Maintainence Release Two - RIM actually have in brackets (Hotfix), must be the new RIM naming convention requirements that we no longer refer to these "patch's" as Hotfix's.
What can I say ?
Smooth install... nice and easy... you end up with a nice little version number of 4.1.4.15
Did someone mention service pack 5 ???
Should be getting my grubby little hands on the above mentioned soon... will be providing a nice indepth review when i do.
Has anyone managed to get service pack 5 yet ?
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Monday, October 1, 2007
Vodafone Compass Part 2
After the recent updates to compass the software has become more usable. Takes a while to get used to it still. Whilst on the long weekend here in Oz, I decided to give it a a good run in the car on the way to Sydney airport and back to wollongong. The device handled it well.... seems to be getting up there in the likes of tomtom etc.... it really sucks the battery, with only 30 minutes of usage burning up half the phones battery, that's including the constant connection to the BES, receiving email and phone calls....etc..
The screen was pretty hot after 10 minutes so I guess this is the reason why. A car charger is definately mandatory for this operation.
The gps even in a car door pocket managed to find about 8 satellites and was about 3 meteres acurate the whole way, so it said.
Looks good so far, can't wait for the October update.
The screen was pretty hot after 10 minutes so I guess this is the reason why. A car charger is definately mandatory for this operation.
The gps even in a car door pocket managed to find about 8 satellites and was about 3 meteres acurate the whole way, so it said.
Looks good so far, can't wait for the October update.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Mobility for Lunch anyone ???
Craig Pringle has put together a notion about chatting about Mobility...
I'll be attending .... here's the link
I'll be attending .... here's the link
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Symantec Vision 2007
I had the please of attending the Symantec Security conference last week... nice bag and some nice food and a few beers aswell :)
The speakers were well versed, with some nice unqualified comments coming out of it.
Mobiles outship PC's at a rate of 5:1. - Well ... this is a silly comment becuase we aren't exactly comparing apples to apples are we ?
We all know the threats are real and where the "New Enpoint" is in todays age.
I found it interesting that Blackberry was an official sponsor but they didn't off a product for Blackberry due to the following comment made :- "Blackberry doesn't open it's code up enough for us to provide access for us to write something to protect it" or something along those lines....
Maybe that's why it is so secure ?
Are symantec that nieve ?
They weren't even ranting about a windows mobile 6 release of there mobile AV solution.
I also found it funny that all the solutuions mentioned through the windows mobiles security suite are standard and have been standard with the Blackberry solution for years.
i.e Firewall on the client?
wow... i wish i had that in 2004... oh wait, i had a Blackber !
Symantec will see the coming of releases between symbian and windows mobile
Mobiles outship pc's 5:1
Smartphone growth 77%
Mobiles 27% growth
Mobile. Devices viruses have doubled every 6 months since 2004
80% of companies have devices on their netework but 5 and 10 percent have secure devices on their network.
Allowing to be used but not thinking about security.
Treat them as a computer
Far more connectivity
Left unprotected thew represent by far the weakest link on the entwork
All smartphones
Attacks now for financial gain
30 of top 50 exposed user data
Mobiles becoming payment methods
Becoming digital wallets and identities
Snoopware
If a phone is always with you its akways at risk
70% use their mobiles as alarm clocks
Mobile security suite 5.0 for windows mobile
over the air management is critical for devices
Anti sms spam
Whitelist blacklist
Loss mitigation
Security settings
Define card policy
Phone feature control
Vpn compatible with cisco or nortel
Allows control for nac
Verification of all nac rules and adhered to before allowing
Enterprise management
Move to versiion 11
Firewall event chart
Symbian security
Planning for smartphone usage
Sensitivity on controlling the phone
No mindset that there is a risk of anything on their device
Are we using a smart device
Rember how much time and money we spend on keeping the information secure in the data centre, we need to be the same as the phones.
Blance of education.
