The topic of employees working securely from a remote location comes up in almost every IT audit I do with companies. There are many methods for employees to work remotely, and with the potential threat of the Swine Flu looming, now is an important time to be sure your employees can work remotely.

The problem with allowing employees to connect through the VPN to your network from their home computer is that the computer could contain viruses and other malware. One solution many organizations are moving to is Citrix Xen to deploy applications to the home computers in a more secure fashion.

The crucial thing to remember for now is that whether or not the Swine Flu does kill a lot of people, the psychological reaction itself could cause major problems for your business if your employees refuse to come in to the office to work. For other non-IT related tips, check out  http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/

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– the very next day – my book is on sale in the Kindle store! I’ve already purchased and downloaded my own copy into my Kindle reader to test the process.

The book upload seemed flawless! The Kindle is amazing.  Some day nobody will buy paper books anymore. It is so nice to be able to publish a book on Amazon 12 hours after finishing the book. Wow – that is lots faster (and less expensive) than all the hard cover books I had printed of my title!

I subscribe to the Wall Street Journal and Reader’s Digest.  One of the neatest features is that I never need to connect the Kindle to my computer at all. The Kindle has wireless service built in and there is no additional charge for the wireless connection. Whenever I want to buy a book or get an update to a subscription, I just turn on the radio, and the content flows.

On the next edition, I’d like it if Amazon added a back light but the battery life seems to be around an entire month with no back light when I only turn on the radio to download books.  Apparently the Kindle doesn’t use any power to display text – the only power that is used is a tiny bit when I change pages. There used to be a “flicker” when I changed pages, but the latest firmware update (it came automatically over the wireless network by the way) has seemed to fix the flicker problem. I look forward to future “updates” to the Kindle that come automatically.  Also, on a future edition, maybe there will be a color screen.

My wife has gone back to college and has a huge backpack full of textbooks. They are heavy and expensive. Some day, college students will just carry a Kindle and it will hold all of their textbooks. Heck, after how easy it was for me to upload my e-book, if I was a professor, I would be able to publish notes for the students and they could all download them while sitting in class!  The possibilities seem endless.

If you are an avid reader and haven’t ordered your Kindle today, what are you waiting for?  The main reason I first purchased mine is that my mind goes all the time. When I stand in lines, at the airport for example, I used to use my Blackberry to look at CNN and other news sites. All I would read about all day is they typical gloom and doom, violence, and other “headline making news.”  That stuff is draining.  I bought the Kindle so I could read “Readers Digest” and uplifting text while standing in line. That in itself paid for the Kindle! My mind is being fed better material and I’m in a better mood too.  Like with computers – GIGO (Garbage In Garbage Out) – we have to watch what we put in our heads!

And another nice feature… When I’m reading a book that uses a word I don’t know what means, such as prestidigitation, Kindle’s built in dictionary lets me look up the word even in an airplane with the radio turned off!

During a presentation I made today, a CEO suggested that the Kindle is “green” in that it saves paper. Another CEO mentioned that the price of paper just went up a couple of cents today – meaning the Kindle will get another boost since it is paper free!  I welcome your comments about the Kindle.

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