I have a nice iMac that I use daily; my wife has a MacBook Pro which she has taken quite a liking to. And I carry around my iPhone (she really couldn’t care less about smart phones). It looks like these devices all converge on and overlap the territory of the iPad. Again, what’s the point?

I walked into the Apple store last Monday expecting to enjoy a few minutes of playing around with an over-sized iPod Touch, and then walk out. Then it hit me: they did it again—they created a device, akin to the iPhone, that is so slick and easy to use that you must handle one and play with its features before you can truly understand.

Alex Payne put it quite nicely in his blog:

“Human-computer interaction has found a sweet spot on the iPad. It’s all the power of desktop computing, plus the valuable constraints of mobile devices, minus the limitations of both. It just makes sense. Use one for a couple hours and your desktop or laptop will seem clumsy, arbitrary, and bewildering. It is, simply, how (most) computing should be.

You can be as cooly aloof as you like about the device, but it won’t change the fact that it’s a fundamental step forward in computing. … [I]f you work in tech, you should spend some time with an iPad. If it doesn’t change the way you think about what you do, you’re either a genius or an idiot.”

— The Moderate’s Position on iPad Openness

He’s right, you know.

As soon as I held the device in my hands it was clear why this device has earned its own new niche that it was wedged into, between smart phones and laptops. The touch interaction that was so revolutionary with the iPhone has become more palpable, and more natural. I find myself gently sweeping my hand across the screen as I read the newspaper, watching the words gently glide by.

It really sank in when I looked at how my wife uses her MacBook Pro. She lays in bed with the machine in her lap, listening with headphones, as she goes through her email, listens to iTunes, searches out videos of old friends in Brazil posted on YouTube, and does some Google searches for whatever is on her mind. Meanwhile, the machine’s legendary thigh-roasting fans are running and she fidgets and fumbles with its bulk.

Everything she does with her MacBook is better with the iPad. It is more like a TV than a computer in the sense that you simply turn it on and choose what you want to do, with no knowledge of its internals. There are no fans blasting searing heat. The device is not cumbersome; she can curl up with it like a good book.

And it does Netflix.

What more could you want?

Well, there are few things I see right away that I would like, but for the most part I want more proper iPad apps. Old iPhone apps offer two equally unpleasant views: either you use the app in a horribly cropped iPhone-sized letterbox view, or the app is displayed in grotty pixelated full screen mode. Fortunately, folks are coming out with new iPad apps every day, some are even free upgrades if you own an app on the iPhone.

The first problem my wife will encounter (when I finally give her my iPad, as promised) is that she will want to print something from it. Printing doesn’t seem to be in the iPad’s repertoire. I have to admit that printing is a bit of a heavyweight for such a handy dandy device. She will still look at me and say “But it should be able to print.” And she’ll be right.

The second real issue I have with it is file management. There just is no simple way to move files onto an iPad: all file management is kludgy at best, usually involving iTunes. This was not so bad with the iPhone because our expectations are lower; after all, it is a cellphone first and foremost.

But the iPad is different. Its name screams “Documents” and begs us to flip pages with our bare hands. Why do all document transfers have to involve web browsers, email, and iTunes?

There are many different ways file management could be handled, but the way iPhones and iPads deal with documents and files is so un-Apple. This little bit of tarnish distracts from the beautiful polish of the device.

But I love it anyway

I can’t really criticize much more about my iPad. It does exactly what someone like my wife needs with little hassle, like a handheld flat-screen TV with cool features.

In other words, the iPad excels at being a computer for entertainment.

Check out some of the (currently) free newspaper apps. If you like Popular Science, drop a five-spot on their interactive magazine. You’ll like it.

And did I mention that it does Netflix?

Recently I have been mulling over the possibility of commuting to New York—owing to a hazy future at my current employer. Whether or not I am ready to trudge there and back every day of the week is still an open question, but the siren song of the city has its draw.

With such a fine commute comes an interesting problem: one needs to cart lots of stuff to and from, especially a laptop and possibly a Kindle for the train ride, but no one wants to lug huge bags throughout the subways of Manhattan.

Anyway, here’s the article from Wired Magazine’s How-To Wiki on how to Travel Light Without Leaving Your Laptop Behind.

