Cool Technology of the Week

As we prepare for compliance with Massachusetts Data Protection regulations, I've been checking out ways to encrypt, remotely manage, and track the location of mobile devices.

I recently had lunch with John Livingston, CEO of
Absolute Software to discuss their laptop encryption and asset tracking solutions . I agreed to serve as a personal beta tester of their new Blackberry Computrace Mobile location tracking and data protection solution.

Here was my evaluation. On Monday, I installed the agent on my Blackberry Bold 9000 and boarded a plane for Rapid City, South Dakota. I spent the day with the board of Regional Hospital to discuss their options for EHR rollout and community connectivity throughout Western South Dakota. While sitting in a diner near Mt. Rushmore and staring into my vegan mashed potatoes, I had the sudden compulsion to drive to Devil's Tower, Wyoming (pictured above) about 100 miles away.

I left I90 at exit 199 and drove the scenic route through Hulett, Wyoming to arrive at the base of the tower at sunrise. Other than a flock of turkeys and a herd of deer, I was the only human for miles. I ran around the base passing hundreds of Native American prayer cloths and offerings. I drove back along Highway 14 through Spearfish, South Dakota to the Rapid City Airport and flew to Denver. From Denver I returned to Boston, then Wellesley, then Harvard.

The Absolute Computrace agent tracked my every move in High Plains, and my entire route to Boston and back.

The Computrace Customer Center keeps a record of all my Blackberry locations and makes it easy to track me, track my devices, report a theft, and if needed do a remote wipe of all the data on my devices.

I've given my wife and daughter a login to the site so they can track me at all times. Although the Absolute products are primarily encryption, tracking, and data protection systems, they are also a very cool geotracking system for Blackberry owners (with their consent).

Tracking my devices and tracking me on the web, that's cool!