With summer in full swing, many of us are traveling to the mainland and foreign destinations for vacations and business. Along with our toothbrushes, clothes and other traveling essentials, we are bringing our internet-enabled mobile devices such as smartphones and laptops. Read more
Social media is a profound development in our culture. It keeps families and friends in touch, but, as we all know, there’s a dark side which entails bullying, fraud and a vehicle for extremist groups. Read more
The advent of the smartphone has created a state of “always online” in which many folks live today. Always connected, information readily at your fingertips, always reachable. While this situation has its pros and cons, the fact is that many people have become used to this condition as a way of life. Nowadays it is easy to maintain this state virtually anywhere in the U.S. What, then, is one to do when traveling abroad? Read more
If I were to choose a word that encapsulates the focus of the cybersecurity industry for the last two years, it would be “encryption.” However, the boon in increased encryption has created new challenges for enterprises. Read more
Business-oriented social networking site LinkedIn recently disclosed that its 2012 hacking episode affected 117 million users instead of the original estimate of 6.5 million. Chances are good that if you have a LinkedIn account, your password was compromised. Even more chilling is a report that these passwords have been put up for sale by nefarious characters on the Web. What, then, can you do to protect yourself against such evildoers? Read more
Virtual reality has been with us since 1987 when American computer philosophy writer Jaron Lanier first coined the term. VR research continued into the 1990s, but the technology never got much traction until recently. Read more
With hurricane season coming up, and the ever-present threat of tsunamis and earthquakes around the Pacific Rim, folks are always concerned about their information systems. Businesses and government agencies, large and small, need to be prepared for such disasters. Read more
A recent study analyzing cybersecurity education at top American universities found that none of the top 10 computer science programs requires cybersecurity as a course for graduation. This means that thousands of computer experts who will be building our future technology might have no formal cybersecurity training. Read more
Is solar still a good deal? As we now know, as of last October, no new applicants to Hawaiian Electric Co.’s net energy metering, or NEM, program will be accepted. Read more
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A few days ago I was the recipient of a polite email from a doctoral candidate at a reputable journalism school. This email asked me to participate in a survey regarding the effects of social media on newsrooms. From this innocuous message, a trail of nearly 50 replies indicated a clear ignorance of the “opt-out” function. Read more
The ongoing legal battle between the FBI and Apple has highlighted an information security capability that experts have advocated for years to be implemented in their enterprises: data encryption. Encryption protects readable data by converting it into data that cannot be understood without authorization or a special key. Read more
At the start of the year we try to summarize where we think things are going in the tech world. So what do I think readers should know about for 2016? Read more
A few weeks ago we ran into a client who stated that he needed to achieve the holy grail of system uptime, commonly known as the “five 9s.” This descriptive phrase is derived from the figure of 99.999 percent. If your goal is five 9s, this means that your system stays up and running 99.999 percent of the time. Ultimately, though, this client had to settle for something less as five 9s was outside of his budget. Read more
As data breaches become more common, we tend to pay less attention when we hear about hackers stealing millions of records containing sensitive personal and financial information. It’s becoming just another news story. Read more
Utility software applications are ubiquitous. Some, however, are indispensable. I would argue the PDF (Portable Document Format) is one of them. Introduced in the early 1990s by Adobe Corp., PDF has become an industry standard. Read more
In recent weeks, video of car wrecks, road rage, poor driving and even plane crashes has made the rounds in society. Such footage is often captured by a dashboard camera (dashcam for short), which is a small camera mounted inside one’s windshield. The primary selling point of a dashcam is to protect you in case of an accident in which you were not at fault. What, then, are the features to look for in such a unit? Read more
Last year there was a lot of hype around the term “cybersecurity intelligence” from information security service providers and consultants. Behind this buzz were substantive government actions that were intended to increase the sharing of intelligence on cyberthreats between the private industry and federal agencies. Read more
A weak wireless signal is a common conundrum, experienced by businesses, government agencies and residences small and large. A once strong signal can get weak as the result of a recent expansion, relocation, interference or other factors. What, then, can folks do to improve the performance of their wireless networks? Read more
Are you looking to add extra security to some of your online accounts? If yes, you may want to consider multifactor authentication, or MFA, options. Read more
In a recent column I related the saga of Honolulu entrepreneur Ho‘ala Greevy, who moved to San Francisco to get his startup Paubox traction on the mainland. Not all companies have to leave Hawaii to be successful. Read more
As anyone who’s ever used a personal computer for more than a few months can attest, machines slow down. While some performance problems are unavoidable, one of the biggestissues nowadays is referred to as “bloat.” The good news is that most folks are capable of combating this on their own. Read more