Got any ideas? It’s a Wiki, so go ahead and contribute yours.

One point that I don’t think they mention: I want a bag or backpack that looks nothing like a laptop bag. I really don’t care to walk around with a neon sign on my back saying “I’m carrying $3000 in electronics!”

I’m still looking for that perfect gruffy looking bag.

I never really considered that this book might raise eyebrows until some years later when I was in the Navy. We had just come back from a cruise and everyone was heading out to their dormant cars to go off base. One of my shipmates was quite surprised to find police surrounding his vehicle when he reached the parking lot. It seems that a few weeks prior, some night watchman had seen two curious items in the back seat with his flashlight: the butt of a BB pistol and … The Anarchist Cookbook. He sure had some ’splainin’ to do about that one. They were more interested in the book than the pistol.

What about today? Do we have to worry if our reading habits are known to others?

Though I chuckle at the thought that anyone would care that I have Clive Cussler in my Kindle, it’s not difficult to imagine situations where one might not want Kindle searches or eBook library contents known:

• People reading hotly political materials that might attract unwanted government attention.
• Folks who are reading materials that hint at their sexual orientation, a fact they might wish to keep private.
• Readers who are searching for materials on one of many different illnesses, that they might not want potential employers and insurers to know about.

Want to know how eBook vendors are treating your privacy? Here’s an article on the subject by Ed Bayley on the Deeplinks Blog:

An E-Book Buyer’s Guide to Privacy

This article provides a table with five key e-reader technologies—Google Books, Amazon Kindle, B&N Nook, Sony Reader, and FBReader—and provides answers to several key privacy questions for each product.

Even if you have nothing to hide, think about this: Considering how poorly Amazon chooses recommendations for me, I wonder how poorly our government might pigeonhole me based on my book collection. One thing is certain: somewhere in that list is one ancient copy of The Anarchist Cookbook!

Soon after returning from that trip I wrote a review of my Kindle experience. Now some time has passed and I am coming back to relate the Kindle experience over time.

The novelty hasn’t worn off!

I’ll admit it: I’m a gadget geek and I’m afraid to imagine how much hard-earned income I have frittered away on pretty devices that I really don’t need and that often get tossed to the back of some gadget drawer.

My fear with the Kindle was that it would fall into this category: I would read a few books on it and then it would slowly find its way deeper under piles of other stuff—papers waiting to be scanned and guitar music that never will be learned. Eventually, it would be charged up once a year to avoid feeling guilty for not using it.

The reality is that I use the Kindle today almost as much as when it first arrived. Though my reading has not picked up nearly as much as I would like it to, whenever I do have a chance to read, I pick up the Kindle.

One thing that has remained constant: I can hold the device for hours, reading peacefully, and it still “disappears in my hands” as promised. The text is still as enjoyable and crisp.

Newspapers still aren’t for me

Many years ago the local paper would have a regular promotion where they all but gave away the paper for six months. I would try it, and then regret it as I found myself tossing unread paper after unread paper into the recycle bin. I just am not a newspaper kind of guy: As much as I like reading the paper, and I would like to be tuned in to world events and enjoying my favorite columnists, I don’t seem to ever sit down to read the paper.

One thing has become clear over the past few months: it’s just as easy for unread electronic newspapers to collect in a pile as their paper counterparts. I have a subscription to USA Today, but I might actually only read it once or twice a month. I am probably going to end up canceling that subscription. Reader’s Digest, on the other hand, makes a welcome appearance once a month and I enjoy reading it.

Perhaps the greatest testament to the usability of the Kindle came from my wife. She was telling me about some story she had started reading in Reader’s Digest at the doctor’s office, only to be interrupted by the nurse calling her. I handed her the wonder gadget and showed her how to read Reader’s Digest. She had no problem whatsoever working her way through several back issues.

My wife hates technology. She likes the Kindle.

Lame Recommendations

One area where I have been somewhat disappointed is in the recommendations from the online bookstore. I just don’t understand Amazon’s algorithm for determining which books to recommend.

It is clear that your entire Amazon book purchasing history is used, but it is not clear how.

