Anti-Virus Software

For a number of years, I have been a strong advocate of Kaspersky Anti-Virus software. A few years back it was the ultimate choice of many large corporations, and did well in the reviews.

Unfortunately a few major revisions later they have not managed to maintain the quality of their offering. With each update, the software has become much more resource hungry.

I work with a lot of customers who wish to preserve the life of their old PCs. These machines are running old versions of Windows (usually XP) with a moderate processor and limited amount of memory. Many were complaining that their machines were running too slow. The solution in most cases was to pause Kaspersky. The machine was significantly faster, but they were left extremely vulnerable to any viruses or malware.

So it is time to have a good look round at the alternatives. A news article caught my eye recently saying that a thorough and independent lab test had rated the free Microsoft offering above many of the traditional packages that were sold on a subscription basis.

Trying to search Google for advice about anti-virus software is a nightmare. All the top articles are either sponsored by an anti-virus company and hence are very biased, or you will come across illegitimate anti-virus software that actually infects your computer.

So who is this independent lab whose review I am basing my new recommendation on? NSS Labs. Their Consumer Anti-Malware Products: Group Test Report Q3 2010 is available free at this link.

They tested 11 leading products, two of which are free. AVG has been available for a number of years, but the Microsoft addition is relatively new. And I really like the look of the Microsoft product. It has above average scores for Malware blocking and Exploit blocking, and has the joint-best rating for performance. Add to this its free, and the convenience that it is updated through the normal windows update system and this has to be my new favourite.

I note that the report also compares this year's findings with the previous year. In 2009 Kaspersky was second in the rankings detecting 87.8% of malware against an average of 80.2% for the group. This year Kaspersky detected 71.3% against an average of 74.1%. For performance Microsoft is rated 8 times better.

The guidance in this year's report is that AVG and ESET are poor. F-Secure, McAfee and Trend Micro were recommended and the remaining 6 (including Microsoft) were rated neutral.

The main problem for my customers is the performance impact of the anti-virus software. Cost is also a large factor for them. The product I will recommend was not the top rated for malware detected, but it still does a respectable job in both categories.

To summarise the next time I need to renew or install anti-virus protection, I will be selecting Microsoft. Click here to visit the Microsoft Security Essentials website.

Chris

Apple iPad

Well after months of hype and half rumours, Apple have now announced their entrance to the tablet computing and net book sector. The missing device from the world of computing is to be called the iPad. UK betting operator Paddy Power had iSlate as the most likely name so I got odds of 7/4 on the iPad name and turned a £2 flutter into £5.50!!

I do like the iPad. Unlike the original iPhone, the very first version appears to be reasonably priced and a comprehensive and complete piece of hardware. There were a number of anticipated features like a multi-tasking operating system that were not shown, but these can all be added via a basic software upgrade. In contrast the first iPhone did not support 3G mobile networks meaning no amount of software upgrades would allow fast mobile internet or photo messaging.

The question everyone will be asking is "Do I actually need a touchscreen device to hold in my hand and use to browse the internet?" Personally, I have no issue with sitting at my fixed desktop computer when I want to go online.

However when one looks into trends for computer sales, I think it is true that consumer outlets like Dixons or Comet sell a very high percentage of PCs in laptop form factor rather than desktop models. People clearly like being able to put the computer in a cupboard and reuse the space of their computer desk. They like to be able to use the laptop anywhere in the house that is convenient, for example in the garden, or while watching television. Far more business staff require mobile working from customer sites or from home for which a laptop is ideal.

Very gradually, battery life of laptops has ebbed away. When laptops entered the mainstream they would last all day on a single charge. As screens have grown in size, and processors have increased in speed and number of cores battery life has slowly dropped. Last time I went laptop window shopping on the web I would be doing well if the latest laptops would last more than 5 hours on a single charge. So benefit number one of the iPad is it sports an incredible battery life of 10 hours of continuous use!

Next I will discuss what is best called the 'iPhone OS ecosystem'. Recall a recent TV campaign from Apple with the punchline of 'There is an app for everything'. There is no doubt that software drives the sales of hardware. For example I am sure some customers have browsed through the App Store in iTunes and bought an iPod Touch or iPhone because they have seen applications that they wanted to use, or games they wanted to play. This is not the main reason I bought my iPhone, but I did have an urge to use some of the apps before I had my iPhone.

I have also talked to customers in business who have become frustrated because the software they needed for their business was not available on the computers they already owned. They chose the software first, then bought hardware on which to run it.

So my point is that people who see apps in the iTunes app store they want now have an additional choice of hardware device that will execute the app - an iPad. One custom app for example a point of sale application for use in a bricks-and-mortar store like the Apple Store to enable staff to complete sales with customers will be a big driver of sales - the iPad may be the better platform in the ecosystem for this purpose.

This leads me to my next major advantage of the iPad.... it's screen resolution. I have written applications for the iPhone. The first point that hits you as a developer is how small the screen is. When PCs graphics adapters first launched they ran at VGA or 640x480 pixels resolution. The iPhone is half this size, 480x320, or 460x320 after the status bar showing battery charge and signal strength etc. I was investigating writing a TV Guide app, but quickly realised there was no way to show information from many channels on screen at once. A Sky subscriber would want at least 200 channels available. At five per screen this would mean an unfeasible amount of scrolling.

Have you noticed that apps on the iPhone have a very small set of options? Microsoft Word has hundreds of features available from its menus. No iPhone app comes close. I believe the reason for the lack of features and customisation is due to the lack of screen space to show the options. Apps have to be well designed, and features trimmed due to restriction with the user interface.

By comparison the iPad has a resolution of 1024x768 (also known as XGA). This is two steps of development ahead of VGA, the first step was 800x600 or SVGA. With this large increase in screen real-estate and the faster custom-designed Apple processor, the possibilities for developers are now much much greater. It is my opinion that apps (not forgetting games) for the iPad will be an order of magnitute better than all the existing iPhone apps. To conclude, benefit number two is the much larger screen that will bring with it far more potential for application developers.

A second benefit of the physically larger screen is multimedia viewing - lets face it the iPhone is too small to use as a serious device for watching TV or movies. Maybe Apple should revamp their Apple TV to enable recording, syncing those recordings to iPad and even remote control and viewing of your TV? The larger screen will allow more of a web page to readable without the need to zoom. As Apple have advertised, the larger screen is now usable as an electronic book reader.

To conclude I think the iPad will be successful. When consumers replace their present PC or laptop they will be able to consider the iPad instead. Apps on the device will be an order of magnitude better than any existing iPhone apps. Specific apps for specific business needs will drive sales of the unit to businesses. People who require an ebook reader or web and video on-the-go have no better option than iPad at the moment. Also at $499 or I guess £399 in UK this will not break the bank for most people as a fun lifestyle gadget or games device.

There are so many possibilities for this new device....

The hype and rumour mills have already moved on to the next version of the iPhone!

Chris

OS Wars.... Microsoft have just shot themselves in the foot.

If I was the IT Director of a large company with a large user base running Microsoft Windows, I would be very concerned at the moment.

I would have looked at the cost of upgrading to Vista a couple of years back, considered what benefits it would bring and made a decision about whether to invest in upgrading all my users to Vista. Most large companies decided that Vista is far more resource hungry than XP meaning a large proportion of their existing computers would struggle to run Vista. The specialist applications a company uses would be thoroughly tried and tested, and the users are happy with them. These applications in all probability would need upgrading or replacing to run on Vista. And the benefits to upgrading are ...... transparent windows!

So to make my first sentence more specific, I would have a large user base running Microsoft Windows XP. I had no compelling reason to rollout Vista.

Don't get me wrong here - I know Vista and have been running Vista on my home PC for about 18 months. My advice to my next door neighbour would be if they had enough power and memory to run it, and if all the programs and hardware you use work I would recommend switching to Vista. But I would not buy a new PC just so I could have Vista.

So most large corporations with thousands of PCs decided that Vista would be a waste of money that they did not need. So they didn't. This is no secret and Microsoft are well aware of this. I have lost count of the number of times XP's support life has been extended.

For some reason, Microsoft has now actually switched off support for XP. It officially went end-of-life on April 14th 2009. What this means is Microsoft are no longer helping people with problems, or writing patches to resolve issues that are still to be discovered.

