What WAS new

Previously on Robertmoir.co.uk...

April 2005

Exciting news for those people who are interested in Microsoft's Virtualisation solution.

Steve Ballmer announced several initiatives today at the Microsoft Management Summit connected to Microsoft's Virtualisation technologies. Several of these are quite exciting and in my opinion show that Microsoft do listen [read more]

You can watch the keynote speech by going here (Windows Media Player required).

I declare this re-design open. Hope you like it. if you don't, then click the "Comment" link in the bar above to tell me. And feel free to leave feedback on any article where the "Comment" link is visible.

Out with the old, in with the new. Regulars might recall my post about the SPV E200 phone. Well it was a good worker but recently I found myself wishing it could do more. So a trip to the shops and I've scored a O2 XDA IIi and decided to write a review. Will it prove a worthy successor to the mighty E200? Lots of pictures here too.

If you want to read more about PDAs and Smart Phones then I suggest you check out the following websites... after reading my review of course!

• Pocket PC Thoughts - Daily news and views on PDAs
• Cool Smart Phone - News and reviews for Windows Mobile based Smartphones.
• MoDaCo - One of the busiest Mobile device forums and portals I know!
• msmobiles.com - "NOBODY ELSE gives you the WHOLE story."

 Reading the Runes. Interesting snippits from this website's monthly logs. Shows why it might be boring to read logs but from a security point of view it can be very productive.

 Debugging a network. Why I think programmers and network administrators in charge of complex networks have more in common than they both might think. How I've applied some of the lessons I've learnt from programming to running a network.

 Hope you like the new layout. Still some rough edges at the moment while I tidy up some crufty HTML in some of the old articles, and I hope you'll be patient while that takes place. The old layout has been entered into the hall of fame. Farewell Sinorca, we hardly knew ye!

My apologies for being very quiet on the updates (nothing new I know, sorry) and very quiet indeed on the forums, but that real life personal stuff keeps intruding I'm afraid. Still, on with a couple of interesting things, one serious and one not!

This will probably be a big shock to those people who know me very well, but after a lot of thought, we finally decided to outsource our SMTP gateway services at work.

This was purely down to the amount of time it was taking to administer the service ourselves, and the costs associated with running our old SMTP gateway software. We considered a number of alternatives, including some very promising open source packages, but in the end decided not to bother with a system we had to maintain on-site, as we felt that outsourcing our gateway would save us time and money on running our own servers and cut down on the bandwidth used for email.

So far, I'm not at all surprised to see that over 50% of our incoming mail feed is spam, with another couple of percent going on viruses and other emails we consider undesirable for some reason. More on this later, probably, the service is too new to us for me to draw any real conclusions.

But I will say that if you're wondering what to do with your email gateways, then outsourcing IS a viable option. As are many other alternatives including some very comprehensive and free Open Source packages.

 Ok, I just finished playing Splinter Cell:Chaos Theory, and I have to say I thought it was a hella good game. For those of you who haven't played, Chaos Theory is the third game in a series based around a spy working for the USA's NSA agency who goes in "on the ground" to steal information and occasionally intervene to deal with threats to national security. The key elements of the game are Stealth, gadgets, and stealthy gadgets. You don't waltz through the door in a tuxedo and walk up to the "head bad guy" and introduce yourself. Nope, you sneak in through the air conditioning ducts in the middle of the night and steal what you want to know.

Well reccomended - if you think brains are sometimes much more helpful than brawn. For me, this game has been a welcome antidote to the letdowns of dead boring Half Life 2 and "So this is 10 years ago" Doom 3.

March 2005

 Just got a look at a new game called Darwinia. Parts of this game are clearly a homage to the 80's home computer scene in the UK, together with a hero that looks like Sir Clive Sinclair.

Click on the picture to the left for a bigger dose of one of the many loading screens. If you know why this made me feel a real pang of nostalgia then no explanation is needed. If you don't, then no explanation is possible. But I'll try anyway. Go here, and if you're a Nintendo or Xbox fan of RARE then prepare for a shock.

All I can say is, if you have any interest in games at all then download the demo and try it.

If you're one of my many visitors from outside the UK I can only apologise, I know this is pure indulgence on my part.

Joel Spolsky's Fog Creek Software have released the latest version of FogBugz, version 4.0. This is project management software that is designed mostly with tracking the progress of a software project, but which can easily be turned to helpdesk management or other kinds of projects. If I awarded points to software I reviewed, I'd award this one 5 stars (or possibly 5 etherkillers). If you need project management software, helpdesk software, or anything like that then check it out!

 Netscape 8. Possibly the Ugliest browser that I've seen in a long time. The screenshot looks ugly, contains far too much information for one window (and assumes everyone has massive desktops that they wish to maximise this software onto). And comes with useful bloat ^h er, I mean Features that you can't get elsewhere such as AIM. Right on! For gods sake, whatever you do, do NOT get this browser (from here, if you insist), but instead stick with FireFox!

Ok. Here is an example of why technological solutions to behavioural problems are a bad idea.

Quite often, we see posts in the security newsgroups, Exchange mailing lists, and so-on detailing how someone wants to allow their users to have admin rights to their computer "except that they don't want them to perform some administrative task or other".

