Bill Hely's "Computer & Online Security" BlogSearch results for 'Hardware' (page 1 of 3)

Dreaming the Future

Bill Hely — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 02:37:31 +0000

I’m sure we all wonder at times what advancements the future holds. One way to free up your imagination to roam unrestricted is to compare the past with the present.

My brother sent me the first image below as a matter of interest and I used the details to dig up further information.

In 1956 IBM released a system called the 305 RAMAC computer which marked a new technological milestone, as it was the first computer system to include a magnetic disk drive.

But that isn’t the RAYMAC computer system on the forklifte.

That’s just the disk drive!

The entire system is shown in the image below. The hard disk storage unit is the enormous cabinet standing at the left-hand end of the operator’s console.

The hard drive storage unit itself was designated the IBM 350 Disk File, and the magnetic storage consisted of a stack of 50 x 24 inch disks that can be seen through the glass front in both pictures.

The Disk File storage unit had a capacity of a little less than 5 MB, and was leased by IBM customers for an annual fee of around US$35,000.

54 years later…

Sitting on the desk in front of me is a Sandisk Cruzer Blade USB flash drive that is considerably smaller than my little finger, but whose 8 GB capacity is more than 1,600 times greater than that massive IBM unit. Today’s USB flash drive weighs just 2.5 grams, compared to just over a ton for its predecessor.

Care to speculate on what 2064 will look like?

Will your old hardware handle the new Windows?

Bill Hely — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 23:06:54 +0000

A lot of people are, quite justifiably, wondering if they should upgrade their present operating system to Windows 7. And if so, is their existing hardware up to the task?

As regular readers will know, when it comes to major new software I’m not an advocate of early adoption. There’s no fame and fortune as a reward for being an explorer and pathfinder in the computer world. Too often about the best you can hope for is that there’s not too much pain involved.

Windows 7 has only been out a short time, so is it still too early to be considering a move in that direction?

Well, all indications are that Windows 7 is a very significant and relatively problem free improvement on its predecessors. So I’d have to say that, whatever your reasons for considering an upgrade, you can almost certainly move to Windows 7 quite safely and without any significant headaches.

The question for most upgraders will be: Will my “old” hardware run Windows 7?

Well, the answer is supposed to be simple…

Just download the free Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor software from Microsoft, install it, run it and find out.

Unfortunately a lot of people (Microsoft says “a few” but that seems to be extremely relative) have found that the Upgrade Advisor runs for a little while and then reports:

“Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor ran into an unexpected error.
Please reinstall Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor and try again.”

And no matter how many uninstalls/reinstalls they do, it never gets any better.

Understandably many of the people encountering that message just assume that if their PC can’t even run the Upgrade Advisor then they’ve got no hope of running Windows 7.

Maybe. Maybe not. Don’t take that error as a guide.

After much feedback from “a few” people, the Microsoft programmers discovered an error in the Upgrade Advisor code.

Apparently the problem relates to checking the BIOS of Win32 systems for Windows 7 compatibility. Of course there would only be “a few” Win32 systems around. Like maybe a few hundred million.

Anyway, the main thing is that the problem has been acknowledged and they are now working to fix it.

So if you ran into this obstacle don’t give up yet.

The original buggy version of the Update Advisor is still available for download here.

As far as I know it will return valid information for non-Win32 systems, so there’s no harm in downloading and trying it now. If you get the above-mentioned error then you’ll just have to wait a while until the new version comes out.

And how will you know when that happens?

I’ve made some inquiries along those lines and, while I didn’t get an absolute guarantee that I would be put on an update notification mailing list, reading between the lines I was given to understand that’s what would happen. So if you find yourself staring at an Upgrade Advisor error message, or if it doesn’t seem to do anything at all, send an e-mail to: wuabeta@microsoft.com. They seem to be a helpful bunch keen to get the problem resolved.

Tell them the exact message you’re getting (ALWAYS give error messages EXACTLY word-for-word), and in reply they’ll probably ask you for some more specific information. If you reply you should receive notification when the revised version of the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor is released.