This is not a situation a large corporation should find itself in. The IT director and board made the correct decision not to upgrade. What does Microsoft expect all these companies to do now? Upgrade to Vista for a few months until Windows 7 is launched? Run unsupported until Windows 7 is released *and* has had chance to be tested?

If it were me, I would be saying that we are seriously exposed, and must take steps to avoid being in this situation again. How? Well now we have to upgrade everything in the next 12 months, I would be evaluating the other options beside Windows. In fact I would be very seriously looking for an option other than windows so Microsoft cannot do this to us again.

Linux is now much easier to use - it is much more plug-and-play. Mac OS is growing in the size of its installed user base, and all Macs now have Intel processors, which makes it much easier to run Mac OS on a standard PC (I have it running in VMWare and it runs a treat! VMWare Fusion on the Mac lets users run Mac OS as a virtual machine. And the PC can run with a couple of little tweaks!) Google are working on a new operating system. I think in the next 12 months we will see cheaper alternatives to windows that are actually viable! I forgot to mention the unreliability of Windows. People just think it is normal to wait when a PC freezes, normal to restart apps, or to reboot to fix odd problems.

If I were Microsoft I would not have switched off XP support until Windows 7 was starting to be taken up on a large scale. Because they have I would have a very good argument to try and move away from Microsoft desktops!

Chris

Update: Today Microsoft are officially concerned about competition to the desktop OS.

Google Chrome - web 2.0 starts today....

Back in April 2007 I wrote a blog post about all the hype around web 2.0. My opinion was "You can't call something Web version 2 without changing some infrastructure (Ie hardware), protocols (Ie http) and/or browsers."

Well today Google have launched a new browser, named Google Chrome!

If anyone knows anything about the Internet, where it is going and how to make it better this company does.

The browser is simple, well designed and has a new architechture to protect our computers from the nasties on the net. And I believe it (unlike when Microsoft make the same claim with every new release of their software).  Each web site and plugin is in a process of its own, which is a kind of virtual box. Whatever happens inside that box only affects the box.

This is my shortest post ever because the software has been released within the hour. Get this browser now. Today the internet has changed. I need to add this browser is still in testing and is classed as Beta, but Google always do this. I'll bet a Google beta works better than any Microsoft final release!

I have never been so excited about the future for computing. What with the Apple iPhone which will be expanded into a laptop form building on the success of the touch interface, and now Google evolving the web browser which could morph into a replacement for Microsoft Windows.

Chris

Update: I use this for normal surfing, but there are more than a few sites that are not properly compatible with this browser.  If you like a browser to store your logins for all the websites, Chrome is poor in this area.  Unfortunately one still needs to use Internet Explorer for some tasks.

BATTLE OF THE YEAR: Can HTC beat the iPhone??

I am referring to the HTC Touch range of new mobile phones. The Diamond is the consumer model which has a joystick, 4 buttons and a touch screen (no keypad). The Pro which will be out in the next couple of months has a sideways sliding full qwerty keyboard.

I have tried the HTC Touch Diamond as on paper it beats the iPhone, plus it runs Windows Mobile operating system which I have used before and really liked. The main benefit is full synchronisation with Outlook contacts and calendars.

The adverts all show off the screen with a selection of album covers to choose from to play your music, and some very nicely animated weather program.

I will cut to the point - it does not work. Trying to use this handset to make calls and text is next to impossible. Windows Mobile v6.1 cannot cope with a touch screen. There is one simple flaw that they have not addressed. If I am on the contact screen and flick the screen from the bottom to the top to scroll the list the phone will on about 30% occasions dial the contact on whom your finger first touches.

As for texts there is a nice HTC front end to the text inbox. However to view old texts or to compose a new text you have to revert to the standard Windows Mobile interface.

The album covers that are in the ad are only available within the playlist. This device has 4Gb internal storage so can hold a decent amount of music. This is impossible to flick through and select from the text list (and there is no other way). Lastly you have to buy a third party adapter if you wish to use anything other than the bundled hands-free kit to listen through.

When I said the HTC beat the iPhone the main point was the screen resolution. iPhone boasts 480x320 over 3.5". The HTC has a physically smaller 2.8" screen (allowing the handset to be much smaller than iPhone) but has twice as many pixels (640x480). The "minor" problem is that the processor in the phone can't process a movie anywhere near that resolution. I uploaded a 480 line mp4 and was lucky to see 1 frame per second. And it downsized that to view in portrait - couldn't get it to use landscape...

Which brings me on to my next issue. Not only is use of the accelerometer restricted to the flashy but useless album viewer and opera mobile, but most apps do not have a setting to tell them to put the screen in landscape. For example Windows Remote desktop took over my PC but with a screen res of 480 pixels across and 640 down!!

Lastly the internet experience - there are two browsers loaded. Opera was the easiest to use, but couldn't use the bookmarks sync-ed from your PC. IE could see the bookmarks but had problems rendering a lot of websites and had poor support for the touchscreen.

To sum up this phone has a lot of features and a large amount of apps are available to customise the phone with it being Windows based. I chose this phone thinking it was a cross between a phone and a laptop - against the iPhone which is a cross between a media player and a phone. But it simply doesn't work. There is no point having a phone if you feel like throwing it everytime you try to ring someone.

The last problem for HTC is simply that iPhone is "the iPhone". Doesn't matter what anyone else launches it will not BE an iPhone. The iPhone is from Apple. It has the press coverage. Everyone has heard of it just because it is!

Chris heads to the Apple store........

PS. When you go to the store to buy the iPhone the O2 website will not work in Mac OS. They boot their lovely Mac into Windows XP before they can process the order lol.

Embracing Vista

I am running Vista on my main PC. I have been for over a month.

Why?

Firstly because SP1 is all but officially finished. On the 11th January Microsoft released an almost final version of service pack 1 for use by anyone who is interested. Ie Me!. Most major corporations refused to evaluate Vista until it had time to 'bed in'. Plenty of people were classing the launch version of Vista as a beta, and were waiting for the first service pack. Well here it is!

Secondly I am fed up with having to format my computer and re-install XP from scratch every couple of months. XP seemed to develop quirks and problems that would eventually become such an issue a re-install was the only option. I had done this so many times I had the rebuild down to 3-4 hours and knew exactly what to backup and where to find it.

Lastly because Microsoft's claim that Vista is more secure seems to have stood the test of time. I have not seen any stories of viruses breaking into the protected kernel or any other other such major problem being found in Vista's security. It has had its share of critical security patches, but not as many as XP or other software.

I have previously criticised and joked about Vista. My gripes can be summarised as:

First - the new UAC or User Account Control. Whenever you install anything or change any global user settings you are bombarded with security prompts asking you to confirm the changes. Now more programs are vista compatible there are less prompts during installation. There is also a very neat solution to this problem. I have mentioned it before on here but I have now found a much easier way to enable it.

On the start menu, right-click Computer and select Manage. Confirm the action at the security prompt.

Expand Local Users and Group in the left tree and select Users. Double-click Administrator and uncheck the account is disabled box. Click OK. Now right-click Administrator and click Set Password. Enter a strong password when prompted. When you login as Administrator you bypass UAC but it is still active for all your other users.

Second the lack of new features. When Vista was announced many moons ago we were promised some really ground-breaking and much needed improvements. Not many of these promises were actually delivered. When you compare XP and Vista on a major functionality basis there are not many changes.

Thirdly the many different versions and the unjustifiably high price tag. Vista Ultimate which is the best version available retails at £323 on DVD from Ebuyer. However I recommend buying the OEM version - it is exactly the same software but without the shiney box and it retails for £106. This version is only meant to be sold to PC manufacturers to pre-install. It has slightly different terms and conditions but all that matters is you are not meant to be able to move your license to a different computer after it has been activated. In practice I don't know how strongly this will be enforced, or how many times you are allowed to reassign the expensive version.

Also bear in mind some hardware that works perfectly in XP will be obsolete and need replacing when upgrading to Vista, which will add to the cost of upgrading.


After installing Vista I found it to be extremely sluggish. When my computer was idle I found my CPU usage was about 20%!!

