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Don’t neglect your software updates!

While it seems that PC’s and Mac’s seem to require patches and updates very regularly, don’t become complacent. Updates are provided free and automatically for a reason. A recent study of Windows Malware infections showed that most exploits target patched security vulnerabilities and (somewhat surprisingly if you believe everything on the internet) most of these are not actually Microsoft’s doing. The most likely entry points for malware into your system (in descending order) are flaws in Java, Adobe Reader, Adobe Flash Player and MS Internet Explorer. Only one of those is Windows only…

Java installs an automatic update notification when it is installed, run these updates!

Adobe runs automatic update checks as well for Reader and Flash, install these updates! One word of caution though for businesses with a caching proxy server, beware of the Adobe Updater fundamental coding flaw that Adobe won’t acknowledge. Adobe Updater is very impatient, if it does not start receiving its update within 15 seconds, it will request it again. If you have a caching proxy server (running Anti Virus checks on downloaded files for example), make sure the Adobe update sites are either blocked (install updates manually for the business) or exempt from scanning or it can burn your internet bandwidth very quickly (until you stop it). All Adobe needs to do is check for a proxy server in the internet settings and if there is one, extend the timeout. They haven’t yet.

Finally, dont use Internet Explorer unless you have to. Microsoft Cloud Service web interfaces such as Sharepoint work best with Internet Explorer and some systems management tools with web interfaces require it due to custom Active-X controls (Blackberry Server Express for example). A better alternative is to use Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome and for even more protection in Firefox, install the “NoScript” plugin.

Finally, make sure you patch Windows and Mac’s all the time. It is pretty rare these days that patches break things but it does still happen from time to time. In a business environment, make sure you test updates properly before deployment. Home users should do a web search on the updates to see if people are reporting problems.

UPDATE: February 5th 2012.
I should have mentioned to make sure you keep your website back-end up to date if you use a content management system (or even just a database). There are many vulnerabilities in every CMS, they are usually patched quickly but if you dont apply the patches, you will become the victim of an automated hack. A client recently had their website hacked, fortunately it was a relatively benign, albeit alarming hack. The vulnerability was traced to a very old version of WordPress that was not even being used that was installed in a subfolder on the website and had been forgotten about. The hack installed a small shell onto the web server which give full control of the whole site, not just the old WordPress blog. Their main blog was up to date. Plugins are also likely points of entry into your web site, keep them up to date as well.

Posted in: Free Software, Security

PC Dust cleaning

All computers require regular cleaning to maximise life and minimise problems. This is rarely done, often never in businesses.

In an ideal world, you would turn over 1/3 of your desktop and laptop fleet every year and with proper business grade hardware having a three year warranty, if it dies, it gets replaced. Some people are lucky enough to live in this technology nirvana however the rest of us are not so fortunate. Small businesses often hold on to computer hardware for at least 5-6 years before it dies and they are forced to replace it.

If you want to get the most from your IT investment, why would you not look after it? You have your car serviced, your lawns mowed, your windows cleaned but not your computers (well not the insides anyway). Regular cleaning can greatly improve the life and performance of IT equipment. Due to their nature and a high level of static electricity, computers attract dust which collects inside the cases. Fans and heat sinks are very likely to collect dust. Dust buildup reduces airflow through the case and acts as a blanket for the sensitive electronic components. Hotter equipment will use more electricity as fans will run faster to try to keep components cool and the combination of heat and dust can and will cause premature failure of PC equipment.

The biggest issue with this is successfully cleaning computers in offices. Vaccuum cleaners cannot be used due to static discharge being more risky than the dust. The only really good way to clean computers out internally is with compressed air (proper compressed air from a compressor, not a little can of aerosol “air”). This should be done every 6-12 months to keep systems cool but needs to be a dust free solution in an office. It is not practical to carry every computer outside to clean them, especially from the 21st floor of an office building so I am currently developing a portable cleaning system that can properly clean computer internals onsite without releasing the dust back into the surrounding office. If you are doing this yourself, make sure you dont spin up fans with the compressed air. The high speed air flow can destroy fans in seconds from spinning too fast. They need to be prevented from spinning while being cleaned.

