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By Robert McMillen, Koin’s Tech Guru
This is a big week for Verizon. You have probably seen at least one ad on the new Droid phone. In case you’ve been living under Pioneer Square these past few weeks, I will elaborate.
Verizon’s new phone called the Droid is based on the Android operating system put out by Google. It is made by Motorola, which has been having all kinds of problems selling phones ever since Blackberry and the iPhone came out. Now they believe they have a chance to shine once again.
I’ve had many Motorola phones over the decades, including the brick phone. I was so cool carrying that around in my suit coat circa 1989. The only problem was that it looked like I tilted to one side. Later on I moved to the flip phone. It almost fit into my pocket, but the battery stuck out too far.
Once the smart phone came out, I moved away from Motorola because they had really nothing to offer. That is, until today. True to its tradition, the new Motorola Droid phone is built like a tank. It’s big, heavy, and will survive many accidental drops and nuclear attacks. Unlike Blackberry phones, this phone will not have people complaining about its durability.
But is it an iPhone killer? Let’s take a look.
The Droid does excel with a better camera at 5 MPs. It also has a pop out keyboard that the iPhone lacks. The Android version 2.0 software is very easy to use and the screen quality is easy on the eyes. The phone quality is also getting great reviews, especially with the Verizon network’s reputation of quality phone service. Although the Droid doesn’t yet have the 100,000 apps that the iPhone has, it shouldn’t take long for the applications to start rolling in considering the open source nature of Android vs. Apple.
The built-in turn by turn GPS will save you from paying money for an Apple GPS app that goes from $40-$100 on the iPhone. Google voice is also more accurate on the Droid than the same app used on the iPhone. Droid’s cost is $199 for a 2 year agreement, which is comparable to the iPhone 3G.
You can run multiple applications at once on Droid, unlike the iPhone. The processor is also more powerful and is said to be on par with a PC.
But it’s not all flakey pie and shaved whiskers because here is the downside to the new Droid phone. Verizon is shooting itself in the foot because of its data policy. With AT&T you get an unlimited data plan for a flat rate of around $40 (depending on your contract and when you bought it). Verizon’s “unlimited” data plan has a cap of 5 GBs for $30 per month. With the iPhone it really is unlimited. If you want to tether your phone, which means to plug your phone into your computer to get the computer on the internet, then double that charge. Add another $15 if you want to connect to an Exchange server. There is no extra charge to get an iPhone on Exchange, and if you want to tether it, just pay $30 to a company that offers it when you jailbreak the phone.
The software for the camera makes you wait a painful amount of time to take and process a picture. Don’t plan on using it to capture your kids playing soccer. The game will be over by the time you get it going again.
The phone is bigger and heavier than just about any current smart phone, but it still fits in your pocket and I don’t always count weight against a manufacturer.
You can only install applications on the Droid's built in 256 MBs of memory. Yes, you can store data on the separate memory card up to 32 GBs if you choose, but the application limit is going to kill off some business. A work around is to move your apps between the card and built in memory, but I don’t see anyone doing that without a fight. You don’t have this limitation on the iPhone, but there’s no memory slot either.
Verizon is touting their 3G service to be superior to AT&T’s. This week AT&T sued Verizon for falsely claiming their commercials show how much less 3G coverage AT&T has compared to Verizon. AT&T actually has 2G coverage in most of the country where Verizon says AT&T has no 3G coverage. Huh? So AT&T is agreeing with Verizon, but says that Verizon should also mention the 2G coverage in their commercial. Um, ok.
Blackberry is laughing on the sidelines because no matter what happens, it still owns the majority of the smart phone business. But Blackberry, who basically invented the smart phone business, has lost a lot of its market share. And, without having any innovation other than the “Storm II” (insert laughter here), I don’t see them hanging on to the majority much longer. HTC is a strong contender, and they too have an Android phone out with Verizon that is turning heads. We will review their offerings in the future.
For now if you have AT&T, you may as well stick with the iPhone. If you have Verizon and don’t want a Blackberry, then the Droid is a good solid phone. They all have their warts, but they also have some fantastic features.
To buy my latest book “How to be an IT Administrator,” go to http://howtobeanitadministrator.com/
For more great tips, check back here each week and listen to me on the All Tech Radio show at 9:00 Sunday mornings on AM 1360 KUIK and at 10:00 AM on KOL in Seattle, or listen online at http://alltechradio.com.
If you would like your technical question answered here, just email rmcmillen@koin.com. Even if it doesn’t get answered in the column, I will always answer by email.
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By Robert McMillen, Koin’s Tech Guru
Q- “Why do some people get caught while others get away with internet crime?”
Sarah L.
Portland
A- Every website you go to, and every item you post, is traceable. That now includes tweets and text messages. I remember the first tweet I sent through Twitter many months ago, and I was surprised to see it online a few weeks later. At the time I didn’t realize that I could make it private. That doesn’t mean the message is gone if someone like the police want it bad enough. (Unless of course you have a Sidekick phone. Ha! Sorry about that.)
I will not only explain how the average internet user leaves fingerprints, I’m also going to show you how a hacker does it so he won’t get caught.
When surfing the internet, the website host keeps track of every IP address that has visited their site for however long they feel they should keep the log files. Some, like WebMD, don’t track it at all because of confidentiality rules. Others, like the NSA and CIA, may keep them forever. The IP address can be easily tracked by being turned over to the police, and then the address can be matched up when the police give the internet service provider a court order to tell them who owned that IP address on that date. Then they come knocking on the bad guy’s door.
They don’t do all this for just any type of web browsing, however. They mostly do it for people who threaten harm to others, solicit something illegally, or attempt to load an illegal program like a virus onto your computer. I have been involved in many types of these cases where they need an expert to gain access to the perpetrator’s information to build a case against them.
Your employer (or your parents) can find out about your web surfing habits by viewing the local web cache on your hard drive. Your computer keeps a list of cookies and photos on your computer for around 30 days to make it faster to visit the same sites in the future. The number of days can be changed, and you can even manually erase this information and delete it from your recycle bin. Some companies even make cache cleaners that get rid of the evidence of your surfing habits. But if the employer also caches that information on the firewall or proxy server, then deleting it off your computer won’t make any difference. I not only have helped many employers set this up, but it’s also how I track my children’s surfing habits- along with a good parental filter.
Even if the people under your administration don’t surf to places they shouldn’t because of a filter, you should also be able to check where they attempted to surf. This gives you an idea if the filter is working properly.
Many of you may have seen the movie about the Seattle riots in 1999. The group of anarchists didn’t just wander from street to street, they used technology like text messaging and cell phone calls to avoid getting arrested, and it allowed them to cause more mayhem. I managed a Seattle office from here in Portland at that time, and I was scared to death for my Seattle staff’s safety. At one point, we told our staff to not leave the building. Fortunately our people were all okay, but I wish I was on the jury to convict all of the anarchists who broke the law. A cold, damp dungeon would be all they would ever see again.
Most internet lawbreakers are not all that tough to catch. They may be good at breaking the law, but they are not good at covering it up. For instance, all text messages are stored and are easy to bring back to court. All internet postings are the same way. Email gets backed up by both the sender’s mail servers and the receiver’s. The NSA also has an in to the major email carriers and they intercept and store email based on certain keywords in their massive database, along with the IP addresses.
If you go to the library or internet café to do something illegal on a computer thinking you’ll be safe from prosecution, then you would also be wrong most of the time. You can be caught by surveillance cameras that match up to the time of the posting, as well as by the hardware address of your computer. Let’s say you go to a wireless internet access café. Most only take credit cards, but you find one where you can pay cash. The firewall that passes your traffic onto the internet can cache your hardware MAC address. This is a hard coded address that is special to your computer and can be traced back to the place you bought it from. They look you up by your receipt and now you’re caught.
If you find an internet café that accepts cash, has no video cameras, and doesn’t cache MAC addresses, then you’ve found the perfect place to be a criminal. Of course you shouldn’t draw attention to yourself by talking to anyone, and you should wear a fake nose, beard, gloves and makeup. And you shouldn’t ever visit the same place twice. You should also have a MAC address spoofing program to be safe. If you can pull all that off, then good luck.
Another way bad guys try to hide their tracks is by War Driving. This is where you search a neighborhood with a wireless scanner. Once you find an open access point, you connect to it. You can even hack one that is secure if it uses one of the old technologies like WEP where the password and wireless keys never change. Then the police come after the person with the wireless access point rather than the perpetrator. So, if you don’t want to have police come knocking on your door, then be sure to secure your wireless with WPA2 AEP security. If you don’t know how to do this then hire a professional or turn it off.