SP1 does improve this - but - the cause of this sluggishness can be explained by Vista's improved search system. After an install the system will comb your hard disks and generate an index for the search subsystem. This is why it runs slow.

Turn off the power save features and leave your computer switched on for a day or two. In this time it will complete building the index and setting up other tuning systems. I found once this has completed the system will run about as fast as XP!

So after installing, turn on the Administrator account and use it to setup your computer without UAC annoying you. Leave your computer on for a couple of days to build its indexes etc. Then you can think about Vista's benefits!


Chris

Ps. My PC is only a fairly old Pentium 4, 3.0GHz with HT (Single Core with HyperThreading) and 1.5Gb RAM.

Search engine wars.

This week Microsoft has made a generous offer to buy Yahoo. This has been described as a shotgun wedding with Google holding the gun!

I remember back in 2004 Microsoft launched a massive campaign to promote its own search engine MSN Search. Aside from lots of prime time TV adverts they claimed to index millions more pages than Google (8 million vs Google's 2 million). Within a week the number of pages Google claimed to index rose to 10 million!

Ask Jeeves has also been working to boost its service. They have some great features on their page. When they launched they cornered a niche in the market - that you could ask them a question and they would find the answer. This contrasted Google's approach where you had to ask the answer to get confirmation you were right. Now they want Google's business they have rebranded and tried to compete as an alternative to Google.

Google differentiated from Yahoo when it launched because every result at Yahoo was part of a category. After a search you had to zoom into the right category to find related results.

I'll give Microsoft some free advice. All that matters for a search engine is that I find what I am looking for. First time and every time!

When I saw the ad campaign in 2004 I did go to MSN search. I ran a search and could not find what I wanted in the top results. I went to Google and found what I wanted in the top 3 results. Needless to say I havn't been back since.

MSN is absolutly awful at finding what you want. What takes the mick is last time I needed software for my Microsoft Mouse I couldn't even find the correct page on the Microsoft search site.

One let down like that and they lost a customer for a long time. The beauty of the web for a customer is there is never any tie-in to a certain site or system. If one day you find better answers on a different site you just make a new favourite and never go back.

Finally coming back to the larger picture could you imagine the world if Microsoft was running the most successful and popular search engine? They already have the most successful desktop operating system with an extremely large momentum preventing any competition. Do you reckon they would abuse their power if they could control everyone's search results and internet usage?

My last thought is could this determination to make a bigger impact on the Internet be a sign they are worried about the future of their operating system monopoly? I am currently running Vista SP1 and will report how I find it soon!

Chris

Privacy vs Safety on the Internet

I am sick of reading about all the different organisations complaining about our lack of privacy in the 21st century. Apparently our human right to a private life is being eroded.

And why? Because the authorities want organisations to keep a log of what each computer does on their Internet sites or services.

I wish to draw an analogy to the real world. Every day you walk along the streets. You pass other people, some on foot, some in cars and some in offices or shops. They have eyes and a memory. They can easily see what you look like. They might remember what you look like, where you were and at what time. Is this an assault to your privacy? Is this infringing your human rights? No.

In Britain's cities there are more and more video cameras being installed. I love this. If I were robbed or assaulted there would be indisputable video evidence that could be used to bring the offender to justice. I cannot understand why anyone has a problem with video cameras unless they are up to no good?

If I were to walk down the street wearing a padded jacket and a balaclava so my face and body shape were disguised what would the reaction be? I would have 5 police officers pointing a gun at my head. Do you think the argument you were entitled to privacy would cut any mustard?

Assuming I was dressed normally, and I snatch an old lady's handbag she would shout and people would look round. They would witness the event and the police would have descriptions from numerous people as to who attacked the old lady and how.

Returning to the subject of the Internet there are no witnesses, and no faces to recognise. When I visit a website I have no idea who else is on the site at the same time. The owner of the website has no information about people who visit the site. In terms of privacy this is far more private than even the scenrio with the balaclava. This is a criminal's dream come true.

Say this old lady who had her handbag stolen went to report the crime and the police refused to record details of the offender because it infringed his right to a private life. Can you imagine the public outcry?

Now that I have won that argument, let us ramp up security on the Internet. When I send and receive information on the Internet, the only way I can be identified is by the unique number my computer uses to enable replies to be received from other computers. This is my IP address. Technically with my IP address, date and time this can be traced to my internet line - usually a telephone number and address. In practice this is nearly impossible. Even if this is accomplished there is no way to prove who was using the computer. There is no physical description of the person. By the time the address is located the computer could be removed or destroyed.

My point is I want more logging of activities on the Internet. I want more technology to link Internet activities to a real person. Without it cyber-crime will continue to soar. I don't see how having all my activities on the Internet logged is an issue - so long as I am not doing anything illegal.

The worst aspect of all this logging is that the logs are sometimes used to directly target marketing to certain demographics. If the logs record you accessing BBC News online this could be of interest to a Financial Times salesman. The salesman would be happy to pay good money for this information.

To the people who have a concern about this:
1. We are permanently bombarded with advertising every day of our lives. It doesn't stop us watching television for example. We are all capable of simply ignoring it.
2. We get so many valuable services on the Internet for free. If users of the service do not pay at point of use the providers need to obtain an income to support the service somewhere. As the consumer has come to expect so much for nothing on the Internet this is a situation of our own making - and to be honest - I would rather read an advert than part with hard-earned cash!

To conclude - we need to markedly increase security on the Internet for the protection of the community. I don't believe it is any less private than walking down the street. If I am abiding by the law I don't see what the problem is with my activities being recorded.

Chris

Commercial Interests vs New Technology

I often wonder what the world of computers and technology would be like were it not for commercial companies making sure their user's choices are restricted to their own products, and were it not for all the law suits due to infringing patents that defy common sense.

Competing techinical products are great - if only the winner was the one that proved to be technically superior as opposed to the one whose inventor had the biggest pockets.

It is an ongoing joke in the web programmer circles as to how Amazon managed to get a patent for a One-Click shopping service. Most shopping websites allow customers to create a profile holding their address and payment details to make repeat shopping easier. So I am browsing a shopping site, I have logged into the site so they know my identity. If such a site allows me to click a 'Buy' button and my order is created this infringes an Amazon patent.

Another example is the iPod. On it I store music - each track having properties such as Genre, Artist, Album and Track name. The obvious way for me to choose what to play is to select the property I wish to use, then to look through a list of all music sorted by said property. This is patented by Creative Labs. How else am I meant to choose my music? Any 10 year old asked this question will come up with the same answer. How can a commercial company patent something that is not a serious invention?

These patents causes competing products that cannot afford to pay for a patent license to deliberately design some inferior interface. How is this good for the user?

Quite often a company has a successful product that people like. It gets an established user base. As the product and technology evolves this company makes some bad decisions that lead to a worse product. Users are then stuck with a dilema and have to choose to put up with the new inferior product, or deal with the upheaval and problems of switching to an alternate and incompatible product.

I get so annoyed when features are removed as products evolve and users are forced to buy a second add-on product or upgrade to get the features back.

A final issue is when companies set rules and restrictions that govern how other companies can create products to integrate with their products. So often these are designed to prevent integration and cause users inconvenience to limit the user base that embrace the competitors product.

Havn't I done well not mentioning Microsft and Apple in the above article??

Maybe this is one area where I should be grateful to the regulation fanatics that run the EU? They have taken on Microsoft for uncompetitive practicses. The problem with fining a company for bad practices is that they simple pass the cost of the fine on to the end user. When you buy your next Windows think how nice it is that some of that price paid the record breaking EU fine they incurred! I await to see if the EU ruling actually improves the user experience.

Chris

Vista again!

I still enjoy a good laugh every time I think of Microsoft's launch campaign for Vista! Remember that "The Wow starts now"! What wow? Looking back it wasn't even a pop. Or a squeaky bit of wind. (Sorry for being a bit rude!)

Do you know anyone who is using Vista? I don't. I have considered switching to it a few times but within a couple of days come running back to XP. One of the main issues I have with Vista is it regularly re-writes its boot program to my boot sector. I think it is triggered by Microsoft Updates. But becuase I am evaluating Vista I am multi-booting and using a third party boot manager. The fact Vista always screws this up and I have to restore it from CD to get back to my XP installation puts me off trying it!

