Author Archive
Expensive Dell Monitors
I was on the Dell web site today pricing a PC for a client. When I got to the monitor section, I noticed that they had increased in price somewhat - to just under €1,000,000! Makes for a very expensive PC, but at least they are giving a discount. [caption id="attachment_199" align="aligncenter" width="999" caption="The €1,000,000 Monitor from Dell!"][/caption]
Fun & Games at Microsoft Ireland Community Tech Day
Last Friday I attended a Microsoft hosted seminar at the EPDC in Dublin on the latest updates in Microsoft IT infrastructure. The topics covered were: Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 and Windows Server R2: There was very little new for Windows 7, just a consolidation of all released updates. However, the big plus for Windows Server 2008 R2 was the addition of support for Dynamic Memory and RemoteFX - see here for more details. Service Pack 1 for Microsoft Exchange 2010: One of the new features that it adds is the ability to sync SMS Messages between a mobile phone and an Exchange mailbox. This is something that I have been asked about on numerous occasions. The full list of updates is here. System Center Essential 2010: I had been aware of Operations Manager (the previous incarnation of SCE) for some time, but always dismissed it as an Enterprise solution that did not scale to the SME clients that I deal with. However, this new release is built for midsized businesses with 50 to 500 PCs. SCE 2010 provides a unified solution to the problem of managing servers (physical & virtual), clients, hardware, software and IT services. It enables you ...
Windows 7 as a Wireless Hotspot
On a recent trip to France I needed Internet access to stay in touch with business back home. After getting off the ferry, I dropped into the nearest Orange/France Telecom store and purchased a pay-as-you-go 3G key. This cost €59 with two hours access thrown in. You also get an additional 8 hours if you post in the enclosed voucher. This was enough to keep me going until I got fixed line broadband installed. The one limitation was that it only worked on one device at a time, while I needed to connect my iPhone and another laptop. I could have upgraded to their 3G/WiFi device but that was going to involve more expense to get around a very temporary problem. I remembered reading that Windows 7 had a “hidden” feature that allowed it to act as a Wireless Hotspot and share out it’s Internet connection. After doing a bit of research, I came across a nifty utility that did all the donkey work and greatly simplified setting up a secure connection. I downloaded Connectify here: http://www.connectify.me/ and within minutes had my Windows 7 hotspot up and running. The best thing about Connectify is the price – zero, zilch, nada ...
Slow Windows 7 Bootup?
So you got your shiny new Windows 7 PC and were blown away by the speed along with the fact that it simply works no matter what hardware or software you throw at it. You've loaded up all your favourite apps and plug-ins and installed those USB peripherals you simply can't do without, and suddenly your are back in Vista territory with a PC that takes forever to boot up. I've been down this road and spent many happy hours with msconfig.exe disabling startup items in an effort to wring some extra speed out of a machine. For a more detailed approach to this problem, have a look at this post from the IT Expert Voice web site. It steps you through the process of establishing exactly how long it takes Windows to start up, and then identifying and eliminating the bottlenecks.
Watch Out for this Scam
I had a phone call today from a company called Online CC Care, claiming to be a Microsoft Support provider who tried to convince me that I had a problem with my computer. I asked the Asian-sounding lady what the problem was and she explained that my computer had a "fault" and I needed to download some software to correct this. Obviously, this is a scam to install some malware on my PC which I suspect would be very difficult and/or expensive to remove. Most people are aware (I hope!) that they shouldn't download software from an untrusted source so, just because a nice lady phones you, do not assume that she has your best interests at heart. For the record, the number she called from was 0019476632176. Update: I just noticed that there is an article about this by Paul Cullen in today's Irish Times: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0525/1224271087384.html Update 2: Just got another phone call from them this morning (28 May). The company name is Online PC Care and the phone number this time was 008884084117. She hung up on me as soon as I started asking questions.