Hackers use compromised routers they can bounce off of to do their dirty work as well. They may hack an easy to guess password on a server and use it to bounce through several other servers and then attempt to break in to a place, like a financial institution, where they can actually get a payoff. Doctors offices are starting to become an easy target because they rarely secure anything from the outside and they have confidential patient information along with credit card numbers. I have secured many of them, and despite laws like HIPAA and the Oregon Privacy Act, they rarely do anything right without professional help. In my experience most physicians hate computers and security, and if you don’t believe me then next time you see your doctor ask if they know how to log into anything other than a golf website.
Virus and other Malware writers get caught a lot because even though they do know how to write a good piece of Malware, they love to brag about it so much they eventually get turned in. They also don’t know how to cover their tracks as well because that’s not what they’re good at. The exceptions to this are hackers in Asia. When you have state sponsored hacking and virus writing, (where most of the world’s Malware comes from) then who will we arrest? I find it easier to just block any inbound access from the entire continent, and only open it back up when there is a business case to do so. When they learn how to play by the rules, then we can treat them like responsible world citizens. I won’t hold my breath.
So how do you not get caught? Don’t break the rules. It works every time.
To buy my latest book “How to be an IT Administrator,” go to http://howtobeanitadministrator.com/
For more great tips, check back here each week and listen to me on the All Tech Radio show at 9:00 Sunday mornings on AM 1360 KUIK and at 10:00 AM on KOL in Seattle, or listen online at http://alltechradio.com./
If you would like your technical question answered here, just email rmcmillen@koin.com. Even if it doesn’t get answered in the column, I will always answer by email.
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By Robert McMillen, Koin’s Tech Guru
Thursday, October 22nd is the official launch date for Windows 7. Many stores like Best Buy have been without a PC for the last few weeks while they replace the old pumpkin squishy Vista computers with shiny fresh Windows 7 ones.
You may have read previous articles about difficulties we had in our lab while trying to implement Windows 7 in a business environment. Problems do persist, but for home users, Windows 7 is ready for mass consumption.
Real estate is said to be all about location, location, and location. The goal for computers is stability, stability and less bugs. Previous versions of Windows have had a whopping 50,000 plus documented bugs in them upon release. That should be criminal, but when you break the seal on any computer, you should probably read the tiny print to see that you have already agreed you won’t blame them for it.
I’ve thought of some catchy phrases Microsoft could use for this release, but so far they have rejected them. “Microsoft, the house that bugs built,” and even a movie called “Microsoft, A Bug’s Life.” I’m not saying Apple is any better, but we have been trained to lower our expectations when it comes to commercial software for decades.
Many readers have asked me if there is a compelling reason to make the switch, and I say, “Yes.” But, if you’re happy with your Vista computer’s performance I think you should stay where you are. The reason is because the changes are mostly in the background, and Windows 7 has a lot less features than Vista. The stability of Windows 7 definitely there, and you can take any computer (according to Microsoft) that is three years old or newer and upgrade it to Windows 7.
There are lots of versions of the new operating system, but they are similar to the confusing amount of Vista versions already out there. So let’s break down versions and differences in features.
Versions- The home versions come in Starter and Home Premium. You can just forget about Starter for anything other than a netbook, but Home Premium is great for home and costs $120. Business versions come in Professional ($200), Ultimate ($220), and Enterprise. I don’t see a compelling reason for Enterprise, but for businesses I do like Ultimate over Professional if you have the extra money to do so. Pro and Ultimate will allow you to do a complete backup of your computer to a network location, while Professional and Home Premium only allow you to backup locally. In general, Windows 7 does offer more backup location options and choices than Vista. Upgrades cost about 1/3 less than the full versions, but remember that if you have a crash, you have to have the old install disc to get back to where it was before it crashed.
What you gain with Windows 7- Of course, a more stable computer as mentioned before. I am also crazy about the new toolbar. With the Aero feature turned on, higher end models will be able to see all the different documents and programs as little pictures when you hover over the program icon. Vista’s Aero wasn’t quite as sophisticated. With the Pro version on up you also get a free XP license so you can run a virtual XP version for software that may not be compatible with Windows 7. The operating system is more secure, and with Ultimate you can encrypt all the data on the hard drive, instead of in just a few folders. Ultimate also allows you to use Windows in any of 35 languages. Better backup choices and options. There are even more medium choices to backup data onto. The parental controls are so much better than with Vista. You can control when a child can access the computer and it has better built in web filters. Media player is more graphical and easier to use. If you’re thinking of using your computer as a DVR, you’ll like it better than any previous version. You will need Home Premium or Ultimate for this. Right click on any program and you have the option to launch it, or the most recent files you opened with that program. It will also search out files for you. Pinning programs to the taskbar is cool. It replaces the Quick Launch, but it’s far easier and more useful to use. It boots and shuts down faster. Previous versions hung up on shutdown and are now mostly just a bad memory.
What you lose by moving away from Vista- Business users joining a Windows domain will have lots of problems to overcome. In some ways, it’s so much more secure than previous versions because it won’t let you do anything. It’s reminiscent of when Symantec’s former antivirus program thought that the Symantec antivirus files were a virus and wouldn’t allow it to work or update. You have to manually make some changes to get it to work right to communicate with a server. I’m sure this will be the first thing they fix in the first service pack that will undoubtedly come out very soon. You can no longer edit photos natively. That feature is gone, so you will need a third party app. Gadgets have to be turned on manually. Dreamscape is gone along with Windows Mail. Many video cameras that were supported in Vista no longer work in Windows 7. Many printers will have problems printing, or not work at all. Some of these can be fixed by a driver update, but many manufacturers apparently have never heard of Windows 7 so there is no update. There is also talk that if they don’t make a Windows 7 driver, you will have to buy the device all over again, but it’s just an unconfirmed (but very true) rumor.
So should you upgrade? Yes, in most cases. Even businesses will move to Windows 7 after having skipped Vista altogether. Microsoft is ending XP updates and bug fixes shortly so there won’t be any choice. Otherwise you will have computers that may no longer be secure while accessing the wild and wooly internet, and that’s not just me talkin’ sheep dip.
To buy my latest book “How to be an IT Administrator,” go to http://howtobeanitadministrator.com
For more great tips, check back here each week and listen to me on the All Tech Radio show at 9:00 Sunday mornings on AM 1360 KUIK and at 10:00 AM on KOL in Seattle, or listen online at http://alltechradio.com.
If you would like your technical question answered here, just email rmcmillen@koin.com. Even if it doesn’t get answered in the column, I will always answer by email.
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By Robert McMillen, Koin’s Tech Guru
Microsoft may have lost something this week that belongs to you, and it’s in the cloud. What is Cloud Computing? If you have an office that stores customer data, or if you have a digital camera or collect lots of music, you have a choice of how to store that data. You can store it in the cloud or on your computer, or both.
Cloud computing is inevitable, but very premature. Cloud Computing (CC) companies say that they will save the day during a disaster. If your hard drive goes bad with all that data on it and you have no backup, then it’s gone forever. Cloud Computing allows you to save all that data to a different location that’s available online.
Prices vary, and there are different ways to do it, so before I recommend whether or not to use the cloud, you should hear about what happened last week. The biggest complaint computer consultants like myself have about CC, is that you don’t personally know who is handling your data. Plus with the recession, many CC companies have gone bankrupt and taken your data with them. We don’t know if they sold it or deleted it, but there is a risk to many that their identities have become compromised.
Microsoft purchased a company that makes phones for T-Mobile a couple of years ago. That company was called Danger, and they lived up to their name. T-Mobile has a different way of storing your contacts, emails, and other data to the Sidekick phones than do most phone companies. They keep it on a server, and if you lose your phone you can get it downloaded to your new phone automatically.
Unbeknownst to all of the unfortunate T-Mobile users, they kept a lot of that phone data on just one server, and they didn’t back it up properly. Eventually, all hard drives fail with a 100% guarantee, and in this case it happened a few days ago. Therefore, all the data went with it. Microsoft is recommending you don’t ever turn off your phone, because when you do, your data will not return. They have no confidence they will be able to restore it. If you are one of these unfortunate phone holders, then take some time to write down all of your contacts and any important personal information that may be on the phone.
Eventually your phone will die and you should have something written down so you can re input the information when it turns back on or you get a new phone. This only affects the Sidekick phones, so if you have any other model, then this doesn’t apply.
So, let’s get back to the concept of Cloud Computing. We have several customers who have dabbled in this area with mixed results. Most people don’t realize that your upload speed on most internet connections is a lot slower than your download speed. This means if you are pushing your data to an online CC company then you will notice a huge drop off in internet performance while it’s running the backups. Should you choose to do this anyway, you can schedule the backups to run at night.
