First of all, “Accessibility has an evil twin” and it is Security (a great way to put it, and I intend to re-use that phrase in future). Many of the organisations that I deal with have security as their primary requirement, accessibility be damned. And that approach not only leads to unhappy staff/customers, it also means that the “official” route is never followed: users find their own way to do things which is pretty much guaranteed to be insecure and/or undermines data integrity.

Secondly, service-oriented architecture. I’ve been ranting about this ever since I joined the NHS in 2003. I think we are at last making progress in this area, and it will be interesting to see what happens over the next few years. It just seems so obvious and natural to me that everything should be served up as a service. The better the service APIs we offer to 3rd-party developers, the better/safer/more consistent our software will be. I guess it’s similar to the accessibility/security issue in that software engineers will find some (probably insecure/crappy) way around inadequacies in the service APIs, so those APIs really have to be better than “dogfood”.

Aim of the project – Paper-light meetings of the NHSO Board in order to make significant cost savings on printing, binding, etc.

Why iPads? – The other options we looked at were laptops or Kindles. The Kindle was not a viable option because it has no encryption or enterprise wifi. Laptops were not desirable because limited battery life meant all members of the Board would have to be plugged in to mains power for most of the Board meetings. In addition, our experience with iPhones led us to believe that iPads would require less IT support than laptops, further lowering the cost of ownership. Purchase price of laptops and iPads were similar. (For more info, see Benefits below.)

Device management – This can be done using the iPhone Configuration Utility. It doesn’t offer the same degree of device-lockdown which (for example) Blackberry offers, but it does allow you to configure all the necessary settings with a few clicks of the mouse, or even by sending the (encrypted) configuration file to the iPad via email. We use this to configure wifi, certificates, VPN and NHS Mail. Our goal was not to restrict what a Board member could do with their iPad, but to make it easy to set up and use securely. Security: configuration files are encrypted for each individual user/device and password protected. [UPDATED: Definitely worth taking a look at the new OS X Lion Server product. It has much better configuration, webdav file sharing and integrates with Active Directory. Unfortunately, you need a Mac computer to run it, so I doubt I'll be getting a Lion Server anytime soon.]

Wifi – We have an enterprise wireless solution which was created as part of a previous project. It uses a combination of user/device certificates, WPA2/AES encryption, 802.1x authentication to a Microsoft IAS server on the backend. Unfortunately, the wireless only really covers the meeting rooms plus some of the wards, and all access points have to be configured individually – we hope to sort this out with a more comprehensive solution in the future. We bought the wifi+3G version of the iPad, but the Board Members have to buy their own SIM card if they want to use the 3G connection. [I don’t think anyone has bought a SIM card as yet.] Security: I don’t know of any potential security exploits for this type of wi-fi network.

Documents – The main purpose of our iPad project is to deliver the NHS Orkney Board papers to the Board Members. This is achieved by using our in-house website as a WebDAV store for documents. [We’ve had a blog/wiki product called Traction Teampage for the past four years – it allows everyone to do their own content management without the need for IT or a website editor. It also works as a webdav server.] The Board administrative support staff create a separate WebDAV folder for each of the Board members and populate it with the relevant PDFs. The GoodReader app on the iPad is used to synchronise the content of each Board member’s WebDAV folder to their iPad. They can create an annotated copy of each (PDF) document, and when they next sync to the WebDAV folder, the annotated copies are backed up at the same time that any new/updated files are downloaded. The GoodReader app is an excellent piece of software, with great flexibility in annotating and navigating documents. Security: The files stored on the website are only accessible to the Board. GoodReader encrypts the files stored on the device while is passcode-protected, see this link for more detail. Passcodes are enforced by NHS Mail mobile device policy. (I can’t link to the policy document as it doesn’t seem to be accessible outside of the NHS Mail web app.)

VPN – Getting the Board papers from our internal WebDAV server requires that each Board Member can connect over VPN. The iPads have been setup to use the N3 VPN.

