Here are a few of the most common workplace security mistakes, as well as a few tips on how to avoid them:

1.    Losing Your Mobile Device

While not everyone has had the misfortune of having a device lost or stolen, it’s extremely likely to happen to at least one person in your workplace at some time. Just think of all the personal information you’ve sent in professional emails: Your contact information is in your email signature, you may have copies of client records in your “Sent” folder, and your HR manager likely has your social security information stored somewhere in their files. Despite those risks, a third of people don’t bother to protect their mobile devices with a PIN or password. To give you, your boss, and your coworkers peace of mind, you should also install security software that will locate, lock, and wipe your phone remotely in the case of device loss or theft.

2.    Downloading Risky Apps

Whenever you download an app on your smartphone, tablet, or laptop, you’re handing over your personal details to the developer of that app. While many apps require certain data to run (for example, Google Maps requires access to your location), some applications collect extensive information without your knowledge. Recent research found that more than 100,000 Android applications on Google Play are “suspicious” or “questionable” because of what they collect about users. Free apps are particularly suspect, and an app with access to your contact information can be used to mine information about your company’s employees. In turn, this information can easily be used to carry out sophisticated spearphishing attacks that can compromise your entire workplace.

3.    Working Remote – With or Without Your Corporate Device

According to a recent study, 46% of employees admit to transferring files to and from work and personal computers when working from home. This can pose a serious risk to your employer’s data, since personal computers are rarely protected or maintained as well as corporate devices. Talking about sensitive company issues where others can hear or intercept the conversation becomes much more common when you’re working from home or in a coffee shop. If you do work remotely, never hold work conversations in a place where you could be overheard, and always connect to a VPN over a secure Wi-Fi network (NOT the free Wi-Fi in your favorite café).

4.    Passwords on Post-Its

You’ve seen it; I’ve seen it. When your IT guy gives out a particularly complex password to remember, our first inclination is to write it down on a Post-It and stick it on the side of our work computer. In fact, 55% of us admit to sharing password details with friends, family, or coworkers – a habit that could leave corporate or personal data open to theft. To avoid this mistake while still maintaining a variety of complex passwords, try a password management system like McAfee Safe Key, which is included with your McAfee All Access subscription.

5.    Foregoing Security Software

No matter where you work, all employees need to understand that they are handling sensitive business data whenever they work from a personal or corporate device. Take some time to install a security solution on all of your mobile devices, and when it’s your phone or laptop that gets stolen, your coworkers (and boss) will thank you. It only takes a moment to download, and this step could save you a lot of time, money, and potentially your job.

credit goes to http://blogs.mcafee.com/consumer-threat-notices/top-5-mobile-security-mistakes-to-avoid-in-the-workplace

There comes a time when even the mightiest of technology companies need to reboot their core product. For the company formally known as RIM, that time has come and past a few times over! Major bleeding to the platform in terms of users and market share still couldn’t shake the faith of a good few people, and so, Blackberry rewards them! Enter the Z10.  Continue reading »

Used to love it on WinMo. Loved the concept. And now they’ve really jazzed up the interface, all 3D and pretty.

But all that’s left it seems is old data on red light cameras (who needs to run all these red lights anyway?). Testing it across multiple states, not one accurate live cop, no apparent sign of fresh data, no helpful traffic information. There was one thing about it I like, the speedometer coupled with the sometimes-accurate speed limit sign (my license is up to six points, ouch), I see they’ve got an active Twitter account, but other than that, Trapster is apparently worthless from what I’m seeing.

I imagine this is largely due to users flocking to Waze (claiming 40+ million users) which now has, in addition to rather good navigation, traffic data, an obviously large and active user base, yes a speedometer, mediocre speech still but a decent and an improving interface, I believe much improved data aggregation due, in part, to its incorporation into Apple Maps, and of course, most importantly, it does a fantastic job telling me where the cops are hiding. It saved my ass yesterday actually, and Trapster had no idea. In spite of boasting “18.5 MILLION” users (10m of whom had their accounts hacked a few years ago), Trapster’s database feels like it’s turned into a ghost town.

A really bad thing about Trapster is that when you quit the program (and not by the back button, I mean menu > quit), it keeps on running in the background, and really chewing up your battery hard (using the latest version yesterday). On top of that, the only time my Nexus 4 has ever drained down 70% and overheated enough to stop charging was while running Trapster. I wouldn’t mention that normally as it’s too anecdotal but it’s all over the app’s reviews — that, the background thing too, also on iOS complaints in addition to Android. Gotta reboot or kill the thing in some task manager. I suppose that’s for continued traffic data aggregation, but at least run more efficiently and shut off after I’m, you know, home, without a GPS fix.

