Any update H1t M0nk3y? You've chronicled your journey well thus far.  Don't leave us hanging!

I believe iPhones, Androids, etc. can use IMAP over SSL with GMail.  There's a "Require SSL" or "Always" option on these devices under the mail account settings.  Doesn't address your secure storage question though.  For that, configure device authentication / PIN code to access.  If it's a corporate-owned phone/device, you may be able to push/enforce security policies centrally. 

Of course, there's a known bug in the iPhones that makes all that moot with certain versions of Ubuntu 10

Looking at the 2009 Gartner "Magic Quadrant" report on SIEM and also the critical capabilities report, there are many leaders in the market. For small to mid-size organizations, what in your opinion are the best solutions to put on the "short list"?

Anyone care to share war stories from PCI compliance efforts? Feel free to anonymize, like "I heard about this one QSA who..."   

Has anyone had experience in utilizing their SIEM solution as part of incident response? I'm looking for systems that go beyond SEM and log aggregation/archiving. Something like MARS, eIQ, QRadar, ArcSight, etc... Comment on ease of use, time it saved, etc.  I'm trying to build business cases for SIEM for customers under PCI and GLBA.

<eternal_security> I took mine Jan 16-17. What a fun experience.

To those considering this path, I also recommend getting 60 days of lab time up front unless you already have a couple of years hands-on experience with pen testing. Even so, the extra lab time might be nice to bring your l33t skilz up to this century (relatively speaking of course). 

For me, I had about 50% of the course content under my belt, but all of it was self-taught. Having the structured course materials that matched up with the vids worked well for my learning style.

Congrats to Dark_Knight as well. We may have taken the exam at or near the same time. Just now getting around to joining the fun here.

To answer the most recent q, I took 60 days mainly just to build up my confidence.