Or they want their users to be able to open a document, edit it, print it, do whatever they like with it - except for somehow magically being prevented from copying it when the boss doesn't want them to.

Well this image is just for those people. Click on it to see the fatal flaw in their logic. If you don't trust someone then don't give them access to your business secrets. If you do trust someone, then by all means verify that trust, but stay out of their way otherwise.

February 2005

Announcing my new addition to the Virtualisation part of the website, my guide to Pear PC!

Yes this really is a screenshot of my Windows XP desktop running OS X on the Windows computer itself in Pear PC, with a VNC connection to my iBook (running Windows 2000 in Virtual PC) in the background.

December 2004

I like getting email about the website, and I'd encourage anyone who wants to write me on that subject to get my details from this page. However, I'm still getting email to the spamtrap asking for help on various subjects, and.. how can I put this... if you want to write to the spam trap to ask for help with a problem then definitely read that page again slowly and carefully. If you still feel the urge to write to the spamtrap address with a question then the answer to your problem is that you don't read any documentation, and it can be fixed by actually reading things when people tell you to.

October 2004

 Ben Armstrong, Virtual PC program manager, pulls his head out of decades old computer games to ask us all: "When is a bug not a bug?"

Not exactly a Windows OS link, but I want to direct people to the "Beyond Bullets" website, if only so I always know where I can find a shortcut to it for my own needs when I'm out and about ;-). This site contains invaluable tips on presenting using powerpoint (or indeed any other presentation tool) which is important when you are the person in the hot seat who has to translate 'geekspeak' about the latest project into something the management can easily understand.

I agree with anyone who says that the content of your message is the only important part and why waste time on "fluff", but on the other hand, if it's worth spending the time of 6 people for 6 months to develop a project, it's also worth taking 2 hours to make sure you can present your findings in a coherent manner that isn't so boring your audience pray for death to deliver them.

Want help with understanding Kerberos authentication? Or maybe you understand it perfectly well but need a simple "primer" to use with others less(?) fortunate than yourself? Then check out this short "play"; an oldie but a goodie.

Oh yes. Robert Hensing thinks we shouldn't use passwords at all.

 Ok I've been playing with OSX some more. What do you think of this?

Yep. You've seen me rattle on about my iBook before, right? Only last time wasn't it a G4? Why would I downgrade my laptop? Ok. Look again...

Yep that is a Mac desktop on a Windows desktop. No I'm not running some kind of 'terminal services' program. I've been playing with Pear PC. For those who don't know, Pear PC is an emulator which attempts to emulate the Mac hardware platform in Windows, similar in concept to Virtual PC for the Mac.

I'll type up a full report of my experiences later, but if you enjoy playing with things like Virtual PC then you might enjoy this too, and it certainly gives you a chance to test website comparability easily, which is always worthwhile. Performance isn't fantastic but then when you consider the complexity of the job Pear PC is doing and how it hasn't really been around too long, that is just fine.

Oh. Couple more things... Pear PC is a free open source project. It's also a screaming sod to set up the first time and you will need help - which you can find here at the Pear PC community portal. You can download various front ends to the config files from several places, and the one that currently works best for me is here - but I still find myself editing the config files by hand sometimes too.

You'll also need a copy of Mac OSX from somewhere or at the very least the Power PC version of Linux or suchlike. And before anyone asks, no I won't put images of my OS X install disks online for people to leech. Sorry!

Yeah I suck at regular updates. I've been real busy with other things and I'm sorry.

 First of all, I'm gonna namecheck myself for a bit. I've been awarded as a Microsoft MVP for 2004/2005! I've been re-awarded as a Windows Server MVP specialising in Security but I dare say the Virtual PC stuff doesn't hurt either. I've somehow managed to receive this award every year since I think, 1998 or 1997, where I assume I was originally given the award because of a clerical error.

If you get a chance, pop over to the personal blog of my very good friend and fellow MVP Tom Meunier. Tom is a very smart guy who works for a very smart company but that's not why I'm suggesting you go visit.

You should visit Tom because he messes around with a lot of weird and wonderful things, often open source things, and blogs about them so you can learn about weird and wonderful things like podcasting.

Also, he cruelly mocks my MSN Messenger nicknames wherever possible so if you fancy an insight into what kind of warped mind maintains my site, or just a giggle, he has the inside scoop.

 Virtual PC 2004 Service Pack One is released. To celebrate, I've created a new FAQ page to track SP1 issues, and also found time to give the Virtual PC section of the site a makeover.

 A few changes and updates to the "Robert Test" article. Essential reading, if I say so myself, if you run an internal computer support desk.

What happens when you get slimed by a spyware install? Find out in the anatomy of a drive-by download here!

Since I first pointed people at it, Mozilla's Firefox is now at a "preview release" of version 1.0 and its looking damn good. Also available are fantastic versions of Firefox for other platforms including Linux and Mac OS X, and the "Thunderbird" mail and news reader. All worth a look, all easy to install and try and all FREE! That's right. FREE STUFF HERE!

July 2004

Virtual PC FAQ has a new section on best practices for deployment and the like.