I havn't mentioned my Dad on here before. He is very clever and is the fountain of all knowledge. But he really struggles with computers. He believes a computer should do what he wants, how he wants. And it never does. The reasoning for pressing the Start button to stop the computer still beats him.

Because he is a computer amateur he is probably one of the most vulnerable users to all the virus and phishing scams. I have set up all his computer security as high as I can. I have explained to him to watch for anything suspicious and tell me if anything changes on his computer. I have also explained to be extremely warey of pop-ups telling him of a problem and telling him to click somewhere or install something. This is how he has been caught in the past by a trojan.

He has a new digital camera and enjoys checking his emails. Someone at work had told him you can put your photos onto a DVD as a movie and play it on your friends televisions and he wants to do this. I can't find any simple software to do this on XP but Vista does it natively. The Vista interfaces for photos and videos are significantly enhanced over XP. I have asked him to try and upgrade. Though it is noticably slower, his PC can run it. He hasn't switched yet.

I have waffled a bit above, but I have two serious points to make:

1) A learning computer operating system.

This is a vision we were promised with XP. That the computer learns what tasks you do most and automatically tunes itself to help you. Problem is it doesn't work with XP. And it has got worse in Vista. Every few weeks when I visit home I have a list of messages, changes or new icons that Dad has noticed - as I asked him to. They are nearly all made automatically by the computer learning or applying updates. They do not help at all. They cause confusion. Why when he is learning how to work the computer do the goal posts keep moving?

There is really no excuse on Microsoft's account. Computers are fast, have plenty of idle processor time and always on internet connections. How can basic self-tweaking algorithms perform such a bad job of knowing what a user wants? And why is it impossible to turn them all off and lock the computer down to a consistent state?

2) Multiple Users with proper roles still not anywhere near implemented.

Since Windows NT Microsoft has allowed multiple users to have a different personal environment. Users can be an administrator or a standard user. I've have discussed Vista security on this blog months back so will avoid repeating myself. What I want is for the standard user to be let alone to work. They can use Word, surf the net and use the applications that are on the PC in peace. Save all the annoying windows nags (which have increased three-fold in Vista) for when an administrator logs in.

Why is it not possible for me to make any change as an administrator and apply it to all the users? If I install a wireless network when I am the administrator it should work as soon as a standard user logs in. When I am setting up the machine I have to log in as every user account and setup things like the networking and Office settings.

I know windows is not meant to be a fully multi-user operating system. Only one person can work on the machine at a time. It is not possible for a less powerful machine to connect remotely and run programs on a powerful machine while someone else is working on it. However on the launch of Windows XP it was claimed that each member of the house could have their own account, own documents, own favourites etc. But it still does not work.

Usability of computers should have moved on by now. Microsoft has had generations of operating systems to make this work. Why have such basic features still not been delivered? And why are amateur users still struggling to learn Windows way of doing things?

Chris

Update: I am discussing stand-alone Vista in a home or small business environment. Central management and configuration are different if your Vista machine belongs to a Domain.

Home Automation

Did you ever see programmes on the television in the 1980s and 1990s like Tomorrows World and some science fiction series? The prediction was that by the early 21st century our homes would be automated to make our lives easier. By easier I mean you wouldn't need to use a light switch to turn the lights on. After you left the room the lights would turn off automatically.

The basic concept of home automation is that your house would 'think' and know what you were doing and how you needed it to respond to any events.

Before I gave the situation any thought I assumed it would be very easy to make it happen. Burglar alarms have successfully detected movement for years. It should be easy to switch a light on instead of setting of an alarm! Right?

Well no. In an outbuilding or garden this solution would probably be enough. Someone walks into the shed at night and the lights comes on. 5 minutes later the light would go off, because the person has got the item they wanted and gone away. If movement is detected in front of your house it is nice to have a super-powerful floodlight turn on for a minute so any prospective intruder is exposed.

Now lets complicate things a bit and set up a system in a bathroom. There are two options for a sensor. One that detects the door opening, or one that detects movement in the room (please no puns). So you enter the bathroom and it is easy for it to decide it needs to put the light on. How long do you wait before switching the light off? Is the person washing their hands for 30 seconds or having 30 minutes in the bath? The movement detector isn't a very good system here. You could have a movement detector in the hall so it knows you moved in the bathroom then moved in the hall. Success you think! Problem is the computer doesn't know who moved if there is more than one person in the house.

In the lounge the problem gets worse. There is the same issue about a lack of movement. Have you gone to the pub, or are you talking or reading? But think about turning the light on. You are settled down to a good movie in the dark, and you reach on the table to pick up your drink. The system may detect the movement and turn the light on just when you didn't want it to!

One could get round this issue with more intelligence. The processing unit needs to have numerous modes. One for watching the tele when it does not turn the light on if you move. One for if you need a bath so the bathroom light doesn't time out. But hang on, now I have a switch to control the system and tame the intelligence. That means the switch behaviour wouldn't be as predictable as when it just turned a light on and off. You have to think even more 'I am about to watch the tele so I need to set the automation to TV mode'.

So you have paid £hundreds for an intelligent system. You have to think a lot more about how to use it AND you still have to control it manually.

What I havn't mentioned is the installation. All the components of the automation system need to be powered and linked together. Running special cables to all lights and sensors would be a big job. There are wireless options that use radio or mains wiring to communicate, but most of these only do one way communication. The processor will send a signal saying bathroom light on and assume it got there. To be reliable it needs to wait for a reply saying the light has been turned on, and if this is not received it must resend its instruction.

My last point is latency. I walk into the kitchen. The movement sensor picks me up when I cross its zones. It tells the computer there is movement. The computer thinks what time it is, has the sun set and what mode am I in. It decides if it needs to turn the light on and sends the signal. The light then comes on with a cool soft fade-up. Problem is by the time this is done you have got your beer out the fridge in the dark and are walking back to the lounge.

Don't get me wrong it is extremely cool to bring someone home after a lucky night in the pub and all the house lights fade on as you enter each room. You can amaze your friends by texting the system from the street to turn a light on. But it does not work. It doesn't save any hassle. It will probably save some electricity but is it worth it for the inconvenience of the lights going off three times during your evening meal?

When everybody has an embedded electronic chip in their body the system will be able to get a bit smarter and would probably work well. In the meantime assuming you don't want all your family to be chipped steer clear! You would have to wait years to save enough electricity to make a return on the investment!

Chris

Is it your fault or 'theirs'?

I have just read in disbelief about a clown booked to perform in Leeds for Tesco. He has recently been prevented from getting insurance unless he stops using a bubble machine in case it drips soap on the ground and someone slips. Now he has been banned from using any balloons because 'some children may be allergic to latex'. Have you ever heard of a latex allergy from a distant balloon? Why has an allergy affecting about 2 people taking precendence over the remaing 99.99% of kids enjoying a show containing balloons? Maybe someone is allergic to the clown's face paint. I'll bet a few people have died or injured themselves laughing. Should this mean all entertainment must stop?

This post isn't about saving a clown. It is a wider issue. If people get drunk and cause trouble it is the fault of the pub for selling alcohol! There is regularly uproar about violent computer games, and more specifically recently about the setting of such violence in Manchester Cathedral. The authors claim it is just a fantasy and is not real - so its OK. Problem is now graphics and consoles are improving games are starting to look and feel much more realistic. To pass levels on games you have to keep trying, and honing your gut reactions to beat your opponents and win. After a day playing Ridge Racer I actually find myself thinking about taking corners much faster in my real car. I have decided to stop playing the game because it could put me in danger. Most other people would probably not be so sensible, and would practice in the real car so they could improve on the game. But because of this should the game be banned from the public? Is it the game author's fault for encourauging dangerous driving in a game where there are not the same consequences?

Additionally the Lords committee has recently published a good report into the future of personal safety on the internet. I like it because one of the key points they attack is current software 'license' agreements. For some reason the person who created the software is not responsible for all the flaws in the software. It is my fault for running the software! Also they suggest holding Internet Service Providers responsible for viruses etc sent from their network. I actually don't agree with this - the person responsible in my view is the one who created the virus. Any changes to make net users reliably traceable in the real world would let us nail em up!

