When’s The Right Time To Upgrade?

No matter what kind of software you’re running, there will come a time when an upgrade is available. This could be a full version release, such as a yearly incremental upgrade to a software package that you’ll have to buy outright, or a point upgrade (so called because it’s not as fully featured and likely to change the product from, say, version 1.2 to version 1.3) that advises you via a pop-up screen that it’s available. Point releases should be free while version releases are often paid for upgrades, but there’s no real hard and fast rule.

With version upgrades, it’s typically pretty easy to decide; are the new features worth the price that’s being asked, or can you get by on the features of the existing package? If you can, there’s little point in getting the new version; you may have to spend some time learning a new interface and gain little in return but a hole in your wallet where your money used to be.

An important exception to this; Anti-Virus security software. These are sold as yearly subscription packages, and once your subscription expires, you’re at risk from any and all new bits of malware floating about. If your data, privacy and contents of your bank accounts are worth something to you, it’s probably more than the cost of a yearly anti-virus subscription. In other words, make sure this stuff is up to date and more or less constantly upgrading; it’s a lot less painful than a compromised and/or virus-laden system.

What about point upgrades? There’s a minor cost here, in that you’ve typically got to download them, and this can sometimes run to the hundreds of megabytes. Leaving that aside, it’s often wise to wait a day or so before adopting a new point version unless it explicitly addresses an existing problem you’ve got with the software. The computer company Apple’s a good example of this. In the last week alone, it’s released updates for its iTunes music service, an update for its core Mac OS X operating system to 10.7.2 and a major update for its smartphone/tablet operating system iOS to iOS 5. Combined, all those updates weigh in at over 1GB of downloads; more if you’ve got multiple iOS devices to deal with. That aside, there’s also the issue of access; in the first days after the iOS release it was quite difficult to get the entire installation (which included some server verification stages back at Apple) to complete because so many other customers were trying to do the same thing at the same time, and the servers couldn’t cope.

The other issue that point releases may introduce is bugs. Yes, each point release is designed to (at least in part, if not in full) deal with existing bugs, but there’s often the risk that they’ll introduce new ones. As an example, the iOS 5 update threw in a bunch of new features, but there were also existing smartphone Apps that didn’t like the new operating environment. Some will be updated to meet the new requirements, but it’s never guaranteed, and if the software that you rely on won’t work, you may end up out of luck. Waiting a few days or weeks and checking around your requirements can key you into the changes, both good and bad to anticipate, making the upgrade path that much less painless overall.

Can You Protect Yourself From Hack Attacks?

The recent attack on Sony’s Playstation Network was followed up with a flurry of attacks on a variety of online sites on everything from video game platforms to the CIA. Some attacks were deliberate and debilitating, others for the (alleged) “comedy” value that they gave one of the more prominent hacking groups, LulzSec, including the release onto the Internet of thousands of user passwords. LulzSec recently announced it was disbanding, but that’s not either verifiably true or the end of Internet hacking.

So what’s to be done? At a larger scale, it might not seem as though there’s much the ordinary user can do to protect themselves. After all, the administration of large online services is up to the providers, right?

Not exactly. While it’s true that we can’t control what those companies do, it’s worth noting that many of the behaviours of ordinary users have a profound effect on Internet as a whole. Here’s three simple steps that every single Internet user should follow to help both themselves and the security of the Web as a whole.

1) Keep it updated: Whether it’s operating system updates, new versions of your favourite Internet browser or the signature files of your AntiVirus software, running older, unpatched software provides an easy way into your system for the bad guys. This isn’t just a precautionary measure for your own system data; worldwide millions of systems are compromised and turned into attack or spam vector machines by malware without their owners being aware of it at all.

2) Simple passwords are only for the simple: You’ve probably got a password for dozens of online sites, from banking to Facebook and anything else besides. Remembering passwords is tricky stuff, but having a single login password for everything is just plain stupid. If a system is compromised through no fault of your own, the first and easiest attack on your other accounts is via a single password. There’s a number of software utilities that can help with storing multiple passwords securely via a single strong master password, and many of them can help you generate truly strong complex passwords for every single login.

