Scot’s Newsletter Blog

I have not fully tested the new 3.0 version of Nod32. I looked pretty extensively at Eset Smart Security (ESS) in late beta, and I didn’t think much of the firewall at all. Plus I have no use for Eset’s antispam solution. So I am definitely recommending *against* the new $60 ESS.

However, my preliminary impression of Nod32 3.0, also contained in ESS, was quite positive. That product is available as a standalone upgrade to Nod32 2.7 for $40 (one user, one year).

I have not had a chance to fully test the 3.0 standalone product yet. I’ve been focused on the firewalls. But testing Nod32 3.0 is very high on my list. From my look at the ESS beta, I don’t anticipate any serious criticism of Nod32 3.0. I like the UI a little better. I didn’t see anything I didn’t like. I didn’t have any problems with it. But I still have to test it fully to be sure. I’ll be looking at it on both Vista and XP.

I don’t write final security reviews before I’m sure about a product. So depending on the complexities I encounter when I test Nod32 v.3, it could be four to eight weeks before I give you a definitive answer.

If you’re forced to make a decision before that, I would currently characterize Nod32 3.0 as a good bet. And, again, I would recommend separate firewall and antispam solutions instead of ESS.

If you’re using Nod32 3.0, I would be interested in your experiences with and impressions of it. Please send your thoughts to me. Thanks!

Alternatively, you can also post your experiences as a comment to this post if you prefer.

After six weeks of everyday usage, I’m decidedly impressed with Lexar’s JumpDrive Lightning USB drive. Back in October I mentioned that I was in the process of evaluating the JumpDrive Lightning among others. But this one really stands out from the pack. It’s fast and rugged, and its software-encrypted vault is easy to use and accessible from both Mac and Windows. It offers better security than the Corsair’s Flash Padlock product I reviewed earlier, and it was literally more than 11 times faster than the Flash Padlock in my real-world tests. I like the idea of hardware-based security, but the Lightning’s ease of use and incredible speed leave the Flash Padlock in the dust.

Shame on both me and Lexar, though, because I looked at the Lightning’s product pages for multi-platform security support before I tested and selected Corsair’s Flash Padlock. In fact, I looked at all the major USB drive products for the ability to support Windows, Mac, and Linux, and also provide security across all three platforms. Very few offer that flexibility (in fact, the Flash Padlock is the only one I’m aware of that does all three OSes).

Initially, I crossed the Lexar off the list because its JumpDrive Lightning product page lists only Windows XP and Vista support; nowhere does it say it supports the Mac. It wasn’t until I went back to Lexar a second time that I learned that the Lightning does support the Mac (though not Linux). I had to resort to contacting the company’s live chat tech support to get that information. I never did receive a response to my inquiry through Lexar’s public relations. Mind you, I’m not beating myself up too much about this, since Lexar’s support area doesn’t list any downloadable software for the JumpDrive Lightning. The software is apparently available only on the USB stick itself, or behind closed doors somewhere on the Lexar website, once you’ve registered your purchased product. It’s almost like Lexar is intentionally hiding the Mac support.

That is, though, the sum total of my criticism about the Lexar JumpDrive Lightning. The product is ideal for my purpose: casual but effective security for a user-selectable portion of the disk, fast performance, and enough GBs you won’t be pressed all the time for storage space. At about $75 including delivery, this drive costs a bit more than some others, but it makes up for that with its smart design (including built-in keychain loop), the ability to store its cap on the other end when its in use (so you don’t lose the cap), and incredible performance.

The JumpDrive Lightning’s superior performance is noticeable in everyday operation compared with some of its competition. To quantify the difference, I set up a collection of 13,500 files displacing 1GB. I timed the process of copying that set of files from my testbed Windows XP PC to each of four USB drives in turn: the Lexar 4GB JumpDrive Lightning, the Corsair 2GB Flash Padlock, the IronKey 4GB Secure Flash Drive, and the Kingston 4GB Data Traveler Secure. The Lexar and Kingston devices were speedy, while the Corsair and IronKey USB drives were markedly slower:

You’ll be hearing more about the IronKey from me in the near future. This product may not be that fast, but it’s an incredibly cool device with serious security. It’s the best USB drive I’ve seen for security-conscious enterprises. So don’t cross that one off your list. Currently, though, it supports only Windows XP and Vista, so it’s not ideal for me.

The Kingston product is interesting because it’s nearly as fast as the Lexar product and has similar security. Like most USB devices, Windows, Mac, and Linux can mount them. But the Kingston device offers encryption security software only for Windows. So you won’t be able to access the encrypted space from Mac or Linux.

With it’s multiplatform security support, it’s fast data-transfer rates, and smart design, the Lexar 4GB JumpDrive Lightning is ideal for my needs. It’s clearly a Scot’s Newsletter Top Product! And it’s knocking the Corsair Flash Padlock off that perch.