For example, in the past several months I have purchased exactly two books by Joseph Wambaugh and two by Kurt Vonnegut. Why, then, does my recommendation list always contain these two authors in the top slots? I have bought dozens and dozens of books from Amazon, often multiple from an author. I would hope that their recommendation would be a little better than that.

One book I bought on the Kindle recently was The Help by Kathryn Stockett. I also have two by Kim Edwards, the author of The Memory Keeper’s Daughter. These, and several like them, though they might place my Man Card at risk, are evidence of a genre of books that I hope Amazon would detect and use to better choose my recommendations. No, I’m stuck looking at Wambaugh and Vonnegut forever I guess.

Last week I sent an order with several children’s books out west for my cousin’s three-year-old. Guess what appeared before Kurt in the list: a recommendation for a children’s book, Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.

In the area of book recommendations, I have been quite disappointed.

Questionable Top Seller List

There are three lists of books provided at the home page of the store: New York Times Best Sellers, Kindle Top Sellers, and New & Noteworthy Books. I guess the first list speaks for itself.

The Kindle Top Sellers list, though, has a glaring defect that really limits its usefulness in my opinion: many Kindle books are free or very cheap, and therefore might be overrepresented in the top seller list. As an example of this problem, I quickly opened the list right now and found a book called Weaving Words ranked #5. There are exactly two customer reviews of this book and the average rating is a pitiful 1-1/2 stars. The key to success? It’s free.

I would rather pay $9.99 for an absolutely awesome read than slog through a free book.

It’s not all bad in the Book Store

To be fair, there are definitely good parts about the book store. As I said last time, the free chapters are unbelievably handy. I have already read and dumped several boring first-parts of books. If there is a complaint about that, it is that often books come loaded with so much frufru before the first real chapter that the “first three chapters” you download really only include fifty pages of cruft, followed by ten pages of actual book.

On multiple occasions I have heard about a book from some other source and then hopped on to the Kindle Store. I then read a few reviews, read the first chapters, and then bought the book. This is a convenience that must be experienced.

The Record Club Blues

Remember a long time ago, when we rode our dinosaurs to school (my brother an I had to share one) and we did our homework on stone tablets? People were members of record clubs such as BMG or Columbia House. These were an awesome bargain, as long as you could negotiate the tricks and traps they used to induce you to buy records you never wanted.

The one real down side to a record club was that their catalog was always incomplete. I remember wishing I could find Pink Floyd at BMG and realizing that it probably was never going to happen. Different artists were often available from one club or another but not both.

Sadly, this phenomenon endures today in digital form. There are no sources of digital media that sell everything. The iTunes store and Amazon have different MP3 catalogs, and Barnes & Noble and Amazon have different eBook catalogs.

The limited catalog can be blamed in part to the need to prioritize which books to digitize: though I might want to read a particular Clive Cussler novel from 1975, Amazon might have put that on the back burner while they digitize more recent works.

Unfortunately, I imagine that the majority of the limited catalog is due to licensing, copyrights, and lawyers, as well as a desire to compete by not allowing your competitors to sell your best selection—a balkanization of authors that helps the book sellers more than the customers.

The fact that these eReader devices come hooked up to a book store and have built-in DRM means that the market is not open. I cannot browse the Barnes & Noble catalog from my Kindle and buy books there; likewise, a Nook user cannot buy from the Kindle store. This does not help us as consumers, as there is little chance that anyone will buy two of these expensive devices so they can access two catalogs.

Another problem that is caused by this nontransferable content is that you are now married to the product line. My Kindle book collection is worth more than the Kindle itself. Do I want to jump shop and move to a better device sold by a competitor in the future? No, and that’s exactly what Amazon wants. There is no incentive for any of the eBook manufacturers to make it easy for you to switch devices.

Final Thoughts

Given the state of the eBook market, it makes sense to choose a good device that has a predictable long future. Amazon is the online book powerhouse and is a safe bet for longevity. Reviewers are constantly singing the praises of the Kindle, and any new eReader review contains the obligatory comparison to Kindle.

I would heartily recommend this device to any avid reader. Indeed, a couple of weeks ago I was online with AppleCare working out the replacement of a problematic iPhone. We chatted a bit while waiting for reboots and such, and I’m fairly certain that I convinced the nice AppleCare woman that the Kindle is exactly what she needed in her life.

