It’s my first day back at work after the Christmas holidays and I’m catching up on my administration. Whilst working through a pile of unread IT news I realised that late last year, in amongst all of the Windows Vista launch news and comment, I missed Windows’ 21st birthday. Whilst I don’t intend to turn this blog into a history of personal computing, I’ve previously noted significant anniversaries (35 years of the Internet, 30 years of Microsoft, 30 years of Apple, 15 years of the world wide web and 25 years of the IBM PC) and as Microsoft Windows has had such a huge impact on my computing life it seems that this is another birthday that should not pass un-announced. For those who are interested to read why this is so significant, Martin Veitch wrote an interesting article about Windows’ 21 eventful years in IT Week recently.
A lack of business intelligence
Earlier this year, Nationwide, the UK’s largest building society, suffered a massive data theft when a notebook computer was taken from an employee’s home.
At the time, questions were asked about how such things could be allowed to occur but, to be fair to Nationwide, it is common practice for unencrypted data to be stored on company laptops away from the office (I have never been required to encrypt my data and I work from home routinely). Furthermore, the laptop was stolen in a domestic burglary – we are all told not to leave our laptops in the car (which in my case is another company-owned asset) so within the home is probably the safest place for the computer to be stored when away from the office.
To my mind, the biggest issue is how it took so long for the issue to be disclosed, with millions of customers’ identities potentially compromised (although Nationwide stresses that the data was “to be used mainly for marketing purposes” and “did not include any PINs, passwords, account balance information or memorable data”).
Two of my family members are Nationwide customers and earlier this month we received letters warning us of the potential issues, along with advice from the UK Government Home Office and Nationwide on protecting our identities; however, I was very amused by the letter to my two-year-old son, which began as follows:
“Dear Mr Wilson
THIS IS IMPORTANT – PLEASE READ CAREFULLY AND SHOW THIS LETTER TO YOUR PARENT OR GUARDIAN
Earlier this year a laptop computer belonging to the society was stolen…”
The letter was sent to a toddler! How many 2-year-olds do you know who can read a letter and follow the advice to show it to a parent of guardian? All the other communications from Nationwide about his account are addressed to my wife – so why write directly to my son this time? They noted that he was a minor and warned him to show the letter to his parent or guardian but surely their software can cope with a simple date of birth check and establish that this customer may be considered too young to read!
Leaving aside Nationwide’s lack of business intelligence, let’s hope that they have learnt from this massively public loss of data (and the expensive clean-up operation); however as computer users we can all benefit from their unfortunate experience and make sure that our data is secured by more than just a username and password (which provides no protection at all if the operating system can be bypassed and the disk accessed directly). Windows XP and Vista both support disk encryption (as do many Linux distributions and Mac OS X) and it’s worth investigating the use of this technology, although there are complications around key recovery that need to be considered before jumping straight in.
Upgrading my Mac to run Vista
“Hah! How can installing Windows on a Mac be an upgrade?”, I hear you ask – surely that’s tainting all that Apple wholesomeness with a BSOD-inducing, spyware-ridden, unreliable piece of software – at least, that’s the impression that you will get if you listen to Scott Bourne…
Back in the land of all that is operating system-agnostic, my Mac has been running Mac OS X (most of the time) and Windows XP (a fraction of the time) since the end of July and, as it’s the most advanced piece of PC hardware that I have, I decided to upgrade my Windows partition to Vista. The first thing to note is that Apple only supports Windows XP SP2 for Boot Camp (although others have managed to use alternative operating systems successfully), but then Boot Camp is also beta software (i.e. with limited support) so, not to much to lose then!
I booted into Windows XP, inserted the Vista DVD and ran the upgrade advisor (third time lucky as it first insisted that I install the Microsoft XML Parser 6.0 and then the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0) after which was very pleased to see that my hardware would run Vista Ultimate with all the 3D effects so I could finally experience Aero glass first-hand (I’ve seen it demonstrated but all the PCs I’ve run Vista on up to now have had low-end onboard graphics cards). The upgrade advisor warned me about a few devices for which it didn’t have drivers (SigmaTel High Definition Audio Codec, Apple Built-In Bluetooth and Canon CanoScan N650U/N656U) as well a couple of applications that may have problems post-installation (Symantec AntiVirus Client and Windows Messenger) but as there were no show-stoppers I went ahead with the upgrade (Vista also gave me the option to perform a clean installation, but I figured upgrading from an existing Windows XP installation with all the correct drivers would be a good starting point).