The second most misunderstood thing about CC is that you need to use one that backs up more than just files if you’re counting on this to be your only backup (which I don’t recommend). You need to be able to restore your data and your operating system, your email, your programs, and your Active Directory in a Windows domain. Backing up just your data won’t do that. Only the higher quality backup firms do this and it costs roughly ten times more than a “data only” online company would cost, but it’s worth it.
So why is everyone looking to move to this form of backup? The traditional way of backing up is to use a tape or large hard drive to backup your data every night, and once a week a company would come by your office and swap out your tapes or hard drives. This is not only expensive, but impractical. Using CC to backup your data is automatic and fairly inexpensive, even when dealing with the better quality companies. So where do you get into trouble?
As mentioned earlier, having a company that holds your precious data go out of business is one way to lose your backups. You can also lose it if your internet connection goes down and you need to restore a file or an entire server. Another big problem happens if you have more than 100 GB’s of data to download and your speed is less than 30 Mbs. Try moving that much data inside your network at full speed, and then divide that number by your internet speed. It could take several days to get all your data back.
Some CC companies like Microsoft’s Live allows you to not just backup the data to their servers, but they allow you to synchronize your data to multiple locations, such as a computer in another location. If your server goes down and your internet goes down, then you just need to go pick up the computer that has the data and bring it in.
I love the idea of Cloud Computing, and it will happen, no matter how much some of us try to slow it down. But we need to not put all our eggs in that basket. We should have both an in-house backup and an online one in case of an internal disaster such as fire or flood.
I didn’t even touch on Cloud Computing for applications like Google Docs and others. Those will be the way we all eventually go in the future. Why have a high end infrastructure with expensive computer guys you always have to pay to keep things running when someone else will do it for a fraction of the cost? Because CC isn’t ready yet.
Do you remember when the first PC came out in 1981? It wasn’t ready. In fact, it should never have been released to consumers and businesses until they worked enough bugs out years later for the computer to be useful and not a tremendous vortex where all our money was being thrown away.
This is where we are with Cloud Computing today. Wait five more years and ease into it when speed and reliability have improved. Do it now and you will be sorry if this is your main protection against data loss.
To buy my latest book “How to be an IT Administrator,” go to http://howtobeanitadministrator.com
For more great tips, check back here each week and listen to me on the All Tech Radio show at 9:00 Sunday mornings on AM 1360 KUIK and at 10:00 AM on KOL in Seattle, or listen online at http://alltechradio.com.
If you would like your technical question answered here, just email rmcmillen@koin.com. Even if it doesn’t get answered in the column, I will always answer by email.
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By Robert McMillen, Koin’s Tech Guru
It is tempting to get nostalgic about the types of games we played when we were kids, but I’ll save that for after Christmas when you’re going through buyer’s remorse. For now we have a decision to make about our kids. I know my kids would have built the replacement for the space shuttle with the amount of time and mental energy they have expended on handheld and online games by now. But they wore us down, and it’s the way they parent. I know you think we are the parents, but they train us as much as we them. They know that more than anything else, all we want is “quiet!” (Yes, I know I stole that from Bill Cosby, but it’s true.)
The whining starts around this time of year, and by December all we can think about is the hope that if we buy this it will give us some peace. They know this and are relentless toward their goal. My wife has threatened that she will change our phone number when our kids become parents and they start calling for advice. (My mom went AWOL years ago. If anyone finds her please send me her number.)
I have been receiving many emails from people asking which handheld gaming device is less evil and thereby will give us the least amount of parental guilt. The two most popular are made by Sony and Nintendo, and to make matters more confusing, there are different models to choose from. I have broken down the differences for you here.
Sony makes the PSP 3000 and the PSP go. Do you remember when the former president of Sony said that all Americans were lazy? Well, if I could get myself out of this chair and away from my PSP I would write them a letter, I tell ya.
The PSP 3000 is about a year old and still supports the tiny UMD CDs from which they install the games. It also supports the same USB connection as the older models, but the new PSP go does not. If you spent all kinds of money on peripherals, then the PSP go would be a waste of money already spent. The new PSP go also has one more insidious feature: You have to download every game you want to buy from Sony’s store. No more reselling your old games or giving them away to swap with your friends. You can backup your games in case of a hard drive crash. For me that’s a deal breaker. I want control over what I buy. Plus, that eliminates discounts for buying games elsewhere.
Nintendo’s DS and DSi are the competition to both of Sony’s handheld games. Far more of these have been sold than Sony’s games, and they both support the cartridges. The DSi no longer supports the Game Boy cartridges like the DS does, but there are lots of other features that outweigh that loss.
So here is the list of both good and bad features about each product:
Model
Sony PSP 3000
Cost $170
Good: One large screen, built in microphone, can be connected to a TV, reduced glare, web browsing, online updates, interfaces with Playstation 3 files, can play movies, supports a memory stick.
Bad: Shows fingerprints, not as good battery life, slow to load games, web browsing is a security issue for younger players, no touch screen, game CDs get scratched too easily.
Sony PSP go
Cost $250
Good: Better control button layout, better battery life, web browsing, built in microphone, internal and external cameras, Bluetooth capability, can connect to TV, interfaces with Playstation 3 files, can play movies, will interface with Playstation 3 and ITunes, cool slider feature .
Bad: Much higher cost, peripherals from PSP 3000 won’t work, can’t buy games from anywhere but Sony, must order games online, browsing is a security issue for younger players, non replaceable battery by consumer, smaller screen.
Nintendo DS lite
Cost $130
Good: Two screens, touch screen, plays Game Boy Advanced games, wifi connectivity to chat and play against other people, built in microphone, great battery life, cartridge based games are durable, bright screen for outdoor use, more game titles and mostly lower cost games, can buy games new and used at more locations, download play allows many players to play with just one game cartridge, web browsing.
Bad: Smaller screens than PSP single screen, doesn’t play movies or mp3 music, hinges crack after extended use leaving the device to flop open and closed, no camera, GBA games stick out of the unit when plugged in, wifi connects only to old fashioned WEP security, browsing is a security issue for younger players, in 2007 the browser was discontinued so many DS lite users don’t have it.
Nintendo DSi
Cost $179
Good: Larger screens and slimmer body, touch screen, wifi connectivity to chat and play against other people, built in microphone, decent battery life, cartridge based games are durable, bright screen for outdoor use, more game titles and mostly lower cost games, can buy games new and used at more locations, download play allows many players to play with just one game cartridge, two digital cameras (one for snapping picture in game and one as a regular use camera), music player, downloadable games option, web browsing, internal memory slot for storage, handwriting recognition, newer wireless encryption options, brighter screen, less fingerprint matte finish.
Bad: No Game Boy Advanced slot, no movie player, browsing is a security issue for younger players, web browsing isn’t quite as good as the PSP, not as long battery life as lite version, handwriting recognition not without bugs, hinges may still be a problem.
Now you know the different features, both good and bad, to help you decide how your youngin’ will mush up their brains for the next couple of years. As you can see, the DSi made some great improvements over the lite version overall. I believe the under twelve crowd should go with a DSi, and the teenagers will probably be happier with the PSP. Having the ability to see movies, interface with iTunes, and play the more mature games makes that an easier decision.
If you want to know what your kids will look like after buying one these devices, then go see the zombie movie that recently came out. The resemblance is mind blowing.
To buy my latest book “How to be an IT Administrator,” go to http://howtobeanitadministrator.com
For more great tips, check back here each week and listen to me on the All Tech Radio show at 9:00 Sunday mornings on AM 1360 KUIK and at 10:00 AM on KOL in Seattle, or listen online at http://alltechradio.com.
If you would like your technical question answered here, just email rmcmillen@koin.com. Even if it doesn’t get answered in the column, I will always answer by email.
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By Robert McMillen, Koin’s Tech Guru
California made big news last week when state energy regulators stated that there may be a ban on large flat screen TVs. Apparently, the old Cathode Ray tubes (CRT) were far more efficient in bringing you your favorite shows than the new electricity guzzling TVs. What does that mean for Oregon? Well, the way California goes, so goes the nation.
Just look at the dozens of new laws in the past twenty years and you’ll find many of them originated in California. The demand for their resources is so much higher than ours that when they start running out of things, we all get nervous that someday the rest of the country will as well.
As far as electricity goes, there are two big problem products on the market. Besides flat panel TVs, the new electric cars are also going to cause a strain on the electric grid. The Chevy Volt is probably going to be a big seller when it’s officially launched, so we need to plan for this before it becomes a problem.
So let’s break this down to actual costs and usage. According to the LA Times, 10% of all home electricity usage in California is from TVs. If your electric bill is $150 per month, then it costs roughly $5 per month per TV to watch three TVs on old fashioned CRTs, or flat screens 42” or smaller. The average TV larger than that size costs roughly three times that much, or $15 per month to use. These are not exact numbers, and your mileage may vary, but without getting into a needless discussion about volts, watts, and amps, these are the numbers we will use. If you have three of these TVs then it will cost $45 per month to watch them. You may be able to afford such luxury, but your neighborhood transformers may not.