Roll out in stages
Make data phones as part of the end point
FIrst thing to do is to put av on the device
Protect data and protect it when lost
Match response to risk
15% smartphone deployment globally
Acceptance of the user
Make part of pc community
Bring into a simgle management console
Hackers are clearly making there way into devices
one console
Think of security as an enabler
Rpregnell@symantec.com
The speakers were well versed, with some nice unqualified comments coming out of it.
Mobiles outship PC's at a rate of 5:1. - Well ... this is a silly comment becuase we aren't exactly comparing apples to apples are we ?
We all know the threats are real and where the "New Enpoint" is in todays age.
I found it interesting that Blackberry was an official sponsor but they didn't off a product for Blackberry due to the following comment made :- "Blackberry doesn't open it's code up enough for us to provide access for us to write something to protect it" or something along those lines....
Maybe that's why it is so secure ?
Are symantec that nieve ?
They weren't even ranting about a windows mobile 6 release of there mobile AV solution.
I also found it funny that all the solutuions mentioned through the windows mobiles security suite are standard and have been standard with the Blackberry solution for years.
i.e Firewall on the client?
wow... i wish i had that in 2004... oh wait, i had a Blackber !
Symantec will see the coming of releases between symbian and windows mobile
Mobiles outship pc's 5:1
Smartphone growth 77%
Mobiles 27% growth
Mobile. Devices viruses have doubled every 6 months since 2004
80% of companies have devices on their netework but 5 and 10 percent have secure devices on their network.
Allowing to be used but not thinking about security.
Treat them as a computer
Far more connectivity
Left unprotected thew represent by far the weakest link on the entwork
All smartphones
Attacks now for financial gain
30 of top 50 exposed user data
Mobiles becoming payment methods
Becoming digital wallets and identities
Snoopware
If a phone is always with you its akways at risk
70% use their mobiles as alarm clocks
Mobile security suite 5.0 for windows mobile
over the air management is critical for devices
Anti sms spam
Whitelist blacklist
Loss mitigation
Security settings
Define card policy
Phone feature control
Vpn compatible with cisco or nortel
Allows control for nac
Verification of all nac rules and adhered to before allowing
Enterprise management
Move to versiion 11
Firewall event chart
Symbian security
Planning for smartphone usage
Sensitivity on controlling the phone
No mindset that there is a risk of anything on their device
Are we using a smart device
Rember how much time and money we spend on keeping the information secure in the data centre, we need to be the same as the phones.
Blance of education.
Roll out in stages
Make data phones as part of the end point
FIrst thing to do is to put av on the device
Protect data and protect it when lost
Match response to risk
15% smartphone deployment globally
Acceptance of the user
Make part of pc community
Bring into a simgle management console
Hackers are clearly making there way into devices
one console
Think of security as an enabler
Rpregnell@symantec.com
Friday, September 14, 2007
Service Pack 4 good bad ?
After 3 Months of the Service Pack "in service" .... lol I have been please to say that it has been a roaring success. The addition of lots of cool insites into the future of the Blackberry solution aswell as some current functionality increases makes the move very worthwhile.
We can all sit there and go throug the release notes and we'll feel like we know what a service pack does. Truth is, you need to get amongst it as any BESAdmin will tell you that SP4 is a far cry from 4.1.0.
We can all sit there and go throug the release notes and we'll feel like we know what a service pack does. Truth is, you need to get amongst it as any BESAdmin will tell you that SP4 is a far cry from 4.1.0.
Symantec's Thoughts on Mobile Security
I recently attended the Symantec Vision 2007 conference in Sydney on Wednesday.... needless to say I learnt alot. Symantec are obviously partners on the Mobile Scene with Windows Mobile, even though all their marketing at the event was around Blackberry and their 8310 Curve. The reason I drew this conclusion was dues to a speach made by their Mobile Specialist. He went about the security features surrounding Symantec's mobile product version 5.0. The features that were listed were very good, infact so good that they actually were what Blackberry has had for a number of years. A question was asked if Mobile 6.0 was supported and apparently not until the end of the year.