 As many of you know, being a proud user of both Windows and Mac OSX, I'm always interested in how products work across both platforms. As such, I feel the time has come to commend Hewlett Packard for their consistency of support on both platforms. The Mac OSX and Windows XP drivers for the HP PSC 750 both blow chunks out of both ends at once, and HP are to be commended for ensuring that users on both platforms get such a consistent experience.

July 2004

Nope, not many updates to this front page recently. I'm sorry. I know I suck at this updating thing.

Internet Explorer - Time for a change?

I hate to say this but then it isn't my fault that it has come to this, but there you go, I'm sure I'll get flamed anyway. After a long time spent defending it and hoping that the obvious flaws would be fixed some time soon, I can't now defend Intenet Explorer any longer. It's outdated, and no longer gives you a very good browsing "experience". It's insecure due in my opinion to some fundemental flaws in its architecture.

I hope Microsoft get their butts in gear and give it the ground up rewrite treatment which has done so much to turn IIS 6 in to such a superb web serving platform but in the meantime, it's time for a new browser. You can choose things like Opera, Mozilla, or Firefox - which is a cut-down lightweight version of the Mozilla browser, or countless other alternatives.

I've chosen Firefox as my new default browser because it is fast, relatively lightweight to download and install, easy to use, and works on several platforms including the two I use, Windows and Mac OS X. It contains any number of tricks and fiddles to do by default things that you have to use add-ins to get in IE, and has several innovations which make it easy to work with the web in the way I like to.

More Free Stuff? How about an Antivirus Scanner this time?

I hope everyone already knows about AVG and AVAST, so rather than talk about those, I want to draw your attention to the open source antivirus scanner named "Clam AV". This scanner has been growing in users and credability for some time now, and is used by quite a few large institutions to carry out virus scanning on their SMTP gateways.

It is well supported by its community, it is reliable, it is a credible scanner, and it now has a very usable Windows version which is of course free and open source. And I think it rocks! What more do you want? It does lack an on-access mode which means it isn't ideal as a primary scanner for home users, but for those of you supporting business I could see this becoming an essential part of the toolkit. 

March 2004

Frankly, I'm astonished it took so long. Fact is, in industry, firewalls are like any other bit of software. We fit them, we subscribe to the vendor support mailing list, and we keep them updated with the latest upgrades. No worries, thats what we're paid for.

So-called "personal firewalls" however are sold to home users and small business as a 'fit and forget' solution, so users of course do just that. Sad to say that in this case users are being stung left and right by 'fit and forget' solutions that aren't. Right now, lots of unlucky Blackice users are just finding out that 'forget to fit' would have worked better.

1st April 2002:
Rob says, "Firewalls suck.  Here's why: http://www.robertmoir.co.uk/secure/WhyFirewallsSuck.html"

21st March 2004:
Firewall says: "<insert giant sucking sound> http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/56/36413.html"

Many thanks to Tom for mentioning this, and also I have to be honest, the funny comments attatched to the links are all his hard work. The only credit I can claim is knowing when to cut and paste.

Now if only I could predit lottery numbers two years in advance as well.

SORRY!

Reports that I closed this site down in a fit of pique because someone called it a blog are greatly exagerated!

My apologies for being off the air for a few days. I don't want to bore you with the details but I had some problems moving control of my DNS/domain records from one registrar to another.

My site has been hosted for some time by infovue who rock because its a friend's company. The downtime was nothing to do with them.

My site's DNS records and domain tagging/registry are now handled by kewlio who rock because they are a friend's company. The downtime was nothing to do with them.

I'm not going to trash the people who used to handle my DNS and stuff and who dropped the ball a bit on the hand-over to kewlio, as I suspect their biggest crime was being American and hence poorly equipped to understand the depths of horror that is British red tape.

February 2004

Over 40,000 pages views this month according to my web reporting program. I'm going to assume that it can't count.

Microsoft finally release their security roll-up hotfix CD. You can order one here of course, for free. Expect them to be very popular. Now that its all been released I can say I've been beta testing these CDs and they are pretty good. You can use them to secure just about any Windows system (except Win 95) and the CDs are very easy to use.

MyDoom and Doomjuice removal tools here but of course if you are reading this you already have antivirus software right? I've seen the most outrageous claims for how much MyDoom and the like have cost industry lately and it is nothing short of amazing that companies are still falling for this virus.

Just to clear matters up: MyDoom does not use any operating system exploits, it does not use any 'bugs' to worm its way into your system. It relies on the recipient being naieve enough to open and run the attatchment. Now I've got some sympathy for home users who fall for this. Not much, but some.

As for business however, if you are a network administrator and a single user on your network so much as saw an infected email in their inbox then you should be ashamed of yourself. If you are a senior company officer in a company whose network was affected by MyDoom then I strongly urge you to fire your current email / systems administrator and hire someone with a brain instead.

This outbreak was extremely easy to spot and extremely easy to block. Even before the virus scanners were updated to deal with it, the SMTP gateways on my network were blocking it from my users because it stuck out like a elephant painted fire engine red walking through town square. There was absolutely no need for this virus to infect a single business user.