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Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor – New Version Released

Bill Hely — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 23:10:50 +0000

In a recent article [Will Your Old Hardware Handle the New Windows] I described a bug in Microsoft’s Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor.

I’ve just received notification from Richard Zadorozny (Program Manager for the Upgrade Advisor project) that the new version is now available for download.

The developers seem confident that the earlier deficiencies have been addressed, but if you have any problems at all you should send an e-mail with full details to: wuabeta@microsoft.com.

I’d also appreciate a comment here if the new version works for you where the previous didn’t, or if you still encounter problems.

Download Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor

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Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor still has problems

Bill Hely — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 01:29:30 +0000

Well, it didn’t take me long to find a machine that returned the same old message for the new version of Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor.

However, despite that failure, I have to admit that the Upgrade Advisor development team do seem to be very keen to get it sorted out as soon as possible. Within a few hours of sending them complete details I had a personal response from the Program Manager. In his words: “It looks like there’s another issue happening later in Upgrade Advisor due to another WMI corruption issue”.

Having some appreciation of just how complex these programs can be I’m not overly concerned that a new application doesn’t run 100% perfectly in all situations and under all circumstances.

I’m only concerned when developers turn a blind eye and deaf ear to problem reports, and these guys certainly aren’t giving that impression.

Stay tuned — I’ll keep you updated.

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Shame Apple, shame!

Bill Hely — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 23:30:54 +0000

Let’s say you’re an Australian in the market for a quad-core Apple Mac Pro.

You could rock down to your nearest Apple Center and hand over A$4,999.

Or you could jump on a plane in Sydney, fly to Los Angeles, buy the same computer, have a look around LA, catch the next flight home, AND BE ABOUT A$1,200 BETTER OFF — less the cost of your day trip around LA.

Yeah, I know all the justifications: freight, exchange rates, blah blah blah. What a load of unmitigated crap!

Talk about a blatant rip-off. I swear I will never buy so much as an iPaperclip from one of their Australian outlets until Apple stops this predatory “foreign” pricing. A reasonable allowance for freight and exchange rate fluctuations is fair enough, but the current pricing is nothing short of absurd.

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Slow PC? Clean up to Speed up!

Bill Hely — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 03:13:27 +0000

Back when I was a practicing freelance consultant and spent a lot of time visiting business offices, there was one particular habit that I found it very difficult to convince computer users not to develop.

In an effort to either maximize available desk space, or simply to hide what some considered to be an “unsightly box”, many office workers want to locate their computer’s system box on the floor, by or under their desks.

In doing so there are several related factors to which they don’t give due consideration.

FACT #1:
Cleaning staff are not always as careful of obstructions as we might wish them to be, and a computer case on the floor is an obstruction to their smooth work flow. Depending on the type of surface being cleaned, bumps from brooms and vacuum cleaners are bad enough, let alone frequent contact with damp mops, with the risk of splashing moisture in through air vents.

FACT #2:
It stands to reason that in any internal environment the lowest surfaces will be the dirtiest and dustiest, with a floor being the worst affected. In addition to airborne particulates attracted by gravity, many floor coverings will also generate their own debris (e.g. carpet fibres), not to mention deposits bought in on footwear. Which raises the fact that…

FACT #3:
Computer system boxes are not sealed. Quite the contrary, there must be vents to allow air circulation, or some of the electronic components will overheat, at the very least reducing their efficiency and lifespan. The Central Processing Unit (CPU) in particular generates a lot of heat that must be quickly and efficiently dissipated. And apart from the vents in the enclosure there is usually at least one fan (and sometimes more) drawing outside air into the case.

FACT #4:
When dust, dirt, lint, fibres, etc. build up on the surface of electronic components the coating acts as an insulator, preventing the escape of heat and thus raising the operating temperature of the component. Further, a build-up of debris on components promotes another significant lifespan shortener – corrosion – a proven mainboard killer.

LOSS OF PERFORMANCE:

Quite apart from the factors that can shorten a computer’s lifespan, the cooler a CPU runs, the more efficient it is, and it can operate at its maximum design speed. As the temperature increases above design specifications the operating speed falls off.

In other words, your CPU may be operating at a speed significantly below the 2.4GHz or 3.2GHz or whatever that you paid good money for!

