I have written frequently about the BYOD trend (such as my article last week on why managing devices isn't easy. The other side of BYOD is using some form of endpoint management product to make sure that you can track and secure all of your devices. These go under various headings, such as Mobile Device Management (MDM), endpoint security, or network access controls. No matter what you call them, using these products aren't easy and have lots of issues. Fiberlink was game to show me around their software, called MaaS360, and while I don't mean to pick on them I will show you what some of the drawbacks are with using these tools and what you are in store for if you are interested in trying to get a handle on your mobile devices across your enterprise.

Dennis M. Ritchie, co-creator of UNIX and father of the C programming language, died this past weekend after a long illness. It's no exaggeration to say that without Ritchie, modern computing would not be what it is today.

Often known as "dmr," Ritchie was born in Bronxville, NY in 1941. He studied at Harvard University, initially focusing on physics. Ritchie said that he entered computing because "my undergraduate experience convinced me that I was not smart enough to be a physicist, and that computers were quite neat."

You wouldn't think that your local megaplex shopping mall is leading the way in terms of social media engagement, but you'd be wrong. Simon Property Group, owners of hundreds of malls across America, is doing it right when it comes to how they engage their store owners and consumers. Let's take a closer look and see some of the lessons learned for your own humble business, even if you aren't a retail establishment that can be seen from the food court.

"Mr. Schmidt, industry stats show that Google runs between 65 and 70% of all Internet searches in the U.S. done on computers and about 95% on mobile devices, and has 75% of all search advertising revenue in the United States," recited Sen. Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman Herb Kohl (D - Wisc.) "Under the common antitrust standards, this kind of a market share is considered to constitute monopoly power. Does Google recognize that as a monopolist or a dominant power? Special rules apply that there is conduct that must be taken and conduct that must be refrained from."

At that moment, the magnitude of the weight of the Google chairman's devious plan, all the millions of little wrongs committed every second against everyday mothers and fathers just trying to earn a living, impacted him like a meteor streaking from the sky. Sen. Kohl's prophetic words, as though carved on the Halls of Justice itself, rang a new chord in Eric Schmidt's heart, which grew three sizes in that very instant. "My lord," the chairman found himself saying, "what have I done? What a monstrous machine have I set forth upon this Earth? Yes... yes, Senator, I do believe! Special rules do apply, and there is conduct that must be refrained from! And to the end of my life, by the sword Excalibur, I shall make this my mission!"

According to bitly, the half-life of a link isn't measured in weeks or days, it's about three hours on most social networks. Does it matter where the link is posted? Absolutely. For the most bang for your social media buck, YouTube is the winner.

The half-life of a link is the amount of time it takes for a link to get half the clicks it will ever receive. The company looked at the half-life of 1,000 popular bitly links posted to Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to see whether it matters where a link is posted.

It had already been law in California since 2002 for service providers experiencing a database breach to notify their customers when they suspect the security of their personal data may have been compromised. But for the last few years, there was a strange little controversy over just how businesses make those notifications. Isn't a post on the FAQ of the company Web site enough?

Up until last year, the official stance of then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was that notifying customers directly "would place additional unnecessary mandates on businesses without a corresponding consumer benefit." That stance changed when Gov. Jerry Brown signed the bill that Schwarzenegger had vetoed.

A story that ran this weekend in the NY Times about how students are getting around outright Facebook network blocks at school caught my attention. As kids prepare to return to their classrooms, it might be a good moment to reconsider whether such blocks are truly effective.

Yes, the notion of proxy servers has been around almost as long as the Web itself, and students can easily find the location of dozens of these services that are used to circumvent Facebook (and other objectionable content). It takes about a minute to type in a Google search and load up your URL in their handy forms and off you go, block or no block. Certainly, some network admins are more diligent about blocking these proxy sites, but given the number of them, it is a losing battle.

The smart folks at Zurb have come up with yet another clever app, this time for testing presentations called Reel. Like their other tools, it is free, it is all Web-based, and it involves a quick way to collect up/down votes. Think of it as Prezi with "likes" added.

Cisco announced today that collaboration tools vendor Versly.com is now part of its ever-growing family. Versly hasn't yet had a real product, but you can apply for a chance to be in its closed beta on their site.

Versly's ten employees will be integrated into Cisco Collaboration Software Group that also includes its WebEx, Jabber and Quad product lines. It will be offered as a separate service, but Cisco will eventually integrate its features into these three existing services designed for enterprise customers, perhaps as early as 2012. So comment streams, detecting whether someone is actually inside a document at any given moment, and jointly editing documents will all be parts of Cisco's collaboration tools eventually.

Yesterday, Steve Jobs officially stepped down as CEO of Apple. Today, the Linux kernel turns 20. That makes it as good a time as any to look back and assess – which has shaped computing, and the world, more? Linus Torvalds' "hobby OS," or Steve Jobs?

This might seem like an unfair comparison, one man versus an army of programmers and companies. But that's at the core of the question. Is it Jobs, a leader who pays close and particular attention to detail and focuses on a single mission? Or the Linux community's collaborative but uncoordinated approach that gives free reign to companies to do what they will with the operating system?