Speaking of businesses and outrageous claims for disruption by viruses, the register posted a couple of interesting articles, here and here. A small quote from the first link points out a stark truth about the numbers that AV vendors throw around when they are trying to scare you into signing up for yet another scanner service:

"Our old friends mi2g, for example, claimed at the start of February that MyDoom caused $38.5bn of economic damage worldwide. VMyth's Rob Rosenberger has pointed out that this guesstimate is 1.6 per cent of the US federal budget proposed for next year or 40 per cent of the damage to New York City on 9/11." (Taken from the register, original article here.)

Remember when someone makes a wild claim like this to ask yourself - do they have a vested interest in shaping your beliefs?

Visit Microsoft's 'Protect your PC' Website. Free help for protecting your PC in 3 easy steps.

Sorry about the lack of recent updates. I've been real busy; we had a big (well big for the South of England) snow storm the other day and I got to spend 4 hours stuck in my car. Both my car and my bad back responded to this by breaking down, and I've been off work ill a few days while I try to recover my wits and the ability to stand upright. Under the circumstances I hope you will all forgive me if I haven't got much done lately. Still there are some plans...

• A few updates to the Virtual PC FAQ have appeared last month, no doubt more will follow.
• We're now starting to build a community around Virtual PC 2004 in the forums.
• I've got some good ideas for various articles which hopefully I'll get off my butt and write soon; including a follow up article thats over a year late, so far!

Congratulations to Virtual PC MVPs - Steve Jain, Ronald Beekelaar, and Paul Adare!

And I guess thanks to everyone for visiting; I had over 7000 visitors in January. I hope everyone managed to find what they came here looking for.

January 2004

Hi there! Today we're going to play "Securing your connection"

Reading this from a wireless connection at home? Read THIS now!

Reading this from any other kind of connection at home? Read THIS now!

Reading this through a connection at work thats protected with Microsoft ISA Server 2000? Read THIS now!

Reading this and seeing adverts appear on my (supposedly advert free) site? Read THIS or THIS now!

Don't worry, this page will still be here after you've done the things those pages tell you to. As for me, I'm going for a haircut.

Kazaa - Software Update Services for your Viruses and Spyware.

Forty-five percent of the executable files downloaded through Kazaa, the most popular file-sharing program, contain malicious code like viruses and Trojan horses, according to a new study. Out of 4,778 files downloaded in one month, Bruce Hughes, director of malicious code research at security firm TruSecure, found that nearly half of them contained various types of nefarious code.

Some code was designed to infect every file in a computer user's Kazaa download directory with a virus. Other code would steal the user's AOL Instant Messenger password or install a program on their computer to allow the attacker to surreptitiously send spam through it or otherwise take over the machine remotely to steal personal data and files on the computer.

See the note from 18th December 2003 for more thoughts on Kazaa.

January 2004

Hi there! Today we're going to play "Securing your connection"

Reading this from a wireless connection at home? Read THIS now!

Reading this from any other kind of connection at home? Read THIS now!

Reading this through a connection at work thats protected with Microsoft ISA Server 2000? Read THIS now!

Reading this and seeing adverts appear on my (supposedly advert free) site? Read THIS or THIS now!

Don't worry, this page will still be here after you've done the things those pages tell you to. As for me, I'm going for a haircut.

Kazaa - Software Update Services for your Viruses and Spyware.

Forty-five percent of the executable files downloaded through Kazaa, the most popular file-sharing program, contain malicious code like viruses and Trojan horses, according to a new study. Out of 4,778 files downloaded in one month, Bruce Hughes, director of malicious code research at security firm TruSecure, found that nearly half of them contained various types of nefarious code.

Some code was designed to infect every file in a computer user's Kazaa download directory with a virus. Other code would steal the user's AOL Instant Messenger password or install a program on their computer to allow the attacker to surreptitiously send spam through it or otherwise take over the machine remotely to steal personal data and files on the computer.

See the note from 18th December 2003 for more thoughts on Kazaa.

"We suck less because we test more".

That's going to be my new site motto I think. It's certainly the motto for my day-to-day work and has been for a long time.

Click above to see how this site behaves on a smartphone's web browser. I believe that as time goes by you'll see more people with devices similar to my new toy, or maybe to this one or even like this. Or maybe something totally different. But one thing is for sure - people are going to want to use the Internet on your small mobile devices as time goes by.

Whether they'll want to use your site on those mobile devices or not is up to you.

How usable is your website? Does it have a 20 minute flash introduction because the CEO liked it in the demo or because you designer just got back from a flash course and wants to show off? How do you think that looks to someone on a portable device like the one above. Hell, how do you think it looks to someone with a normal PC and browser but something less than a 600k 'broadband' connection.

Remember, if you don't want to cater for those people with all that disposable income to buy things like this, don't worry, I'm sure your competitors will be happy to cater to them, er I guess I should say "us", for you.