The key was that she said that she likes reading more than anything. If reading is what you live for, don’t delay. It’s not like “reading from a computer” and it’s far more convenient than a suitcase full of books.

When the original Kindle was announced, I was skeptical of its utility and I just couldn’t see myself using one. In the year or two since it was released, I have occasionally dreamed of buying one, but balked at its steep price. The combination of a new version (Kindle 2), a price cut, and a vacation was all it took.

In short, I love it, and it is the perfect companion for a long lazy vacation. In this article, I’ll cover several of the high points as well as a few of its shortcomings.

A Display (almost) like Real Paper

As far as I’m concerned, this is the only feature that really matters. Most will agree that reading from a screen is unpleasant. I have read books on a wide variety of sub-par screens such as laptops, Palm devices, and my iPhone—they are all pretty bad. Why is this screen so special?

To be honest, you really must see one of these e-ink devices in person to fully appreciate the difference between Kindle and a netbook display. I saw my first e-ink device in a Borders book store—they had the Sony Reader on display. If you are in a Borders, you might want to see if they have any on hand. If you have any gadget-geek friends, ask around to see if one has a Kindle you can hold in your hands.

The first time you see the display, you will be surprised at its paper-like qualities.

To show this, take a look at this close-up of the screen:

• It works by reflected light, like paper. There is no backlight.
• The letters appear to be printed right on the surface—look at the text around the coins to see what I mean.
• You can read in direct sunlight with no loss in quality. Indeed, I took the photo in sunlight to show this.
• The display consumes no energy unless it is changing pages. In fact, when you put the device in sleep mode, it displays one of several images of literary figures until you wake it up again.
• The display is just as crisp at any angle:

In this image, not only do you see the effects of an amazingly thin depth of field from my lens (a bit more than I expected), but you can see that even at a very flat angle, the screen looks pretty much the same.

The only shortcomings I can think of are that it isn’t color (no big deal), and the contrast still isn’t exactly like a printed book—it’s more like the black-on-grey of a cheap newspaper.

Some may find the page-change flash annoying: when you change pages, the display flashes black for a split second in order to clear the prior page.

The Reading Experience

With a display like that, it’s hard to go wrong.

One of the main complaints of the original Kindle was that it was too easy to accidentally turn pages. They have fixed this problem, and now you can easily turn the page from either side, while avoiding accidental page turns. It feels quite natural, and the paperback-sized screen is just big enough to feel like you are really reading a book.

The device is very small, so you can carry it anywhere (please buy a cover, though). There is no longer any need to fold the newspaper fifteen times to avoid encroaching on the personal space of your fellow commuters.

Over my vacation, I read several books with ease. Amazon says that they want the Kindle to “disappear” in your hands, so as to not distract from your reading enjoyment. They have achieved this goal.

The Kindle Store

All things considered, this was the deal maker for me. The fact that I can go to the Kindle Store wherever I am and buy a new book is unbelievably cool. To sweeten the pot, Amazon allows you to download the first few chapters of any book for free. That way, you can decide before paying if the book is going to be a good read. This ability to download free samples was what sold the device for me.

For example, while we were driving through South Carolina the other day, I suddenly developed a hankering for a good first-person WWII book. After a few minutes of figuring out how to find WWII materials, I started paging through dozens of interesting possibilities and finally settled on Iron Coffins: A Personal Account of the German U-Boat Battles of World War II by Herbert A Werner. How neat! I was looking for yet another memoir of D-Day battles from an American author and stumbled on a German’s first-person account of his U-boat experience.

Periodicals

Amazon provides a relatively short list of newspapers and magazines that you can subscribe to, including the New York Times, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, and others. There are also a few magazines to choose from (33, to be exact).

As with books, you can sample the wares before buying. You can have one 14-day subscription to any periodical for free.

I subscribed to Reader’s Digest and USA TODAY. Both of these seem to have been well adapted to the device. Every morning when I turn on my Kindle, the day’s edition of USA TODAY automatically comes down over the air.

