dotPeople

iPad Business Content Creation Apps

These are reliable, usable, powerful and pro-offline.

iThoughtsHD   +

• Use Case: mind mapping
• Key Features: zoomable mind maps with photos
• Folders: yes (nested maps with hyperlinks)
• Export: photo, pdf (email, app)
• iOS URL: inbound (mm://Maps/mymap), outbound
• Development: active

Magical Pad   +   @

• Use Cases: brainstorming, visual project planning
• Key Features: mind mapping, outlining, drag & drop
• Folders: yes (multiple notebooks, each with workspaces)
• Export: pdf, opml (email, GDrive, Evernote, Dropbox)
• iOR URL: no
• Development: active
• Tip: collapse/expand outlines to change project focus

Notebooks   +

• Use Cases: offline note taking, full text search
• Key Features: text, markdown, html, images, audio, video
• Folders: yes (multilevel nesting)
• Export: text, pdf (WiFi web server, WebDav, Dropbox)
• iOS URL: inbound (notebooks://), outbound
• Development: active

inShort   +

• Use Cases: process modelling, project planning
• Key Features: critical path, PERT, Gantt
• Folders: yes (nested diagrams)
• Export: pdf, opml (email)
• iOS URL: inbound (object-level addressing), outbound
• Development: active
• Tip: uniquely powerful capabilities justify learning curve.

TouchDraw   +   @

• Use Cases: flowchart, architecture, block diagrams
• Key Features: visio import/export
• Folders: yes
• Export: pdf, svg, visio, image (email, itunes, apps)
• iOS URL: no
• Development: active

Corkulous Pro   +   @

• Use Case: vision board
• Key Features: image scrapbook, sticky notes, checkboxes
• Folders: yes (nested boards)
• Export: photo album, iTunes file sharing (pdf, image, native)
• Development: maintenance (OS compatibility updates)
• Tip: screen capture boards as photos, rotate in slide show with aspirational images to motivate action on complex projects.

iOS Email Encryption with Linux GPG (OpenPGP) Keys

iPGMail keys can be generated on the iPad (2048 bit max) or imported via iTunes (4096 bit max). SecuMail keys must be generated off-device and imported via a key server, email or Dropbox.

Key generation tutorial for Windows Thunderbird, Gpg4Win.

Linux instructions follow.

Configure GPG

Edit ~/.gnupg/gnupg.conf to append:

personal-digest-preferences SHA512
cert-digest-algo SHA512
default-preference-list SHA512 SHA384 SHA256 SHA224 AES256 AES192 AES CAST5 ZLIB BZIP2 ZIP Uncompressed

Disable the GPG gui agent which caches passphrases, by commenting out the use-agent line (prefix it with #), then issue:

sudo killall -9 gpg-agent

Generate Master Key & Encrypting Subkey

gpg --gen-key
(1) RSA & RSA
Length 4096
No Expiry

Generate Signing Subkey

gpg --edit-key [key ID]
gpg> addkey
(4) RSA (sign only)
Length 4096
No Expiry
pub  4096R/AAAAAAAA  created: 2013-02-09  expires: never       usage: SC  
sub  4096R/BBBBBBBB  created: 2013-02-09  expires: never       usage: E   
sub  4096R/CCCCCCC  created: 2013-02-09  expires: never       usage: S   
gpg> showpref
     Cipher: AES256, AES192, AES, CAST5, 3DES
     Digest: SHA512, SHA384, SHA256, SHA224, SHA1
     Compression: ZLIB, BZIP2, ZIP, Uncompressed
     Features: MDC, Keyserver no-modify
gpg> quit
Save changes? (y/N) y

Backup Keys (store securely!)

gpg --export [key ID] > /mnt/secure/publickey.gpg
gpg --export-secret-keys  > /mnt/secure/secretkeys.gpg
gpg --export-secret-subkeys > /mnt/secure/secretsubkeys.gpg
gpg --armor --gen-revoke [key ID] > /mnt/secure/revoke.asc

Remove Private Master Key

gpg --delete-secret-keys [key ID]
gpg --import /mnt/secure/publickey.gpg
gpg --import /mnt/secure/secretsubkeys.gpg
gpg --list-secret-keys
sec#  4096R/AAAAAAAA  2013-02-09
uid                  John Doe <john@doe.com>
ssb   4096R/BBBBBBBB  2013-02-09
ssb   4096R/CCCCCCC  2013-02-09

Export keys for (secure!) transfer to iPad

gpg --export --armor [key ID] > /mnt/secure/public.asc
gpg --export-secret-keys  --armor > /mnt/secure/private.asc
gpg --export-secret-subkeys  --armor > /mnt/secure/subkey.asc

Notes:

• iPGMail (as of v1.44) and SecuMail (as of 2.4) do not support private subkeys unless the master key is also present, which defeats one purpose of subkeys (keeping the master key offline).
• SecuMail can encrypt local files (e.g. PDF, docs, images) from most iPad apps, since it implements the "Open In.." menu for use by other apps. It also supports Dropbox.
• iPGMail can encrypt cloud-resident files, e.g. Dropbox/iCloud, or local files transferred to the ipgmail app via iTunes file sharing.