Just got myself a new phone, specifically the Orange EPV e200 SmartPhone. It runs a version of Pocket PC 2003 tailored for Phone systems. Actually having just got it, I'm not claiming to be any kind of expert on what this stuff does, but it looks like its at least as capable as my old PDA, a Casio E115, and has a considerably louder volume for playing .wma files and the like. Its loud enough that I can imagine playing music on it to actually listen and enjoy it, and it also connects to MSN Messenger, the internet (via IE), supports bluetooth, GPRS, Tri-Band operation (e.g. internation roaming) and has a little slot to plug in SD Cards. Oh and it has a camera built into it. I think it also allows you to make phone calls as well but I'm not sure. It's an early birthday present to myself. No I can't justify it any other way. Yes I am shameless. Er, no wait, its a test platform for testing mobile access to some bits and pieces I'm working on. No really *cough* thats my justification.

The Virtual PC FAQ is starting to get fairly popular, and quite long, so I've broken the sections up into their own pages to provide some mercy to people trying to use it with a modem connection. The pages are still fairly big because they are graphics heavy, but at least now when you view a section you'll only be waiting for the graphics needed for that section alone!

Happy new year!

December 2003

Yet another set of patches for OSX 10.3. I'm now up to 10.3.2 with various security patches. You know, its interesting, everyone goes on about how you have to supposedly patch your Windows system continously, and I have no doubt that Microsoft certainly need to do better in this regard, but I am also certain that since getting the ibook I've patched that more times than I've patched Windows, yet I'm up to date on both now.

Whats also interesting is in the area of expected and consistent behaviour of patched systems. One of the patches I applied this week to my ibook was releated to battery life; it was designed to improve battery life and how the system used power at various settings and so-on. Upon applying it, my apparent battery life, according to the meter on the toolbar, dropped by half. I then charged the battery this morning and just ran it on battery and it claimed 4 hours fully charged at boot (as opposed to 6 hours before the patch) and over time, while unplugged remember, the battery meter crept up and it claimed that I had 7 hours and 43 mins of battery life left when i switched the ibook off. Go figure.

Not had much to say this month. I guess I've been busy being a human being with a life instead of a geek without one. A Merry Christmas and a prosperous new year to you all!

I'll go with a quick thought for now. Sharman networks, the developers of the popular "file sharing" program kazaa, have recently gone after the developers of "Kazaa lite", a program that allowed users to access the kazaa network without downloading the 2Gb of spyware that currently comes free with every Kazaa install. They have forced the shutdown and removal of "Kazaa lite" by citing copyright infringement.

I'll allow you a brief paragraph break in the reading here to savour the irony there.

Didn't anyone at that place think that maybe, just maybe, with a business model that relied on knowingly providing others with the equipment to steal music (whatever you think of the debate, the fact is, most users of P2P file sharing are stealing music. Lets not gild the lily here.) that they might have to contend with people who may not have felt constrained by the need to obey copyright laws?

Did they really not see this one coming? Between their closing down of a popular utility and spyware on the one hand, and their aiding and abetting theft on the other, do they really think they'll get much sympathy from anyone? Isn't this at least on a par with the proverbial dot-com business guru claiming that they will make a $1 loss on each sale but "That's ok. We'll make up for it on volume"?

November 2003

New Article! Still not quite finished but close enough to publish it and let people comment, is the Virtual PC 2004 FAQ. Enjoy!

Yep. Another new layout. This is another one found through oswd.org, and its a design by Haran, who sent the most gracious reply when I asked permission to use the design this is based on; Thank you again Haran. I really can't say enough how awesome the oswd site and all the designers who exhibit there are, please check it out.

If you like my site, please check it out as a favour to me. If you hate this site and came here by accident, please use the oswd.org link above to exit your way out of this madhouse and I promise it will make up for coming here!

Many thanks also to my friend Don Vince who helped me tweak my javascript and fix a minor niggle in the way IE6 deals with CSS. Thanks Don!

Oh yeah, while I remember about CSS stuff, also check out the CSS Zen Garden if you want to see what CSS can do and why you should care.

Ok so I haven't written much lately. On the plus side of the account I've given you exclusive LongHorn content. Remember its exclusive even though it looks like everyone elses content because the Login screenshot has my name and not someone else's name.

On a more serious note, I have some work in progress that anyone who cares can see in the "jotter" in my forum - feel free to have a look and also if you wish to comment on an idea then dip in!

Oh and I've completed my Christmas shopping pretty much, which is important to me if not to anyone else. What might be interesting is that everyone is getting real gifts this year (and not various tokens and suchlike which they all got last year when i spent 5 weeks prior to christmas and 1 week or so after it too ill to get out of bed at all) and i managed to do it all online.

20th November 2003

Oh. Yeah. Some Apple Screenshots and some thoughts too from my new iBook. Woot! A lot more interesting and important than the Longhorn screens, probably.

Look at me! I have Longhorn Content too. Really I do. I'm so elite. I'm important too. Look I have a login box with my first name in it!

Dude! You're getting a De...er Mac? I finally took the plunge and placed an order. Here's what I'm getting: The 12" iBook G4 with Airport Extreme (802.11g to everyone outside Cupertino) included. I suspect I'm going to have a lot of fun with this but even if I don't get on with it day-to-day (which I doubt) it will make a great travelling companion.

Just put up a new article in the Windows section. It's a FAQ for Volume Shadow Copies in Windows 2003. Check it out!

The next article is also underway in my "jotter pad" in the forums. Feel free to comment on it in the forums if you like.