Question: How can Symantec preach "the endpoint is the user" when they aren't supporting Mobile 6.0 for months after it has been released ?
Once again, the TCO of a Windows Mobile fleet is even more expanded due to the licencing of the Security features.
Besides this, I did gain a terrible lot out of Symantecs Sales Sessions and I still regard Symantec as the leading brand in Security (whether I agree with them or not)
I think they gave Blackberry a silent "plug" by announcing that the reason they don't make Anti-Virus SW for the Blackberry Devices was because they haven't openned up the OS Code for developers to be able to write SW for their operating systems.
Could this be why there are no eligble virii in the wild atm ??
My gut says yes.
Although ... one to ponder....
Question: How can Symantec preach "the endpoint is the user" when they aren't supporting Mobile 6.0 for months after it has been released ?
Once again, the TCO of a Windows Mobile fleet is even more expanded due to the licencing of the Security features.
Besides this, I did gain a terrible lot out of Symantecs Sales Sessions and I still regard Symantec as the leading brand in Security (whether I agree with them or not)
I think they gave Blackberry a silent "plug" by announcing that the reason they don't make Anti-Virus SW for the Blackberry Devices was because they haven't openned up the OS Code for developers to be able to write SW for their operating systems.
Could this be why there are no eligble virii in the wild atm ??
My gut says yes.
Although ... one to ponder....
New Site for Blackberry ???
http://www.blackberry.com/
seems to have reinvented itself, yet again....
I wonder what for ????
seems to have reinvented itself, yet again....
I wonder what for ????
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Vodafone Compass
Had the pleasure of toying around with the New Vodafone Compass product made by Yapp Software in Sydney today.
The first release looks exactly that "first release" not very impressed so far, was shaping up to be good, icons look good on the 8310, the download process was nice looking and worked well, but the actual program is very user "un friendly".
The product looks very promising, but very infant and I doubt that it was properly tested for user acceptance and usability before being released.
Word on the wire is there is going to be a big release of this in the coming weeks, watch the Vodafone AU space.
The software uses the live.vodafone.com.au APN and VF Australia have kindly made the page worth zero vaule. Since Data from the live APN is free the Compass service is free :) until December first so get in quick peoples !!!
Apparently there is going to be a monthly update program which i am pleased to hear but these things tend to go no where so i'll wait and see if the proof is in the pudding.
The whole voice telling you where to go is neccesity for mobility these days and it's great that it's using the streamin technology and not stored "old" map data.
http://www.vodafone.com.au/Business/BusinessSolutions/VodafoneCompass/index.htm
The first release looks exactly that "first release" not very impressed so far, was shaping up to be good, icons look good on the 8310, the download process was nice looking and worked well, but the actual program is very user "un friendly".
The product looks very promising, but very infant and I doubt that it was properly tested for user acceptance and usability before being released.
Word on the wire is there is going to be a big release of this in the coming weeks, watch the Vodafone AU space.
The software uses the live.vodafone.com.au APN and VF Australia have kindly made the page worth zero vaule. Since Data from the live APN is free the Compass service is free :) until December first so get in quick peoples !!!
Apparently there is going to be a monthly update program which i am pleased to hear but these things tend to go no where so i'll wait and see if the proof is in the pudding.
The whole voice telling you where to go is neccesity for mobility these days and it's great that it's using the streamin technology and not stored "old" map data.
http://www.vodafone.com.au/Business/BusinessSolutions/VodafoneCompass/index.htm
Duress Notification Policy thumbs up !!
Has anyone implemented this policy in their organisation ?
It brought a smirk to my face when I first saw this puppy as it just goes to show the level of depth and thought that has gone into perfecting the whole solution, aswell as showing that RIM actually responds very well to feedback from their customers.
I'll be posting a service pack for Eval on here soon... my SP3 one is on the forums.