Syncing with iTunes – This is one of the bits which is not quite right yet. Currently, you have to sync with iTunes on a desktop computer to backup, add photos, add music etc. Our Board Members do this (if at all) on their home PCs as they don’t have machines here in the hospital. I can’t offer them any support for the equipment they use at home, of course, so it’s not ideal. Security: NHS Mail mobile device policy enforces encrypted backup in iTunes.

App distribution – Another problem was how to give the GoodReader app to each of the Board Members. We wanted to let them have their own Apple Store ID, so that they could buy their own apps. In the end, we had to help each person get an Apple ID set up, then email them the GoodReader app as a gift. The next version of iOS includes the facility to make bulk purchases of apps and send them out to employees.

NHS Mail – All Board members get their iPads with their NHS Mail account already setup. The reason is not simply that we want to encourage use of NHS Mail, but also to enforce a range of security features, including passcode lock and encrypted storage. I frequently get asked about the perceived poor security of the iPad/iPhone in comparison to the Blackberry. This may have been true a couple of years ago, but it’s simply not the case anymore. See this link for example. I suspect that people often confuse security (i.e. unauthorised access to data on the device) with control (i.e. stopping people being able to do anything except work-mandated tasks with the device).  Security: As per the NHS Mail policy, all email, calendars, contacts downloaded from NHS Mail to the iPad are encrypted.

Rollout – We timed the rollout of the iPads so that the Board Members had the maximum time to get familiar with the devices before they used them in a full Board meeting. I did a 45 minute workshop where I demonstrated the basic use of the iPad, starting with how to use the cover, screen brightness, that sort of thing. There have also been quite a number of one-to-one sessions with individual Board members, and I make myself available for half an hour before each Board meeting to help in whatever way I can. The Board administrative support officers also help Board members when they get stuck, and there are a couple of the Board themselves who help other members. I must confess that I’ve been surprised at how quickly the iPads have been adopted, and by the relatively low number of problems/complaints. Almost all the problems we’ve had so far have been related to VPN/network/NHS Mail passwords, which is a perennial problem whatever system you are rolling out.

Board Papers – We are saving a lot of time by not having to print, bind and distribute papers.  We combine our documents for each meeting into one PDF file, with a table of contents which allows navigation to each agenda item.  The Board members are emailed to let them know that the papers are available in their folder on our WebDAV server, and they then sync their folder in GoodReader to pick up any documents which have been added.  We have put copies of all the meeting papers for the current year 2011 in their folders so that they have easy access and can refer back to previous reports if needed.

Benefits –The simplicity of the iPad pays off in that we get far fewer support calls than with laptops. The simplicity and consistency of the user-interface means that the less tech-savvy users are more open to using the iPad than a laptop, especially given the convenience of a portrait screen for reading documents. Battery life is far better than that of a laptop. One of the unforeseen benefits is that the Board Members use their NHS Mail email/calendars/contacts much more than before, which is of benefit to everyone involved e.g. for arranging meetings, improved email security, etc.

http://sqlblog.com/blogs/paul_nielsen/archive/2009/05/09/why-use-stored-procedures.aspx

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15142/what-are-the-pros-and-cons-to-keeping-sql-in-stored-procs-versus-code#15153

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14530/linq-to-sql-vs-stored-procedures

None of which helps me decide what to do…

• Get a user certificate on your PC, then export using the Certificates snap-in module. Make sure you include the private key and all certificates in the path.
• Rename the file to *.p12 and put it on the SD card.
• In Android, go to Settings > Location & Security > Install from SD card. It should find the file and prompt you for the password you used to secure it when exporting. For the name of the certificate, use the user’s AD account name, e.g. david.rendall.
• You will also be prompted to set a password for secure storage. This is equivalent to a password safe or the Mac OS keychain – you set a password on an encrypted store which applications can then request access to. You should use whatever password the end-user wants as they will have to use it in future.
• Go back to top level of Settings and choose Wi-Fi Settings.
• You should see one the access points listed (assuming you are in range). Tap on it and choose the following options: EAP method is TLS; Phase 2 authentication is None; CA Certificate and User certificate are both set to the certificate you installed above, which should be listed; identity is the user’s AD account name e.g. david.rendall. The other fields can be left blank.
• It should be working now. I found that it doesn’t always connect automatically, I suspect because you have to put in the password to open the credential store. If this happens, you can still connect manually by going into Wi-Fi Settings, tap on the network you want and then press the Connect button. You may then be asked for your crential store password, but after entering the password you should be connected.