If you’ve read at least some of my ongoing series on software firewalls for Windows, you should know two things by now:

1. There aren’t many good software firewalls out there right now.

2. My focus has been on outbound protection, since anyone sitting behind a firewall router has very good inbound protection.

Although I’ll be running tests on the final round of firewalls, I’ve been relying on the independent security software site, Matousec.com Firewall Ratings, to help winnow out the less impressive products. In recent testing, Matousec has named two new software firewalls “Excellent,” Agnitum’s Outpost Firewall Pro 2008 version 6.0 (a suite product that doesn’t quite fit the target profile of this ongoing review) and a little-known freeware product called Online Armor Personal Firewall v.2 by Tall Emu.

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A new email package called Odysseus being developed by software design house Infinity Data Systems (IDS) is the new great hope for millions of Qualcomm Eudora users who were abandoned by the telecom company last year. Unlike Mozilla’s Penelope (Eudora v.8) development project, which is attempting to surgically graft Eudora-like functionality onto Mozilla’s Thunderbird email package, Odysseus is being rewritten from the ground up as the brand new successor to Eudora. It will offer cross-platform support for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

I spent a few hours earlier today reading through IDS’s Odysseus forums learning as much as I could about the company’s development plans. I came away very excited about IDS’s plans, design concepts, and goals. What I like best, in fact, is that while the plan is to start with a subset of Eudora features in the first release, the developers clearly know and love Eudora. Also, though, they’re not afraid to make changes. Eudora has been a hurting unit for several years — especially on the Mac platform, where some of the thinking has been quirky at best. The Windows version surpassed the Mac version quite a while ago and is more up to date. But Eudora in general is best thought of in 2001 terms. Some fresh thinking is definitely a good thing.

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Yes, the newsletter is in the process of being converted into a blog, but no, that’s not the reason I haven’t written my usual plethora of articles on a wide variety of topics and sent a November newsletter.

I recently underwent joint-replacement surgery and was in the hospital for a few days. I’m still in the process of several weeks of recuperation and physical therapy, but I am starting to feel human again.

I’ve got some additional stuff in the works. So please check back.

Back in July, I wrote a piece in the newsletter titled iPhone Lust? Get Over It. Apparently I didn’t, though. I bought an iPhone about a week ago, after learning that I could ditch Lotus Notes and my crummy Crackberry at work and use Apple Mail for work email and the iPhone. That proved to be an absolutely irresistible combination.

My wife, Cyndy, got a nice BlackBerry at her job several months ago, and it quickly became her main phone. Neither of us were using our circa 2005 LG flip phones from Verizon. I’m a jeans-pocket guy for my cell phone, and the LG phone felt like a brick in my pocket. My older model CrackBerry was great for email, but a very poor cell phone. So bad that I found myself carrying both at times, something that’s patently ridiculous. So we dumped our Verizon phones, and I went to the Apple store in a nearby mall.

The most surprising thing for me was the purchase experience. When I bought my Verizon air card (WWAN service) at the nearby Verizon store back in May, I had to sign in, wait 15 minutes for a sales rep, politely listen to the upsell and then indicate that, no, I just wanted what I wanted, and wait while she first brought the wrong card and then the right one from the back room. Then I was ferried over to the cash register queue, where I had to wait another 15 minutes to check out. Then there was something strange in my account that involved 20 minutes of head-scratching and furrowed brows by two Verizon salespeople. Eventually, I was allowed to pay and walk away with my air card.

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Earlier this week I was honored by a promotion to the position of Editor in Chief at IDG’s Computerworld. I’m now overseeing the magazine and website, and helping to guide a stellar staff of 45 editors and writers. It’s an awesome responsibility, but I feel equal to it. In fact, I’m charged up and ready to go.

I’m very proud of the publication Computerworld has always been, and the one it’s become over the past two to three years. If you haven’t checked it out recently, you’re missing out on something special.

Last weekend I posted about issues with performing an Upgrade installation of Leopard on one of my MacBook Pros. That machine is happily running Leopard now with all my data fully intact. But I learned something in the process.

I made a backup of my Tiger installation just prior to performing the upgrade and was able to boot to the backup without difficulty. I also used Disk Utility (the Mac’s onboard disk integrity check and repair tool) to check both of the partitions on the computer’s hard drive. Everything checked out, so I went ahead with the upgrade.

As detailed earlier, I ran into the hanging blue screen after installation on the first restart that many other Leopard upgraders experienced. Many people had reported that the problem cleared up for them when they followed one of two methods for removing a Mac OS X customization utility by Unsanity called Application Performance Enhancement (APE). I didn’t have APE installed on my system, but it had been there and uninstalled with leave-behinds. I used Target disk mode to access the hard drive and remove the offending files. That didn’t solve my problem, so I decided to resort to my backup. So I removed the same offending files there just to be safe, wiped my boot volume, and copied my backup to the boot volume. During the copy process I got the error message that I didn’t have rights to copy three or four unnamed files — a message that made no real sense. And it was at that point that I knew I was in for it.

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