References:

• iPGMail $2 app | manual
• SecuMail: $50 app | manual
• GPG Howto
• Apache OpenPGP Howto
• Convert GPG keys to subkeys
• Using multiple subkeys in GPG
• gpg subkeys, revisited
• GnuPG Hacks
• The internals of an OpenPGP key
• S/MIME Encrypted Email on iOS 5
• Cross-Platform Encryption with GPG

Linux Disk Encryption

(notes to self)

Step 1: Wipe disk by filling with random data. Options ordered by decreasing security and decreasing time:

Option (a): Fill disk with data from urandom. About 15 Mb/sec per IVB CPU core. E.g. for two core machine, where NNNN = (partition size) / 2:

dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/mydiskpart bs=1M count=NNNN &
dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/mydiskpart bs=1M seek=NNNN count=NNNN &

Option (b): Fill disk with output of OpenSSL PRNG. About 40 Mb/sec.

head -c 1K < /dev/random > ~/.rnd 
while true; do openssl rand $((2**31-1)); done | dd of=/dev/mydiskpart bs=4M
pkill -USR1 dd

Option (c): Encrypt disk, initialize with /dev/zero, then discard key. About 80 Mb/sec.

swapoff -a 
cryptsetup --verify-passphrase luksFormat /dev/mydiskpart --cipher serpent-xts-essiv:sha256 -h sha512 --use-random -key-size 512 --iter-time=5000
cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/mydiskpart mydiskmap
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/mapper/mydiskmap bs=1M
dmsetup remove /dev/mapper/mydiskmap
dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/mydiskpart bs=512 count=2056

Step 2: Encrypt disk

swapoff -a 
cryptsetup --verify-passphrase luksFormat /dev/mydiskpart --cipher serpent-xts-essiv:sha256 -h sha512 --use-random -key-size 512 --iter-time=5000
cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/mydiskpart mydiskmap
mkfs.ext4 -m1 /dev/mapper/mydiskmap
mount /dev/mapper/mydiskmap /mnt/mydiskmnt

References:

• Resetting passphrases for mapped LUKS volumes
  
• Introducing overlayroot -- overlayfs + dmcrypt
  
• Quickly fill a disk with random bits (without /dev/urandom)
  
• Secure Erase: data security you already own
  
• SSD Secure Erase with proper ATA command
  
• Serpent algorithm
  
• Serpent: A Candidate Block Cipher for the Advanced Encryption Standard
  
• How to choose an AES encryption mode
  
• aes-xts-plain vs aes-xts-essiv
  Posted by dotpeople at 04:23 AM

iPad eBook Reader Apps

GoodReader

• Format: PDF (retains zoom on page turn), Video, Image
  
• Folders: Yes
  
• Sync: WebDAV, FTP, SFTP, SMB, AFP, Dropbox, SkyDrive, Google Drive, SugarSync,
  
• Import: HTTP
  
• Navigation: Fast
  
• Development: Very Active
  

QuickReader

• Format: ePub
  
• Folders: No (but integrates with iBookShelf)
  
• Import: HTTP
  
• Navigation: Fast, plus speed-reading features (timing, auto-scroll, auto-highlight)
  
• Development: Active
  

iBooks

• Format: ePub, PDF (does not retain zoom on page turn)
  
• Folders: Yes
  
• Import: HTTP
  
• Navigation: Slow
  
• Development: Active
  

Stanza

• Format: ePub, PDF (does not retain zoom on page turn)
  
• Folders: Yes
  
• Import: OPDS, HTTP, Calibre Server
  
• Navigation: Fast
  
• Development: Maintenance only (OS compatibility updates)
  

Voice Dream

• Format: ePub, PDF, Text, RTF, Word, PPT, Daisy
  
• Folders: Yes
  
• Import: HTTP, Dropbox, Instapaper (paid sub), Pocket, Clipboard, Open-In
  
• Output: Text-to-Speech
  
• Development: Active