The upgrade itself was smooth and after a while I had a running Windows Vista Ultimate Edition system (not yet activated). As could be expected, Windows wanted to locate some missing drivers, but strangely they weren’t the ones previously identified by the upgrade advisor: firstly there was my Nikon LS4000ED film scanner (for which the Windows XP driver seemed to work); and another device that stopped working during the upgrade was my graphics tablet, although Wacom has a beta driver for Windows Vista that was easily downloaded and installed, following which the tablet PC input panel appeared. More worryingly, Mediafour MacDrive 6 stopped working under Vista so I have no access to non-Windows partitions and, annoyingly, there was no mention of this from the upgrade advisor, nor does a search for “vista” on the Mediafour website turn up any results (I have since opened a support request and been referred to an article which states that Vista is not supported – apparently that will be in MacDrive 7 next year, and will cost me some more cash). Although I was able to work through the driver issues (if not the MacDrive application issue) I have to question exactly what is the point of an upgrade advisor that doesn’t identify all the likely issues?
Because I had upgraded from a working XP installation that was using Boot Camp v1.0.2 drivers, most of my Mac hardware was recognised by Windows (and Vista was even able to find a driver online for one device that hadn’t previously worked – the Infineon Trusted Platform Module). Even so, more recent versions of Boot Camp provide additional device support – like being able to use F14 for PrtScr – so I decided to upgrade the Apple Keyboard driver. After creating an updated driver CD using the Boot Camp Assistant v1.1.2 under Mac OS X, Tim Gaden’s article on wrangling Boot Camp v1.1.2 drivers into Windows Vista guided me through extracting the driver files to a location on my hard disk (“D:\Install Macintosh Drivers for Windows XP.exe” /A /v), from where I was able to locate the Apple Keyboard driver (in locationofextractedfiles\program files\Macintosh Drivers for Windows XP 1.1.2\Apple Keyboard\) and run the setup wizard. Tim’s article was written for Vista RC2, but I can confirm that the same fatal error occurs with the RTM build (build 6000) if the /a /v switches are not used to extract the setup files and run them individually.
Once the Apple Keyboard driver was properly installed, I could use the extra function keys but as the UK Apple keyboard lacks a # character, I couldn’t type # directly (Alt+3 no longer works) although Alt+035 does the trick (note that the 035 must be typed on the number pad, not using the numeric keys above above qwertyuiop).
There were still a couple of devices with warnings in Device Manager – no driver seems to be available for the performance counters (at least that’s one step ahead of the Windows XP installation which simply referred to this item as a PCI device) and I have a USB Human Interface Device for which the drivers won’t start (hardware ID USB\VID_05AC&PID_8240&REV_0110 – this was also unrecognised under XP and 05AC denotes Apple but I’m not sure which device 8240 relates to). Sadly, the Apple remote still doesn’t work – a shame really as I much prefer Microsoft’s Windows Media Center to Apple’s FrontRow.
During the upgrade, I also noticed a nice feature as I held down the Alt/option key on each reboot to select the Windows partition – as well as Macintosh HD and Windows, the boot loader offered the choice of booting from the Windows DVD (I’m not sure if this is available to Mac users without Boot Camp?).
I have previously criticised the Vista user interface but I’m finding that I actually like the full experience with all the 3D effects turned on (sorry Microsoft). Flip 3D is cool; so is the taskbar thumbnail preview; and I like the way that Windows fade in/out as I maximise/minimise them.
Extolling the virtues of Vista’s user interface does not in any way reverse the opinion I have previously expressed as a Microsoft business customer – by and large, corporates don’t care about 3D graphics and the main requirement is for a reliable and secure operating system, something for which only time can tell if Windows Vista is or is not.
