Kaleidoscope Draw Package: Polly for the iPad

Poly™ from Jean-Christophe Naour on Vimeo.

BYOD: ‘bring your own device’ How will it impact your company

In case you haven't heard, the Bring Your Own device to work strategy is doing the rounds in the more enlightened corporate IT world and is a very attractive option for Developers, Administrators and other IT geeks of that ilk.

That aside, as a non-geek, BYOD will require serious attention to the infrastructure and support policies within your organisation.

The one really good reason not to let employees use their own smartphone, notebook or tablet at work, is because it creates an IT management nightmare.

Firstly or blatantly, there are inherent security and regulatory compliance risks. Unless you have complete control or have great faith the responsibility of IT geeks to protect their own assets.

Even if you restrict and /or allow certain products or technologies that people can bring and use, it will be next to impossible to make sure everyone keeps their machines updated with the proper OS and application patches.

If you use the argument that BYOD will save the company money on assets, their maintenance and their depreciation, you may be disappointed. Many businesses supporting BYOD expect employees to buy and support devices at their own expense but the boundary between the BYOD asset an dthe infrastructure and security policies behind that may be blurred.

Consequently, there is a high risk of holes opening up in your Securoty, DMZ and Firewall. The money not spent on assets may have to be diverted to protect the infrastructure and will require the development of new IT management policies. Can you say your organization is BOYD ready?

To simplify small and midsize businesses (SMEs) should be prepared to sense BYOD and it's impact in the following ways.

#1: Your technology upgrade cycles will be shorter
Most smartphones are turned over every one or two years, because of carrier contracts. That means employees will be exposed to new features more quickly and be able to keep up with business enhancing features made available on open platforms e.g. Skype, Social media, etc.

#2: You will need to consider supporting or including more devices, not fewer
Even if your company chooses not to let employees bring their own smartphones, consumer tablets or notebooks into their work setting, it will need to consider adding more devices to the menu that allows people to work whilst travelling. Consider this an evolution of your corporate benefits or perks strategies. People should be able to choose their own device for work, even if they don’t own them outright.

#3: You need to rethink how you distribute applications
Thanks to Apple, most of us have become really familiar with the idea that you can download pretty much any application you need from searchable store. Over time, employees will come to expect the same from our IT team. Updates and upgrades will be enforced through alerts, much like the store concept.

#4: You need to raise your game on mobile security
Mobile malware and antivirus software packages exist, but they haven’t been widely used. If you allow people to bring their own mobile device, that needs to change. What’s more, your organisation will need to govern what data can and cannot be downloaded locally. That’s especially true in certain industries, especially healthcare or financial services where the Data Protection Act is very pertinent.

#5: You need to rethink the concept of mobility.
IDC expects the number of mobile workers worldwide to surpass 1.2 billion by 2013. Why would you provision someone with a desktop computer, even if it is a person who traditionally works in a back office position, if there is a chance that he or she might need greater flexibility in the future?

Forrester Research predicts that up to 60 percent of information workers will need to work in some location outside their office during the average workweek. Does that number fit well with your asset projections for notebook computers, media tablets or smartphones in your organisation?

Bring Your Own Device to work certainly has an allure and attraction from an financial asset management perspective and as a motivator for Developers and IT Geeks but have we thought this all the way through and are we, and our organisations really ready to adopt this strategy.

The KNO: An iPAD Killer

Send in the iPad clones: Asus, MSI show off new tablet PCs at Computex

This year’s installment of Computex is getting off to a fast start when it comes to tablet PCs that hope to compete with the iPad.

While most top-tier computer companies haven’t provided details on devices that will go head-to-head with Apple’s tablet, two of the major Asian brands have unveiled their challengers at the Taiwanese expo.

Hoping to make the biggest splash, Asus is introducing two flavours of Eee Pad—a 10-inch model (EP101TC) that will run Windows Embedded Compact 7 and the 12-inch unit Eee Pad EP121 (pictured). This uses Intel Core 2 Duo CULV processors and Windows 7 Home Premium.

Windows Embedded Compact 7 is the latest version of Windows CE and is purportedly the basis for the Windows Phone 7 OS, but most buyers would presumably be more interested in the full Windows 7 experience.

Asus promises the EP121 will offer 10 hours of battery life, but the company provides little other info about the EP101TC, other than to say that Windows Embedded Compact 7 provides “engaging user experience and delivers instant connectivity to the Windows world”.

The good news is that the Eee Pads will be priced from $399 to $499. The bad news is that the devices won’t be available until the first quarter of 2011, giving Apple even more time to capture more than its market share.

MSI also announced a new tablet running Windows 7 Home Premium, but it’s going with an Intel Atom Z530 processor instead of CULV CPUs.

The WindPad 100 will come with a 10-inch display, 2GB of RAM, and a 32GB SSD drive. It is slated to arrive sometime in 2010 for around $499, but opinions are less than encouraging.

The prototype demo suffered from slow load times for applications. That’s a definite no-no running up against the iPad, which everyone can agree is quite responsive whether or not you’re a fan of the device.

If MSI can’t produce better performance from the final version of the WindPad 100, it has an alternative up its sleeve in the form of the WindPad 110, which is based on Nvidia’s Tegra 2 processor and will run Android instead of Windows 7. thought to be priced around $399, there’s nothing official on pricing or a release date.

So, until then hang on to your iPad.

Microsoft Courier and Moodboards in action

Do you use moodboards as part of your design process. Well, we believe that working with moodboards is considerably more effective than producing multiple design concepts.

They have the advantage of being quick and easy to produce. This means that, unlike design concepts, they are disposable. You can try lots of different approaches to find the one that works for both you and the client.

However, they can be tricky to produce. Inexperienced web designers can often overwork moodboards, making them more like a design concept than a useful tool for brainstorming and firming up some initial ideas.

Although the Courier technology looks very impressive, what really impressed was the moodboard, created to show off the technology. This is a good example of a moodboard in action and demonstrates the kind of look and feel a moodboard should have.

Of course we don’t all have fancy (and as yet non-existent) tablets to create this kind of thing on. However, all of this could just as easily be achieved using a Wacom Bamboo Pen and Touch.