No matter how assiduously you work at keeping your hard disk defragmented and running all the recommended anti-malware programs, none of that attention will improve the performance of a PC that is speed-throttled because of overheated or degraded components.

CLEANING:

Most computers in almost any environment should be periodically opened and carefully cleaned to clear accumulated debris. The frequency will of course depend on the nature of the environment, perhaps ranging from monthly in a factory or warehouse, to semi-annually in a clean office environment.

Technicians are divided on the best/safest method of dust removal from inside a PC case. Basically it’s a toss-up between sucking and blowing — vacuum or compressed air. Battery operated units like this Halloa Mini Vacuum Cleaner are very inexpensive as are cans of compressed air. That’s just a link to an example of the type — I haven’t actually used one of those myself.

Whichever method you choose be sure to observe these safety precautions:

Turn off the PC and remove the power cord.
Use only plastic blow or suck nozzles, not mental, or static electricity could cause problems.
To avoid damage to bearings do not blow compressed air directly into cooling fans, causing them to spin at high speed. Hold the fan blades still with a finger while blowing air through them.
Take time to take care! The inside of a PC case is reasonably robust so long as you don’t get too aggressive in your cleaning. Don’t use cloths, tissues or brushes (static electricity) directly on components or the mainboard.

If opening the case or cleaning the interior is not something you feel comfortable about, take your box to a service centre and ask for a technician to show you how to do it for future reference. It really is a job anyone can do in a few minutes once shown how.

Now please don’t think for a moment that this is a discussion of a rare or theoretical possibility.

I was prompted to write this short article having just had to replace a corroded mainboard. The CPU fan was also so clogged with dust that cooling efficiency must have been negligible, which had been reflected in the performance. As any service technician will verify, problems due directly to dirt/dust/debris build up inside computer cases are not rare.

Can Thieves Detect Laptops in Cars?

Bill Hely — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 01:42:45 +0000

I recently received a question from a reader asking how thieves were apparently able to detect laptops out of view in locked cars, say either covered up or in the trunk (or “boot”, depending on where you live).

This is a topic that’s seen batted around for some time and has attained the status of urban myth, with its share of believers and disbelievers and little in the way of hard facts or proof.

It’s a question I started to look into some time back, but for one reason or another I got sidetracked and never followed through to a conclusion.

Having the question raised again prompts me to present what little I know and request input from anyone who may have definite knowledge, particularly from any technicians who have experience with the types of devices I’ll mention hearing.

I’ll start with what I consider to be the most unlikely method of laptop detection.

Inductive Amplifiers

Now this is just something I’ve pieced together from bits and pieces here and there, so in mentioning it all I’m trying to do is open the discussion. I’m definitely not suggesting this is possible or practical — because I simply don’t know — but frankly I doubt it.

Proponents of this “myth” claim that it is possible to detect the presence of a laptop computer using a device called an inductive amplifier.

There have been quite a few unsupported and unsubstantiated reports that police in Selangor, Malaysia caught thieves red-handed with one version of an inductive amplifier, called a Model 200EP Tone Probe, that particular device being manufactured by Tempo-Textron, but there are of course many others. [Note: I found the Tempo-Textron site to be out of service a lot. Sorry, but nothing I can do about it.]

Personally I’m more inclined to think that any thief in possession of an inductive amplifier would be using it to disable car alarms.

Battery Detectors

Another fairly common suggestion is that the presence of a laptop can be detected by use of a so-called “battery detector”. Various types of battery detectors do exist, but to my knowledge their effective range is very small, and there would be myriad problems using such a device to detect a laptop in a car. For one thing I would expect that the metal enclosure of a car boot would provide a very effective barrier, not to mention all the other power sources that are constantly active in a vehicle.

As to the electrical properties of a laptop, there is ALWAYS some power present, whether the laptop is shut down or not, even if you remove the main battery. On the computer’s motherboard is a small battery much like that which runs your electronic watch. For historical reasons it is generally referred to as a CMOS battery. At the very least this battery maintains the real time clock, and it may maintain other settings as well. I believe voltages range from 3 volts to 4.5 volts, depending on make/model/brand/etc. There may even be more than one such board-mounted power source.