When I buy a car do I have to sign a license? If, for example, there is a fault with all BMWs that a wheel falls off at 80mph and kills the driver would such an agreement exempt the designers from responsibility for the fault? I think the charge would be corporate manslaughter earning someone a jail term.

These issues I have mentioned are all very different issues that may seem unrelated, but my point is about who is responsible for how much? Where does a supplier's responsibility end and a consumer's responsibility start?

Can someone sell me software that exposes my credit card details to the world without me being aware and it not be their fault? Can someone sell me a program to hone my reactions to make me a more dangerous driver and claim it is my fault for using it and applying it to my real life? Can an unusual allergic reaction in one person be enough to ban all balloons from the country? Or should that person expect a clown to have balloons and avoid his show?

You know now this is composed I realise I have already written a post about this same issue. I called it Religion and racism about the racism row with Shilpa Shetty on Celeb Big Brother.

Someone in government needs to take this issue on board and establish some uniform guidance that can be applied across the board. Exactly where does a supplier's or consumer's responsibility begin and end?

Shockingly I can't begin to answer that off the top of my head. Information Technology rules are definitely too soft on supplier's. The Lords report hit that nail on the head! I also feel broadcasting rules are too hard on their supplier's. Might come back to this one.

Perhaps the answer is nowhere - both are responsible. But we need to keep the compensation lawyers on a leash! Maybe compensation laws are partly responsible for this problem?!

Chris

Playstation 3 revealed

I reviewed the PSP in a post on here in November 2006 and concluded it was wrongly marketed as a games machine. Sky told me unofficially then they wanted to embrace the PSP and the deal with Sony has been confirmed in the last week.

No surprise then that I would be investigating the Playstation 3. I am not one of these who pays through the nose for brand new technology the day it is available. I like to wait for a few updates to add vital features and the first round of price cuts. Hence when I found a cheap deal in Argos for a PS3 with 2 controllers and 2 games I went out and put my birthday money towards one :)

Why given that I am not a fan of games? Most only entertain me for a couple of days as I have mentioned elsewhere when complaining about the pricing. It is a blu-ray disk player. One of the cheapest and best you can get. It has an internal disk on which to store downloaded games, photos, video and music. And it talks to the PSP. On the game front it is the most powerful and the only one with proper full hi-def 1080p support. The Xbox 360 can only do 1080i and has no HDMI socket.

So what have I found out that the Sony marketing department have not shouted from the rooftops? Soooo much.

Firstly, all the sales figures for the next-gen games consoles are putting the Wii up front because people like the new way to play with a motion sensitive controller. No-one seems to know the PS3 wireless six-axis controllers are motion sensitive in 3 planes!!

Second, blu-ray. What a silly name for a format. I told my mum I was going out to buy a blu-ray disk and she looked at me thinking I was about to buy an X-rated blue movie. So the HD-DVD versus blu-ray format war.... Everyone except Universal are releasing on blu-ray (90% of movies). Two studios will be releasing on both formats giving the HD-DVD camp about 50% of movie availability. Universal players are starting to hit the market that can play either format, so chances are eventually the consumer won't need to know what format the movie is on. The Sony Playstation 2 was one of the driving factors in takeup of the DVD so it makes sense the PS3 could help drive blu-ray, as Blockbuster in America have found. It's looking quite good for blu-ray - except as one salesman told me Sony have a bad track record with formats backing Betamax, Minidisk and UMD.

The PSP interactivity allows the PSP to access the PS3 via your wi-fi or any internet hot spot. At present you cannot access the games, a DVD or a blu-ray movie. You can play videos, music and photos that can be accessed by the PS3.

The PS3 can access multimedia stored on other computers on your home network running the DLNA protocol (Eg Windows XP or Vista). This massively enhances the available storage. It also supports USB hard disks and incorporates a memory card reader.

The biggest plus for me is the online Playstation Store. Were you aware that you could connect to a Sony store via your broadband connection? This allows access to lots of free movie trailers, game demos and chargeable games. These chargeable games are downloaded from the net to the PS3 hard drive - no CD is available - and they cost from £3 upwards. Chris is happy - some good and cheap games (Eg Lemmings and Gran Tourismo HD)!!

The last point is online gaming. Did you know that if you wish to play other people over the Internet on a Microsoft Xbox you have to pay £10 a month subscription for ever? With the Playstation these features are available for free.

For the techies it is officially supported by Sony to plug in any USB keyboard and mouse, partition the hard disk then dual-boot a guest operating system. I have installed Ubuntu Linux and can use the console as a normal PC that can run OpenOffice or any other open source or home written programs. It can't run Microsoft Windows properly yet. The processor is a new design called the Cell/BE. It has a dual-core 'normal' processor and 8 extra specialist processors or 'SPUs' that are managed and controlled by the main processor. In some cases the SPUs can each perform 2 operations at a time. This gives it far more number crunching power (18 simultaneous instructions) than any current PC processor.

So the PS3 is the most fully featured, powerful and cheapest next-gen games machine to own in the long run. It is capable of playing latest generation DVDs and has the best quality video and sound outputs. Not bad for £400. You won't get a gaming PC with blu-ray drive for anything like that - but the games console can be a PC or a DVD player as well!

My only concern is that the motion sensitive controllers and the new processor design have not yet been understood and used to their full ability by developers. I hope it isn't because the designers have made things too complicated or that they do not actually work in practice. There are not yet many specific games, but all the PS2 back catalogue will work and can be upscaled to hi-definition. Watch this space...

Chris

Vista Security Configuration

In the last few weeks Sony Ericsson have realeased Vista software for their mobile phone range. Philips webcam drivers are now available. I believe also that Apple iTunes is at long last Vista compatible. So now more hardware is supported is it time to upgrade yet?

If you are a computer guru and can still do what you need to on your PC under Windows XP then I don't see much need to upgrade, other than curiousity. It is no more stable than XP. I had to pull the power plug out to reset mine which has now caused serious damage to my user environment. All I was doing was watching a video full screen while running a slow installer in the background. The installer asked a question meaning I couldn't minimise my video or bring the installer to the front to allow it to continue. I should be able to multi-task perfectly in windows by now, but it is still not right. Also why Mr Gates have you taken out the ability for me to choose the colour of my taskbar?? XP Blue is nicer than Vista Grey - Grrr

If you have young kids who's internet usage needs monitoring or controlling, or you struggle with the multimedia interfaces of XP then maybe Vista would help you. Parental controls and digital photo handling are much enhanced in Vista. It is also true that it is harder for viruses to propagate through the internet under Vista - so long as you keep UAC (User Account Control) enabled.

What is User Account Control (UAC) you ask?

If you have installed Vista you will know - even if you didn't know it's name! By default this is enabled. It prevents any major changes to your computer without your permission. Whenever you use the control panel, or run an installation program you will be bombarded with windows telling you that you are about to change the system or install the program. After an hour you will be so fed up with all these prompts you will just be clicking Yes and Accept to them all without reading them or thinking about them. If you have searched help about how to turn the problems off the only option listed is to disable UAC completely. Don't do this!

This problem, technically called 'User Fatigue' makes the new protection virtually useless. In fact I will go one step further and call it damned annoying. The level of user it is meant to protect is the level of user that will become most vulnerable.

There is a very little publicised way of fixing this, while still making use of all the advantages of it. That is the purpose of this post. The instructions below will allow you to create one account that will be able to alter anything without receiving the new security warning windows.

Background

In Windows XP each account was either a standard user that could not change the system configuration, or an administrator that could change anything. Because everyone needs to tweak things at some point everyone used the administrator setting for all their work under XP. Hence the terrible situation with viruses, malware and configuration problems.

In Vista this has been modified. An administrator level account is a normal user that must say yes to a security warning before it can change the system. Perfect you shout! Except when setting up a new system you will be constantly changing things and will get so many of these security prompts you will be pulling your hair out. Standard user accounts now have to supply the password to an administrator account before they can change things. Isn't that pretty similar to a new-type administrator account?? In a domestic situation yes!

Follow the steps below and you can have a proper administrator account that can do anything without being prompted. I recommend for normal use you use a new-type administrator account (created by default when you install your computer). If you have people using your computer who should never be able to install or change your computer create a non-administrator account for them.