Built-in Internet

I’ll be brutally honest here: you really don’t want to surf the net with this device. The Internet connection exists mainly as a means of connecting to the Kindle store. If you are the kind who likes surfing the ‘Net using the text-only Lynx browser, on an actual vintage VT-100 terminal over an acoustic coupler modem, then this might fit your style.

In a pinch, you can zip to Wikipedia, but don’t expect to use it to manage your eBay auctions or watch YouTube.

The image at right is a screenshot generated right from the device. Trust me—even browsing a Wikipedia article is a painful experience.

What’s Wrong with Kindle?

Any complaints I have about Kindle are minimal, bordering on nipickery, but you should know of some of the minor annoyances.

• Any navigation and pointing and clicking is clunky and slow. It really does remind me of typing on an old-school terminal over a 300 baud modem, where it was quite common to accidentally type in several characters before the computer caught up and started displaying them.
  Sometimes you move the “mouse pointer” down to an item you want to click on, but it lags and you click once too many times, and then the final button press clicks the wrong thing. I managed to accidentally buy a book this way—fortunately, Amazon provides a “I made a mistake” link.
• No touch screen. While struggling with the navigation, it is so tempting to just poke at it. At the moment, this is likely a blessing: the Sony Reader has a touch screen, at the cost of a substantially muddled display.
• The book prices are a little steep. I’m certain that the publishers are partly to blame on this, but it is hard to accept that a dead-tree edition only costs a few bucks more than an electronic edition. There are none of the losses associated with publishing, stocking, shipping, and then handling returns on these books, but they still cost almost as much.
• Come on, only 33 magazines? I know that many magazines are glossy and colorful, but I wouldn’t mind a reduced-cost version of Wired, for example.
• They don’t give you any kind of case. You are spending $300 on this fine device and the least they could do is give you a cotton slip cover!
• You can’t replace the battery. This is no big deal for me, since I am already on my second iPhone: the technology advances fast enough for me that I buy the latest gadget before the battery in the last one dies.
• They aren’t even close to reaching the full potential as a book reader, and likely won’t. Since Kindle supports DRM content, why can’t we have an online digital library where we can check out books for a week and return them? Why can’t an outfit like books24×7 allow me to download a full book to my one registered Kindle?
  Certainly, these uses would conflict with Amazon’s business model, but it is a shame to see this unused potential.

The ugly specter of Digital Rights Management

One particularly troubling concern is with the Amazon DRM model in general. On the one hand, it seems that Amazon wants you to treat the Kindle and its content as a service. You are paying a substantial sum for a service. Since there is DRM involved, you really don’t own the content in the true sense of the word. You can’t give a book to someone else. Much of the value of Kindle is derived from the permanent connection to the Kindle Store, and your online bookshelf. Unfortunately, many customers have found that when they fell out of Amazon’s good graces, by returning too many purchases, they were shown the door quite rudely and locked out of their Kindle accounts forever. It seems that Amazon would like to have their cake and eat it too; treat their product as a service, but then tell you it is useful as a standalone product once you are left out in the cold.

And who can ignore the irony of the whole 1984 debacle, where books were yanked out of customer’s Kindles as they slept?

To be sure, most Kindle customers are not recklessly returning big-screen TVs after Super Bowl Weekend and returning GPS units after their summer vacations, so the whole Amazon lockout issue is probably not a concern for most. Likewise, Amazon should have learned their lesson from 1984. Forewarned is forearmed. Make sure that you understand the risks and limitations before you dive in.

What’s Right with Kindle?

• The display is beautiful.
• The battery lasts several days, as long as you turn off wireless.
• It really does disappear in your hands, as promised.
• It will hold every book I ever plan on purchasing.
• The online store is almost perfectly implemented—it’s extremely easy to purchase new books anywhere.
• Those free samples are the best.
• The free iPhone companion app lets me see my Kindle books on my iPhone too, and it keeps my current page in sync between the devices.
• It’s Paperless!

My Conclusion

There are tons of features that I haven’t covered, such as the built-in dictionary, the “read-to-me” text-to-speech feature, and the MP3 player features. I hopefully have covered the key features that really matter for an eBook reader.

For me, the fact that I can carry a ton of books in my hand without involving dead trees is great.