As for those who point out the similarities between Windows Vista and Mac OS X (I did blog about the spoof videos earlier this year and yes, I have seen David Pogue’s video article on the New York Times site, to which it should be added that Pogue is a well-known Mac user – he even writes books about Apple software!), let’s play that particular criticism back another way (which I haven’t seen anybody comment on)… it’s well publicised that it took many years for Microsoft to write Vista and Microsoft is far less secretive about new features than Apple is – who says that Apple didn’t steal some of Microsoft’s ideas in the meantime and bring them to market first? After all, the much acclaimed Time Machine feature in the forthcoming version of OS X sounds very like a feature we have had in Windows for years (the volume shadow copy service). Or maybe (and more likely in my opinion), consumers expect features like a calendar application and digital media management built in to our operating system (heaven knows that Outlook Express was long overdue an update). As for gadgets/widgets and desktop search (Spotlight) – they are not Apple inventions either (in fact, many Mac users eschew Mac OS X’s Spotlight search in favour of Quicksilver).
I’ll still be running Mac OS X most of the time (at home anyway – I need to use Linux and Windows XP for work) but it’s good to be able to test Vista in all it’s glory and it seems to run well on my Mac Mini. In fairness, I do have a Core Duo processor and 2GB of RAM, but it feels responsive (at least as much so as OS X) and the overall experience is positive – and that’s on a machine which only scores a Windows experience index of 3.0 (dragged down by the built-in Intel GMA950 graphics – the other metrics are all above 4).
As I’ve written previously, Windows Vista is a fantastic achievement on Microsoft’s part, although I do wish that there had been simultaneous consumer and business launches (if only to stop all this ¨we don’t support it because it’s not available yet¨ nonsense from software vendors who should have been getting ready for Vista months ago). Now we just need to stop all the noise from David Pogue and others about how Microsoft copied Apple and just live with the fact that Vista will be on hundreds of millions of PCs by this time next year – regardless of whether or not it is the best operating system. Despite my initial reservations, I like running Mac OS X, I also like running Linux, and I like running Windows too – they all have their good and bad points so let’s play nicely together.
(In the interests of my operating system-agnostic credentials, I should add that I started to write this post on a PC running Fedora Core 5 whilst the Mac was being upgraded, then I switched to the Mac, adding details whilst booted under both Windows Vista and Mac OS X!)
New toys for digital imaging
Blogging may be a bit sporadic for a while as I’m trying to spend some time with my family (I’ve been far too busy at work over the last few weeks and they have been losing out); however I did find 5 minutes to blog about the new toys that Santa (okay, it was Mrs. Wilson) left on our fireplace/under the Christmas tree a couple of days ago…
The first was a Wacom Graphire 4 Classic A6 tablet – I’ve never used a pen for digital work before but I figured it must be far more intuitive than a mouse and whilst I’ve not had much time to play (no more than the basic setup process) this could open up a whole new world of possibilities for digital image creation. Installing it on my Mac Mini (under both Mac OS X and Windows XP) was easy – although I was a bit perplexed when the product registration screen started asking me questions about how I’d found the product’s usability (duh… I’ve just bought it and am registering it as part of the software installation – I haven’t used it yet!). Slightly annoyingly, as I’m writing this, I see that there is a white version available now; however as my Mac, monitor, external hard disk are all aluminium and my scanners are silver-painted plastic, the silver version doesn’t look out of place on my desktop.
Tech present number 2 was a 2GB 133x Lexar Professional CompactFlash memory card – now I have room on my camera for either many more JPEGs, or for the long-awaited switch to raw format photography.
So, what exactly is the point of this rambling? Well, like much of the rambling on this blog, bear with me – normal service will be resumed soon (I have a lot of half-written blog posts to finish writing) and in the meantime, enjoy the Christmas holidays – I’ll be playing with my children, my camera and my computer (in that order).
Passed the VMware Certified Professional exam
This morning I passed the VMware Certified Professional on VI3 exam.
VMware’s non-disclosure agreement prevents me from saying anything about the exam itself but I can say that it involved a lot of preparation and this was my strategy:
- Most importantly, get some experience of working with VMware products (I have been working on a project to implement VI3 since July and also use VMware Server every day).