Trapster even has a 94 second Youtube video demonstrating how to fully quit the application on iOS: “So we’re going to go ahead and close Trapster — and what most people I don’t think realize is that none of these applications are actually closed. So in order to actually close the application completely, and not have it run in the background, you need to double click, hold down the app until they start doing their little wiggle, and hit the red X in the left hand corner.” Okay Trapster Lady, noted about iOS, but on Android I need to root and use a task killer? Got an official Youtube video with instructions on that? C’mon.

Even more bizarre, it uses over 80MB of storage! In contrast, Google Maps, with cellular map caching enabled, liberal settings, 21MB. Waze, 21MB. Those bytes are precious, what the hell is Trapster doing taking up four times as much as Google Maps and Waze?

The most disturbing, and I don’t want to test this myself because I really wouldn’t want it to do this to me so I left Facebook signed out, but read what this guy had to say in the Google Play review:

If this guy’s correct (maybe he’s mistaken), that is categorically and flagrantly objectionable behavior for an app. No idea why Nate Osborne gave it even three stars in light of that. Hey Nate, is there something I’m missing here, any value to Trapster you noticed that I didn’t? If so, please correct me, I’d love to add some positive things to this review. Also, note that on Google Play Trapster does have a respectable 4.0 rating, and many of the comments are superlative. Maybe I just don’t know how to use the app or know what its purpose is supposed to be. And hey, maybe it doesn’t suck on Windows Phone, someone with nothing else to do please try it and report back. Blackberry guys, go for it. So let me crowdsource calling me out on an unjustly-negative review, if that’s what this is.

Trapster developers, look, I am sorry to rip on your software like this, and I can tell you’ve worked hard over the years, but Trapster has gone downhill just way too far for me not to use the word sucks in the title.

Doug Simmons

BlackBerry this morning has announced their 2013 4Q results. The company has managed to return to profitability earning 22 cent per share ($94 million) on $2.7 billion in revenue. This beats analyst projections and is a good sign for the company going forward. The company shipped 6 million smartphones in Q4 2013, 1 million being BB10 devices. Significantly, BlackBerry lost 3 million subscribers in the quarter (79m to 76m).

A key thing to remember that the Z10 has only been on sale for a little over a month overseas in a few markets and the US launch was last week on one carrier. T-Mobile and Verizon sales start this week. BlackBerry’s financial figures for 1Q 2014 will shed clear light on the market reception to BlackBerry’s mobile makeover and their place in it. The Z10 carries with it higher margins which should help BlackBerry continue to turn a profit.

BlackBerry noted it will increase its marketing spending to support BlackBerry 10 by 50%. It is a good sign that BlackBerry is investing even more in marketing their product.

Source: BlackBerry Earnings Live Blog

Guess the Z10 hasn’t wowed?

From NPR News’ Twitter feed:

Yesterday there were quite a few articles on how poorly the BlackBerry Z10 had been selling on Amazon. At that time the Z10 had failed to even crack the top 100 list of best sellers. As of right now the Z10 is listed as the 20th best selling phone on Amazon Wireless from AT&T. That is quite the leap for one day.

Source: Amazon Wireless

In case you’ve been living under a rock, or living your life, you might have missed the news that the BlackBerry Z10 launches on carriers AT&T (tomorrow 3/22) and T-Mobile (3/26?) and Verizon (3/28) by the end of March. AT&T pre-orders started on March 12, and Verizon 2 days later. T-Mobile opened up pre-orders for business customers but not regular consumers. With recent reports of how well BlackBerry sales had been exceeding expectation in previous launch markets the hope was that BlackBerry would continue to build on momentum and positive reports to take back marketshare in the U.S.

The latest round of reports paint a more sobering picture. Instead of long lines of consumers camping out it appears if you are in the market for a BlackBerry Z10 you will have a good chance to walk into your local carrier store and pick up a device. Checks indicate U.S. consumer pre-orders for the BlackBerry Z10 “have been light and well below expectations,” says Detwiler Fenton’s Jeff Johnston.

Are you getting a Z10 on day one? Are you even going to give it a try? I’ll be checking out the device and putting it through it’s paces tomorrow and will also gauge consumer reaction. I’m looking forward to see if the device really is as intuitive as people claim and how the RSPs present the Z10 as an option when a customer hasn’t made their mind up before walking into the store.

Each day brings more clarity to the most asked questions in mobility. Today’s information delivers the date and pricing info on when AT&T wireless customers will first be able to get their hands on the BlackBerry Z10. BlackBerry’s first BB10 device will be launching on March 22nd as I previously mentioned for the price of $199.99 with a two-year agreement.