If I am coming to your home to help with your home PC or home theatre systems, let me know if you would like your PC cleaned at the same time at no extra charge.

Call me if this service is of interest on (+61) 0438534016 (Melbourne CBD and metro only, A/H or weekends if required, $15/Desktop PC, minimum 6 for dedicated visit)

Posted in: Hardware
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Daily Backups

Regular backups are very important for anyone, especially businesses. While a home user may lose some music or photos if their backups are not up to date, a business may lose invoices, orders, emails etc which cannot be replaced and may have a long term effect on the business.

You really cannot go too far with backups, depending on your risk profile and budget, your backups may be a simple file copy once per day or real time backups pushed to multiple locations. Obviously the more you do the more it will cost but the lower the risk of data loss if something happens.

Before I go into the options, don’t think that it wont happen. It will. Hardware fails, computers die, laptops get dropped or stolen, power spikes occur etc. If you go into this expecting the worst, you are usually in better shape when it happens than those who are not ready for it. Once you have had a significant failure and your backups are not good enough, you tend to take it more seriously in the future.

* Hard Drive Backups

As a bare minimum, and I mean bare minimum, a portable hard drive is a cheap and convenient option to back up your data from one or more locations. It can be a bit manual and does require some discipline but is much easier than burning to CD/DVD. Many come with backup tools but having seen some of them in action, I recommend using a simple backup script to maintain full control over the backup process. Windows (from Vista onwards) ships with a utility called Robocopy which, while small, is one of the best free applications ever to come out of Microsoft. Older versions of Windows can also use it but it needs to be downloaded as part of the Windows 2000 or Windows XP “Resource Kit”. To use it, simply create a folder (call it “scripts”) and create a blank text file, call it “backup.bat”. If you have Windows XP or earlier, you need to put the robocopy.exe file into the same folder. You need to edit backup.bat (right click and edit or it will try to run it). The way you use it is to call robocopy, give it a source location and a destination location and tell it what you want it to do, one command per line. eg robocopy “c:\email” “f:\email” /MIR will use robocopy to “MIRror” the c:\email folder to f:\email assuming that your portable hard drive is allocated drive F:. The /MIR or “mirror” option will delete target files if they no longer exist in the source. This is useful to ensure your backup drive doesnt grow bigger than your data drive but you run the risk of data being lost if the source file get accidently deleted then a backup is run. A better option for a portable hard drive is to have two backups pushed to it, one with the /MIR switch to mirror it and one without which will copy changed files and new files but will not delete anything.

Other Robocopy options can make your backups work better or be a bit more flexible. eg

  • robocopy “source folder” “destination folder” /MIR /w:2 /r:2 will wait for two seconds (/w:2) and retry twice (/r:1) if a file is in use and cannot be copied. The defaults are wait 30 seconds and retry 1,000,000 times which will not always be useful.
  • robocopy “source folder” “destination folder” /S /log:logfile.txt will copy from the source to the destination including subdirectories (/S) (but not empty subdirectories use “/E” if you want empty subdirectories as well) and will log everything it does to logfile.txt
  • robocopy “source folder” “destination folder” /S /XF *.txt *.tmp will copy but will exclude files (/XF) that end with “txt” or “tmp”

Other useful switches are /XD (eXclude Directory), /MOVE (MOVE files and folders, ie delete from source after copying) and /PURGE (delete destination files that no longer exist in the source – used with /E has same effect as /MIR)

A full list of Robocopy options can be found by opening a command prompt and typing “robocopy /?”

The next step up from a USB/eSATA hard drive for disk based backups is a NAS (Network Attached Storage) device. This can be a single drive like the USB connected on or can be a RAID array connecting via NAS, FTP, iSCSI etc depending on your needs and budget. Openfiler can convert pretty much any hardware to a NAS device that Robocopy or another backup system can access for backup storage.