- Attend the mandatory VMware Infrastructure 3 Install and Configure course (I don’t believe that making a £2200 course mandatory is a good thing – people with suitable experience should be allowed to take the test without having to either shell out that sort of cash themselves or persuade their employer to do it – often locking them into an agreement to stay with the company…).
- Book the exam (oh yes, the £2200 doesn’t include exam fees – that’s another £100).
- Use the week before Christmas, when most of my colleagues were on holiday, to lock myself away and cram like crazy, reading the course notes through again as well as the product documentation. I find that writing notes helps me to taking information on board and I’ve published my revision notes here (note that these were written prior to taking the exam and, to avoid breaking the terms of the exam NDA, the content has not been edited to reflect what I experienced in the exam – the only changes from the originals relate to formatting and grammar).
Keeping up with the news (plus some tips for Windows Vista)
Clicking through from one of Victor Laurie’s sites, I found Ed Bott’s 10 expert tips and tweaks for Windows Vista – it looks as though there are some nice tips there.
I regularly read Paul Thurrott‘s writing (as well as listening to his Windows Weekly podcast with Leo Laporte) and I occasionally check out what Stephen Bink and Ryan Hoffman have to say but it seems Ed Bott’s Microsoft Report is another useful resource for those keeping up-to-date with the latest news from Redmond (there is also the official Microsoft news is at Presspass, but it’s all so clinical and corporate).
Of course, Ed Bott writes at ZDNet, who have loads of writers churning out news on Microsoft, Google, Apple and others but it’s just so hard to keep up (and RSS feeds are worsening my information overload instead of making it better!) – just thought I’d make a note of it up here on the blog in case it turns out useful for someone.
Windows for beginners
Earlier today, I was looking for a complete list of Windows environment variables and a spot of googling turned up Victor Laurie’s Computer Education website, which describes itself as “an educational site that is intended for the home user of personal computers… teaching some basic points about how they and their Windows operating systems work”. From a cursory glance, it looks to be a useful resource, with information written in a clear and concise manner.
Among his collection of sites, Vic also has a site called Surf the Internet Safely with advice for those who are worried about security online and a Windows Tips and Tricks blog with “selected tips on making Windows safer and easier to use”.
All of these sites look to be useful resources for those who are just getting started with a Windows computer (and for some more advanced home users too).
Online personality tests
A week or so ago, I spent two days on a technical leadership course as part of my work. I’m not sure that the course really spent much time teaching me to lead (it’s kind of implicit in my role), but it was an opportunity to take stock of where I am and made me realise that I need to think about where I want to go next.
My higher education was entirely technical but I do find it fascinating to look at some of the business models that other people employ, and some of the behavioural models that are used to categorise people. Particularly interesting on my recent course were concepts such as the Johari Window and the four Cs of leadership (credibility, capability, career management and character), the accelerated learning ladder and the situational leadership model. I was also able to take some online tests including the leader behavioural analysis II (LBAII) self-profile and the occupational personality questionnaire (OPQ32).
Whilst the LBAII was interesting, it is entirely based on my own perception of how I would react in a given scenario (and it’s only natural to answer with what is considered to be the “best” answer – i.e. how I should act), but it does seem that I adapt my leadership style to meet the needs of those I am leading – something which surprised me.
Although it’s also based upon self-assessment (and hence possibly different to the way in which others view you), OPQ32 is harder to fool (not that I deliberately tried to fool any of the tests) – for anyone who has ever taken this sort of test, it’s the one often used for psychometric profiling as part of interview processes, with many questions, each subtly different where you often think “haven’t I answered this already?”. Amazingly though, having read the report from the analysis of my answers, it’s pretty spot on in assessing my personality (as verified by my wife, who knows me as well as anyone).
Both of these tests require payment to the companies that own them; however I stumbled across a free, online, personal DNA report whilst casually surfing from blog to blog last night. My personal DNA report indicates that I am a “respectful leader” (fitting in with my LBAII and OPQ32 responses) – anyone who is remotely interested can mouse-over the graphic below to see how it categorised me:
At the end of the day, you can read as much or as little into these personality tests as you like, but I found the OPQ32 to be frighteningly accurate and the personal DNA test is very similar in some ways. If you still don’t believe it then you can get others to assess you (based on their view of your personality) – now that could be really scary!
