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Why Apple has difficulty in the corporate world

Nerd — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 17:10:25 +0000

I’m tired of absolute statements like being accused of hating iEverything. I like an ipad for surfing the web on the couch, ipad for listening to music and supporting clueless users on a mac. They can’t figure out how the hell to fire up vi, how are they going to break it? That is great for home. Super great. At home, mac is cool just like sony or microsoft is if you keep all the same gear working together.

I disagree with the use of Apple tech to solve corporate problems. I work with protected information and use standard tools every corporation should be using. The problem with Macland is that Apple does not support secure computing. Try writing email to their HIPAA support address. So far they have not responded to a single one of our emails in the last 3 years. They don’t exist. Apple has no FIPS-140 support. They do not have a single certified device on the NIST FIPS 140-2 list.

Apple is like a gold hammer if home computing is a kind of nail. Works pretty well together and looks nice. But the hammer is expensive and has to be replaced pretty quick. When you smack the business screw with the gold hammer, all kinds of crap goes wrong. Eventually when your business puts a heavy load on the screw, everything will fall apart. I’m looking for the right tools to go in my toolbox. Not the one the popular comedian on TV uses. I’m a professional IT person, not a comedian.

I’d like to start a table to show a comparison of just Dell laptops with Windows, Red Hat vs Apple full OSX and iphoneOs. I’d like to stick to features useful to a medium to large business, not a group of 10 developers. Over time I’ll add links to each item to show a source for data directly on a government site. For the most part this is a cheat sheet for myself but if anyone else finds it useful let me know.

To the apple fanbois who will find this site, if you have helpful comments to keep this accurate, fire away. Just keep in mind that I’m in the big kids playground where Ford vs Chevy doesn’t matter. Individual products that meet government requirements matter. FIPS 140-2, HIPAA, HITECH, FDCC, USGCB are the types of regulatory issues I have. If you don’t have emails coming to your inbox every day with compliance reports… well just keep your flamebait to yourself please. You can’t learn about this stuff overnight. It takes years and a decent size staff. Until you have lived in that world, you don’t shed bias to examine this rationally.

I believe this is accurate as of March 2011.

	Dell Windows	Dell Linux	Apple Laptop	Apple ipad

Theft recovery
GPS location available from hardware	absolute.com	absolute.com	none	yes
GPS activated by cell	yes	yes	no	no
Tracking not dependant on OS	yes	yes	no	no
BIOS doesn’t allow turning off GPS tracking	yes	yes	no	no
Geofence autoalarm	yes	yes	no	?
Central web console to track all corporate users	yes	yes	no	no
Police will pick up your stolen machine	yes	yes	no	no


HIPAA
FIPS140-2 approved components in the OS	many	many	none	none
FIPS140-2 integrated smart card option	yes	yes	no	no
FIPS140-2 integrated fingerprint reader	yes	yes	no	no
FIPS140-2 disk encryption built into OS	yes	sortof	no	no


FDCC compliance available	yes	no	no	no
USGCB compliance available	yes	no	no	no

Physical attributes
Laptop dock available	yes	yes	no	no
multiple monitor support without extra hardware	most models	most models	no	no
More than 8GB ram available	yes	yes	no	no
More than 1 internal hard disk available	yes	yes	no	no
3 SSDs/48GB ram in a laptop	yes	yes	no	no
more than 2 usb ports	yes	yes	no	no
third party batteries and power cords	yes	yes	no	no

Warranty
Work can be done onsite	yes	yes	no	no
Warranty can be extended to 5 years	yes	yes	no	no
minimum 1 year phone support	yes	yes	no	no

Servers
Company sells servers	yes	yes	no	no
Full support with dell kbox	yes	some	some	some
SCAP scanning with kbox	yes	no	no	no
driver and firmware updates automated with kbox	yes	no	no	no

Apple could save open source and make a mint at the same time

Nerd — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 18:32:01 +0000

The new Mac app store could build an awesome business model. Charge individuals to install open source software with an easy to use itunes interface, and fund the open source software projects in return. This seems like a perfect arrangement. DIY people get better funded projects, and normal users get access to difficult to manage open source. (difficult for my mom)

Set ossec to monitor mysql logs on red hat (not log ossec in mysql)

Nerd — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 21:19:00 +0000

Ossec is super. I was having a hard time googling this so I read the stupid configs and figured it out. Edit your ossec.conf file, add to the

mysql_log

/var/log/yourlogfile.log

Restart ossec and it should start reading your mysql logs now. Anyone have additional rules to add in for mysql?

Basic linux commands

Nerd — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 15:04:49 +0000

cat /etc/redhat-release - check the version of Red Hat running on your machine

Some linux observations

Nerd — Tue, 27 May 2008 20:08:10 +0000

I’ve been working with linux a bit and trying to make a list of things that are holding it back from being a windows replacement. I think linux is very cool and a good tool for certain jobs. If any linux peeps happen to stop by, maybe you can get to work. I’d like to see a lot of things work in a GUI. If you are going to try to make your OS compete with a GUIfied OS, you are going to have to make your tools work with a pretty GUI. Some people work better with text, some work better with gui. Different learning styles and data presentation options don’t really make one person “smarter” than the other if the end result is the same job is done.

1. Gui permissions – In fedora and ubuntu, editing permissions on a gui is about impossible. Stupid users can barely handle permissions in the first place, they aren’t going to work it out at the command line.

2. Patches – MS is onto something good with patch tuesdays. I would like to see a standard day of the month for updates that are not critical.

3. resolution in VMs for fedora – I can’t get the resolution bigger in a vmware fedora 8 box to change for the life of me. It shouldn’t be hard. Video always seems to be a problem in linux. Some of the biggest troubleshooting sessions I’ve watched with my linux coworkers is in this area.

4. remote access to a gui – remote desktop solutions in windows are so easy. Catch up!

5. Games – pick up a copy of a linux magazine and look at the latest cool games. This is what draws in the young crowd and starts up the learning. I was just looking at a new game in Linux Format. They are excited about Eschalon Book 1????? Come on.

There is a big chicken and egg problem with all of these but I think the start is with the support in the OS before the demand and use numbers creep up.