If you are an avid reader, but you are not a starving college student living on ramen, order one. You will not be disappointed.

Their network security department very kindly (and politely) informed me that they had received a “cease and desist” order from a particular game publisher. They had included the game publisher’s email, complete with the incriminating evidence.

There it was: logs showing the MAC address of my cable modem being involved in suspicious BitTorrent activities.

Considering that at any time during the week there can be from two to six or seven different teenagers hanging out in my humble abode, carrying virus-ridden machines, the message was clear: I had to get serious about locking down network access

The Problem

I would have liked to have bought some net filtering software to slap on the offending machine and been done with it, however I knew that this was insufficient.

Even if this one event could be traced to a youthful source, a more ominous danger comes from the inevitable malware and viruses that teenagers collect on their machines as they swap cool stuff with their friends.

Complicating things, there are many devices on our home network: Besides their school laptops, the kids have video game consoles and one has an iPod touch, all with wifi access. Think about how many different gadgets are on your home network.

And shutting off access altogether was not an option—there is still schoolwork to be done!

The answer: A Private Network for the Kids

My solution was to put together an unusual network configuration using a second wireless router; I wanted the ability to manage every single kid-owned device at the flip of a switch, while leaving the grownups untouched.

I hooked the cable modem (red) to the main router, shown in green. I then plugged a second wireless router, shown in blue, into the first.

By doing this, you can see that there is one single wire connecting the entire blue network (the kids) to the green network. It was trivial to then configure the green router with appropriate access control and filtering for that one single device: the blue router.

Some quirky details

Home routers like these are, by default, configured with a NAT firewall. They work sort of like one-way mirrors: someone on the network can see out, but nobody can see in. As a result of this, the kids (blue devices) can see any device on the main router (green devices), such as our print server and the NAS device, but no one can see into the kids’ network.

As paradoxical as it seems, this is exactly what I wanted. By making the kids’ network a private network, it appears to the green router as a single device. When I am configuring access restrictions, I only need to control access for the blue router’s IP address or MAC address.

Many consumer-grade routers have flakey firmware that just doesn’t really behave well when you start doing things like turning on filtering for multiple machines. I simplified things by bringing down the number of controlled devices to one. In addition, if one were to try filtering on the IP addresses or MAC addresses of individual machines, this can be easily defeated by manually changing the IP address or MAC address. With my configuration, the MAC address being filtered is the blue router, locked away safely.

The Finer Points

If you want to set up a network like this, do the following:

• (Recommended) Reset the kids’ router. Hold the hard reset button on the router in while you turn on power; hold the button for 15 seconds or so.
• Hook the kids’ router up to a spare laptop using an Ethernet cable. (Turn off the wireless of the laptop for the time being).
• Use the laptop to navigate to the configuration web page (usually 192.168.1.1).
• Set the router’s own address to a different network from the main network, such as 192.168.2.1. This is critical.
• Configure the router’s gateway and DHCP server entries to all point to the main router (192.168.1.1). This tells the kids’ router to use the main router as a source for its DHCP lookups and such, rather than going to cable modem.
• Navigate to the configuration web page at the new address (192.168.2.1). You may need to close the browser and replug the Ethernet cable.
• Set up your wireless security for the kids however you like. Make sure to choose a different channel and SSID from your main router.
• Remove the laptop and plug the WAN port of the kids’ router into one of the LAN ports of the main router. Restart everything.
• Test both networks to make sure things work the way you think they should.
• (Optional) You might want to connect to the kids’ router and set it’s external IP address statically. Make sure that this is set to a number on the home network (e.g. 192.168.1.2).

Some notes:

• You can only maintain the kids’ router from a machine connected to the kids’ network; the home network cannot see the management screens. If you wish, you could enable remote management for the kids’ network only, since the main home router is still protecting the whole network from intruders.
• Computers on the kids’ network can see all devices, but they aren’t on the same network. This means that network printers and NAS devices are accessible, but you will have to attach to them using IP addresses. I was able to easily set up the machines on the 192.168.2.1 network to use a print server on 192.168.1.100.
• For machines that should have full access (a.k.a. yours), make sure that you either set the green network to be a higher priority or remove the blue network SSID entry altogether. I found out the hard way that my iMac would randomly pick the green or the blue depending on which one it saw first when it woke up.
• This does not wall off your main network; it simply provides a single point of control to the entire kids’ network. In other words, don’t depend on this setup to prevent malware on the kids machines from seeing your machine. You can, however, set up your PC to not trust the kids’ network.

