Mobile Broadband

The mobile phone networks have all recently been moving in to the 'mobile broadband' game - offering USB modems that just plug in to your laptop and supposedly give broadband-speed internet wherever you are, via 3G. Having used a 3G phone as a bluetooth modem on a laptop before, I've not been convinced of their usefulness - as my previous experience has been frankly rubbish.

We were offered a test-run of the Three mobile broadband, so gave it a whirl and it's a completely different kettle of fish. My main uncertainty - connection speed - has been totally blown out the water. Very little difference in use to our office broadband connection.

It's not something we use often - but is very useful now and again, whether it's in getting a broadband connection at a client's premises, or just working on a train, in the car, etc. We've signed up for a batch of them for all David Andrews staff. So far, basic web-browsing and e-mail is a total breeze. We've even managed some pretty heavy FTP usage and SQL Server administration - all via laptop, connected to the web just by the little white modem plugged in to the USB. Really useful especially for a business like ours, where we try and build in as much freedom and flexibility to work hours/location, etc as possible.

If you're thinking of signing up for a mobile broadband plan, we can vouch for it being pretty much as good as a home PC fixed-line broadband connection. A few mobile networks are offering it, but the one we've tested and are using is here:

File / PC Encryption Software

This is an awesome way to secure all the data on any sort of hard-drive, be it a PC hard-disk, an entire server of data, a USB memory stick / external hard-drive etc...

Any person or organisation with sensitive data stored electronically needs to think hard about data protection and security. If you had a break-in and had PCs / memory cards stolen - what sort of information would the thief have access to? If it's details and information relating in any way to your customers/clients, you're in big trouble - not just with them but probably the law too.

We use this great bit of software to encrypt everything on any of our electronic storage media. It effectively enables you to create a secure virtual 'drive' within your actual drive - which your PC will treat exactly like a mapped network drive. The difference being, everything inside it is encrypted and, when you 'dismount' the drive from the software, it becomes a useless text file totally inaccessible without the passwords. Really simple, military-grade encryption - and best of all, it's free open-source software.

We have a few reservations - like the fact it's so good, that if the password was forgotten, you'd lose all the data inside it. That's highly unlikely though.

Because it turns everything inside the encrypted drive in to a single file, there's the worry that it might get corrupted - again losing everything. We've been using it for over a year though and no problems have occurred as yet. Needless to say, we have a pretty rigorous backup procedure so are covered if the worst happened.

It's the type of software every organisation should use. Just ask the Inland Revenue. Something as simple as this could've saved a heck of a lot of trouble for them. If you have any kind of sensitive information stored anywhere - at home or work - give this a try: http://www.truecrypt.org