* CD/DVD backups

If you need or want archives of your data for long term storage, DVD backups are cheap and relatively reliable (CD’s as well but since DVD burners and blank DVD’s are so cheap, there is little point persevering with CD’s). A standard blank DVD holds 4.3GB of data which should cover most of your important stuff (documents and emails) for some time. They take up very little space and are readily readable. They do, however, require more work to create, the process cannot be as automated. DVD burning software like Infrarecorder is required (most DVD burners and PC’s will come with some form of burning software which will usually suffice). You will need to know where your data is stored and how much space it takes up.

* Tape Backups

If you have a lot of data and need archiving, the most cost effective solution is a tape backup unit. They are relatively expensive to buy but in Dollars per Megabyte, they are very cheap. The tapes are also very portable which makes it easy for you to transport your data if required (having the most recent tape in your bag each night is better than leaving your tapes onsite if there is a fire!). Tape drives run from a few hundred dollars for slow DAT format tape drives which will do 20GB or so, up to a few thousand for a high speed LTO 4 format tape drive that can hold over 1000GB of data on a single tape (the tapes are more expensive too). They also go much, much higher than this if you decide to opt for a tape library where the backups can span multiple tapes and tape changes are done automatically but I am not going to go into Enterprise class tape libraries here. My rule of thumb is to calculate the storage space you need now, at least triple it and buy a tape system accordingly. While it is possible, I strongly recommend ensuring that your backups dont run longer than a single tape over the lifespan of the tape unit and tapes (you should be able to assume that a DAT drive will last at least 3 years and LTO 4-5 years, the tapes will last longer than this).

* Offsite Backups

There are a number of backup services which, for a fee, provide a quantity of space on the internet where you can upload your files to keep a copy offiste where you can access them as you need them. While they are generally considered reasonably secure, if you are uploading sensitive information, your data should be secured before uploading. Zip archives can be secured with powerful encryption, 7Zip has this functionality built in, simply select the encryption option and put in a secure password and the file will be both compressed (for easier upload) and securely password protected.

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft, the company everyone loves to hate.

Microsoft Windows is the operating system that most users are familiar with when the term “computer” is mentioned. It has been around for many years in one way or another and is supplied pre-installed on most large vendors PC’s (for small orders anyway, large corporates can buy with no operating system but consumers will have to buy generic PC’s to avoid Windows). Microsoft Windows is pretty much the only choice for serious gamers (some big games have been released for Mac and Linux but only a handful) but for business users it is another story with both Mac and Linux being capable of handling most business computing needs.

Microsoft Windows has copped a fair bit of flack over perceptions of stability and security (hacking, viruses etc) but this is to be expected with its complete domination of the world PC market and the sheer volume of people using Windows. Ultimately, the end user is probably just as responsible for this as the software itself. Safe Computing practices (most of which are common sense) will do far more to keep your system safe.

You will probably know Microsoft Windows well but don’t let this make you think that you have to use as much Microsoft software as possible. There are plenty of alternatives. Dont get me wrong though, Microsoft has a lot of good products and has the market share for a reason, but you will pay for the privilege of using it.

Microsoft Windows does, however, require regular maintenance to keep it operating well. All computer systems do, but especially Windows. Lack of proper and regular maintenance will cause you problems. Regular cleaning of the Windows Registry and deframentation are critical to keeping Windows happy.

So why would you choose Microsoft Windows over the alternatives?

  • Compatibility with existing systems, clients and customers. As most businesses run Windows, you will probably have fewer issues working with them and sharing documents. This would not be an issue if Microsoft used open standard file formats though, which they don’t…
  • Support for Windows operating systems and Microsoft software in general is relatively easy to find (but not actually from Microsoft by the way. Their support is good but will cost you $400 per issue to get resolved unless it is proven to be an issue with the software rather than the configuration)
  • The range of software written for the Windows platform dwarfs any other platform (this will be less of an advantage as applications move to online browser based applications).
  • Pick your hardware. Unlike Mac, Windows runs on a wide range of hardware (but not nearly as wide as Linux) so you can customise your hardware specifications easily if needed.
  • Windows Servers are easy to manage and maintain and have some very nice server software available, eg Exchange Server, Sharepoint, SQL Server, some free, some cheap, some hideously expensive.