Wireless Network Security

Regardless of how you set up your network, make sure you use at least WPA encryption (Never use WEP!). Make sure your passwords are solid.

Using DD-WRT on my new wireless router

In addition to the new network configuration, I went one step further and chose a main router that lends itself well to installation of open-source firmware. I ordered a Linksys WRT54GL from Amazon for a little over fifty bucks. I chose this one because, as a direct descendent of the venerable WRT54G, this router is very well suited for running alternative firmware such as DD-WRT, giving substantial control over things like, say, access control…

Within a half hour after my new router arrived, I had gone to the Supported Hardware page, obtained the latest build of DD-WRT, and replaced the Linksys firmware with the far-better open source code.

I won’t go into the specifics of installation here, but it isn’t very challenging. Check out the DD-WRT site for details.

Closing Thoughts

Make no mistake: we are responsible for whatever goes on our home networks. Just like your home telephone; if someone dials up some 900 number and rings up a thousand-dollar phone bill, the phone company won’t care a whit who did it, you will still pay. Likewise, regardless of who did the BitTorrent download, there is a certain degree of responsibility of the homeowner to lock down the network.

Another point: Without some degree of personal responsibility on the part of the kids in the house, this sort of activity would simply be an arms race of filtering and blocking versus hacking. My goal is to help keep the honest people honest and to make life more difficult for the viruses and malware.

But what would you do?

Many of us have smartphones these days that hold substantial quantities and varieties of data. What happens to that data and how you replace it are two key questions to consider in the event that a mobile telephone is lost.

If you haven’t thought about it much before, why not take a few moments to consider the factors involved and any changes you might want to make to help minimize the stress from such an event.

What’s the problem?

There are really three basic areas of concern when you lose a portable phone:

• Someone else can make calls on your phone and bill them to you.
• You just lost all of your pictures, contacts, and text messages.
• Some bad dude has access to all of your pictures, contacts, and text messages.

Problem 1: Some Bad Dude has your Telephone
Most people take care of the first problem right away, and you should do so as well.

Take Immediate Action
You must contact your provider ASAP and let them know your phone was lost before some ne’er-do-well starts dialing up 900 numbers or making overseas calls to some see-no-evil third-world country that gladly charges you thousands of dollars per minute.

Even if you don’t have the provider’s number with you, it’s important enough to make a dash for the nearest computer to do a quick Google search. Call them up; it should be sufficient to give your name and mobile number.

Once you have reported the phone as lost or stolen, make sure you change the passwords for any email accounts you had configured on your phone. This will shut off any routes open to bad guys to send messages in your name.

Take Preventative Measures
There are a few measures that you can take up front while you still have your phone. Note that these all fall under the category of “closing the barn door after the animals have left,” so you want to do them before you lose your phone.

You can minimize the risk of costly bills ahead of time by asking your provider to block 900 number service and block overseas calls. Of course, when you are packing for your trip to Paris, you might want to call your cellular provider to let them know so that you don’t block yourself. 

In addition, many phones come with a “lock” option, where a PIN is required to unlock the device. I wouldn’t trust my Swiss bank account number to such a PIN, as there have been known bugs in these, but it’s better than nothing.

There exists a class of utilities for smartphones that allow you to remotely lock and erase your device. I used one of these utilities for a while when I was a Treo user, but it always seemed a little too quirky to depend on as my only defense.

You might consider handset insurance from your provider—for a few bucks a month, you can have your handset replaced if it is lost, stolen, or destroyed. Make sure you read the restrictions first!

Problem 2: You lost your Data
Have you ever considered what kind of data you would lose if the phone were lost?

Here’s a short list of possibilities:

• All of your contacts
• Pictures you took with the camera
• Calendar events
• Text messages
• Email messages
• Music
• Software
• Special notes (A shopping list? A list of passwords?)