The BlackBerry Z10 features a 4.2-inch display, packs a 1.5GHz dual-core processor and an 8-megapixel camera that records video in full 1080p. Key features BlackBerry is touting is the BlackBerry Hub, BBM, BlackBerry Balance and their time-shift camera tech.

The wireless carrier will start pre-order sales for the device on March 12th. Are you getting one day one? Let us know in the comments below.

The daily rumor mill now points to the AT&T BlackBerry Z10 release to happen on March 22nd. That is a full week later than I reported just yesterday. In my Thursday Tech Thoughts post I wrote posed the question whether the BlackBerry Z10 & HTC One were in trouble because the phones won’t be released until after the Galaxy S4 announcement is made. The major point to my position is that Samsung’s Galaxy S brand has grown to rival Apple’s iPhone. The same rules apply that if you’re going to release a phone in a competing time period you’d best do it before the announcement of the bigger brand is made. I believe that both the Z10 and the HTC One will suffer from not getting on shelves before Samsung’s announcement.

Well now I’m hearing that not only will the BlackBerry Z10 not be released pre-Galaxy S4 announcement they will miss the window by a full week. Will that hurt sales? Definitely yes. It is no longer a question of if but by how much. BlackBerry has done a terrific job getting the Z10 outfitted with the latest technology so any mainstream feature that is brought to the market in the next year the Z10 will be able to handle it. The issue here is that the Z10 is a new beast. Don’t get caught up in stories that paint the picture a significant portion of users who have bought the Z10 are iPhone and Android converts. The same held true with Windows Phone. When your sales are only a couple hundred thousand to a couple million percentages fluctuate more easily. Also of note is that several reporters have posed the question of how many of these supposed converts were previous BlackBerry owners who returned to the platform. Even granting that the percentage of converts is true (I have no reason to doubt it) there are a few caveats to these sales notes going forward.

There is a reason why BlackBerry released the Z10 first in the U.K. and Canada. These are the two areas that the BlackBerry brand hasn’t gone to hell. When you add in the fact BlackBerry is a Canadian company with strong and deep nationalist support you’d expect for them to do well there. It is the same for Samsung in Korea and Nokia in Finland. Heck, Apple does far better in the U.S. than anywhere else in the world. This leads me to my second caveat and is really the more important and damaging to BlackBerry’s prospects by missing the pre-Galaxy S4 launch window. The U.S. is a me-too nation. People love to be part of the populist and are less willing to stand out from the crowd. In the U.S. it is the iPhone, Samsung Galaxy and everything else.

The BlackBerry Z10 will be caught up in the massive marketing campaign for the Galaxy S4. Carrier sales reps will be well versed in the best that Android has to offer and people know the brand. Samsung has recognized what Apple had years ago. If you want something done right do it yourself. Depending on the carrier to properly market your device is asking for poor sales. Ask Nokia. They released an awesome phone in the Lumia 920 but in the U.S. you don’t see any Nokia created marketing at all. Yes they do tons of internet and social marketing but where is the TV ads that keeps the phone in front of the majority of Americans sitting in front of their tv screen. I see more HTC 8X commercials from carriers than Lumia 920. I am sure BlackBerry is prepared to market the device significantly. I just hope that a major part of that plan is to rely on carriers but sadly I believe it will be.

Samsung will spend at least 500 million on the marketing of the Galaxy S4 throughout 2013. I need no other basis than to cite the massive and consistent marketing the company did for the Galaxy S3 and the success the device had. Samsung has made it clear that 2013 they will be even bolder about marketing their products. BlackBerry, like HTC, can’t compete with that because they simply don’t have the financial resources. BlackBerry would need to change people’s minds and that is incredibly expensive to do. You have to spend something like 10x the amount of money on switching somebody to your product. People don’t like to switch once they make a choice. Tens (Maybe 100s of millions) have made the choice that the Galaxy S flagship device line is what they like and want in a phone. BlackBerry launching March 22nd puts it squarely in the path of the avalanche of Samsung Galaxy S4 marketing and that is not an enviable position to be in.

I’ll be updating this article later today or tomorrow once I do my rounds at local (Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX) area of carrier stores and gauge their opinion of the upcoming Z10. Stay tuned.

After some delaying, wishing and hoping, Netflix finally confirmed they will not be making a Blackberry 10 app. Ouch! If Blackberry 10 is to be successful in today’s consumer world, must have apps like Netflix cannot slip through the cracks.

Personally, I feel like this is not a big deal. Blackberry’s target should and should have always been business users! But, that’s not their only target. Is this a big blow to the once mighty Blackberry on their road back to fame?