You know those big battery looking things on top of the telephone poles on your street? On average, there is one of these for every 12-15 homes. Sometimes when the power goes out in your home, the house across the street may still be lit. That’s because they’re on a different transformer than you. These transformers have a certain amount of capacity, and very little room for growth. If everyone throws out their smaller TV sets and replaces them with big flat screens, then the capacitors will be stretched to the limit. One more hair dryer and “POOF!” no more electricity. Since the price of big TVs has gone down dramatically and CRTs are nonexistent on store shelves, it’s just a matter of time and math before that happens.
25% of the current TVs on store shelves are considered unfit for sale by the new proposed California standards. Can you imagine getting arrested for smuggling in a 58” TV from Nevada? It’s almost laughable, but there’s no doubt we are headed in that direction.
Electric cars are even more of a threat to your neighborhood when it comes to the electric grid. Electric cars use so much electricity that the grid can only handle one per transformer. So if we all do the “green” thing and buy an electric car, we will either have to find an alternative way to charge them up at night, or we will have to triple the capacity of the transformers. That will cost a lot of money.
According to the Mercury News, we could easily absorb ten million electric cars without adding much more than 1% to our total electricity usage, but if more than one car per block gets plugged in at the same time, especially in an older neighborhood, then the block goes dark. How would you like to explain that to your neighbors?
Help is on the way with the new smart meters. Many of our Portland area homes have already been converted to these marvels. The big fear of them being hacked and messed with is still a reality. The geniuses had foreign workers in Asia write the software to save money. Good thing they are all friendly to the U.S., oh wait…
Risks aside, there is lots of great innovation that comes with the smart meters. One of these is the ability to tap into the energy highs and lows of the grid and to remotely turn electric devices on and off based on usage. That could buy us more time, but the smart money is on quick recharging stations. These could use the new super capacitors that are currently in the works and not affect the local neighborhood transformers. Besides, if you want to go more than a hundred miles from home you don’t want to be stuck on the highway holding up a plug hoping someone will give you a charge.
Kermit the frog said it best: “It ain’t easy being green.”
To buy my latest book “How to be an IT Administrator,” go to http://howtobeanitadministrator.com
For more great tips, check back here each week and listen to me on the All Tech Radio show at 9:00 Sunday mornings on AM 1360 KUIK and at 10:00 AM on KOL in Seattle, or listen online at http://alltechradio.com.
If you would like your technical question answered here, just email rmcmillen@koin.com. Even if it doesn’t get answered in the column, I will always answer by email.
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By Robert McMillen, Koin’s Tech Guru
We have five senses: Taste, touch, hearing, sight, and smell. The internet has changed two of those senses forever. If you can see it or hear it, the world has changed on how you get it.
If you grew up in the 1960’s through the 1980’s then you probably spent a considerable amount of time perusing albums at the record store. By the 1990’s, MP3’s came out and the music industry took a nosedive. Steadily, the loss of these iconic record stores has whittled down to just 2,700 for the entire country according to the NY Times. Five years ago that number was double. Tower Records, Musicland, and other big names in the industry just closed up. Today, 65% of all CDs that sell in a store do so in big box stores like Wal-Mart and Target. The rest are all sold online. Change has come.
Verizon made big headlines a few years ago by becoming the only new competitor to cable since Satellite. They dug up our sidewalks and cities and promised big things in both internet and TV. Then came Hulu and other websites that made online deals between the major networks and the on-demand internet companies. You no longer have to have to pay anything to watch most of your favorite shows. Just pay for the internet connection. Verizon was caught completely flat footed and sold their FIOS home video and internet business to Frontier. Comcast is working out the details to allow you to watch all your cable channels online, because they, too, see the writing on the wall.
Even DirecTV is offering football online to your computer if you have the satellite package. Not to mention the new packages allowing you to watch TV on your smart phones (those would work better if they could just make the battery last longer).
Newspapers have folded or have gone “online only” by the dozens, including big ones in the Northwest. Now you can get a Kindle from Amazon and have the newspaper downloaded to it electronically (just when I thought about getting my old paper route back). The NY Times and other large papers are deciding on the best way to stop printing on paper and switch to an electronic medium. This will likely happen in the next 24 months.
One of the last big changes to media will be the way we read our books. The book stores were very smart though. They made going to the bookstore an experience. They pipe in music and offer coffee and pastries. Even libraries tried to make the experience a lot less dull by adding computers, the internet, and a large video and audio collection. But it won’t be enough. Your large bookstores will soon be history.
Of course you will be able to purchase a paper copy book for many years to come. But why would you? If you buy an electronic device like a Kindle, you can buy the books for around 60% cheaper than a paper copy in most cases. You’ll have to put out some money for the device, but if you’re a voracious reader it will pay for itself very quickly, especially if you’re used to buying subscription based products like newspapers.
Is it greener to buy electronic over paper? Way greener! According to the enviro-news.com, 144 paper copy books account for 1000 Kilograms of CO2 emissions. 144 Ebooks account for 168 Kilograms. An 85% savings in CO2 is nothing to sneeze, cough, or gasp at.
So, where does your bookstore stand as far as viability? Last year the paper printing of books dropped by 4%. Since E-books are poised to grow by three fold in the next few years that likely means that book printing will go down 12% a year by 2011. How many businesses can lose that much of their business and stay viable? There will be a lot more giant empty stores within five years that move to an “online only” presence.
Even your library won’t be the same. Last week the first library in the US has gone 100% bookless. A prep school in Boston has gone to all terminals and has purchased digitized versions of their books. They have thrown out or sold all 20,000 of their paper copies.
You’ll see this to be a common occurrence as the economy recovers. We may soon have a giant book burning party, but it won’t be because the books are banned, it will be because the books are out of date.
I can’t say that these changes are bad or good. My job is to report the changes. It’s for you to decide the philosophy and to take steps to prepare for what’s coming. Like a hurricane, the changes are coming whether or not you try to stop them.
There are three senses left: Smell, taste, and touch. I wonder how the internet will change those next? Smellisivion anyone?
To buy my latest book “How to be an IT Administrator,” go to http://howtobeanitadministrator.com
For more great tips, check back here each week and listen to me on the All Tech Radio show at 9:00 Sunday mornings on AM 1360 KUIK and at 10:00 AM on KOL in Seattle, or listen online at http://alltechradio.com.
If you would like your technical question answered here, just email rmcmillen@koin.com. Even if it doesn’t get answered in the column, I will always answer by email.
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By Robert McMillen, Koin’s Tech Guru
I remember it so clearly. I came home after a business trip last year and when I walked into the living room I expected to see things looking the same as when I left. I was wrong. The first thing I noticed was an obnoxious looking drum set, and next to it I saw a microphone in a stand. In the corner was the electronic guitar, sort of.
My wife and children ran downstairs and seemed very excited. To see me? Well, kind of.
They were very excited to start up their new Rock Band starter kit. After quick hugs and not much else, the TV was flipped on and the three of them took their positions as they quickly rocked out to Aerosmith and other 70’s hit-makers.
That leads us to our question of the week.
Q- “Which is better: Rock Band or Guitar Hero?” from Clay H. in Seattle.
A- If you asked me that day I walked into my home, I would say neither. Our living room has never looked the same. Sure, we have found places to tuck the “band “ where I wouldn’t trip over it, but it’s still weird.
After a couple of days of constantly asking me if I wanted to play, I finally gave in and tried my hand at guitar. I used to be in a band and have played all kinds of instruments: guitar, base, drums, and I even sang. But now that I’m old and crotchety in my forties, I hadn’t even considered decorating the house in this manner.
I tried out the guitar, and after several failed attempts, I figured out how to play the confounded thing. (Old people always say that word. BTW, what does crotchety mean? I wonder if it means my pants are way higher than yours?)
Well, after my first successful song I found myself smiling when they weren’t looking. I even felt my old “rock star” coming out of me. Then I tried the drums. Although I thought I was a pretty good drummer, I didn’t do as well at these drums, and my ankle hurt after a while. Actually, it hurt for several days. The base drum is just not set right for adults, but is great for kids. Then they wanted me to sing. I resisted for at least a couple of weeks, but then I gave in. After two songs, I was rockin' the house baby! Before long we were running from dinner to band every night and having great family moments. That is until the guitar part broke several months later. We tried to get a replacement guitar that works on either Rock Band or Guitar Hero, but it didn’t work.