Configuring UAC in Vista

Please note these changes are made at your own risk. If you change anything else make notes so you can repeat the process to reverse the changes.

1. Click on the Windows icon to open what would be the old start menu.
2. In the search box type 'mmc'
3. It should be found and listed as a program.
4. Click on it or press enter to run it.
5. You will be prompted with one of the security warnings asking for permission to run the Microsoft Management Console (now you know what mmc stands for).
6. Click Continue. The console will load.
7. Open the File menu and select Add/Remove Snap In.
8. From the list of available snap-ins, double-click on Group Policy Object Editor.
9. Simply click Finish in the Group Policy Wizard.
10. Click OK to dismiss the Add/Remove Snap In window.
11. Navigate the tree in the left hand pane of MMC to the following item.
"Local Computer Policy" ->
"Computer Configuration" ->
"Windows Settings" ->
"Security Settings" ->
"Local Policies".
12. Click on the policy titled "Security Options".

In the right pane are about 50 different policies that can be configured.

I recommend you change the following:

• "Accounts: Administrator Account Status" = Enabled
• Optionally edit "Accounts: Rename administrator account" to set the name of the super administrator account we are setting up.
• "User Account Control: Admin Approval Mode for the Built-in Administrator account" = Disable.
• "User Account Control: Behaviour of the elevation prompt for standard users" = "Automatically Deny Requests"

To exit the management console choose Exit from File menu. Say no when asked if you want to save. Your changes were saved instantly.

To login to the new administrator account open the start menu. Point at the arrow to the right of the padlock. In the menu that pops up select either "Log off" or "Switch User". I recommend the latter.

You should now be able to login to the new account. First thing to do is press (alt) - (ctrl) & (delete) and use the Change Password option.

For completeness, you can create, change or delete user accounts in the Windows Control Panel. The option you will require is in the "User Accounts and Family Safety" section and is called "Add or remove user accounts".

The more I use Vista the more I cringe at how it has such serious shortcomings in user friendliness. If a company of mine launched software this bad as a Beta I would be very concerned. I think a few people at Microsoft have been sitting on their arse eating donuts! (Picture homer simpson!). According to this report 10,000 people have been working for 5 years on this!

Chris

Update: This option is not available on the basic versions of Vista

Copyright theft

With the rise in speed and popularity of the internet connections, more and more users have access to the various file-sharing systems that enable users to share anything with other users. Unsurprisingly, this includes copyrighted material such as computer software, movies and music.

All the copyright owners are trying their very best to intercept and prevent this type of sharing. They argue that their customers are enjoying material they have paid to create without them receiving any payment. They claim this is threatening the livelihood of all their artists and production teams.

When systems were created back in the 1970s to record and playback music everyone moaned that it would destroy their livelihood because there would no longer be a need to play music live in concert halls etc. Then audio cassette was created and people could copy this recorded media. Then radio was the problem because people could hear the music without buying it. Same happened with TV when video was invented. Talk about history repeating itself! :)

The reason for this post is to state my view of downloading copyrighted material - which obviously I don't condone.

From a record companies point of view, what is the difference between:

1. someone using something they have downloading or copied, and
2. someone not buying it?

Nothing.

How much money does a record company loose in case one compared to case two? None, because the customer pays for their internet connection, their PC and their disk space. If they create a CD they have to pay for the blank CD and they have to pay to print on it.

If the person who has downloaded the content then starts selling it on for a profit, making money out of something they got for nothing I believe they are committing a crime. If they just use it themselves a few times I think the record companies should look at this as free advertising.

Most people who enjoy copied material believe they should give some money to the artists. This could be in the form of actually buying an original copy because they enjoy the work and are happy to pay for it. Even if they are not inclined to buy something they have already obtained they are much more likely to buy other works or merchandise by this company or artist in the future.

Another argument for copying is that most of what is paid for a music CD is pocketed by greedy record companies. On a £15 CD the artist receives much less than £1. Where does the rest go to and is it actually deserved? I'm sure Simon Cowell, one of the richest men in the world would argue it is!!

Before file sharing, how many times have you heard a hit song - thought it was really good and gone out to buy the whole album by that artist only to play the album and not like any of the other songs? If you go and knock on the record companies door and ask for your money back because you don't like the material will they give you a refund? Not likely! They will even accuse you of copying it before you brought it back!

My last point is the actual price of CDs and movies in the shops. Do you actually believe that £15 for an hour of music is value for money? Games are even worse. I object to paying £35 for a PSP game. I will probably only play it for a day before I finish it, get bored or get stuck. That is a hell of a lot of money to pay for one day's entertainment. It's even worse with the latest generation of console where games start at £50. Most of these are marketed to kids! How many kids get that much pocket money in a month?? It's not fair on parents.

The best way I think record companies could combat piracy is to become more customer friendly. They need to drop the price they ask for their products. Why when CDs were launched was the same music £6 on vinyl or cassette yet over £10 on CD? Why are songs bought in the iTunes music store dearer in real terms to UK customers than US customers for exactly the same song? Let's look how much they charge for movies on Hi-def DVD: Superman returns RRP £28.99 on HD-DVD, £17.99 on DVD. Does any of this extra go to the artists? I don't think so.

Customers are voting with their feet. And they don't like it! Ha!

Chris

If Microsoft made cars....

Bill Gates reportedly once compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated: "If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving twenty-five dollar cars that got 1000 miles to the gallon."

In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release stating:

If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

1. For no reason whatsoever your car would crash twice a day.
2. Every time they repainted the lines on the road you would have to buy a new car.
3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason, and you would just accept this, restart and drive on.
4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn, would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.
5. Only one person at a time could use the car, unless you bought "Car95" or "CarNT." But then you would have to buy more seats.
6. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, reliable, five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would only run on five per cent of the roads.
7. The oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single "general car fault" warning light.
8. New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.
9. The airbag system would say "Are you sure?" before going off.
10. Occasionally for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key, and grab hold of the radio antenna.
11. GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of Rand McNally road maps (now a GM subsidiary), even though they neither need them nor want them. Attempting to delete this option would immediately cause the car's performance to diminish by 50% or more. Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the Justice Department.
12. Everytime GM introduced a new model car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.
13. You'd press the "start" button to shut off the engine.

It's an absolute classic, but still rings so true!

Chris

Web 2.0 and beyond

Whenever you talk socially to people and say you work with computers and the web their question is always 'So what do you think about web 2.0'?

There is no such thing. Web 1.0 works. We don't need a web 2.0! The people that tell you we do are trying to sell you something.

When I return the question and ask what people think web 2.0 is - the answer is always these virtual life websites like Second Life. I have never logged into one. Also they run on the normal web, and display a website normally in a normal web browser. You can't call something Web version 2 without changing some infrastructure (Ie hardware), protocols (Ie http) and/or browsers.

This website trys to be a virtual world where you can interact with other non-existant fake people. To me that is electronic social networking. And their PR company have decided to try and sell it as web 2.0 to get more press.

End of rant. :)

Let me define what the web actually is. This really is basic stuff but I bet most readers wouldn't be able to explain it.

We start with lots of computers. They are connected together by a single network that allows them all to communicate with other instantly regardless of how far apart they are physically. This network is called the Internet. Some computers 'serve' data, and the majority download data to use it. The term data describes anything a computer can store or use. For my discussion of the web I will refer to 2 main kinds of data - Email and Webpages.

Email is an electronic letter sent directly by a sender to one or more named recipients. Anyone can send an email to any other net user for negligible cost. Whenever most users think of email, they also think of spam. Unfortunately spam is big business, and over 70% of all emails sent on the internet are spam. Spam is basically unwanted direct email. Usually marketing. Nothing can be done to control spam because it is untracable back to the sender, and it may have come from abroad where our legal system doesn't apply. Every spam message appears to be from a different sender on a different network, so blocking it is very difficult.

Webpages are nice looking pages of formatted text and graphics. To access them you need a computer connected to the internet. On this you start a web browser and enter the address of the web server you want to read from. If you don't know the webserver address there are sites that search the web for you and tell you the address. The reason it is called the web is because webpages can and pretty much always do contain links to other pages on the internet. This complex and unlimited interlinking of all webpages to each other is like a web, hence the names World Wide Web and webpages.

