Apple’s new Airport Extremes, announced a few days ago, have several features that make them very useful for small business environments.

Foremost is the guest network. As well as your main Wireless LAN, you can set up a secondary wLAN which can be restricted to internet access only – preventing access to your internal network. the Airport Extreme can be configured to allow devices on this guest network to communicate with each other, if you wish.

Security options are interesting here – none, WPA or WPA/WPA2. This is because the 802.11n spec does not allow WEP security.

The new Airport Extreme also has two radios built in – one operating on the 5Ghz band and one on the 2.4Ghz. This allows useful network traffic separation – 802.11n-only on 5Gz for all new network equipment, and 802.11n/g/b on 2.4Ghz for older equipment. Each frequency can have a separate SSID – useful in some circumstances, but will break the seamless roaming Apple brought out in the Airport update earlier this week.

As before, holding down Option when selecting radio mode gives full access to the radio choices. However, the defaults of 802.11/a/n and 802.11b/g seem perfectly reasonable.

In summary, this device is useful for separating out older devices onto their own network, allowing newer computers with 5Gz-capable network adapters their own clear space without the need for two wireless access points.

However, if you still need WEP access for old devices on the 2.4Ghz side, then you will still need a second access point. If that’s the case, and you already have one on 5Ghz and one on 2.4GHz, then there’s nothing really to recommend rushing out and buying a new Airport Extreme just yet.

Their final new feature is MobileMe integration. If you have a MobileMe account, USB hard drives attached to the access point are shared via the Back to My Mac. Useful for getting access to data from wherever you are – if you can get Back to My Mac working properly. I never have!

In the majority of overall averages of our tests, Parallels Desktop is the clear winner running 14-20% faster than VMware Fusion. The one exception is for those that need to run Windows XP, 32-bit on 2 virtual processors, VMware Fusion runs about 10% faster than Parallels Desktop.

My question is, do users notice 14-20% in real life use? My guess is that they don’t.

(Via MacTech.com.)

Google announced yesterday that Google Sync is now available for the iPhone, adding it to a list including the Blackberry, Windows Mobile devices, some Sony Ericcson and some Nokia phones. The iPhone, Blackberry and Windows Mobile devices will synchronise calendars as well as contacts in the address book. Is this enough to replace Mobile Me if you have a Mac as well as an iPhone?

Mobile Me is a paid-for service (£69, $99 per annum) that enables the near real-time synchronisation of calendars, contact information and a number of @me.com email addresses. It’s built into OSX and the iPhone and (after initial teething problems) has proven to be a reliable way to keep the information on your Mac in synch with your phone. But even with its other perks – 20Gb of internet storage, email addresses – it’s expensive. Can Google Sync now be used instead?

The answer is yes, but there are compromises here. Firstly, you lose those perks. Secondly, if you’re using Activesync on your iPhone already it simply can’t be done – Google Sync requires Activesync and there can only be one Activesync configuration. Thirdly, it’s nothing like seamless. You need to set up Address Book, create new calendars, move data around and back up regularly – this is a beta after all.

However, if you wish to replace Mobile Me, or if you use one of the other Smartphones that work with Google Sync, this is an interesting opportunity. At the very least, I hope it will cause Apple to revisit the pricing of Mobile Me. I’ll pay for simplicity of configuration, but I don’t think I’ll be the only one who will think “is this worth it any more?” when my Mobile Me subscription rolls around again.

The major problem is that all you’re actually doing is moving your data from one physical location to a different one. A different one where you have less control – you have no say how your data is being maintained. How, or even if, it’s being backed up. What it’s being used for. How you can get it back. How it can be deleted. Your company’s data is the very essence of its existence. Surely you must do everything to preserve it?

A few days ago I wrote about people being locked out of their Google Apps accounts. Commonly used services, for example Google Notebook, cease development. And a couple of days ago, Ma.gnolia, a major social bookmarking service provider, suffered major data loss and has gone offline. The people fighting with Google Apps finally got access to their documents again. Ma.gnolia users may not be so lucky – at over 48 hours’ downtime, it could well be the site is gone for good – along with all its users’ bookmarks.

So how can a balance be struck between the convenience of data being stored in the cloud, universally accessible, and remaining in your control? A few simple rules should cover it.

The responsibility for your data remains with you.
It’s your stuff. Your data. What you need, use, and find useful. Nobody wants to be in the situation that Ma.gnolia users find themselves this weekend – potentially several years of accumulated bookmarks inaccessible and probably never to be retrieved.

Don’t use a service that doesn’t allow for easy import and export of your data.
Leaving aside keeping ongoing control of your data, your IT needs grow and change over time. What happens when your needs get met better by a new service in comparison to your existing one? You need to be able to migrate. If your current service doesn’t allow for exportation of your data in an easily-accessible format, you’re using the wrong service.

Synchronisation is better than import/export
Like it or not, most computing is still done locally. Where Cloud Computing can come into its own is where it integrates seamlessly with the data you have locally, for example calendar sharing or address book synchronisation. Services using data synchronisation, not data moving, are going to be the big winners in the next few years.

Free services are a false economy
When something goes wrong, what can you do? The free services out there have no service level agreement with you whatsoever. If something goes wrong, tough. This is simply not feasible in the long term – something that Ma.gnolia users are finding out this weekend. While the SLAs for paid services are hardly any better, at least they offer the chance of getting support at the end of a phone if something untoward happens.

I’ve posted before on why I don’t think you should use Google Apps for your business. Here’s another reason. Should it go wrong, you can expect no help from Google whatsoever.

Who in their right mind could sensibly recommend businesses use this? Let alone the pain and complication suffered when, for whatever reason, it stops working, there are corporate legal issues here. Putting all your data where someone else determines whether you can get to it or not is so far away from corporate responsibility it’s unreal.