I could have replaced the wireless controller, but at that point we started getting into Wii Fit and had moved on. Soon, I will fix the guitar and once again I will return to the glory that was, and always will be, mine! A rock god who will tear up the stage and smash the guitar once again after … Oops! I wasn’t supposed to tell you how the first guitar got broken. Shhhhhh, don’t tell.
Well, now we can move on to Clay’s question: Rock Band or Guitar Hero? Let’s break it down. The new versions of these products are called Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero World Tour.
Platform - Both products are available for X Box, Playstation, and Wii. That leaves us with a tie.
Cost - The posted cost of RB2 is $180, while GH is $190. Ten dollars isn’t enough to call a winner even in a recession so I leave it at a tie (besides, you would just spend the extra ten dollars you saved on some Jamba Juice anyway.)
The Instruments - Both companies made some great changes for the new versions. RB2 made the guitars a lot sturdier. That’s good news for me. GH already had a stable guitar and the new version seems to be as good, if not better, despite the goofy looking colored buttons that RB2 has left off. GH’s guitar adds an additional new feature of slide buttons for added effects.
GH has decided to add the drum set this time, and with it they added two high-hat cymbals. RB2 doesn’t have cymbals but there is a third party company who is coming out with some you can add on. The biggest issue with GH drums is that they are purported to be very buggy.
Both games can use the controllers from either product, which I find interesting. The winner in this category has to be RB2. I love the idea of integrated cymbals on GH, but the public has zero tolerance for something that doesn’t work right. Why not just hold it back until it does work? Duh!
Song Choices - Here is where the differences start to really take off. First off, I should mention that I was appalled by the age level of the songs chosen in both products. They are taken from songs that are too mature for the under ten set, but unfortunately that’s a big part of the age group that plays the game. And if you think that no one can understand the lyrics anyway, you would be wrong because they show them on the screen so the singer can sing them.
RB2 allows you to not only use the songs that come with the DVD but also allows you to download songs from a huge list online. Get out your credit card!
However, GH takes a different approach. They allow you to record your own tracks in the Recording Studio mode and upload them to the online community. That would be very cool for a budding artist, despite the fact you’re not really playing a real guitar with real strings.
You still need lessons, son.
I can’t really say which is better since you have to decide which is more important to you: more songs or the ability to be a composer.
The purpose of playing- With RB2 you need to unlock songs in order to get to play all of the songs. It does give you a feeling of accomplishment to unlock a song but you also have to play the songs you don’t like to get to the songs you do.
GH lets you play all the songs, but if you’re really bad at playing and you still want to have fun, you can turn on the no fail mode. This allows the off-keyed, off-tempo “musicians” to still have a good time without the sounds and feelings of failure that RB2 will hand you.
I think the winner in this category is GH.
So, which is better? I really hate this, but by my count it appears to be a tie. The games are basically the same but different. It really is up to you to decide, based on the features, which game is right for your family. If you have youngins, I suggest RB2 so you can download more age- appropriate songs. If you have budding teenage musicians, then you might want to go for GH because of the Recording Studio mode.
I have to go to the store now to get a new wireless controller and guitar. After the kids go to bed I’m putting on my tie-dyed shirt, my dark glasses and head band, and I’m bringin' the house down! Who wants me now?
To buy my latest book “How to be an IT Administrator,” go to http://howtobeanitadministrator.com
For more great tips, check back here each week and listen to me on the All Tech Radio show at 9:00 Sunday mornings on AM 1360 KUIK and at 10:00 AM on KOL in Seattle, or listen online at http://alltechradio.com.
If you would like your technical question answered here, just email rmcmillen@koin.com. Even if it doesn’t get answered in the column, I will always answer by email.
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By Robert McMillen, Koin’s Tech Guru
This is sort of a departure from my usual question and answer blog, but I had a thought (uh oh). Some of you will get the joke and some will scratch their head and walk away unfulfilled. Life is like a box of something, but it’s not always chocolates.
Voyager 1 has just about escaped our heliosphere (the bubble that is the outer reaches of our sun’s protection for the solar system). It did this with no hard drive and enough memory and code to fill up a couple of Twitter messages.
It also did it with basically rubber bands and tinfoil for hardware. IBM created the computer portion, which using today’s standards would be nothing more than recycling material. It might even qualify for a “cash for clunkers” deal. But it’s out there. Still running and sending back signals along with its brother (running the same hardware) Voyager 2 going the opposite direction.
The space race with Russia is over but for some strange reason we are now in a space race with China to go back to the moon. Maybe we should think about Mars? Microsoft and Apple are already partners with China and the United States, so it just makes sense.
I wonder how it would turn out if it was Apple and Microsoft battling it out for the race to Mars?
Microsoft’s plan to go to Mars: “Our first objective is to create a name for the spacecraft. We estimate this will take six to eight years. With the time we have left we will be build the space launch vehicle. Our projected launch date is 2020. The actual launch date will be 2030. The software that runs the craft will be updated multiple times during the flight (provided a stable internet connection is available).”
Apple’s Plan to go to Mars: “We will create a spectacular space vehicle. Our projected launch date will be 2020. We will spread a rumor the launch date will be 2016. The actual launch date will be 2015. Secrecy is the key to a successful mission and marketing plan. The vehicle will be see-through and made out of a space-age heat-resistant acrylic in the shape of an apple.”
Once our heroes get to the planet they will need to have an objective. Otherwise, you’re just going there to say you did, and that’s not the Corporate American way.
Microsoft’s objectives on Mars: “Our objective will be to avoid blowing up the planet. We hope to breed life on Mars by releasing viruses collected from Windows operating systems over the last 25 years. If the planet does blow up from the release of all these viruses, it will be unavoidable, but we still have other planets we could visit and try not to blow up.”
Apple’s objectives on Mars: “Our objective will be to find a spot on Mars that’s large enough and empty enough for the expansion of Steve Job’s brain. He has run out of expansion ability here on Earth due to climate change (Al Gore has discovered Steve’s brain is the cause for global warming). Apple will transplant 100 million Chinese factory workers to Mars to create the next big invention, the Apple Wireless Death Star. It will be an actual working Death Star (with Apple TV capability), and it will run OS 10 Sphynx Hairless. It will sell at Walmart for $420,000,000,000. The shareholders will love it.”
This is all very exciting, but of course we need to come back to Earth eventually.
Microsoft’s plan to return to Earth safely: “First, we need to train our astronauts to start the craft by hitting the shutdown button. The menu style and controls will shift many times during the flight. Although the astronauts may find this frustrating it will be done to make the flight more efficient and keep them from falling asleep. If the spacecraft crashes they can simply call Houston for support. Houston will be relocated to China to save money. Houston’s Mandarin staff will be trained to say ‘y’all’ at the end of each helpful statement. We will splash down safely in the Redmond Ocean where helicopters will whoosh our heroes to the White House for a lunch with the Obamas.”
Apple’s plan to return to Earth safely: “We only plan to return robots back to Earth with new and innovative products to sell. Everyone else will live a happy and fruitful life in the Apple Mars factory.”
There you have it. Two very different approaches to what is seemingly the same mission. Not only will tax payers not have to pay for this mission, it will stimulate our economy by creating new and innovative products. We will also have a new dumping ground for our old viruses and whatnot.
For those of you concerned about the Linux entry, it never quite got off the ground due to the millions of people all programming a different part of the mission, and it was underfunded because their budget was $0.
To buy my latest book “How to be an IT Administrator,” go to http://howtobeanitadministrator.com
For more great tips, check back here each week and listen to me on the All Tech Radio show at 9:00 Sunday mornings on AM 1360 KUIK and at 10:00 AM on KOL in Seattle, or listen online at http://alltechradio.com.
If you would like your technical question answered here, just email rmcmillen@koin.com. Even if it doesn’t get answered in the column, I will always answer by email.
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By Robert McMillen, Koin’s Tech Guru
Windows 7 hasn’t even been released to the public yet but people are already asking me if they should upgrade or buy a new PC with Windows 7.
Since my company, All Tech 1, is a Microsoft certified business partner, we have a special deal with Microsoft: every product they make is given to us to test and try for free so we can learn how to use it before we deploy it to our customers.
We downloaded the Beta version months ago and several of our staff decided to use it during the trial period before the retail version was released. Just as in any other major release of Windows, you have to force yourself to use it by getting rid of the old operating system in order to really understand it. Our staff loved it. It’s faster, and has far less problems than Vista.
Some of our customers couldn’t wait for the official release, so they had us put trial versions on their PCs to see how they liked it. The installations went smoothly on every one of them and they, too, were singing the praises of Windows 7.
The official release date is in October, but the final version got to us about a week ago by downloading it using our special account with Microsoft. Since I had Vista Enterprise on my work PC, I had to use Windows 7 Enterprise for the upgrade. I found out you cannot downgrade to a lower version than you already have. You can install a fresh copy of a lower version, but you cannot upgrade to one. Upgrading has lots of advantages because you don’t have to re install all your applications.
