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April 4, 2007

Switching back to Palm...

I've been using a Windows Mobile smartphone now since November. I had a Palm Treo 650, but unfortunately it was stolen. I went over to the local T-Mobile store and bought a T-Mobile Dash. I'm of mixed opinions on its effectiveness.

There are a lot of things about the Dash I like. It's built-in e-mail handles very nice. The browser is IE, so it handles most websites much better than the built-in browser on the Palm OS ever did. it's thin, very thin, fits in my shirt pocket easily, and the keyboard is pretty good. As a phone/SMS/e-mail/internet tool, I can't complain.

But then there's the issue of my schedule/day planner. Being self-employed, I'm a bit of a mutant in that I don't use Outlook. I use the Franklin-Covey planning system. Franklin-Covey makes two versions of their electronic system, one that is a standalone application for Windows, the other is an overlay application for Outlook. Having been a Palm person since the "Palm Pilot," I've developed a good relationship with the F-C standalone. The trick here is that the standalone program synchronizes directly with Palms, but not Windows/Outlook units.

More technical griping under the fold.

To sync the F-C software to a Windows Mobile device, I've got to export the calendar data to Outlook, then use Microsoft ActiveSync to sync my deskop Outlook to the phone's Mobile Outlook. That means I need to maintain Outlook on my desktop for the sole purpose of getting data to the phone.

Maybe that would be a good justification if I could get ActiveSync to work properly. When I try to sync to Outlook, I get an "error 86000108." Googling this error says it's a problem between ActiveSync and Microsoft Exchange. Catch is, I'm not using an Exchange server. I shouldn't need a digital certificate or have certificate issues when I'm not doing that sort of operation.

So, I'm going back to my Palm for scheduling. I ordered a Palm Tungsten E2 to replace my broken Tungsten C. It was going to cost $150 to repair the C, and the E2 was only $159.99. I don't need the wi-fi capabaility of the C any longer, since that's the part of the smartphone that actually works right. I'll be able to use the Palm once again to read PDFs and other documents, plus the combination of WorldMate Pro (travel management) and Franklin-Covey will keep my schedule straight.

Posted by Leader at 12:12 PM

Wireless Encryption Protocol can be hacked...

This is potentially a very serious problem:

Code breakers have discovered a technique for extracting a 104-bit Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) key in under a minute.

Cryptographic weaknesses with the first generation wireless encryption standard have been known for years, but the latest attack requires the capture of just a tenth of the number of packets required by previous approaches. The technique allows for 50 per cent probability of the recovery of a 104-bit WEP key in around a minute (on a 802.11g network running at full speed), and with the capture of 40,000 packets. Doubling the capture period extends the probability of capturing the key to 95 per cent.

The recommendation from experts is to switch to Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA). For a corporate wireless network, this is no big deal; the geeks handling a corporate network can handle such a switch. What's concerning are all the small office and home Wireless Access Points. Over time, we've managed to convince these small users to configure WEP to keep people from sitting in a car in front of their house/office and using their network to do things like exchange kiddie porn. If these networks are easily cracked, we just as soon not do anything.

Posted by Leader at 11:23 AM