Small Business Tech

Not long after an initial test of eEye Security's Blink personal computer security software, I received an email from Morey Haber, VP for Product Management at eEye...

Thank you very much for taking the time to review Blink. I am the VP for Product Management at eEye and would like to know what version of Blink you performed this review on ?
The latest version, Blink 3.2, does not suffer from the firewall prompting issues you described and when a permanent rule is created (check box in the prompt), the prompt is presented once and the entire application is trusted.
In addition, the application has its grass roots in many enterprise businesses and government and has a mature client base in these segments. The consumer or personal market is a new initiative for us and the newer releases have simplified the experience for clients and overcome these anomalies.
A free one year version is available from our website. http://www.eeye.com
Thank you very much for your time and I hope you will take a second look at out latest release.
Sincerely,
eEye Digital Security Product Management

I did take Mr. Haber's advice to download and try the newer version 3.2 of Blink. I had tried a early version of the software in my first review.

I began by visiting the eEye Blink site. The registration and download process is very easy, quick, and unobtrusive. Remember that this is a one-year license. Ostensibly after one year you will need to purchase the product. That is much better than many of the Norton's and McAfee's that only offer three month trials. I liked a few of features of the installation including...

• Privacy policy is short and well-written. Nothing alarming there.
• Allows user to select installation path
• Reminds to check Windows Update for latest patches
• No reboot necessary
  

The application immediately seeks to download an update once it is running. It then begins to ask about the behavior of many application in your computer that connect to the internet. I vividly remember that Windows Media and Skype made frequent appearances.

It features a control panel that is strikingly similar to Microsoft Window's own control panel. You can pick a program component and choose a simple on/off option or dig deeper for many options.

A check of system resource usage still shows an impressive low amount of memory and CPU cycle usage. This is refreshing compared to Blink's bloated counterparts from Symantec and McAfee.

I was still frustrated with the repeated asking of permission for applications to access the internet. I would make a couple of recommendations to Blink's developers. By default have Blink's application firewall ask about each application versus asking for each port requested by each application. This can lead to what appears to the untrained eye as several requests for the same application. The other recommendation would be for Blink to create a permanent rule by default. It took me a couple of attempts to authorize Skype before I checked the "permanent rule" check mark.

Overall, I would recommend this product for the home user. The part of this software that still differentiates it from it's competitors is that it is proactively looking for bad software or malware behavior instead of just comparing to a list of known viruses and spyware. It removes the zero-day attack hysteria that strikes the IT community frequently.

Labels: Blink, eEye, mcafee, norton, Patches, virus

I posted earlier this year speculating that Google would add presentation software to their portfolio of tools. It has arrived. You can now create documents, spreadsheets, or presentations in the now named Google Docs. The presentation software is also available for Google Apps customers as well.

I briefly tried out the interface. It works very well. Very impressive for a web application. The near-instant ability to share the presentation online is also a big plus for users. It is very difficult to share a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation online without additional software.

You can view the official Google blog post.

Labels: Google, Office, presentation, software

Here is a good blog from someone who has ordered and plans on using the Zonbu computer day-to-day. http://mrzonbu.wordpress.com/

Labels: family, Linux, thin client

The Zonbu computer that I first reported about in May is finally available. I had hoped that the price would be lower so that it would be more accessible to everyone. They do offer a variety of monthly service plans that range from free to $19.99 per month. The higher cost plans if they are paid at sign-up for two years do offer up to $150 rebate on the hardware. That leads to a cost range from $249.00 for the basic plan for life up to $517.95 for the best plan for two years. You can try out different combinations very easily and quickly see the cost on the Zonbu web site.

A month ago I would have whole heartily recommended this computer to a family or light computer user. Since I have seen the possibility of a $199 notebook computer from Asus, I am somewhat hesitant to recommend Zonbu. Possibly Zonbu will lower their hardware costs when and if the Asus notebook hits the street for $199.

Labels: kids, Linux, thin client

Blink by eEye Security

Blink is a complete computer security product by eEye Security. eEye Security is a corporate security company that is well-known for researching and reporting vulnerabilities in Microsoft products. For some time they have build security appliances and software geared towards corporate customers. They are now pursuing the small business and home user market with their Blink product. I initially heard about the product on Leo Laporte and Steve Gibson's Security Now podcast interview with Marc Maiffret.