With a strange giddiness I haven’t felt since Windows ME was released, and all of the glowing reports from my staff and business partners, I decided to pop the DVD in and run the upgrade. Do you remember the movie "Wag the Dog?" It’s where Dustin Hoffman was hired by the president to manufacture a war, and every time a public relations disaster is about to happen, he spins it around as a positive by repeating the mantra "I can fix that." Well, that is exactly what happened to me for the next 48 hours.
The first problem appeared when Windows 7 ran its pre installation checklist. After seeing if all of my programs were compatible, it found that Nero 7, a CD/DVD burning program, was not compatible.
"That’s ok, I can fix that."
I backed out of the installation and went to uninstall Nero. Halfway through I got an error from which Vista cannot recover, and the uninstall aborted.
"That’s ok, I can fix that."
I went to Nero’s site and found a manual un-installation technique that involved running a utility they offered, and I had to make some registry key deletions. An hour later and I was back on track to upgrade to the latest 'bestest' operating system from Microsoft ever. The giddiness returned. I felt a pimple on my forehead popping up as an odd familiar feeling of youthful exuberance appeared out of nowhere.
I decided to run my upgrade around 4 PM so I could start it and let it run while I headed out to see a customer. The next day I showed up and the upgrade was still running. Even for Microsoft that was a little odd, so I reset the computer and I received the following error: "Your installation failed. Microsoft will return to the previous operating system. Please do not turn off your computer. You look ridiculous with a pimple on your forehead. You’re 44 for God's sake."
"That’s ok, I can fix that."
I let the un-upgrade run for a few hours while I was relegated to working on a Macintosh I keep around to play music (since I couldn’t find any other use for it). I downloaded the remote Desktop for Macintosh client that allowed me to remote into the server using a terminal session so I could send and receive email. The Mac mocked me with every keystroke. I could have just picked up a laptop from the back room but I hate having more power cords around my desk than I already have. It’s not a green friendly setup. Besides, I was sure Vista would be back up and running shortly and I would figure out what went wrong, right? Wrong. After the fourth hour I decided to hit the reset and the endless loop returned.
"That’s ok, I can fix that."
Since Windows 7 is built on the Vista kernel, I assumed that I wouldn’t have to upgrade my BIOS but that made an ass of… just me I guess, and I realized my mistake. BIOS stands for Basic Input Output System, and it’s the lowest level of communication between the motherboard and device drivers that make Windows interact with the CD drive, network card, and every other device. It needs to be updated when there is a problem, or a new operating system is installed. The computer is fairly new, and it ran fine on Vista, so I didn’t believe it needed it. Well, it did. I went to Intel and found the BIOS upgrade to make Windows 7 work. That’s why the upgrade failed. But the downgrade also failed.
Intel gives you a couple of ways to upgrade the BIOS. One way requires you to be in Windows to run an executable. Since I couldn’t boot into Windows anymore, I would have to do plan B. I had to create a bootable floppy or CD and run the BIOS upgrade file from a DOS prompt. Remember DOS? We now only think of it as a Denial of Service attack, but it originally stood for Disk Operating System before we had hard drives.
"That’s ok, I can fix that."
I first tried the bootable CD. I had Scott, one of my business partners and radio show co-hosts, create one. For some reason it wouldn’t work in my computer. I asked him if he tested it before he gave it to me. He looked like I just socked him in the stomach and said "What?" "Never Mind." I said as my patience started to run thin with this whole project. The giddiness was gone, but the pimple just started getting bigger and began to throb. I then created a bootable DOS floppy and tried to boot off of that. The floppy wasn’t working correctly so I had to take the computer apart to find out what was wrong. The cable was unplugged because I never used it, so I plugged it in and I was able to boot it up.
I then took a second floppy disk to copy over the BIOS upgrade file. One big problem: Intel made the BIOS file just a few bytes too big to fit on the floppy disk.
"That’s ok, I can fix that."
Now that I was in DOS I could have Scott copy the files to a CD for me. Since I hadn’t used DOS in so long I forgot you have to manually load drivers for DOS to interact with it.
"That’s ok, I can fix that."
I grabbed my tech CD we use at client’s sites and was able to boot into DOS using that. I forgot we had DOS still on our tech CD. It was hard to think clearly at that point. I decided to take a break and read my email. There were 42 emails flying between staff members and partners about how to thwart zombies, and who a zombie would eat first in a zombie attack. They all decided it would be me, and then they started discussing how to cook me so the zombies would have the best dining experience.
"That’s ok, I can fix that."
350 degrees basting in an oven for at least six hours in a nice Béarnaise sauce would be best in case anyone is wondering.
We have a special version of DOS that also loads the CD drivers from a bunch of different manufacturers. Surely one of them would allow me to use my CD so I could load the BIOS upgrade, right? Uh, no. After trying for an hour I realized that my CD/DVD drive was one of the new SATA connection drives that was made after our CD was made. I plugged in an old IDE CD drive and Bingo! I was able to upgrade the BIOS. I placed a blank hard drive in the PC and ran a fresh install to see if it would work. It installed in less than 15 minutes! Yea for me.
I placed the Windows 7 DVD into the PC and re installed my original hard drive. I tried to re-run the upgrade without success. Then I tried to complete the downgrade back to Vista. That didn’t work either.
"That’s ok, I can fix that."
My last hope was to do a fresh installation of Windows 7. That actually worked. But then I had to re install all my applications, which I am still doing even as I’m writing this article. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. It’s my birthday and now I’m 45. My pimple is gone along with my youthful giddiness and ideals.
Oh wait, now I can play with my new operating system before almost everyone else gets to. Wait. Why does that excite me? The Mac is mocking me again as it plays out a tune by Pink. That’s ok. I can fix that too.
To buy my latest book "How to be an IT Administrator," go to http://howtobeanitadministrator.com
For more great tips, check back here each week and listen to me on the All Tech Radio show at 9:00 Sunday mornings on AM 1360 KUIK and at 10:00 AM on KOL in Seattle, or listen online at http://alltechradio.com.
If you would like your technical question answered here, just email rmcmillen@koin.com. Even if it doesn’t get answered in the column, I will always answer by email.
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By Robert McMillen, Koin’s Tech GuruThis week we have an excellent question after the attacks on Twitter and other social networking sites. Q- “After seeing Twitter suffer with a denial of service attack, I am wondering what I should do if someone tries to do the same to my network?” Dan G. from Portland
A- Dan, I really like this question because if shows that you are a person who thinks about the big picture, and who is looking out for your business. This type of attack isn’t just a “hit and run” that happened to no one you know. It’s an attack that affected millions of people, and was caused by hackers turning thousands of infected computers into zombies that attacked Twitter and other sites. By sending a constant “ping” to a site, you can check to see if it’s alive. If you tell thousands of computers to send nonstop ping requests to a site then it will bring that site down. For a little background information, the denial of service attack (DOS) is believed to be once again perpetrated by the Russians. When the attacks originate from many zombie infected computers, we say they are distributed (aka a DDOS). We can tell where the hackers originated because we know where the infected computers are looking for their instructions. This happened last year during the Russia-Georgia war over territory and other issues. Russia brought down the banking industry of Georgia and other online dependant systems for months before and after the war. They also defaced many websites. This year it is widely believed Russia brought down Twitter and slowed down Facebook because of an anti-Russian Tweeter named Cyxymu. Why did Russia bring down Twitter for everyone just because of this one person? Chief Research Officer of Internet security firm F-Secure put it best when he said, "Launching DDOS attacks against services like Facebook is the equivalent of bombing a TV station because you don't like one of the newscasters." Always remember that Russia is filled with bad guys for leaders. Just because they come to the bargaining table to discuss bringing down some of their nuclear weapons doesn’t mean they are now “nice.” They want to dominate the world as usual, and will bully their way in by using the internet because it’s so easy to break. Now I’m off my soap box. The good news is that when we move to IP version 6 in two years and away from the current version 4, the internet will be far more secure. So, to answer Dan’s question about what to do if you’re the victim of a DDOS, I have some good advice. The easiest way to stop a DDOS on a small business network is to unplug your firewall for a minute. DDOS attacks are easily broken when you do this and they have to call the hackers to find out what to do next if they can no longer reach you. If it starts up again, you can reboot the firewall every half hour and things will return to normal for a while until it builds up steam once again. It is a pain, but it does work. The second thing to do is to find out who is pinging you to death. Almost all modern firewalls keep a “state table.” This is a list of what computers are connected to you, or are trying to connect to you from the outside. It also works from the inside of your network and is very helpful when figuring out if one of your computers is infected. If you see a ton of requests from the same IP addresses, then you should call your internet service provider and provide them with those IP addresses. They don’t want them on their network either, so they will block them from ever getting into the system farther upstream. They will also call the ISP of the owner of the IP addresses and have them shut off the internet access of the person sending the never ending pings. In a small network you can generally get this resolved the same day, but in a big network like Twitter it’s far more difficult. They have routers and switches all over the world, and it’s a much bigger task to track down all the computers trying to hit them at once. Little by little they get the IP addresses of the infected zombie computers off the internet until they are finally all gone. Many small and medium-sized companies can take advantage of a device called an “intrusion prevention” appliance. This device can help protect you in case of an inside or outside attack, and can notify you before your network is brought completely down. You can then take the appropriate steps as the device instructs you. So to recap, Russia is still being governed by mostly bad people (Reagan was right), and Twitter was brought down because of one voice struggling to be free. Protect your company by understanding your firewall, or hiring a professional to audit your network security. The alternative is to unplug the internet from your network. We have a customer that is a dentist, and he decided to avoid all of these problems by never connecting his server or computers to the internet. We rarely ever have to come to his office to fix anything, but his employees are very bored with no one to tweet or face (electronically anyway). To buy my latest book “How to be an IT Administrator,” go to http://howtobeanitadministrator.com For more great tips, check back here each week and listen to me on the All Tech Radio show at 9:00 Sunday mornings on AM 1360 KUIK and at 10:00 AM on KOL in Seattle, or listen online at http://alltechradio.com. If you would like your technical question answered here, just email rmcmillen@koin.com. Even if it doesn’t get answered in the column, I will always answer by email.