I still want an apple notebook but I think my wallet is ruling my head as I've now settled for lusting after the cheaper ibook than the more expensive powerbook. Of course, given that I *will* want virtual PC (and enough memory to run it), an Airport card to connect to my home wireless LAN, bluetooth to connect to my phone and other bits and pieces, a mouse to help counter my hatred of laptop glide pads... well even the cheaper ibook isn't quite so cheap any more once you've added all the Salad!«

October 2003

Derek Wyatt MP has made a suggestion on stopping spam and would like comments on his idea. My reply is below.

Open reply re: http://www.derekwyattmp.co.uk/dereks_work/viewtopic.php?t=201

Interesting idea, which totally fails to take into account the very common spammer tactics of forging email addresses, hijacking email relays, hacking proxy servers to act on their behalf, etc.

Oh yes, and it also involves a "boil the ocean" solution, where you have to change over a group too large to be changed easily.

Oh yes, and how does this stop people from foreign countries sending me spam?

Apart from that, not bad. Tell you what, I won't tell you how to run the country and you stop telling people like me how to run a computer network.

Rob Moir

Another day another entry. What I lack in quality I make up in quantity, or something.

Contacting me... If you wish to drop me a private message about my website or anything else feel free to email me. Oh - except - I don't like unsolicited commercial mail aka SPAM very much. 

If you wish to ask my advice with a computing problem, please do not email me, instead use one of the forums mentioned in my "contact me" section. I'm sorry but I get a lot of email and much of it goes unanswered for the following reasons:

• Between work and home I often get over one thousand emails a day.
• Believe it or not, I have other things in my life taking up time besides computers.
• I don't know everything and don't pretend to. I might not know an answer to your problem or the answer I know might not be the best one.
• Sometimes I go on holiday. If you have a security issue it is probably urgent and may not wait for me to come back home.
• I believe in sharing questions and answers so that everyone can benefit. That is difficult to do in a private email.
• If you ask in the appropriate forum you are guaranteed an answer! If you absolutely want to ask me a question, ask it in the forums dedicated to this website where I will definitely notice it.

Hmmmmmmmmmm. 2165 Unique visitors in just under a month.

Ok. This is scary. "An on-line security questionnaire of IT experts within some of the UK's largest organisations highlighted the ease with which hackers can breach security systems as, alarmingly, 15 percent of the experts - those generally responsible for security - provided their computer passwords in order to enter a prize draw." Read more from the NCC group, who did the research, here.

I might expect this from end users, after all, they are not interested in computer security and to a degree nor should they have to be, but from IT Professionals? Obviously these particular people don't deserve the title "Professional" at all.

I want an Apple Mac laptop when my current one retires. I just want "something different" and I can always run Virtual PC on it if I need a Windows machine on the portable.

Currently I'm playing with Exchange 2003, Share Point portal Server 2.0 (the Windows 2003 add on) and trying to take screen shots and make notes for a primer on creating and managing GPOs to help a lot of schools who are only just now upgrading from Windows NT 4. More to follow soon I hope.

Oct 21st 2003

Don has pointed out that I should date these entries. So from now on, I'll try to. Because he's right.

Anyhoo, moving on. I got 2 cool gifts from Microsoft today, a nice Fleece jacket thang and a small 4-port USB hub. Both with "Office 2003" engraved on them, to celebrate the launch of Office 2003, which I was one of the many bazillions of beta testers for. I think these are gifts for Microsoft MVPs who helped with the launch but I'm not sure. Either way, I'm grateful.

I know some people see the gifts MVPs get as some kind of "bribe" or as part of a deal to make us only say nice things about Microsoft products or that we have to 'toe the line' to be MVPs in the first place, and I just want to say thats absolute nonsense. Even if you want to believe that I am that kind of person, I can assure you that I am far more expensive than an USB hub and a fleecy jacket. Even though they are very nice.

Oh.. you wanted to hear about Office 2003? What can I say, I like it. But its Office you know. MS Office: Its got your Outlook, its got your Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Frontpage, Access, and they are all better than before. But if you just want to send the odd email and write the odd letter and so-on then you'll probably never notice the new things.

Some important things that will matter a great deal to business users I suspect, however, are

• Better XML support, which will be irrelevant to a lot of people but manna from heaven for those who need it.
• One Note, which will be an absolute must have if you have a tablet (in fact tablet support is much better all round in Office 2003)
• InfoPath, which is a forms design thing... That description does it a bit of an injustice but it went over my head and I dunno what else to say. It uses XML a lot, so see my comment on XML support earlier ;-)
• New server stuff like the Live communications Server and SharePoint Portal Server, which are now considered part of office.
• Content protection/rights management for your documents to enforce distribution restrictions - which really is a part of Windows 2003 as much as it is of Office 2003.
• Outlook has had a lot of work done to it to be fair both in your face and under the hood. Combined with Exchange 2003 it can do some really cool things.

Pre-Oct 21st 2003

Robert Explains... Common Win 200x terminology. Mostly just a glossary of some common terms in Windows 2000 and 2003 domain based networking, and mostly intended to lay the ground for future articles on GPO creation and management. Aimed mostly at RM community connect 2.x users upgrading to Community Connect 3.