Basic TCP/IP troubleshooting
For the last couple of days, I’ve been mystified as to why I could access a SharePoint site from other Windows servers on the same LAN but not from clients (Mac, Linux or Windows) elsewhere on the network (and on the Internet).
Strangely, the server responded to ping requests, but I couldn’t successfully traceroute ipaddress. Now I’ve realised why… I had the wrong default gateway set in the TCP/IP stack. So simple, yet so crucial. Furthermore, tracert ipaddress on Windows worked (tricking me into thinking it was a Mac OS X/Linux problem) – it turns out that many Unix-derived operating systems use UDP for traceroute whereas the Windows implementation (tracert) uses ICMP. As ping (which uses ICMP) was working, my Windows trace was successful but, because ICMP operates at the network layer in the OSI model and UDP is at the transport layer, the return UDP packets to a Mac OS X or Linux client would have been unable to reach me because of the incorrect gateway on the SharePoint server.
It just shows that, from time to time, it can be useful to go back to basics when troubleshooting TCP/IP issues:
- Firstly, check that the cable is plugged in. Believe me, it’s amazing how many times that is the cause of the problem!
- Next, check that the computer has correct IP addressing details. IP addresses starting with 169.254 are link-local or automatic private IP addressing (APIPA) addresses, used when a DHCP server cannot be located. Key settings to check are the IP address itself, subnet mask, default gateway/router address (used to find the next hop) and nameserver (DNS or WINS) addresses (used to locate a server to resolve friendly names to IP addresses).
- If you think the TCP/IP settings are correct then ping ipaddress from the computer to localhost (127.0.0.1), the default gateway, a known host elsewhere on the network, a known host on the Internet (in that order) – this approach will help to identify whether the issue is local to the computer, the local subnet, further out on the network or on the Internet (incidentally, many web servers will not respond to pings in order to avoid denial of service attacks such as the ping of death – so no reply from an Internet host doesn’t necessarily mean there is a problem). If pings from the computer are successful, try pings to the computer from elsewhere on the network.
- Finally, tracert ipaddress (Windows) or traceroute ipaddress (Mac OS X/Linux) can be used to check that packets are being routed correctly. Windows users also have a utility called pathping which is a combination of ping and tracert.
Some other commands that can be useful include:
- ipconfig /release followed by ipconfig /renew (Windows) or ifdown interface then ifup interface (Mac OS X/Linux) can be used to obtain a new IP address from the DHCP server (alternatively, just use ipconfig /renew or ifup interface to renew the existing address).
- The nslookup tool can be used to check the results returned by the DNS server for a particular host. If DNS is working and Internet access is available then further tests can be carried out at the DNS Stuff website.
- ipconfig /flushdns can be used for Windows users to flush the DNS cache and force a new lookup for a previously visited host.
- The netstat command can be used to see all the connections that are currently open (strange entries may indicate a problem with certain types of malware).
- telnet ipaddress portname can be useful to test a connection to a host.
- If the command line is too confusing, Windows users can use netsh diag gui as a last resort!
I’m the real Mark Wilson
I got a call this afternoon from an IT recruiter who had found my profile on the ‘net and was looking for a SQL Server developer to fill a role. I politely told him that he obviously had not read much about me and that I don’t know very much about SQL Server (or development).
I found it all a little strange because I’m reasonably easy to track down but the call had been routed to me over my employer’s voice internal network – not to my personal phone or e-mail – but thought nothing more of this until I received a call to tell me that someone was repeatedly calling the company switchboard and claiming to be me in order to obtain various contact details.
Whilst some might consider this to be an ingenious form of social engineering, I consider it to be an underhand technique which is analogous to the current IT menace of phishing.
Reputable recruitment staff will not use such techniques (generally, they will not call you at work). If I find out who this guy is, then I will make a formal complaint to his employer. You have been warned!