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By Robert McMillen, Koin’s Tech GuruMalware is a confusing topic for many, and it’s the topic for this week’s technical question.
Q- “I have antivirus and antispyware on my computer. Should I also have anti malware?” Janine R., HillsboroA- Well Janine, Malware can be a tricky subject. The nutshell is that it’s the mob boss for all types of computer bad guys. Malware is short for “malicious software” when it comes to computers. If you’re discussing what to wear at the shopping mall, then that’s a little different. Since we are on the subject, in general you want your Mall Wear to be stretchy and non binding. Preferably without a belt, because if you need to go buy some frosting covered Cinnamon twisted donuts you don’t want that pesky thing to get in your way. And when you add a frozen juice drink you need some expansion room that only stretchy pants will give you. But back to the other kind of Malware. There are many things that fall under the category of Malware. Viruses, worms, spyware, Trojans, and more all fall under this category. Up until a couple of years ago we all had antivirus software at a minimum (if your mama gave you any brains). But then we started seeing that spyware could be just as bad as a virus. Spyware likes to throw all kinds of ads up when you’re connected to the internet. Many of them are X-rated, but some are for legitimate products sold by illegitimate sources. When you add in the evils of Worms, which is hardly even covered by either antivirus or antispyware, now you’re talking about shutting off the computer and bringing it back to the store out of frustration while wearing your stretchy mall pants. Fear not, however, because companies like Symantec and McAfee have come to the rescue with an anti malware software. They are joined by many other companies trying to do the same. These anti malware crusaders have unfortunately gone a little too far. Sure, they come with some great anti everything software, but they have decided to bundle it with software you didn’t even know you needed. Such as an additional firewall, even though Windows already has a decent one built in. You also get anti spam protection for your email. Don’t forget to put on a content filter so you can’t download viruses from websites that are infected. There are even some programs designed to look for skin in pictures on websites. If it sees too much skin, then the picture blanks out. Sounds like too much protection to me. Lots of people complained about these all-in-one “Suites” because they overdid it and not only caused their computer to slow down because of all the protection, but it also broke a lot of computer programs. Symantec was so secure that at one point it blocked even itself from downloading its own updates. It thought the updates from Symantec were viruses. McAfee is so secure you can’t use the full suite for protection on a work computer or your VPN won’t work, and you won’t be able to log into your network even if you’re onsite! I have seen these things happen, so I know of which I speak. Woof! So, what is a mall pants wearing, computer using, regular home computer user to do? Businesses have figured it out by installing separate devices on their network that protect against all these things without adding additional software to the individual computers. You can do this, too, but without all the extra cost. It will be more costly than buying the all-in-one software suite mentioned earlier, but you can protect your entire household with just one box for around $500 and an annual update fee. Firewalls from Freedom 9, Sonicwall, and Cisco have built- in content filters and spam filters to protect against the two major sources of all malware: Email and web surfing. They are all customizable so the adults have a little more freedom online than the kids do. They also have built in firewalls and you can get them to go wireless in some models. Add in intrusion detection and prevention services, and you’re all set to protect your identity. You really don’t need all that extra software protection using an anti malware suite whenever you’re behind one of these devices because they do it all for you. If, however, you take your computer to unprotected sites, like a coffee house in a mall, then these suites can help aide in protecting your computer. You’ll just have to deal with all the slowness and have lowered expectations about what you can do when you’re away from home. You can turn off the anti malware suite when you’re home behind a protection firewall of this type, and turn it back on when you go away to an unprotected location. This way you get the best of both worlds, but have to pay for twice the protection. I am like most American men. I hate the mall (but I don’t mind the stretchy pants). I like my computer to run fast. When I frag a Marthman from Unit 7, I don’t want my computer to confuse my program with a virus, or slow it down while it checks every file in the game before, during, and after my playing it. Now it’s time for me to go spend 30 minutes on my Wii Fit while eating a sticky donut. I need to keep up my figure, but if I can’t, then Photoshop covers a multitude of sins. For more great tips, check back here each week and listen to me on the All Tech Radio show at 9:00 Sunday mornings on AM 1360 KUIK and at 10:00 AM on KOL in Seattle, or listen online at http://alltechradio.com. To buy my latest book “How to be an IT Administrator”, go to http://howtobeanitadministrator.com If you would like your technical question answered here, just email rmcmillen@koin.com. Even if it doesn’t get answered in the column, I will always answer by email.
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By Robert McMillen, Koin’s Tech Guru
Are you one of the estimated 700,000 people who had their cell phone stolen this year? Well, I am, or at least it happened to my family. We have a family plan with T Mobile that we have been using for years. My mom was very happy to be added to the plan because now she could call us for free even though we are over 2,000 miles apart. In the last few years, her knee started going all wobbly on her, so she had a knee replacement several months ago. After the operation, she spent some time in a rehabilitation facility near Chicago. We had been communicating using the cell phone I got for her last summer. Then one day, she no longer answered it.
I received a call from my sister that my mom's cell phone was missing. At first I wasn’t too alarmed. It could have just been misplaced when she transferred back home, but I thought it to be a good idea to take some precautions. I had recently signed up for the ability to limit how many minutes each of the cell phones in our family plan could use. My ten year old begged me for a cell phone for his birthday and my wife and I reluctantly agreed once we found out we could limit who he calls and how many minutes he could use.
Most major cell phone companies offer this service and it can be simply configured using a website. We can now limit text messages, phone calls, and downloads. For our plan it only cost an additional $5 per month, but your charges may vary. I logged into our account and limited her missing phone to just 100 minutes. I figured that way, if it was stolen, there wasn’t a lot of damage that could be done. The one thing I forgot to do was to turn off international calling. That was a big “oops” as you will see. By default, all new cell phones with a monthly service plan can call internationally and have unlimited text messages and downloads. I turned off the downloads, texts, and limited the minutes, but the last one got me.
After a few days, it was pretty obvious my mom’s phone was gone. I logged into the account and noticed some phone numbers starting to appear. Someone did have our cell phone and was using it. We tried to call our cell phone but the thief knew enough to not answer our calls. That was no problem, because now I knew who he was calling. Besides calling in and around the Chicago area, we noticed some Milwaukee, Wisconsin numbers, as well as many calls to Mexico.
I called the cell phone company and I was shocked to find out that calls made from our stolen phone are still our responsibility. They refused to credit them. It was a good thing I had limited the amount of minutes, or it could have cost thousands of dollars!
I had a challenge on my hands. I wanted to know who stole the phone and make them pay. At our computer consulting company, we get paid by people to White Hat attack their networks. That means we see what vulnerabilities a company has and try to exploit them, with the company's permission, before a real hacker does. One of the ways we do this is with social engineering. We call and pretend we are someone we are not and try to get the employees to give us information that will allow us to get into their network. We have become quite the actors, and we have yet to fail at it. Now I had to put that skill to good use once again.
