Archive for August 20, 2014

Rogers, Bell, Telus Offer BlackBerry Z30 For $0 On A 2 Year Contract

Posted in Commentary with tags , , , on August 20, 2014 by itnerd

Having just come off winning an award, BlackBerry has announced that they via Rogers, Telus and Bell will be offering up the Z30 for $0 with a 2 year contract for a limited time. Now the timing likely has to do with the back to school rush. But one has to wonder if a new “Z” phone is coming or perhaps they’re making way for the Passport? Admittedly, this is my jaded blogger mind at work here and I shouldn’t talk you out of a great phone if you’re in the market for a BlackBerry. Check out my review of it if you want to see what it is capable of and then make your way to the carrier of your choice to get one.

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Heartbleed Led To Health Care Hack

Posted in Commentary with tags , on August 20, 2014 by itnerd

You might recall that I posted a story recently on a hack that led to the theft of 4.5 million patient records. Now we have the cause for the hack:

According to a blog post from TrustedSec, an information security consultancy in Ohio, the breach at Community Health Systems (CHS) is the result of attackers targeting a flaw OpenSSL, CVE-2014-0160, better known as Heartbleed.

The incident marks the first case Heartbleed has been linked to an attack of this size and type.

I find it stunning that they would not have addressed any Heartbleed related vulnerabilities in a timely manner given how much attention the flaw was given earlier this year. This is a lesson that if you’re responsible for securing your network, you have to address issues like these or bad things will happen to you. It’s also proof that we need to hold companies who choose not to address issues like these responsible.

This really isn’t going to end well for the victims of this hack.

 

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Two New Alcatel Onetouch Devices Come To Telus

Posted in Commentary with tags , on August 20, 2014 by itnerd

Telus reached out to me today to let me know that they will be the exclusive carrier for a pair of Alcatel Onetouch devices:

  • Combining innovation with affordability, the IDOL X+ is available for $0 on a two-year term with a minimum $45 monthly plan, or $350 outright. As the first smartphone in North America powered by true octa-core technology, the IDOL X+ features a 2.0GHz octa-core chipset from MediaTek, which offers the ultimate combination of performance and power efficiency for enhanced multi-tasking and more hours to enjoy movies, music and gaming. For more information on the IDOL X+, please click here.
  • The POP 8 is a wallet-friendly, spacious 8-inch tablet available for $0 through Telus’ Easy Tablet program or $240 outright. Featuring an efficient 1.3GHz quad-core processor, the POP 8 is a sleek and lightweight tablet designed for easy portability to stay connected on the go. The Android tablet is powered by a 4060mAh battery, making it great for extended movie watching and gaming. For more information on the POP 8 tablet, please click here.

I’ve asked Telus to hook me up with these devices, so watch for a review soon.

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ViewSonic Scores Top Honors In CRN 2014 Annual Report Card

Posted in Commentary with tags on August 20, 2014 by itnerd

ViewSonic announced today that it has taken top honors in the ‘Flat Panel Displays 19- to 30-inch’ category in the CRN 2014 Annual Report Card (ARC). For nearly three decades, this distinguished study has served as a benchmark for excellence throughout the IT channel, recognizing the technology vendors most highly praised by their solution provider partners.

Honorees were selected based on the results of an in-depth survey by The Channel Company’s research team. More than 2,500 solution providers were asked to evaluate their satisfaction with 81 vendor partners on each of the 18 criteria in terms of product innovation, support and partnership. The winners were honored by CRN, the top news source for solution providers and the IT channel, on August 19th, 2014, at The Channel Company’s XChange conference in San Antonio. To view the results of the study, as well as the list of this year’s ARC honorees, visit www.crn.com.

This is the second major honor for ViewSonic this week. Kudos to them as they seem to be on a roll.

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Review: Avast Free Antivirus For Mac [UPDATED – Not Recommended]

Posted in Products with tags on August 20, 2014 by itnerd

There’s lots of choice out there for Mac users who need a free antivirus product. Avast has a strong player with it’s free antivirus for Mac application. It’s simple to install once you download it. Once you install it, you’re not going to find a ton of security features like schedulers, junk cleaners, or backup utilities. Were talking about  basic protection on a local, email, and browser level. Now that’s not a bad thing as Avast has clearly decided to make this antivirus app as simple and easy to use. This sort of thinking extends to the user interface. Status updates are kept to a minimum. Periodically, Avast Free Antivirus throws a notification at you via an unobtrusive pop-up in the top right hand corner. Any options to do anything interesting exist inside the app which you get to via the menu bar icon that gets installed along with the app. In terms of scanning, it’s not the fastest antivirus app that I’ve tested. It took about 30 minutes to scan my Mac and it did find a couple of PC viruses that I had planted to test it. Importantly, it did not affect the speed of my Mac which is important as you don’t want to have your antivirus app slow you down. One handy feature is that if you have an Avast account, you can expand it to monitor any device or computer that’s been registered with that account and it will display on your Mac.

What’s my bottom line? Avast Free Antivirus is clearly designed and developed as a no-frills, quick security solution for Mac users. If you’re not a power user, you should try it out. I think you’ll like what it brings to the table.

UPDATE: I no longer recommend this product as it uses a “Man In The Middle” scheme to protect you which is extremely stupid and risky. More details here.

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