But detecting a laptop in a motor vehicle with a battery detector? I’m sceptical.

Bluetooth Scanning

The more obvious danger is leaving your laptop on or in sleep mode, such that its Bluetooth capabilities (if any) are active. Bluetooth scanning will reveal not only the presence of a laptop or high-end phone, but also its make/model. And such identification opens up the possibility of “steal to order”, allowing high-end devices to be specifically targeted. There’s plenty of information available on Bluetooth detection so I won’t belabor the point further here. Anyone wishing to research this further could try some of these keywords:

In conclusion

I don’t think rehashing unsupported myths and suppositions serves any purpose, but if you have any definitive information on how laptops and/or high end mobile phones might be detected inside a locked car I’d certainly like to hear about it. Please use the comments box below…

Customer Service is More Than a Contact Form

Bill Hely — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 05:09:03 +0000

As regular readers will be aware my blog topics tend to be somewhat diverse, but I strive to stick to subjects that will be of interest to at least a good percentage of my readers. So I’m excusing this departure from the technical on the basis that quite a few of my subscribers are in business for themselves.

Not long after my earlier article on customer service, in which I pointed the finger somewhat accusingly at one particular company, I received an e-mail from a senior representative of that organization, requesting a telephone conversation.

Matt Meanchoff is Director of Global Support at Absolute Software Corporation, the company behind the “LoJack for Laptops” service that I castigated somewhat severely in this article for their lack of response to e-mail contacts.

I want to emphasize at the outset that Mr Meanchoff didn’t call to criticize my article or to offer excuses for the experience I had with his company. He wanted to explain what had happened and why, and he soon convinced me he was genuinely concerned to fix any problems that adversely impacted customer service.

This in my view is a commendable response and demonstrates a willingness to address problems of which they were unaware. After all, if we have problems with a company, what more can we wish for than that they listen and act?

Is your business making these mistakes?

Publishing an insight into our conversation could provide a timely lesson for other online businesses who are making similar customer service mistakes, possibly quite innocently and unknowingly.

Mr Meanchoff explained that the e-mail address I had used to contact his company was distributed into the company’s sales channel. He is adamant that his own area of responsibility, actual technical support of existing customers, has earned high praise from their customers. Mr Meanchoff came across as pleasant, credible, highly motivated and a believer in his company’s products and services, so I have no reason to doubt his claim in that regard.

He was quick to acknowledge that there was no excuse for the communications failures I had experienced, regardless of what internal department was responsible. He was obviously well aware that if prospects don’t become customers due to communications failures in the sales channel, then his support team never gets a chance to demonstrate their effectiveness.

Customer-friendly tips for every business

Speaking to Meanchoff I became convinced that Absolute Software wanted to address those shortcomings as soon as possible, and I made three suggestions which I believe should be implemented by any company doing business online:

Turn off the sending of the “read receipts” in the e-mail client programs of all employees. This prevents your customers from receiving the obnoxious “deleted without being read” message. This is not disadvantageous to the customer so long as you also implement the next recommendation.

The actual location for this setting may vary according to your version of Microsoft Outlook, but a likely location is:
Tools –> Options –> Preferences –> Email Options –> Tracking Options
Then select either: “Never send a response” or “Ask me before sending a response”

Set up an auto-responder to immediately notify a correspondent that their message has been received and that they will receive a reply within a certain time frame. Marketing experience dictates that a specific time-frame should be given. Simply stating “as soon as possible” is not really acceptable, and nor is a long time frame. If you can’t respond to customer inquiries within 24 hours then I suggest you need to take a long hard look at your support infrastructure. If you can do better than that then say so, but don’t promise a response within one hour if there is little likelihood you could always meet that commitment. And don’t just stop with an acknowledgment, go the extra yard. When someone fills out your online form to contact you they aren’t left with a copy of their own message to refer to at a later date. So have your auto-responder include a copy of their original message. Little things like that make a big difference. Oh, and be consistent. Australia’s largest ISP promises a one-day response on their contact web form, and the autoresponse e-mail says you’ll hear from them within two days!