Ok. Today I got 2 new toys. The game PC version of the game HALO and a "Wireless Intellimouse Explorer 2.0" with the "tilt" scroll button (e.g. goes left to right as well as up and down). First impressions: The mouse is great on first use but a little "heavy" due no doubt to the batteries. Feels comfortable though. HALO seems to be fun, I'm enjoying it and all, but I can't see what the fuss is about. Just Another Game, and one that seems a bit too eager to crash.

Wild claims about 100% network uptime considered harmful? Well I sure feel that way anyway. My newest article this month.

Microsoft have a new Expert Zone website for IT Professionals who need help with security issues. They've also got a new FAQ article based on the "What is Malware" article I wrote a while ago. This might look a bit familiar to those who have seen the rough draft around this site but Microsoft have published the definitive version. There is lots of other stuff there too from real experts, not just pretend ones like me. So please check it out!

BOFH's got a brand new DVD. My computer's DVD player was playing up yesterday, first of all it was behaving awfully while I was trying to watch Johnny English, and then it decided it wouldn't read the data DVD for .net dev studio 2003, which is a bit of a sod if you thought "I know, I won't bother installing the docs and samples, I'll just put the DVD in the drive whenever I'm using this thing" like I did.

I dunno much about DVD players but I know when ones busted... I suspect rouge hacker elves have ferreted it but what do I know? In any case, something had to be done, and I went out looking for a DVD reader and found a writer that writes to all the various formats (so I don't have to worry about which one "wins" the format war and which appears to be smart and fast enough for my needs. Ah well. Thanks LG!

Today's new computer security word. "Ferreted" (derived from hacked). This is used to describe a computer whose user believes is hacked, but is in fact screwed up by their own cluelessness. See also "Trackered" (derived from Knackered). Example of usage. "The user posted to Usenet that alien hackers had invaded her computer, and that she was going to write a 3 million page book exposing them. Upon careful examination of the 'facts' presented by the victim, computer security experts determined that the computer had been ferreted"

September 2003

I'm probably gonna wind up the "blogger" bit of the site. I don't understand blogging. Unless this is blogging. My head hurts at the thought of having two systems for updating this site however, so that's that.

"Microsoft Exchange protocols should be standardised and opened up" - Not sure if this is the register themselves saying this or the people they are reporting on. So that would be the mean, nasty, monopoly-enhancing, exchange-specific, closed standards like SMTP, NNTP, POP3, IMAP, and LDAP would it? Those nasty nasty Microsofties... building stuff like that into a communications server. Whatever next... cats and dogs sleeping together? Web servers that support HTTP? For the love of god, make them stop.

Oh yes. I'd like to reply to several emailed requests for help and clarification:

MICROSOFT DO NOT SEND OUT SOFTWARE PATCHES OR UPGRADES VIA EMAIL. IF YOU RECEIVE AN EMAIL CLAIMING TO BE FROM MICROSOFT AND ASKING YOU TO APPLY AN ATTACHED PATCH, DELETE THE EMAIL AT ONCE.

Sorry I've not posted much of anything this September but I've been ill and part of my recovery has been to stay away from computers and to not think about things to deeply for most of this month. Now I'm back in the land of the productive, I'm probably going to spend the rest of the month catching up with stuff that pays the bills. Sorry!

An Experiment. It's hardly original but I'm opening up some forums. As of the last time I looked you could still win the chance to be the first person besides me to post there. w00t. As things stand right now, this is an experiment. If people use the forums I'll keep them going and if no one cares then I'll take them down. So its up to you.

My BOFH Excuse Server is online and waiting to help you deal with pesky users. Just refresh the page for another excuse.

August 2003  

I never saw a bandwaggon I was scared to jump on. Yes, I've now got a blog. Bet you never saw that coming. But wait! isn't this bit of the site like a blog? Hmmm.

Know your Malware! Want to know the difference between a virus and a worm? Isn't spyware a virus? Check out my new article and find out.

New design. Hope you all like it. Due to a change in the way CityDesk handles text in the new version some pages may look a bit "odd". I will update them, I promise!

In the Forums... Putting together the ultimate bookmarks, everyone's favourate techie sites and utility home pages. I'm planning to keep the list where it is as a nice long bookmark for anyone who wants it, and I may produce a nice tidy looking page in the main site with the links all nicely laid out and sorted. Sign up and add your favourate bookmarks to the list!

Fog Creek have released the final version of CityDesk 2.0 at last! If you own a copy of CityDesk 1, you are entitled to a free upgrade. I just downloaded my free upgrade and installed it no problem.

New piece of software I've been playing with, FileZilla, an FTP client. Those of you who know how attached I am to WS_FTP will be amazed I've even looked at another product but there you go. I've been hammering FileZilla all weekend doing some multi-gigabyte (no not a typo) FTP operations and its been superb. Really. I'm not about to remove WS_FTP from my system yet, but I am giving FileZilla a seat right next to it on both my system and my USB Drive "toolkit". Also supports SSH. The price is right too, its free Open Source software.