I signed up for the free version that is available for personal use. I installed it on a Windows XP Service Pack 2 computer and registered the product as required. This program follows the convention of other home use security products from McAfee and Norton. This is a not a good thing. Once the program is installed it immediately locks down any access into and out of the computer. It then asks what should have access. It then continues to ask and ask again. This behavior is frustrating and I think counter-productive. Most people get concerned or frustrated and begin to just begin clicking yes or no repeatedly. That does not enhance security and ultimately leaves the computer broken in the eyes of the user.

I could recommend this software for some computer users. Most namely those that do "typical" things with their computer such as kids or casual home users. This software is not intended and should not be used on business computers. Business and power users are going to quickly become frustrated with the many broken abilities when this software locks down the firewall and shared access. I should note that this software is intended by eEye for home users.

The software did uninstall without any caveats. That is more than what can be said for other competing products.

My initial reason for being interested in this software is the way that it uniquely observes behavior of software on your computer. Instead of just having a list of known viruses and spyware, Blink also looks for offending behavior that would not be performed by normal software. I was unable to keep the software long enough to find out how well this worked, because I became frustrated too quickly in trying to use it.

My recommendations for malware and virus protection software remain the same. For home users I recommend AVG anti-virus which is available for free. For protection again malware such as spyware I recommend the free Microsoft Defender. For business users I recommend the McAfee Managed Total Protection.

Labels: eEye, mcafee, norton, security, spyware, virus

Google to Bid on 700 MHz Frequency Spectrum

First a bit of history. Over-the-air broadcast television uses three different blocks of frequencies. Fortunately, someone was very bright many years ago to just use channel numbers. Otherwise you would say that The Office is on 55.25 MHz every Thursday evening. Initially, television frequencies were going to be licensed well into the 800 MHz range(Channel 83). That space eventually became cellular telephone and emergency communications spectrum. Because there are relatively few television stations compared to the number of available channels, the FCC has decided that the stations could be squeezed into a smaller number of channels. Any station currently broadcasting on stations 55 to 69 are being moved to lower channel numbers. At the same time the stations can convert to digital to enhance our viewing pleasure with high-definition television. That is why you see the big push for HDTV. Television stations currently broadcast on their new channels and old channels. As of February 2009, they will exclusively broadcast on their digital channels.

Ultimately, the FCC is going to auction off these empty frequencies for wireless services and make billions of dollars of revenue for the federal government. You now see why the government has gotten behind this move. It is not so that I can watch Maria Sharapova in the U.S. Open in high definition.

These frequencies are in high-demand by many carriers, companies, and interests. The reason is that the lower the frequency the easier it is for a signal to penetrate buildings and other obstructions. These frequencies are much lower than current wireless telephone spectrum.

It was conventional wisdom that the big wireless providers such as Verizon and AT&T would be involved in the auction. The surprise is that Google also wants to be involved in the auction. Google did approach the FCC with some requirements including that the spectrum would be "open applications, open devices, open networks, and open services". FCC has agreed to most of Google's demands, so it looks like they will be involved in the auction slated for January 16, 2008. Google and the other bidders will need to post 4.6 billion dollars each for the right to bid on the one of 1,099 licenses.

What does Google plan to do with the spectrum if they win some licenses in the auction? No one outside of Google seems to know. There is much speculation that they could get into the Internet service provider business or even the wireless telephone business. We will have to wait and see.

Labels: 700 MHz, Cellular, Google, wireless

Asus To Release a Line of Gap Bridging Computers

I use a notebook computer along with a couple of different desktop computers. My notebook is really nothing more than a conduit to the web. I really have nothing stored on the hard drive. It is used to access other desktop computers and my Internet services such as Google Apps and such. A small notebook computer without a hard drive would be perfect for me, and I believe many others out there.

Fortunalty, Asus has seen the need. During a recent speech by Intel's Executive VP Shawn Maloney he invited Jonney Shih of Asus to unveil the Eee PC. The thrust of this debut was to offer computing power to poorer regions of the world, but I also believe it would be a boon to computer users anywhere. With more and more applications being hosted on the Internet, it makes less sense to carry a full-featured and expensive notebook computer.

The promised features include 512 MB of memory, flash-based storage (no hard drive), built in wi-fi, and a 7 or 10 inch screen. They are capable of running Windows XP, but really do best using stripped down versions of Linux. They are strongly promoting the ease of use and the low cost of the two models. They are supposed to start at $199 and $299.

You can read more details in this Asus press release. We will continue to watch developments and announcements from Asus.

Labels: Asus, notebook computer