Silicon Shecky

Going from Blackberry Enterprise 4.1 to Blackberry Enterprise Express 5.0.2 looks like a daunting task, but really it is not that tough.

So there I was, ready to find the stash of nukes I hid somewhere. In anticipation of the migration from Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2010 coming up real soon, I had to upgrade our BES (Blackberry Enterprise Server) to the most recent version. the prior guy who had gone through 2 weeks of Blackberry training kept putting it off, coming up with excuses, and now is no longer with the company. I had done what anyone should do. I read up on the product and learned how to do the upgrade. Then the worst thing happened. Upon running Windows Update and Rebooting, the Blackberry Server came up but only enough to be pingable. I couldn’t remote into it, which meant so much for doing everything after hours.

First thing in the morning I went to our server room at the office where the BES is located, forced a hard reboot and the server came up normally. then came the task at hand. Few small things about going from BES 4.1 to BES Express 5.0.2. First you have to completely uninstall 4.1. Second, 5.0.2 is extremely slick. Once installed, and I got the users added into it, the majority of phones were found and automatically connected, as if they had always been on the 5.0.2 version of the BES. There were a couple of problem phones, but for the most part, all the planning on having to reactivate 50 Blackberrys went to the trash.

Sometimes, when things get done right, good surprises happen. Just never let it stop you from planning for the worst case scenario. Next step will be the final Exchange Migration.

The iPad and Tablet craze is upon us. The amount of these devices out in the business world is increasing at an extreme rate. I recently got an iPad from work, and here is what I think about it.

Being in the IT Consulting field, one has to keep up on the latest fads. The iPad is the biggest of these fads right now, and I was able to have my office get me one so I could learn it and support it. Besides My office, a lot of my clients are getting these nice little devices in.

The iPad itself is a neat idea. The form factor, touch screen, and clarity of the device makes it something people want. Then there is the “it” factor, which means everyone wants one. For uses such as games, note taking, and e-mail, it works fantastic. The speed of the processor is adequate, although it does hang a bit at times. Its multiple tab web browsing ability works nicely also. I can understand why people tend to be so up on it, but like everything there is a downside.

First thing I noticed was no built in apps for PDFs or Word Documents. The ability to at least open these items so one can read them is essential for any business class device. I am not saying edit these items, cause there are pay for apps you can get that will give you a full Office suite of tools. I mean just Acrobat Reader, or an Office File Viewer is really needed.

Also, the size. I have a Samung N120 Netbook, which I loaded with Ubuntu 11.04, and it is almost the same size and weight as the iPad. Yes, the iPad is quicker to access, but the Netbook gives me a full keyboard, and with Ubuntu on it, a full office suite for no more cost than the device itself. Then there is the price difference. Most Tablets are starting at about $500 (The first gen Galaxy Tab 3G is costing less with a Verizon data contract) and that is usually for a 16GB Wi-Fi only version. Netbooks start at $250 and have at least 160GB of storage. The iPad is even more restrictive as you do not have any USB ports nor SD card slots to expand storage on it.

The downsides from my perspective are why I don’t think the iPad is a proper business solution at this point. When you have something that gives you more versatility and storage such as a Netbook, at around half the cost, you have to wonder why the iPad is doing so well. In the near future tablets like the iPad will be more business savvy, but right now, its a neat, overpriced, toy.

Firefox 4 is out. For a browser that re-sparked the browser wars, Firefox had been falling behind lately. Can 4 bring back Firefox?

I have a tendency not to download betas of web browsers. I’m not much of a bug hunter, haven’t been able to establish myself in those communities, don’t have a ton of time for actual hard core testing, and I’m not a developer. I just like having things work, especially where web browsing is concerned. So when I heard that Firefox 4′s final release was going to be the exact same as the last Release Candidate, I decided to actually jump the gun and start using it. I figured it couldn’t be any worse than using 3.6.

I’ve been using Firefox as my main browser since version 2, and overall have liked it. There have always been some issues with it, such as the memory hole it has, but they were things I could mostly live with. As  Firefox 3 kept getting updated though, it was all getting worse and worse. To open my iGoogle home page, which is set up with a bunch of news widgets, would take 5 minutes. Not only that, but the whole browser would be slow and unresponsive until it fully opened.

So I finished downloading Firefox 4 and installing it, expecting the same sluggishness. Surprisingly to me, my iGoogle paged opened in under a minute, and I was all set to go to other websites in other tabs, even while the iGoogle page was loading up. This is starting to look promising.

I continued on my browsing way, going to sites I frequent such as Tech Republic, ZDNet, Krebs on Security, and many more. All rendered faster than in Firefox 3.6. I did run into an occasional site which just wouldn’t open in Firefox 4 (Buffalo Wild Wings being one), but considering that there have been a lot of changes in Firefox 4, this doesn’t surprise me.

Everything isn’t all roses though. Java rendering (I enjoy playing Text Twist) and some Flash rendering is slow and painful. The Java being the worst of them all, as it slows to a crawl with a java game on Yahoo’s website. Once loaded, it works ok, but still a bunch of issues. Also, Firefox still uses a lot of memory, and doesn’t have the best memory management in the world. I have also heard reports of people who have had issues with it upon install, although the percentage seems to be small.

Is Firefox 4 an improvement? Definitely. Is it a game changer? No. Can it fend off Google Chrome? Maybe. Personally, I’m not going to Chrome unless I have to (Google has enough info on me from Android, Gmail etc, they don’t get any more if I can help it), and I don’t care of IE, Safari, or Opera. In the end, its really about what you are comfortable with and what works. On that, Firefox 4 is a solid, fast browser.