It brought a smirk to my face when I first saw this puppy as it just goes to show the level of depth and thought that has gone into perfecting the whole solution, aswell as showing that RIM actually responds very well to feedback from their customers.
I'll be posting a service pack for Eval on here soon... my SP3 one is on the forums.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Oh Little Johnny, you have redeemed yourself...
Our beloved prime minister made one of the best jokes I have heard him say (and let me tell you he doesn't make many good ones)
Warren Smith to Prime Minister John Howard @ the Dally M Medal Award's
It went a little something like this (don't quote me :) )
WS - So, I hear theres a little meeting happening in town
JH - Yes there sure is
WS - I also hear that president bush is in town tonight
JH - Yes he is, he was supposed to of landed 15 minutes ago..... I knew that the NRL Dally M's were on so I sent the treasurer to Greet him...... gotta have your priorities right you know !!!
WS and Crowd and myself laugh loudly.
Gotta Say good call PM !!!
Also, well done to Johnathon Thurston - Well Deserved !!!
Warren Smith to Prime Minister John Howard @ the Dally M Medal Award's
It went a little something like this (don't quote me :) )
WS - So, I hear theres a little meeting happening in town
JH - Yes there sure is
WS - I also hear that president bush is in town tonight
JH - Yes he is, he was supposed to of landed 15 minutes ago..... I knew that the NRL Dally M's were on so I sent the treasurer to Greet him...... gotta have your priorities right you know !!!
WS and Crowd and myself laugh loudly.
Gotta Say good call PM !!!
Also, well done to Johnathon Thurston - Well Deserved !!!
Darwin Theory of Evolution
BG and BBCool mentioned the other day on their podcast interview (see earlier post) that the Blackberry's released since the 8700 have all been "redesigned 8700's". I do agree somewhat, but not in a bad way, here's why....
The Motorola V3 Razr ...... now in it's 4th year ??? or something like that .... the Razr pretty much inherited the OS from previous phones from Motorola making the OS run for a very long time. Same can be said for the Nokia 1000 series phones.
If something works why change it , just enhance it!?
The Motorola V3 Razr ...... now in it's 4th year ??? or something like that .... the Razr pretty much inherited the OS from previous phones from Motorola making the OS run for a very long time. Same can be said for the Nokia 1000 series phones.
If something works why change it , just enhance it!?
Blackberry and Beer !!!
Now that I have your attention .....
If you are like myself and love the odd/regular drop of the ultimate pure golden nectar itself known as Beer, you would have ecstatically peeled your eyeballs back and near licked the screen clean with the salivation on the thought of CnH2n+1OH mixed with our beloved Black Fruit.
I know I did !
As it turns out it was just a crappy article on some news site, forget which one, stating that a beer company was using blackberry to get the freshest results, blah blah blah, it did get my heart racing for some stupid reason, but I was let down considerably. I don't know what I was expecting but I know it wasn't that.
If you are like myself and love the odd/regular drop of the ultimate pure golden nectar itself known as Beer, you would have ecstatically peeled your eyeballs back and near licked the screen clean with the salivation on the thought of CnH2n+1OH mixed with our beloved Black Fruit.
I know I did !
As it turns out it was just a crappy article on some news site, forget which one, stating that a beer company was using blackberry to get the freshest results, blah blah blah, it did get my heart racing for some stupid reason, but I was let down considerably. I don't know what I was expecting but I know it wasn't that.
New site not for a while ....
Godaddy quickblog service is not for the technically minded such as myself ;)
will pursue but will be a while....
anyway, back to it for now.
will pursue but will be a while....
anyway, back to it for now.
Friday, August 31, 2007
Lee Williams' Blog
As promised, here is Lee's "all things mobility" blog ....
Bound to be full of in-depth knowledge surrounding mobility, I look forward to the post's ahead.
The HTC Kaiser seems to be catching my attention, a first for Windows Mobile devices.
Here it is...
Bound to be full of in-depth knowledge surrounding mobility, I look forward to the post's ahead.