(Via Joel on Software.)

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Macbook, Macbook Pro, Cinema Display

Firstly, it’s good to see Apple laptops come with a sensible amount of memory in their default configurations. The lower-end Macbook Pro comes with 2Gb, and the higher with 4Gb. This saves the immediate memory order that needed to be done when ordering a new Macbook Pro, and effectively reduces the cost. In fact, only the remaining White Macbook comes with 1Gb by default. Laptops with a sensible amount of memory included by default is a very welcome step for Apple.

Secondly, and most importantly, the new Apple Cinema display is a compelling and beautiful combination with the new Macbooks and Macbook Pros. A simple three-cable combination that powers your laptop, extends the screen to the display on your desk, and acts as a USB hub for your desk-based devices is a fantastic idea, and cleverly reduces desktop cable clutter. While it’s ideally suited to the new laptops, it looks as if it will work just as well with existing Mac laptops too, with an adaptor if necessary. We fully expect these to fly off the shelves. They effectively make the Macbook Pro and the Macbook the only sensible choices for an office desktop machine, except in the cases where an individual has very large processing or storage requirements.

So, for business, Apple have clarified their product lines – more than ever before there are clear and easy choices for particular business need. This is good news and a good move.

After all, they were attempting to do a lot. A near-worldwide simultaneous launch led to shortages everywhere. They knew there was pent-up demand for the product. Is frustrating your most loyal customers because of insufficient day one stock really the best way of building brand favour? A company as exposed and reliant on good public opinion as Apple should have managed this far better.

And in the UK, their airtime partner, O2, didn’t help with the image perception either. Existing customers were given the ability to sign up for an upgraded phone a week in advance. They wrote a clever AJAX-based site, and hosted it on Akamai for load-tolerance. Unfortunately, it relied on O2′s back-end systems, which were just not powerful enough to cope. And when the back end systems failed to work perfectly, the front-end didn’t fail gracefully – users got a range of confusing errors, and a fallback page that itself didn’t work.

On Friday itself, O2 were again in difficulties. Their user management systems failed within 10 minutes of store-opening. The staff at my store switched back to paper and processed people as fast as possible.

My initial experience in registering my new phone via the online store was fine. By the end of the day however it was completely overloaded, with complaints registered all round the world. Failing to anticipate *this* demand was ridiculous. Apple had the ability to *calculate* this demand, and failed to do so.

The other concurrent launch – that of Mobile Me – was just as troubled. Supposed to have gone live on Thursday, it wasn’t until late on Friday that it launched in the UK, and was equally completely overloaded, to the point of complete unusability. The web site stabilised by Saturday lunchtime, and push synching – the must-have feature – was working by early Saturday evening. The reports on the O2 forums of Apple billing people in their free trial period are worrying though.

I’m writing this on Sunday morning, and it all seems stabilised now. We got there eventually. However, Friday is an experience with Apple that I don’t wish to repeat. There are planning and scaling lessons to be learned, both by Apple and its partners. Let’s hope the next big launch of this nature is less frustrating for all concerned.

Now, it turns out that there is a very good reason indeed for keeping data in house only. The US PATRIOT act, allows data at Google – including your data – to be spied upon by the US Government with only the most limited of legal oversight. This is a clear conflict with any requirement your business for keeping its data confidential – that may be as simple as matters of competition.

Where it really strikes home though if you’re using data that can identify others. That could be for Marketing, information on clients, or even worse, processing information supplied to you by clients. Anything that you do that requires your use registered with the Information Commissioner? It’s pretty safe to say you must not use Google Apps to do it.

(Oh, and that’s whether you’ve actually registered or not!)

Be careful now. This is the article where the problem first emerged.

Firstly, you can’t upgrade the memory. The solid-state hard disk adds a lot of cost – £639, and there’s no telling how long it will last. Solid state memory has a finite read-write cycle.

(incidentally, that means the secondhand value of machines with solid-state memory will be poor. How long can you predict it will last?)

But my main issue with them is that they’re not robust. Strength has definitely been compromised in favour of lightness. The body clearly flexes when you press on it even gently. (The Apple demonstrator watching me do this had a look of undisguised horror on her face.)

Sure, you can wrap it in a robust case of plastic or metal. Which will add the weight back and leave you with a poor performance to weight ratio. If you do that, you may as well have bought a Macbook Pro.

If style over substance matters – buy the Macbook Air. It is beautiful. It will sit perfectly on paper-free desks in gorgeously minimalist offices. If you need a machine on which to get your work done, get a Macbook Pro instead.

The Time Capsule is fairly useful in very small businesses. The combination of wireless router and Time Machine backup disk is good. I hope a software update to existing Airport Expresses will allow USB disks to be used as easily – there’s no reason why that shouldn’t happen. It was the one update that wasn’t explicitly mentioned in the Keynote though. We’ll see.

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Macbook Air, Macbook Pro, Apple, MacWorld

Now that is usually seen to be a good thing. It allows you to read your feeds online if you’re away from your computer. It keeps what you’ve read synchronised. It allows Newsgator to pull only one copy of message from a server, and redistribute it to everyone using Newsgator or NetNewsWire. This is a good thing for those running RSS feeds. Less load.

It also has a downside. It means that Newsgator knows about all that you’re reading. It knows about the private feeds internal to your company. It might not be able to access them all, but it means that the fact that they exist is out in the hands of another company, and leakage of this sort of information is not good and should be actively prevented where possible.

Luckily, there are more free newsreaders out there. My pesonal favourite is Vienna – an open source newsreader, built especially for OSX. It’s just as functional (no synchronisation of course) and is close enough in look and feel to be an easy switch. We think if you have concerns about information leakage, you should give it a try.

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software, vienna, netnewswire, newsgator