My day-job computer is a HP Envy 15. It’s generally speaking a good, fast machine. But it has a couple of serious defects: one is the dreadful battery life, the other is the truly awful addition of a row of “feature” keys on the left-hand side of the keyboard. Using KeyTweak, I was able to disable or re-map all the keys except the Print key. That key sends the standard Windows key combination CTRL+p, and thus cannot be re-mapped because it’s sending two keystrokes rather than one. I’ve lived with this for the past couple of years, but I’m constantly hitting that Print key and opening up modal print dialogs all over the place. It’s particularly galling given the fact that I can’t remember the last time I actually had to print something! More than once I’ve considered simply ripping the key out of the keyboard…  Anyway, today I managed to bypass the problem by using Autohotkey:

1. Download and install Autohotkey.
2. Create a text file in your startup folder called something like disableprint.ahk
3. Save the text file with the following content:   ^p::return
4. The script will run on login and prevent CTRL+p from ever working again…

I realise this is old hat to most folk, but I really struggled to find a straight answer to disabling the Windows print shortcut, hence this post. Perhaps it will help someone else in the same situation.

1. Right-click the Command Prompt icon and choose Run As Administrator.
2. Change to your DVD drive with Boot Camp DVD in it, F: in my case.
3. cd to Boot Camp\drivers\apple
4. Run bootcamp64.msi – it will attempt to install all the drivers. [I did try to install just the keyboard driver, but the usual UK/US keys got swapped around.]
5. Reboot. Afterwards, I found that one or two of my devices didn’t work (sound for example) – removing them from Device Manager and then scanning for hardware changes resolved those problems. [Obviously this could be risky - there is a chance that a system critical driver could get stuffed up and you won't be able to boot.]

The keys all output the correct characters on the screen, i.e. the characters which the keys physically have on them! Media keys, eject button and sound controls work. (The sound buttons show the Apple volume icons on screen when used.) Brightness control does not work. Also the Apple Magic Mouse works OK, although it doesn’t seem to support gestures, which is a shame.

UPDATE 5th Sept 2011: The Apple software updater popped up today asking to upgrade a few things, and without thinking about I said “yes”. Unfortunately, one of the upgrades was Bootcamp 3.3 – after the reboot, some of the Apple keyboard keys stopped working. I downloaded the Bootcamp 3.3 installer from the Apple website and installed it – after the reboot, the keyboard worked OK again. I guess version 3.3 is a bit less fussy about what it’s installed on.

Here are some tips for using Sparrow which I would have found helpful when getting started:

• The little arrow at the bottom right opens up a preview pane with messages organised by thread – this is my preferred view in fact.
• When you first start it up, Sparrow appears to be doing nothing, but behind the scenes it’s downloading stuff. Choose Window > Activity to see what’s going on.
• Labels will appear gradually as stuff is downloaded. If, like me, you’ve got several gigabytes of mail, you need to be patient!
• You can have multiple gmail accounts with different avatar pictures – see Preferences > Accounts.
• [Edit - 2011/02/09] The context-sensitive menu when composing a message has lots of good stuff in it, like the ability to capture & insert a screenshot, add a hyperlink, etc.
• [Edit- 2011/02/09] There are keyboard shortcuts which you can read about here.

There are a couple of things it would be nice to see added to Sparrow:

• Sort conversations in reverse.
• Add labels when composing a message.

But these are minor things. Sparrow is a really excellent email client which I wholeheartedly recommend. And customer support (http://getsatisfaction.com/sparrow) has so far been very good, in my experience at least.

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