The HTC Kaiser seems to be catching my attention, a first for Windows Mobile devices.
Here it is...
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Blog is moving ...
Yes , no post's due to working on the new site (hosting wise)
will be up in the not too distant future....
will be up in the not too distant future....
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Mr System Manager doesn't like Mr R2 (apparently)
Is it just me or does Windows Server 2003 R2 (MMC 3.0) seem to have issues around Exchange System Manager ?
I came across this issue on friday where the DLL seemed to not register correctly thus rendering the MMC 3.0 console not knowing what to with the snap-in.
On a quick scavenge of the internet (as I only had 10 minutes at the time) I found similar instances of this issue.
I can't understand why Microsoft would and does continually do stuff like this. Windows is big, right... Exchange is big, right.... you would atleast make sure (and spend a few more days testing) that these two core products would work well together before a release.
BTW heres the spec's
Windows Server 2003 R2 with all latest Windows Updates and Exchange System Manager (6.944) - snap in failed.
No errors in the Windows System or Application event log's either, strange.
A re-install fixed it.
Why it worked? I do not know.
Side Note - I know it's not Blackberry "per say" but it's a BES requirement, thought i'd rant!
I came across this issue on friday where the DLL seemed to not register correctly thus rendering the MMC 3.0 console not knowing what to with the snap-in.
On a quick scavenge of the internet (as I only had 10 minutes at the time) I found similar instances of this issue.
I can't understand why Microsoft would and does continually do stuff like this. Windows is big, right... Exchange is big, right.... you would atleast make sure (and spend a few more days testing) that these two core products would work well together before a release.
BTW heres the spec's
Windows Server 2003 R2 with all latest Windows Updates and Exchange System Manager (6.944) - snap in failed.
No errors in the Windows System or Application event log's either, strange.
A re-install fixed it.
Why it worked? I do not know.
Side Note - I know it's not Blackberry "per say" but it's a BES requirement, thought i'd rant!
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Boygenuis talking to Blackberry Cool Continued...
Very interesting podcast. I was not expecting what I heard, I had always assumed that BGR and BBC were of a more technical background. I think I would say, slightly dissapointed. There are a few points that came out of Part 1 of the the Twin sessions but I left my notepad on my desk at work. From what I can remember there was a whole 8800 vs 8300 vs 8310 discussion contained within the conversation that was about how all 3 devices are extremely similar. There not!
Point 1 - the 8800 has the best battery life out of any smartphone on the market, source unknown on that one, will seek qualificatoin.
Point 2 - the 8800 has in built GPS but not camera but long battery life. the 8300 has GPS but a camera, the 8310 has GPS and has a camera. They are in a range for what features you need most.
BES/OS 5.0 Information was a letdown hopefully it is revisited next post.
1 thing that stood out was there massive comparrison to the iPhone. Australia is yet to experience this and I hope that it is an over rated phenomenon, since BGR and BBC were convinced the iPhone is a competitor to Blackeberry.
On a side note, Windows Mobile didn't even come into conversation throughout the interview, maybe only in passing comment but it really showed us Australian's an insite into the US/Canada mobile data market space.
I was reassured when BGR said that Blackberry wins hands down in the enterprise environment, confirming what I already thought for the US market.
I am even more keen now to find out about the road map for the Blackberry future as they definately hold there cards close to their chests.
Quote from the podcast "steve job just has these massive medicine balls..."
more to follow.....
Point 1 - the 8800 has the best battery life out of any smartphone on the market, source unknown on that one, will seek qualificatoin.
Point 2 - the 8800 has in built GPS but not camera but long battery life. the 8300 has GPS but a camera, the 8310 has GPS and has a camera. They are in a range for what features you need most.
BES/OS 5.0 Information was a letdown hopefully it is revisited next post.
1 thing that stood out was there massive comparrison to the iPhone. Australia is yet to experience this and I hope that it is an over rated phenomenon, since BGR and BBC were convinced the iPhone is a competitor to Blackeberry.