I had to assume that the person who stole the phone had Spanish as his primary language because of the calls to Mexico. I figured if I called him, even from a blocked number, I would scare him off. So I had one of my employees who speaks Spanish start to call all of the domestic numbers that had been used since my mom had lost the phone. Somewhere down the list, we hit pay dirt. I told my employee to pretend we had found the thief’s security card and we would like to mail it to him. He sounded surprised we had his card when he said it was in his pocket but he gave us his name and address anyway. One of the numbers on the list was his own home number, and he must have used our cell phone to call his home. Now we know that Victor is not the brightest thief in the world.
I called the rehab facility where my mom had stayed and explained the situation. I wondered how the phone could have been stolen and ended up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin? After doing some checking, she found out that the phone likely got caught up in the bed sheets and was transported there because that’s where the laundry is done. I was shocked they transport the laundry over 200 miles, considering the cost of gas and the state of the economy, but that’s the way they do it. She also confirmed that Victor M. was an employee at the laundry facility.
After carefully considering the situation, I decided against calling the police as my first action. Since he rang up about $56 in international calls, I would have been ok with him returning the phone and the money. I called the rehab facility to tell the HR director this. She called the laundry facility and Victor’s manager had a talk with him. At first he denied he stole the phone, but after being shown the overwhelming evidence, he admitted to it. The manager drove Victor home and Victor said he would bring out the phone, but instead Victor locked the door and refused to come out.
Needless to say, Victor was fired that day. I then had no other recourse but to call the police. The Milwaukee police were very responsive and helpful. I asked the officer to call Victor and repeat the same request: return the phone and pay the money. No other action would happen. He said he would but he still never did it. In the meantime, I had a new phone sent out to my mom with a new SIM card in it so she could use her same phone number.
Having a confession already secured by the police, I knew I could have had Victor arrested but I decided to put myself in his shoes. Victor is a poor immigrant who worked in a laundry facility. He knows he made a mistake but he’s scared to death to go to a police station to return the phone, or even to drop it off at his old job. He paid for his mistake by losing his job and having the heck scared out of him. I decided to just let it go.
So, as a recap, you should pay the few extra dollars a month to have limits put on your phone usage in case it’s stolen. Have your international calls disabled until you actually need to use that service, and remember that any calls, texts, or downloads made until you call the cell phone company are at your expense.
For more great tips, check back here each week and listen to me on the All Tech Radio show at 9:00 Sunday mornings on AM 1360 KUIK and at 10:00 AM on KOL in Seattle, or listen online at http://alltechradio.com. To read my latest book “How to be an IT Administrator” go to Amazon.com and type in the name of the book in the search bar.
If you would like your technical question answered here, just email rmcmillen@koin.com. Even if it doesn’t get answered in the column, I will always answer by email.
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By Robert McMillen, Koin’s Tech Guru
As many have heard by now the 4th of July weekend brought a host of website problems as some of the country’s biggest websites and government servers were hit by hackers and fires. In Seattle, a fire that brought down a large data center that hosts websites as big as Microsoft’s Bing was down for up to 36 hours, but that wasn’t the only problem. A Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attack hit government websites and now it’s clogging up the internet.
A DDOS attack is a group of computers, in this case an estimated 20,000 of them, are told to simultaneously attack websites of their choosing. This morning it was several large news organizations, cybercrime fighting websites, and US government websites. But that’s pretty tame compared to what’s happening in South Korea. The attack for which they are on the receiving end has effectively brought the entire country’s internet down. It started with just government websites, but the bottleneck caused by the constant pinging from the infected zombie computers has stopped up their internet like a clogged sink.
In the Northwest we are still dealing with the re-routing of websites due to last week’s Seattle fire. We also had a new internet outage for almost all Verizon DSL and FIOS users this morning that caused widespread difficulty getting to most websites. That has mostly been cleaned up as of 11 AM, but so far Verizon is not commenting. It could have been a system wide reboot that stops the zombie attack, or they could have had a failed core router. We should know the answer shortly. Qwest was also affected but it doesn’t appear to have been as widely affected as Verizon. So far Comcast has escaped most of the outages probably due to the fact their customer’s don’t host websites that were affected by the attack.
A DDOS attack is mainly caused by many infected computers being told by a mother ship computer to attack a network, or attack specific websites. In the case of Conficker, or the April Fool’s Day virus, the attacker decided to use that virus for stealing people’s identities. In this case it’s just sending “ping” requests until the connection is broken. When too many computers do this at once it generally causes a lot of outages and slowness. Pinging is a tool used by computer users and technicians to test a connection. In the hands of an attacker it can be used to bring down networks.
Which virus was the cause of this attack? It’s not know yet, but the infected computers are worldwide. South Korea is pointing the blame at North Korea by routing the attack through China. If this is the case then either China or North Korea controls the virus and the zombie computers that are running the attack.
For more great tips, check back here each week and listen to me on the All Tech Radio show at 9:00 Sunday mornings on AM 1360 KUIK and at 10:00 AM on KOL in Seattle, or listen online at http://alltechradio.com. To read my latest book “How to be an IT Administrator” go to Amazon.com and type in my name in the search bar.
If you would like your technical question answered here, just email rmcmillen@koin.com. Even if it doesn’t get answered in the column, I will always answer by email.
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By Robert McMillen, Koin’s Tech Guru
You or your kids can go online and be harassed, abused, and bullied with no consequences. This is what was decided this week in federal court after Lori Drew had violated a law that was too vague to prosecute, according to Judge Wu.
According to prosecutors, Lori had pretended to be a 13 year old boy on My Space. She then coaxed a teenage girl into starting an online relationship with the fake boy. After a while, Drew allegedly told the teenage girl “the world would be better off without her.” The girl then tragically committed suicide.
Drew said it wasn’t her, but the internet provider pointed it back to her IP address and it couldn’t have been anyone else. Or could it? Your IP address is a unique number among four billion addresses worldwide. The internet provider is given a block of these numbers by the American Registry of Internet numbers. The provider assigns them dynamically to their customers when they log onto the internet. The number is then recorded as to which customer account it’s tied to, and there is your chain of evidence.
This is the same way that the music industry attacks people who allegedly download pirated software, but it’s nowhere near foolproof. If the person’s computer has been hijacked by a virus or malware, then the attacker controlling the computer could have been the one who broke the law. The network could also have a weak wireless security setup, and could have been compromised by anyone within 30 feet of the house. There are many more ways it could have happened, but let’s focus instead on the crime of cyber bullying and what this ruling means to you and your family.
Cyber bullying can happen either by email, public posts on social networks, or live in a chat room. You may think it’s easy enough to just ignore the person. There are plenty of tools to do this using ignore features in the programs and websites you go into. If the bully is determined, however, they can just create new accounts anytime they like, and start harassment using an alternative profile. Some of us may shrug off the importance of online relationships, but for those people who use them as a social lifeline, they can be everything to them. They are as real as any real world relationship to many people. And that list is growing. To make it even more a reality, 3D websites have popped up with moving pictures and voice chat that could be easily confused with a person standing next to you if you do it long enough (or have too much caffeine).
The government tried to create a law that prevented people from pretending to be someone else. That’s the law that was allegedly broken by Drew. There was no law that protected people from bullying. Since that time, states like Missouri have tried to create laws to protect people from this type of behavior, but critics say the laws are unconstitutional due to free speech. Apparently you can shout fire in a crowded theater, provided that it’s only a virtual one.
Our children are once again the most vulnerable in this saga. According to secure-kid.com, 20% of all children have said they have been solicited online for sex. Another 10% have been cyber bullied. This is going to be a difficult period for the growth of the internet and use by our children until this matter is resolved.
So, how do you stop it from happening in your home? The first thing I always tell parents is to not allow internet use in any other room but the living room, or use another room where there is almost always a parent to watch over them. I also recommend a content filter on the computer or on the firewall to keep kids from surfing anywhere they please. K9 is a good free filter from download.com. After installing the program, try to go somewhere you shouldn’t to test it out. Remember to think like a kid. You can then customize it fairly easily for additional protection.
If you suspect your children of doing something online that they are keeping secret, then you can also install a keylogger onto your computer. They have to be installed properly or antispyware and antivirus programs will detect them. This type of program will send you a detailed report of everything that has happened on your computer on a daily basis. Are your kids keeping passwords a secret from you? No problem. The keylogger will tell you. BUT, read the terms of service before installing. You don’t want to break the law and get yourself in trouble while trying to protect your kids.
Read all about keyloggers and how they work here before deciding which one to purchase:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystroke_logging
For more great tips, check back here each week and listen to me on the All Tech Radio show at 9:00 Sunday mornings on AM 1360 KUIK and at 10:00 AM on KOL in Seattle, or listen online at http://alltechradio.com. To read my latest book “How to be an IT Administrator” go to Amazon.com and type in my name in the search bar.
If you would like your technical question answered here, just email rmcmillen@koin.com. Even if it doesn’t get answered in the column, I will always answer by email.
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