of the Samsung Chromebook comes with:

16gb Local Storage
100Gb Cloud Storage
WiFi (802.11 a/b/g)
Bluetooth
Productivity Apps (like Word processing, spreadsheet, etc) via Google Apps
Price: $250 (Buy it from Amazon here)

The 3G version of the Samsung Chromebook comes with:

16gb Local Storage
100Gb Cloud Storage
2 years of 100Mb 3G service from Verizon
WiFi (802.11 a/b/g)
Bluetooth
Productivity Apps (as above)
Price: $403.95 (Buy it from Amazon here)

This is the way that things are going … mark my words. At the present time, only Acer and Samsung make Chromebooks. I wouldn’t be surprised to see some other manufacturer sign up to produce Chromebooks in the future. Right now, the 300 Series Chromebook that Samsung makes are hard to get. They sell out as soon as they come in … and there are limited places where they can be purchased. If you see one and they have it in stock, better buy it!

Chromebook Review – Part 2

January 9, 2013 By Gary Leave a Comment

I am continuing my long-term testing and usage of my new Chromebook. Last week I talked about general usability and noted that in general, there are no usability issues. The Samsung Chromebook 300 series is a nice little package that is great to carry around, good battery life and feels pretty much just like a regular notebook … only smaller. Just for your edification, I thought I would provide you a picture of my chromebook next to my iPad for size comparison sake.

So, what about those longer-term issues? Those little things you find only after using for a month?

As I mentioned in my earlier post, I also bought one of these little babies for my wife. She is a heavy computer user, but technically, well … let’s just say you would not classify her as a savvy user. She utilizes her computer 95% of the time for email and web browsing. Anything that is slightly out of the ordinary will bring her to a grinding halt. One of the motivations for me to get her one of these machines is that she has a tendency to attract viruses and malware which slow her machine down very quickly. I am then forced to backup, reformat her drive, reinstall the O/S and put all of her “stuff” back on. By the way, this happens even with the latest and greatest Anti-virus software installed.

So, I replaced her Dell 1501 Notebook with this Samsung Chromebook 300 Series. There were several things that I wasn’t sure would go over well, so here is a run down of those items:

Screen Size: Her old notebook had a 15″ screen … the new Chromebook, only an 11″ screen. I have asked her several times how she feels about the smaller screen. In general, I get the impression that she hasn’t even noticed that it is smaller. Her only complaint was that the screen is “too bright”, which we took care of by adjusting the brightness settings using the controls on the top row of the keyboard.
Keyboard Size: She had taken to using a separate full-sized keyboard and mouse with her old notebook. This was primarily because she had trouble with the touch pad on the Dell getting in the way when she was typing. I was concerned that the same thing might be an issue with the chromebook. Well, after nearly a month of use, she hasn’t mentioned the touch pad being an issue once! Wow! This really kind of surprised me.
Mouse: As mentioned above, she has used a mouse with her notebook previously. She had a nice Logitech Keyboard/Mouse combo that worked great with a single USB dongle on her notebook. We didn’t move the keyboard to the chromebook, but I thought I might as well put the mouse on the notebook with the dongle. That hasn’t worked out as well. The mouse works, but it is really slow. There is no adjustment software on the chromebook and no way to put a mouse driver from logitech on there, so it looks like down the road, I will have to buy a bluetooth mouse and pitch the logitech dongle. As I said in the earlier review, I have a bluetooth mouse on my chromebook and it works great.
Differences in operation (No more outlook, etc): This was initially something she complained about, but she has gotten use to Gmail pretty quickly and I haven’t heard any complaints in a couple of weeks. I will say though, that Gmail is not the “prettiest” email client out there. For all the nice looking things the Google does, I am surprised that Gmail is as “plain jane” as it is. I’m sure they could do better.
Other: One of the things to keep in mind with a chromebook is that it is a browser … nothing else. If you want to run something that doesn’t run in a browser, you are out of luck. So I was surprised when I found that one application my wife used which came from (of all places) COUPONS.COM did not work on the Chromebook. It seems that they actually install an application (either Mac or PC) on your system for printing purposes. We have a network printer installed (via Google CloudPrint/Google Groups) and it works fine, but COUPONS.COM doesn’t seem to want to use that. It has something to do with the fact that they don’t want you printing out unlimited coupons (OK, OK). But, now that she has a Chromebook, she is no longer able to use that site … at least not from her Chromebook.

That is a rundown of the things that I anticipated might be issues. And this little machine comes out looking pretty good at that!

One thing I hadn’t anticipated that ended up being a positive is that it is such a small and easily transportable device, that she ends up carrying it around the house much more than she ever would have done with her notebook. The Chromebook is probably 1/5 the weight of her old notebook. I came into the kitchen the other day and she had it setting on the counter while she was making cookies. Rather than writing down or printing out a recipe, she just carried the CB over to the counter and used it as a portable recipe file. Pretty cool. I have also caught her in various other locations in the house with the system on her lap rather than being where she always parked her notebook (on the kitchen table).

We have also utilized the built-in web cam to do video conferencing via “Google Hangouts”, which is really pretty cool! Skype isn’t available (again, doesn’t run in a browser), but I like Google Hangouts even better than Skype, so if you haven’t tried that yet … you should … even if you don’t have a Chromebook!

She loves this new computer. And, to paraphrase the old saying: “When Mamma’s happy, everybody is happy!”. Ok, that isn’t quite the saying, but you get the idea.

That about wraps it up for this installment of the Chromebook Review. I will have one more segment, which will be focused on my experiences with the Chromebook from a long-term perspective.