On a side note, Windows Mobile didn't even come into conversation throughout the interview, maybe only in passing comment but it really showed us Australian's an insite into the US/Canada mobile data market space.
I was reassured when BGR said that Blackberry wins hands down in the enterprise environment, confirming what I already thought for the US market.
I am even more keen now to find out about the road map for the Blackberry future as they definately hold there cards close to their chests.
Quote from the podcast "steve job just has these massive medicine balls..."
more to follow.....
Boygenuis talking to Blackberry Cool
Since I am an avid fan of both the above mentioned I thought I would encourage people to listen to this rare podcast from BBC. Very very informative ... heres the link ...
http://blackberrycool.com/2007/08/22/005426/
I'm still listening to it, comments to come...
http://blackberrycool.com/2007/08/22/005426/
I'm still listening to it, comments to come...
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Office Communications Server 2007
At present I am currently testing the new released (is it released yet ?) Office Communication Server 2007 capabilities for Blackberry. Nothing to report yet... but it does look promising. I have a vision of getting an inhouse dev to provide an app that will provide Ocs2007 functionality to the palm of your hand, which leads me to my next though...
Why have Blackbery been so late into introducing higher speed devices into the GPRS market ?
They had a stab at it with the 8707 but WCDMA proved to be not all that it was cracked up to be.
For Australia to move forward in the market an HSDPA (or next generation, lol) device is needed, hence Telstra's enthusiasm to be the first in the world with the fastest device.
I can't see the average organisation utilising the faster speeds with how the Blackberry works but I can see the largest enterprises utilising this eventually. Not for a few years yet ;-) Did someone mentin next BES ?
Why have Blackbery been so late into introducing higher speed devices into the GPRS market ?
They had a stab at it with the 8707 but WCDMA proved to be not all that it was cracked up to be.
For Australia to move forward in the market an HSDPA (or next generation, lol) device is needed, hence Telstra's enthusiasm to be the first in the world with the fastest device.
I can't see the average organisation utilising the faster speeds with how the Blackberry works but I can see the largest enterprises utilising this eventually. Not for a few years yet ;-) Did someone mentin next BES ?
How To: Disable Email Delivery in 4.1.1
One of the most frustrating problems I have had ever finally was solved last week.
The Problem: To NOT recieve email's on a Blackberry Device.
The Solution: Seemed extremely straight forward, disabled from the handheld but to no avail, disabled email reconciliation and still failed, firewall still failed. This puzzled me to no end. Log's showing messages being delivered to device so for some reason the changes weren't being recognised by the BES. Here is how I eventually fixed it....
1. Remove check box's from the folders to be redirected
2. Create a special IT policy that disables wireless reconcile
3. Disable sync in properties of user on the BES
4. Wait for a couple of minutes for config to update device
5. Change back to default IT policy and enable Synch.
Seemed a little strange to me but that was the only way I could figure it out. For some reason the clients solution was intent on NOT getting email out to those devices.
Good to know that trying to break the solution is hard :P
I think the RIM developement team mustn't have had much feedback on this component of the SDLC, lol.
The Problem: To NOT recieve email's on a Blackberry Device.
The Solution: Seemed extremely straight forward, disabled from the handheld but to no avail, disabled email reconciliation and still failed, firewall still failed. This puzzled me to no end. Log's showing messages being delivered to device so for some reason the changes weren't being recognised by the BES. Here is how I eventually fixed it....
1. Remove check box's from the folders to be redirected
2. Create a special IT policy that disables wireless reconcile
3. Disable sync in properties of user on the BES
4. Wait for a couple of minutes for config to update device
5. Change back to default IT policy and enable Synch.
Seemed a little strange to me but that was the only way I could figure it out. For some reason the clients solution was intent on NOT getting email out to those devices.
Good to know that trying to break the solution is hard :P
I think the RIM developement team mustn't have had much feedback on this component of the SDLC, lol.
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