Finally, provide an escalation contact. Whenever I suggest this one to my clients the response is usually that they don’t want to publicly display an executive’s e-mail address because it will be abused. Well, yes, it probably will, but you don’t have to display it publicly. This information can be provided in the auto-responder message: “If you don’t hear from us within 12 hours or if you are not satisfied with our response please notify our customer service manager directly at escalation@company.com”.

So after speaking with Matt Meanchoff I’m satisfied that my unfortunate experience isn’t indicative of an uncaring corporate attitude, but due solely to weaknesses in the communications chain — weaknesses that they acknowledge and want to address now that they’re aware of them. Again, that’s a positive and commendable response.

Handling bad publicity

So what about those disparaging quotes from Amazon.com that I repeated in my earlier article?

I have no way of knowing whether or not those complaints were justified, but I’m obligated to repeat an example that Matt Meanchoff provided.

The “LoJack for Laptops” service relies on a stolen laptop being used again. Until the BIOS code is executed at system start-up no communications related to identification/recovery can take place. So if a laptop is stolen (say for malicious reasons rather than for use or profit) and dumped in a river, there is no possibility of recovery. Fortunately for the great majority of laptop owners most theft is for reuse or sale, ensuring that the machine will be switched on again and thus given the opportunity to communicate.

No matter the nature of your business or how great your product or how careful you are, you are always going to have an unhappy customer here and there. I’m sure you’ve heard the old saying that goes something like: “A satisfied customer tells one or two people; a dissatisfied customer tells everyone”. In other words, anger and frustration incite people to speak up, while the satisfied just go quietly about their business.

So if you have a genuinely good product and a lot of satisfied customers, you must take positive steps to counter the few noisy ones. People responsible for marketing and customer service need to be constantly on the lookout for comments about their product, whether good or bad. The good can often be used to your advantage, and the bad must be countered.

You cannot afford to ignore bad publicity and hope that it will just eventually fade away, because once published on the Internet it can always be found — days, months and even many years later. It will turn up in the search results of the very people you want to attract: targeted prospects who are searching specifically for what you offer.

Many professional Internet marketers retain inexpensive offshore contractors to continually search the Web for any mention of their product, their competition’s products, their marketing niche, and so on — anything they can use to give them a competitive edge or, if necessary, protect themselves from bad publicity. Mainstream businesses could learn a lot from the tactics employed by Internet marketers.

Absolute Software should have discovered those Amazon comments themselves when they were first posted. They would then have had the opportunity to contact the complainant’s directly and try to sort out their problems. At the very least they could request some of their many satisfied customers to post positive responses as a counter. This is well worth doing even if you have to offer your satisfied customers an incentive to do so. But if your customers aren’t prepared to speak up for you then they probably aren’t as “happy” as you’d like to believe!

Because the last thing a company wants is to have someone like me, having already had some bad experience, finding a site where 100% of the comments are disparaging. That just reinforces my original impression.

In contacting me, explaining the situation, acknowledging the shortcomings, Absolute Software has convinced me to take the next step and report on their recovery service and technology, something that, hopefully with their assistance, I’ll be doing in a future article.

So long as customer concerns — your concerns — are being addressed, I’m happy to investigate the practicalities of any product or service impartially.

Afterthought…

One last thing I just thought of.

While Absolute Software boasts a professional looking website with lots of resources available, one thing I wasn’t terribly impressed with was the fact that all the testimonials were apparently from law enforcement officers. Sure, it’s good to have people like that on side and saying so, but prospective users of the service will be looking for the experiences of actual existing customers. Law-enforcement is obviously going to have a different interaction with the company than will customers of the service.

I’m happy to report that what I missed the first time around was the Case Studies link.

What’s the difference between a case study and a testimonial? I suppose you could say that a testimonial is a customer experience told in the first person, whereas a case study is more likely to be a story told in the third person.

But regardless of the semantics, there are plenty of customer experience stories to be found — 41 of them in fact at the time of this writing. You can check out their case studies here.

Considering a Router Upgrade? Consider Carefully!