Heres something i bet you thought you'd never see on my computer. Linux! (warning, page contains big photos and will take a while to load) 

I've been playing with Knoppix and I'm fairly impressed - well compared to my usual opinion of Linux distros. It gives me something to do while downloading an update for my copy of Real Unix. (Pause for the people who thought I was a Pro Microsoft windows loving OS bigot to feel faint) Does anyone know how to get Knoppix to work with the SIS 648 chipset's onboard network card to talk to NTLWorld cable?

Blaster Worm

Hello.

First of all, I hope everyone weathered the storm of the blaster worm that has been crashing machines left and right for the past few days at the time of writing. If you've come here hoping for a fix for the blaster worm, or come here to see if I know why someone called NT AUTHORITY/SYSTEM is crashing your computer, or why svchost.exe keeps stopping and making your machine reboot, then please click here but please come back when you've done fixing your system. This editorial is addressed to you.

(Full Article)

If you are reading this then the release candidate for CityDesk 2.0 works for me. So far, anyway.

"The Robert Test"

First of all, I'm getting the big confession out of the way. This idea is stolen shamelessly from Joel Spolsky's famous "Joel Test " for rating the quality of a software team. As he's a programmer and I'm a system administrator, it may not come as a shock for you to hear that I've knocked out a test based on his idea that is designed to rate the quality of an "IT Support" function in an organisation.

I'm not as strict as Joel however, 8 out of 12 is a passing grade on the Robert Test and over 10 is a good score. Less than 8 however, and you've got big problems. If this is a job you are interviewing for then run, don't walk, away. In case anyone is interested, I score my current place of work at 10 out of 12.

I hope this is useful to anyone considering a job in a new place, or who already works there and wants to make some improvements, or maybe to people who wonder if their IT Support team can actually fix computers or not. If you disagree, then maybe I can inspire you to do better. If that happens, please let me know by emailing me or by posting in the forums.

1. Do you have a "Service Level Agreement" with your users?
2. Does the IT Support dept. have a "board level champion" who will support causes for the IT Department, and also listen to board level feedback about support issues and pass it on?
3. Do you use a call logging / management system?
4. Can you track call history through this system and analyse trends in support issues using this system?
5. Can 1^st line support staff easily communicate with 2^nd line support staff, and vice versa?
6. Does someone in the team (preferably the person in charge) actually talk to users to find out what their needs are?
7. Do users get notified at all times who "owns" their call so that they know who is responsible for helping them solve their issue? And would they how to contact their call owner?
8. Does your second line support team have a quiet working environment where they can concentrate on problem solving in peace?
9. Do you have a "stock control" database that lists all assets you are responsible for?
10. Do you provide the tools your team needs to do their jobs?
11. Do you encourage and support your staff's continuing professional development?
12. Does everyone on your team know why everyone else on the team is there?

(Full article)

July 2003

Citydesk 2.0 will soon be upon us. I can't wait to get my hands on my free upgrade. For those of you who don't know, this site is created and managed with Citydesk 1.0 - an amazing bit of software that has allowed me to make this whole damn site, except for the forums, using just 2 pages (currently) of html.

June 2003

So what do you have in your computer toolkit?

*mutter* My old hosting company ain't hosting me no more. In fact they left me having to find a host at very short notice. In that regard, I'd like to say that this site is now being hosted by infovue, who are one kick-booty hosting company from what I've seen in the past, and I'm very glad to be "here". I'd especially like to thank them for the speed they swung into action to get things set up and the help I've had in transferring my account over at very short notice. They rock. Oh yes.

My head hurts. Thank you Gary. A real time waster here.

A Møøse once bit my sister ... Nø realli!

Feb/Mar 2003

No updates for a while again. I do apologise to the no doubt very few people who have been checking this site for updates to bits and pieces. I'm intending to do lots of things, I have plans but I also have a bad case of writers block.

I've updated the FAQ notes on QoS and FAT32 vs NTFS on Windows XP. Also a few other tweaks here and there which are not worth bothering about if you've read the articles I've changed before. If you haven't read them before then you won't know they have changed.

September 2002

A few years ago, during the interview for the job I held before my current one, the interviewer swung around to the question of what tools I needed to do the job my resume claimed I could do.

"Technet" I said, "A CD based subscription is something I totally can't be without".

"What about the online knowledge base?" my interviewer asked. "That's all I use."

Seeing the interview slipping away from me, and not wanting this guy to think I was a dolt for wanting to spend his money on something he thought he could get for free, I asked him if we could try an experiment so I could prove to him why I needed the technet CDs and why the online version didn't cut the mustard.

"Of course" said the interviewer, turning to the personnel director who was also interviewing me and getting a nod of agreement from them too, "I'd like to give you a chance to make your point."

I then reached over and unplugged the network cable from the laptop he was using to prove to me why he only needed the online knowledgebase. "OK." I told him, "We've just simulated a crash on your proxy server. The one you told me is your only way of getting an internet connection on this site. You've just got the error message thats on the proxy server screen and you need to look it up in order to fix it. Now show me how you search for the proxy server error message when the proxy itself is your only way of getting to the online knowledgebase."

I got the job. And by the time I started they had a copy of the subscription version of Technet greeting me in my new office on my first day.

July/August 2002

Part one of my article on security basics has been featured on www.microsoft.com in the windows security community. Check it out!

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