New Features Coming in iPhone OS 4
A lot of my clients use the Apple iPhone to collect e-mail from their Microsoft Exchange servers. This is pushed to the phone using ActiveSync, so instead of the phone having to check if new mail has arrived, Exchange server notifies the phone . I often find that new mail will arrive on my phone before it appears in Outlook. However, this feature has a major limitation, it can only sync with one Exchange account. According to news site Ars Technica, this issue is about to be fixed with the next release of the iPhone OS - version 4, which will support multiple Exchange accounts, along with adding a unified Inbox so you can see all your mail from different accounts at once. Other new features include multitasking support which, for example, will allow Skype to run in the background so you can receive calls while listening to music, encryption support and a "social gaming network". Note however that all of the new features will only be available on the current iPhone 3GS, the older 3G model will only get a subset and that does not include multitasking. The new OS is due for release this summer. More details on the
Cisco 7941/7961 IP Phone Factory Reset
I recently purchased a batch of these phones secondhand at an auction selling off the remnants of the Dell Limerick factory. In order to use them with 3CX or Asterisk I needed to change the firmware from Cisco Call Manager (SCCP aka Skinny) to SIP. There is plenty of documentation out there on how to do this, but basically you need a Cisco SmartNet license to download the files (or failing that, Google is your friend...) and host them on your TFTP server. The current version of SIP firmware is 9.0(2)SR1 Feb 18 2010 but this is reported to have some serious bugs so I opted for the previous version, 8.5(4) Jan 8 2010. As these phones were second-hand, I wanted to erase any previous config and passwords with a factory reset and this is where I ran into problems. The Cisco documentation on how to do this is slightly misleading, and it's advice is repeated on most of the sites I visited. I eventually found the correct procedure here. The procedure is to power on the phone while holding down the "#" key. After about 30 seconds, the line lights on the top right-hand side will begin to ...
AVG To The Rescue!
If you have ever had to deal with a malware-infected PC that will not boot or simply grinds to a halt, you know how frustrating it can be to fix. AVG have simplified the repair process with the announcement that their Rescue CD in now available free of charge. This CD contains a bootable Linux distribution with a number of very useful utilities, not least of which is a portable version of AVG Anti-Virus. If the PC is connected to the Internet, it can update itself with the latest virus signatures. Other features include a registry editor, disk and network testing tools and a text editor. There are two versions - one for burning onto a CD and one you can install on a USB memory stick. They both can be downloaded from here. A word of warning if you are using the USB version, it comes with a utility to make the memory stick bootable - makeboot.bat. Copy all the uncompressed files to the memory stick and run makeboot from there, otherwise it will overwrite your MBR (master boot record) and make your PC unbootable. Don't forget that AVG also do a free version of their Anti-Virus software for home ...
Belkin F5D7633 ADSL Router Bug
If you have one of these ADSL 2+ routers with 1.00.17 firmware, you may experience strange problems trying to access certain web sites and making SIP calls. In my case MSN and some anti-virus sites were affected, leading me to suspect a malware infection. However the fix is to upgrade to Belkin's pre-release version 1.00.25 available here - http://en-uk-support.belkin.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2476 Note that this only applies to Annex-A hardware in the UK, France and most of Western Europe.
Watch those hosts files!
I recently had the job of cleaning up a client's computer that had become infected with various strands of malware and trojans. A few sweeps with SuperAntiSpyware (www.superantispyware.com) and MalWareBytes(www.malwarebytes.org) seemed to restore it to full health. However, I noticed that clicking on search results from Google was consistently diverting me to the same site which bore no relation to the original search terms. I've seen this before, so I had a quick check on the HOSTS file located in \Windows\system32\drivers\etc. The HOSTS file is a hangover from Unix and is used to translate host names (e.g. www.google.com) into IP addresses. Normally, all it contains is a reference to the loopback address, localhost - 127.0.0.1, and on first inspection, this one was fine. But by going into Explorer, Folder Options, View and turning off "Hide extensions for known file types", it became clear that the HOSTS file had been renamed to HOSTS.msn. The real HOSTS file had been hidden and was filled with entries for Google, diverting you to an alternate IP address. I couldn't delete the file, so I renamed it to HOSTS.bad and then renamed the HOSTS.msn to HOSTS. A quick reboot and Google searches were up and running.
