
Eliminate Office Software From Your Laptop
Where I work we have a BYOC (Bring Your Own Computer) program. Basically they provide a stipend every three years and we are expected to go buy a laptop that we manage. The company also provides a Virtual Desktop Image with all of our business applications and all of the other enterprise software you can imagine.
The idea is that your BYOC laptop is yours to do whatever you want. For business purposes you would use the VDI and therefore all of the data should theoretically stay on this Virtual Desktop Image. This is can be great from a security perspective because you are allowing the company to secure the data however they want and it should stay within the network.
I do not have Microsoft Office on my MacBook and don’t want it there. One of the challenges I’ve had is that I’m mobile a lot of the time and need to present data. For things like presentations it is very handy to have it locally because the local application shows up better on the screen than the VDI.
This weekend I stumbled on a very cool solution.
Within outlook.com you can now use what appears to be full web application versions of Microsoft Office products. Basically you have full versions of Powerpoint, Word, and Excel all through a web browser. All of which can be put into full screen mode. Combine this with the local wifi wherever you are or turning your phone into a hotspot and you’ve got a nice little solution.
The next logical step is how to I get my data there? Because it’s work data you may not feel comfortable putting it there. It’s Microsoft so their network is likely pretty secure. They don’t have features like two-factor authentication though. Emailing files all over the place is messy. You end up with different versions and duplication all over the place.
If you have the SkyDrive application installed on your work VDI, you will have the option to turn on visibilities into all of those files within SkyDrive. So the process is to install the SkyDrive application on your work VDI. Then before a needing the presentation remotely, login to the SkyDrive web interface. On the left hand side you will see a heading named PC’s. Under that you will find the name of your work computer. When you select that computer you will be given the option to temporarily view all files on the PC running the SkyDrive application. From there you can open it in the web application version of Powerpoint and put it in full screen mode.
You can keep all of your files on your work VDI keeping them within the confines of your corporate network. Then temporarily view them in SkyDrive and have them everywhere.
*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from Insecurity authored by asdfasdfasdfasdf. Read the original post at: http://stephenperciballi.blogspot.com/2013/01/eliminate-office-software-from-your.html