Moving on, having defined the web you should agree that what we have works. And it works well. Anyone can easily and cheaply publish anything to the world. It does not need upgrading or enhancing. What it does need is controlling. Controversial but true.

When something is controlled there is an extremely fine line to draw between policing it to protect people and prevent illegal activities, and censorship. In a country proud of allowing free speech, censorship is bad - its basically someone saying I don't like what your saying so you can't say it.

The two issues that need addressing with the web are:

One, it is beyond the control of the law. Illegal information and opinions can be published and this cannot be stopped. It is not always possible to trace people across the internet and hold them to account. Hence the problem mentioned with spam. The web is impossible to police. If anyone tries all the hackers scream 'but that infringes our privacy'.

Two, if a computer is on a network it may be possible to break into it remotely and change or access data you should not have access to. This also covers making changes to someone's computer by installing nuisance software like spyware or a virus. Vista's claims to help with this are pretty shallow.

When someone has addressed these two issues successfully, I will let them call what they create web 2.0.

Over and out.

Chris

Review of Google Apps

Following from my post about Software As A Service, I promised to review the Google Apps Beta service once I had used it for a while and put it through its paces. You need to try something for a couple of months before you find the problems! An example of this I recently hit was some great hardware I got cheap. Turned out it wouldn't work in Vista as it promised because it had a dodgy firmware version. Thankfully I got a refund no probs.

To recap, Google Apps is a customisable, brandable, free service from Google that provides email, calendar, chat, website, word processing and spreadsheet functions. It is planned to compete with Microsoft Outlook, Word and Exel.

So the question, should you give up your normal office applications yet and migrate to these software as a service alternatives? In a word NO!!!

See my other article for discussions of the principles. My conclusion then was cover a couple of potential problems yourself and it is a great idea.

The main advantage with services like Google Apps is they run within any web browser on any machine. This is also the biggest disadvantage. Web browsers, as the name states are small limited programs that visually display web sites, and let you navigate them. However this restricts the possible functionality of all websites. They are designed to prevent anything you look at from accessing your computer. This is why a website will never compete with a normal program running on your PC.

A lot of the functions in Office 2003 are available in Google Apps. Due to limitations of what is possible in a web browser, the features are much harder to find and use. The ways you can edit a document are not as sophisticated as is possible in Word. The next version of Office will move the barrier higher as Google get nearer and nearer to where it was. As an example a web page cannot be controlled by voice commands in the way it will be possible to control a word processor running on your PC.

I do uneqivically recommend the email features of Google Apps. It is head and shoulders above using the normal POP service provided by your internet company. The reasons why are described next - be warned its a long list :)

1. Google email will work with your domain name. Find a better service and you can leave without changing your email address!
2. You can create an unlimited number of email mailboxes, email aliases (think nicknames that forward to one of your other email mailboxes) and email lists (an alias that forwards to any number of other email accounts on the web).
3. It's quick. Email is delivered immediately its sent. My old email service could take 10 minutes to send a test message to myself.
4. 2Gb of storage per mailbox. You will have to try very hard to exceed that. I have just checked my PC and all my email from the last 5 years is only 1.5Gb!
5. All email mailboxes are filtered for spam by Google at their end. In other words you don't have to download everything to your computer and delete the ones your computer decides are spam. The spam filtering is free. And it is extremely good. I now get 2/3 spam messages a month compared to 10 a day with my old spam system (cloudmark) which was hot compared to most. Nothing important has ever been marked as spam in error. You can use the google web interface to review spam messages and release any you actually want.
6. Nothing is appended by google to sent or received messages.
7. One way you can access all your email mailboxes is from any web browser. This can be customised free to show your company name and logo if required. There are unobtrusive ads on this web page (same as in google search) unless you upgrade.
8. The other way is over an encrypted connection from your usual email client such as Microsoft Outlook. Normally, anything running on your network can eavesdrop when your mail program routinely looks for email. Every time you check for email your email account password is sent completely unprotected. I have never come across a service that allows secure email collection before. Outlook has a checkbox to turn it on if supported at the other end. This stops your password and your emails being eves-dropped.
9. It is usually not possible to use any outgoing (SMTP) service other than the one provided by your internet company for security reasons. Again google provide enhanced encryption and security for outgoing messages that works over any internet connection.
10. If you wish, all email (incoming and outgoing) will be kept on the google servers after you have retrieved it. It can be put in an archived state which effectively makes it disappear until you search for it. We all know Google for search and this is a great feature.
11. When accessing email in a web browser all related incoming and outgoing messages are grouped as a conversation so they appear as one large message.
12. There are loads of options for conditional filtering or forwarding of email.

In summary - it is good!

If you studied the above you will understand that at no point did you need to go to Google in a web browser. The email side (including the web browser email interface) of Google Apps is clearly ready for mainstream release. It is good enough for use in any size business. The rest is not. The web interface is unusable by all but the most advanced user. It is hard work. For example some calendar screens have two save buttons, one at the top and one at the bottom of the page. Press the wrong one and it doesn't save. The interface is very inconsistent between different parts of the applications. I could not recommend this aspect of Google Apps. Even sharing any access to a document between members of the same group was next to impossible.

Once it is out of beta testing and the interface is refined I will have another look. At the moment forget the features other than email. I have lots more niggles, and loads of features the system badly needs to be properly useful in a shared environment, but as its beta I'm sure Google will fix them and it would not be fair to detail all of them here.

To sign up go to http://www.google.com/a/ It's all totally free! You can even try the premium service free. This gives you more storage, ability to turn off the ads in the web email interface, an uptime guarantee and access to technical support. All the problems I raised they just logged them to be fixed by the developers.

Chris

Living with HD TV!

As I have a HD ready TV and Hi-Fi system I have been unable to resist getting a HD input source to test it :).

The early versions of the two HD DVD systems were awful according to all the reviews. Rebuying all my favourite films on HD disk would be expensive, if indeed they were available.

My media PC is no-where near powerful enough to play HD content downloaded from the net (It's a Pentium 3, 1Ghz - Great for music and normal def video playback). I can't get cable so my only possibility was Sky. I have stated my opinion about them in one of my first articles on my blog.

Basically I have switched my ADSL to Sky. I now get twice the speed (16Mb) for £10 a month, saving me about £12 by cancelling my old deal. Add to this the fact Sky now give away Sky+ free with Sky HD, that means we can get both products for £10 - it used to be £20. Therefore I get HD, recording and better broadband and still save £2 a month! I also got a good deal on my Sky HD hardware. Before christmas Curry's did an offer that you got the system installed for £200 (normally £360) when you made a certain purchase. This included my Sky HD set top box with full recording abilities. My opinion of Sky is improving!!

Before I continue with TV, my Sky broadband has been good. The free hardware is shipped completely configured, so once my old kit stopped logging in I plugged in the Sky router and it all worked. I have tested their technical support and was not impressed, but as its working at the moment I am very happy with it! The free Sky router is better than my old 3com one!

All the mags who reviewed Sky HD when it was launched concluded you need hi-def and once you see the picture, you'll never look back. I was scepticle. Was it really that good?

The first thing that hit me was the audio! All of a sudden a normal program like Planet Earth broadcast on BBC had stunning top-quality surround sound. During a filmed thunder storm I could hear rainfall all around me. And the HD pictures when Sky decides to broadcast them at full quality are breathtaking.

The new series of Last of the Summer Wine has been made in high def. When the men are chatting over a drink in Ivy's cafe the picture appears nearly 3D. The picture is so clear, your eyes can pick out the background and the subjects as if they are on different planes. Barry was sitting on his stairs chatting and I could inspect the wall paper and see what a bad job had been done of hanging it and how dirty it really was.

I do enjoy it. I now want more and more programmes in HD! As with most normal channels on Sky the HD channels have around 10% new content in a week, the rest is repeated episodes that were broadcast last week. Even the HD box office channels have very few new movies in a month. No need to repeat them so often Sky because we can all record them!

However, not all the material broadcast on the 10 Sky HD channels is made in HD. Some is up-converted, and most on Sky One HD is broadcast as-is eg, the Simpsons. The picture is no better than the quality from a normal Sky box and upconverted.