Synchronize with your Desktop
Many phones come with desktop synchronization software that can be used to protect you to some extent. For example, the iPhone synchronizes with iTunes whenever you plug it in, and in the process the contacts and photos are copied between desktop and phone (only if you have this enabled, of course).

This kind of synchronization is pretty good, but it is implemented imperfectly for many devices, and it does you no good if the only time you synchronized was when you bought the phone.

Worse still, many phones don’t provide software data utilities out of the box. When my wife purchased a Motorola Razr 2, I was disappointed to find out that Motorola phones require a software package called Motorola Phone Tools which costs $35.

Take some moments and consider how many contacts you carry with you on your telephone. If it is a couple dozen, you can probably just keep a list on your desktop machine and keep them both up to date.
But once you get into the realm of hundreds of contacts, you have no choice: to avoid a catastrophic loss of your social sphere, you had better back up that list somewhere.

Consider the impact of losing Text messages and Email
Think about the text messages and email on your phone: would you shed a tear if you lost these? I couldn’t care a lick about losing old text messages, since I use SMS strictly for need-to-know-now information that loses relevance quickly. I imagine that folks who buy the “unlimited text message” option may have some special ones that they don’t want to lose.

With a bit of luck, and planning, you might be able to keep from losing important emails. One option is to use the mobile web versions of various online email services to handle your mail. This way, you never have any messages on your device.

I like Gmail because they offer a free service called IMAP email, where your emails are retained on their servers and your device simply shows what is available on the servers, kind of like webmail, but nicer.

Get to know what your device supports and what services are out there.

Google Sync to the Rescue!
For the smartphone set, Google recently introduced a great calendar/contact syncing service, where you can set your phone to connect to your Google Calendars via a new tool called Google Sync for your Mobile Phone.

The screenshot on the right shows the phones that they support as of the time of this writing.

By using Google Sync, you can manage your contacts online or on your phone, and the changes are immediately mirrored.

Problem 3: Bad Dudes have your Data
I don’t even want to consider the possibility of some creepy dude sifting through my contacts, looking at the pictures that I have carefully added, choosing people to stalk, and then going to their homes to slit their throats in their sleep.

Wow, what a horrible thought!

The reality is, that’s probably not going to happen. The odds of your lost or stolen phone ending up in the hands of a serial killer are in your favor.

But a thief sure can have fun with your data!

• Do you keep any of your sensitive personal data in notes?
• Perhaps you have one note where you keep passwords for your online banking site?
• Can a villain gain anything by sending text messages in your name?
• Are your email messages all locally stored on the phone?

Protect your Secrets
If you are like me, you have tons of passwords and secret things that you can’t possibly remember. In my opinion, one of the essential applications for a portable device is a Password Manager application.

These applications provide a simple list of sites and passwords, protected by strong encryption. You provide a single main password to access the data within.

I have used two, and they are both excellent applications: SplashID and 1Password. There are others out there.

Recognize the Danger of Email in Enemy Hands
If you used the same email account for registering for any online services, then it is paramount that you prevent the bad guys from accessing your email. All a thief has to do is go to your online shopping sites and say “I forgot my password” and they will kindly send the password to the phone, in the hands of the enemy.

You would think that as soon as your provider blacklists the phone, nobody should be able to use its email; however, if your phone is Wi-Fi enabled, or if someone slips in a different SIM card, it is conceivable that the email client of the phone can still access your email service. 

Use IMAP Email or Webmail
If you use IMAP access to your email and contacts, such as with the Gmail IMAP and Google Sync options discussed earlier, you can very easily limit the access anyone has to existing data by changing your email password. Once your Gmail password has been changed, your purloined device will no longer be able to access your email.

It goes without saying that if you are using webmail alone, as soon as you change the email password, the bad guys have zero access to your existing email, but you most likely still have contacts on your phone.

It’s worth experimenting a little to see exactly what the “user experience” would be for a thief if you were to change your password.

Summary
Losing a cellular phone can possibly be an expensive proposition, especially if you are not aware of the factors involved.

Ask yourself “What could I lose without being sad about it?”

Ask yourself “What is the worst thing somebody could accomplish with my data?”

Weigh the risks carefully and take any action that you feel is sufficient, and sustainable, on your part.