Bill Hely — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 06:20:24 +0000

I fairly regularly get e-mails asking why I’m still recommending an “old style” router (802.11g standard) in my security e-book The Hacker’s Nightmare, even though routers boasting a faster/better/more modern standard (802.11n) have been available for quite some time.

It’s been on my to-do list to write an article explaining my reasons for this. However, I’ve just been saved the trouble by the appearance of an excellent article from the keyboard of PCMech writer Rich Menga.

Rich has summed up my own reasons very nicely, and I unreservedly recommend his article to you.

After trying a number of the new-fangled 802.11n routers, Rich has given them all the flick and ordered himself a Linksys WRT54GL — the very router I have long recommended and continue to recommend in The Hacker’s Nightmare.

While you can use it quite satisfactorily straight out of the box, the WRT54GL is very versatile in that it can be “flashed”, or loaded with, third-party firmware (similar to software). My personal third-party firmware favorites for upgrading the WRT54GL are DD-WRT and Tomato. Both are free, and applying either to the WRT54GL makes it a very hard act to beat for overall performance, reliability and versatility.

Of course, there is a lot more to the safe use of any router than just plugging it in, which is why The Hacker’s Nightmare contains extensive, plain language instructions on configuring and securing the WRT54GL.

So where to next?

Amazon.com is a trusted and reliable supplier to the entire world, and you will find it hard to beat their prices. Click here for the WRT54GL at Amazon.com.

and…

You can currently snap up a copy of The Hacker’s Nightmare at a 50% discount.

Oh, and read Rich Menga’s article here.

How easily could YOU be framed for criminal activity?

Bill Hely — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 01:16:53 +0000

What’s the first thing that pops into your head when you hear/read/see a news item about someone being caught with child pornography on their computer?

In all probability your immediate reaction is one of distaste and condemnation.

But is that fair? Perhaps you shouldn’t be quite so hasty.

The more you know about how vulnerable the average computer is, the more likely you are to wonder first of all who really put the offending material there. Especially if the “perpetrator” steadfastly maintains a claim of innocence to the bitter end.

Mostly when we hear about computers being compromised, the attack is designed to cause damage, steal information or harness the machine as a spambot.

But computer malware has other, much darker uses…

The same malicious software used to perform acts of theft and vandalism can be used — perhaps much more devastatingly — to frame someone for all manner of antisocial and even criminal activity.

I mean, if you really want to destroy someone’s life and reputation, what better way than to “arrange” for them to be accused of something really heinous like the possession of child pornography?

The simple fact is that, due to a myriad of factors, the average person cannot be held responsible for every file found stored on their computer. This is a reality that law enforcement agencies are going to have to consider safeguards for, if innocent people aren’t to be pilloried – something which has already happened too often.

For quite some time now it has concerned me the way suspects are almost immediately identified and exposed to public condemnation and humiliation for material found on their computer, which may be related to pornography, hate/racism, terrorism, child abuse, plans for a criminal enterprise, and so on. As far as the various media are concerned, the more socially unacceptable the better!

But surely we now know enough about computer vulnerabilities to warrant being very cautious when it comes to public naming and shaming before a thorough forensic examination has been conducted. And such examinations must be performed by qualified people capable of doing it properly.

The average law enforcement officers and prosecutors do not have the necessary skills, yet their on-the-spot decisions based on circumstantial evidence can ruin lives forever.

While I have no problem with the severest punishments for the likes of paedophilia, I do have a real problem with unqualified law enforcement agencies destroying someone’s reputation forever (there’s no recovering from some accusations) based purely on circumstantial evidence. And until thoroughly investigated the mere existence of files on a computer is nothing more than circumstantial.

I’ve long had it in the back of my mind to research this topic and perhaps produce an article or two, but I just discovered that the job has already been done quite admirably by technology journalist Jordan Robertson for Associated Press.

As if you don’t already have enough reasons to be concerned about your computer and online security, click the link below for even more worries. It’s a revealing story illustrating just how easily good people can be crucified and ruined because of inadequate investigation.

Framed for child porn _ by a PC virus
Opens in a new window

I hope that story has opened your eyes to yet another reason for paying proper attention to your computer and online security?