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The State of Hawaii has an official policy regarding email messages: delete them after 60 days. 

It’s hard to believe, especially when the Honolulu Star-Bulletin discovered that “State Archivist Susan Shaner claims there is simply too much e-mail to save it all.”

I doubt that. Corporations are saving terabytes of email, text messages and instant messages every year.

The state’s policy seems rooted in convenience. Herman Frazier’s email messages about the Sugar Bowl and June Jones have already been deleted - he was fired as the University of Hawaii’s athletic director in January 2008.

See the newspaper’s editorial, Treat state e-mail the same as other public documents, for more.

Related posts and pages on billso.com

• University of Hawaii
• 4 January 2008: Copper thieves kill Sugar Bowl cablecast

CIOs and IT managers tend to focus on preserving data. But what happens when companies need to destroy data?

It’s easy to shred paper data, but destroying digital files may require more tools than a sledge hammer and a blowtorch.

For many companies, data removal or sanitizing is a bigger concern. Hard drives are expensive, and sometimes removing the data from a drive is a better choice.

Many people have asked me how they can erase data from their hard drive or USB device, so that they can sell or give the device to someone else.

Formatting the device won’t do the job, at least with the default settings. Erasing the file using the standard tools in the Windows and Mac operating systems usually leaves behind some or all of the files.

Mac OS has a “secure empty trash” command that will overwrite files, as described in these articles from MacGeekery and MacObserver.

Many companies sell data erasure software, including Active @ Killdisk and OnTrack.

Blancco provides enterprise tools to help companies destroy and remove digital data. This chart from DataErasure.com, a Blannco marketing web site, lists some Federal fines and penalties that are related to data privacy and disclosure.

This video from DataCenter.tv is a bit long, but it’s got some good information about Blancco’s business model.

Image provided by JcMaco under a Creative Commons license.

Apple may not be announcing it tomorrow at their press conference, but the Gartner Group believes that an enterprise version of the iPhone is inevitable, according to ZDNet.

I discussed some of the enterprise issues that affect iPhone users on July 6. For a sole proprietor or a very small business that already uses Macs, iPhones may make sense, especially for new media and web design firms. iPhone doesn’t seem to work reliably with iTunes for Windows, from what I’ve read.

TCO: it all adds up

Another important consideration is total cost of ownership (TCO). TCO is a common benchmark for information systems managers that adds up the entire cost of a product, including associated services, maintenance, replacement costs and training. I discussed some of these issues in my June 27 and June 6 posts.

iPhone users must have their own computer with iTunes and a broadband connection. That’s the only means of activating an iPhone, establishing an account, syncing the iPhone, and updating the device.

Larger companies that deal with compliance issues may want to avoid the iPhone as a corporate device. iPhones are expensive to acquire and replace, have limited storage space, and offer limited support for Microsoft Exchange.

According to Erika Engle in this morning’s Honolulu Star-Bulletin, KM Communications has received some interesting news from the Federal Communications Commission.

The commission assigns call letters for all radio and television stations in the United States, and has given KM’s new TV station on Maui the rather unfortunate call letters (I had to edit this because at least one ISP was blocking this post.)

Families can learn a lot from television

KM also received KWTF for a new station in Arizona.

The company’s management is shocked, absolutely shocked, about this development, and has asked the FCC to change the letters for both stations:

From Skokie, Ill., comes a sincere apology “to anyone that was offended,” said Kevin Bae, vice president of KM Communications Inc., who requested and received It is “extremely embarrassing for me and my company and we will file to change those call letters immediately.”

Back in 2005, an FM radio station in Aspen, Colorado got permission to use KCUF.

Read it backwards, people… the station claims it means “Keeping Colorado Uniquely Free”. Yeah, right!

UPDATED on 27 July 207 at 11 am HST. See also:

• TVsquad.com
• In Media Res
• MSN TV Blog
• The Sniper
• Technorati.com

The Apple iPhone has gone on sale in the Eastern and Central time zones as I write this post. I haven’t seen any lines at APple or AT&T stores in Honolulu, but I’ve been busy.

BusinessWeek points out that most corporate IT departments will continue to use devices they konw and trust, such as the Blackberry. the main concern is data security. As I noted on June 6, individual employees often want more flexibility than their corporate messaging system provides. In some industries, privacy is a major concern. It’s hard to believe that any hospital IT administrator would let employees receive patient information through their iPhone, for example. On June 19th, I posted some additional thoughts about corporate IT and the iPhone.

According to Engadget and many other sources, Yesterday Steve Jobs announced that most Apple employees will receive an iPhone in July. Apple will have a “street team” of 21,000 employees explaining the iPhone whenever they whip out the device.

Of course, there will be executives who want their own iPhone ASAP. Small business owners and sole proprietors may be among the early adopters. These users have enough authority to get what they want.

I have to agree with Walt Mossberg on several points. His review in the Wall Street Journal was mostly positive, but he did mention that there’s no clipboard in the iPhone’s editor. That’s almost a showstopper right there, but it’s something Apple can fix with an over-the-air update.

Apple’s partnership with AT&T is a bigger issue. iPhone users will find out what I learned after a few years with Cingular: EDGE is not a fast data service, even when its tweaked, as I mentioned on June 6 and others have suggested today.