That brings me nicely onto my next point. Upconversion. All TVs have a 'native resolution' which is basically the number of rows of dots its display is made with. Normal TVs have 576 lines, and the two forms of HD are 720 and 1080 lines. When a 720 line display receives a picture in 576 it has to 'interpolate' the picture, which means converting the picture and making up the extra 150 lines with the goal of making the end result look better.

The market is awash with cheap DVD players that offer upconversion. I can't see the point as I already have an upconversion system inside my projector? Reviews of early HD ready TVs from a few years back concluded that a standard resolution LCD TV with good processing technology produced better results than a cheap HD-ready equivalent with poor processing.

How does a proper HD input compare to a decent standard definiton input for example, my progressive scan DVD player? In my opinion it actually does compare. The upconverter inside my cinema projector, the Hitachi PJ-TX200 really works well. The quality of the picture from a normal DVD of computer animated Disney films like Ice Age is almost as breath-taking.

As with normal resolution broadcasts, not all HD programmes that are broadcast are the same quality. Not all programmes have surround sound audio. I wish there was a proper labelling system made public that stated how hi-def each programme actually is. Fast motion on DVDs and the better quality HD broadcasts is fine. However some programmes the motion is decidedly dodgy. As the connection out of my Sky receiver is always 1080i then processed by my projector the issue must be at the Sky end.

I do like Sky+ (Sky's personal recording system). When I see something in a TV guide I want to watch, I switch the tele on and program it to record. Then when I have time I flick through the list of stuff that is recorded and pick what I want to watch. If my mood changes or I am interrupted I can stop it and come back to it. If I leave a live programme to check my cooking and take longer tending to something than a minute, when I get back to the TV I can rewind it, without needing to remember to ask it to record! You can now also set bookmarks within your recordings - very handy when you get to the best bit in a really good hi-def programme. I did have an accident that deleted everything from my Sky+ disk. Luckily within 2 weeks I had re-recorded most of the programmes I lost!!

To sum up, could I live without HD now I have had it for 2 months? Yes, but I'd rather not!! The picture is good, but a standard definition input to my HD projector still more than holds it's ground. I really enjoy full-quality 5.1 Dolby digital surround sound when a TV programme supports it, though not all do yet. I'm also very happy with the combined deal on offer from Sky!

Chris

Software as a service

Wow that title is the latest buzzword!

Every IT Director who mentions that will be in for a good pay rise from his impressed boss!!

To define Software as a Service it is the idea of renting your IT software, or even your IT hardware for a monthly fee. All you have to do is pay each month, and you get the IT facilities you have been promised by your service provider. For example Google have just launched their beta (not yet finished) Google Apps service. All one needs is a web browser connected to the internet anywhere in the world, and you can access a good word processing and spreadsheet service. All your work is stored on Google's systems.

It is in contrast to buying the products needed and installing them for an upfront capital fee, and then having access to them forever (in theory) for no more charge. For example, buying a PC and printer, buying a copy of Windows software, an office application suite and a finance program.

Reportedly, "Google are firing an arrow" across Microsoft's ship with their recent launch of Google Apps, Google Docs and Spreadsheets, and other integrated features. They are reportedly aiming for the Microsoft Office user base. I will be reviewing the specific service from Google Apps very soon in another post on here. The features are promising but are not very well integrated yet.

For now I want to talk about the principle, the advantages and the disadvantages of software as a service.

I have no doubts this is going to become a very large market. How much a provider can charge people to use the service remains to be seen, but when normal competitive market forces take charge I don't think the fee to each user will be much. The Google Beta is available free at the moment.

For the home user, the concept of accessing a good word processor cheaper than buying an office suite is going to be too good to true. If your PC gets a virus your documents are safe and secure and cannot become infected. If your PC breaks, you get a new one, plug it into the internet and all your favourite programs are available instantly. On your lunch break at work you can write a personal letter. When you get home you can print it and post it on your personal stationary. No need to worry how to take it home. No need to worry about backups. You don't at the moment but you should!

For the small business (say less than 10 employees) an added advantage is that everyone can find and share the documents easily. No need to pay a consultant to configure a file server, make the disk available to all your network clients and train everyone how to save onto the file server's disk. How many times have you searched all the computers in the company to track down something written by someone who is out the office, or no longer with the company? Google is famous for search, and needless to say you can easily search all your company's files. No need for all your staff to be in the office. They can use their broadband link at home to access all the company's documents. It is even possible for more than one person in more than one location to edit a document at a time, a feature called collaborating. Bill in the UK and Eric in Germany can both work on a joint report very easily and efficiently.

For the larger business I expect you will need your own IT department to provide a customised service specific to your company's needs. Applications that employees can access will all be thoroughly tested and controlled to ensure they can be supported and can meet the needs of the company. You will want to take your own backups so you are confident they are safe and are managed to your standards. For example you will keep a backup from every day within a month. Then from the 1st day of every month for 3 years. Then backups from 1st January and 1st July will be kept forever. These will all be in fire-safe locations. Should anything be needed from a backup you know how long it will take to locate the correct media and restore from it. I still think some large company's will use internet based services for specific tasks, such as collaborating with remote workers, then copying the file to your company servers once they are complete. Accessing your internet filestore would be something of a lot of value to a competitor!

In summary there is a lot of benefits of this new idea, aside from spreading the cost monthly and not having old computers that are too slow to be any use in 3 years.

I have two principle concerns.

The one I will mention first is program updates and new versions. People don't like change. With bought software you are in control. You don't want the new version - simple, don't buy it. With a managed service the provider can and will change the service. They don't have to ask you, and if you don't like the new version, tough! You are tied to a contract and all your files are on their system.

My second is a very big concern. With legs and lots of hair! Longevity.

After you have written a letter you save it. Why? So you can access it again in the future to save time if you have to send it again. So you can copy it if you need to send a similar letter. So there is a record and you don't need to print a spare copy on paper and put it in your cupboard. Ask yourself how long you may want to go back in time when you search for something. If a company answered anything other than 'forever' to this question I would be very worried! When I started in IT I worked for a very large consultancy company. Half my time was spent trying to get documents off superceded systems, 5 1/4 floppy disks written by Wang's because people had a need for them.

What happens in 3 years time when there is a new technology? Google will not have customers for the old 'service' anymore and could switch it off. Bang. All your work has gone. How do you get it back? They will probably promise a migration path to the replacement service, but they don't have to and probably wouldn't disclose the charge for this in advance. What if the company providing your service becomes the next Enron and goes into administration? The chances are slim but it IS possible. More likely, suppose I have a billing dispute with my provider? If I don't pay they can lock my service!

Google do offer a 99.9% uptime guarantee to premium (paying) customers. Ah that's good it won't ever go down. Dig into the guarantee a bit deeper. If it does go down what then? Well you get a few free days extra service IF you know it went down and IF you claim! So you have lost a vital report that could mean the difference between win or loose in a multi-million dollar law suit. Who looses out? What is the uptime guarantee worth? 20p!! No, the guarantee was only for email, not the documents service. It also guaranteed uptime, not that your files would be safe. Plus the service credit cannot be converted to cash. If they lost my data I would be off to someone better in a flash.

In short, you are no longer in control of where and how your data is stored, and you are just hoping that it will always be there when you want it. Trust me on this. It won't. No-one will offer a guarantee worth having to promise availability in 10 years unless I pay a fortune for it.

These concerns are still an issue with some bought software that has to 'phone home' when it is installed. In 10 years its phone home call won't be answered. You will be stuck in a time limited trial version. Check you can do what you want in trial mode with your programs before relying on them.

I'm amazed no one else has picked up on this problem, and I'm gonna try and get some answers to it, if there is one. My advice? When a new format is released, print all your important old stuff onto paper quickly! At least you can still read that in 50 years time when we no longer have electricity and everything is powered by fresh air! There is nothing in the IT world that can guarantee that. You think there is a computer in use today that will still work in 50 years time? I'm taking bets :) Got to make up for the global pension shortfall somehow lol.

Did I mention my specialism in IT was Business Critical servers (working on a 4 hour from problem to fix helpdesk with one of today's largest IT manufacturers), High Availability, Backups, Fault Tolerance, Disaster Recovery and Contingency planning?

Chris