3) Switch it off!: Most compromised systems are done so effectively invisibly; the whole point from the malware author’s point of view is that you don’t know it has happened, so they can continue to use your PC as a slave in a larger botnet, or more simply mine it for passwords, personal information and hopefully money. While you should protect yourself as well as is feasible via updates, one of the simplest things you can do to confound any malware is simply to switch your PC off when not in use. Sure, it’s handy to have a PC that flicks to life when you move the mouse or run a finger over the trackpad, but that always-on system is always available to malware authors and hackers as well. As an added bonus, you’ll save a reasonable amount on your power bill.

What does privacy mean for you online?

There’s been a recent storm of protest regarding the revelation that Apple’s iOS devices (iPhones and iPads) store the location of accessed mobile phone towers and GPS signals for a twelve month period on the devices themselves, and then, when synchronised back to your PC, store them as part of the backup. The issue here is twofold; firstly, that the data collection’s been done with little notification to the end users. Secondly, that it’s trivially easy to use the synchronising computer to read all of this information; in short where you’ve been with your device over the last year.

The first point is largely one of interpretation; Apple maintains that there’s mention of location services in the lengthy end user licence agreement (EULA) that you click through whenever iTunes needs an update or you buy a new iOS device. You know the one; the one that virtually nobody stops and reads because it comprises dozens of pages of near incomprehensible legalese anyway? In any case, switching off location services isn’t quite enough; an iPhone or iPad will still get a rough read from nearby mobile phone towers if you’re using 3G data anyway.

The second one is something that is becoming all too common, and it’s something that many of us give away for free in any case. Apple’s lack of security regarding the database on your host PC is a worry all of its own, but plenty of other companies make money — and some make their entire income — from the kinds of personal information that devices and services ask us to reveal. If you’ve used FourSquare, or have a Facebook account, or use certain Google services, there’s an immense amount of data tracking going on. Facebook’s particularly notable, as its defaults for many services, including the “places” facility that indicates exactly where you are at a given point in time are to allow all sorts of data display and data mining, all in the name of delivering advertising to you. Google, likewise, does collect data from Android smartphone devices, but states it does so anonymously. Still, again, Google likes having data on preferences, and again it’s to do with delivering advertising.. for now.

Quite how this kind of thing hits you will obviously depend on your own personal preferences as well. Highly extroverted types may enjoy broadcasting every little detail of their lives, whether it’s location details via FourSquare or personal thoughts via Twitter, while those of a more introverted nature, or those with either a reason to stay somewhat incognito (for better or worse reasons, whatever they may be) will be naturally wary of any kind of data collection.

So what’s the solution? There isn’t a simple way these days to fall off the radar of everybody all the time (and only the most introverted would want to), but it’s certainly worth thinking about how you use online services, not to mention mobile broadband services, and what that data usage says about you. If you’re uncomfortable with that data being available to others — not necessarily broadcast public, but undeniably recorded — then careful consideration of your technology usage would seem wise.

What’s preinstalled on your PC?

Just recently a small storm of outrage erupted when a security expert alleged that Samsung had been installing secret spyware on its laptops to monitor user activity. The expert had scanned for and found what his anti-virus software (erroneously, it should be clearly and distinctly noted) identified as a keylogging application called StarLogger. In fact, it turned out to be language files for the Slovenian language that were falsely identified as the nasty spyware instead. The initial report was updated, and the anti-virus firm involved has apologised (which you can read here: http://sunbeltblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/samsung-laptops-do-not-have-keylogger.html).

OK, so Samsung was entirely innocent in this case, but the strategy that it (and most other consumer computer vendors) employ to pre-install software does still have some downsides and annoyances.  When you buy a new laptop or desktop PC, it’s often got lots of additional  software pre-installed. Most folks would expect an operating system (whether you’re in the Mac or PC camps, or even in certain circumstances Linux), but what else you get beyond that varies a lot from vendor to vendor and even by model. That’s partly determined by the capabilities of the hardware you buy. There’d be little point in putting handwriting recognition software into a laptop that didn’t have a screen capable of pen input, for example, or webcam software onto a machine that didn’t have a webcam.

It’s also determined by sponsorship, deals with differing companies, and whether the application in question is a “full” version or some kind of “lite” or time-limited version. For software that directly accesses the hardware, such as CD/DVD burning, it’s usual to expect you’ll get fully functional software, but the same isn’t true of most office suites or anti-virus packages. When you’re shopping for a new system, take careful note of terms such as “Starter Edition” “Lite” or “Trial”. You may think you’re getting a bargain having a laptop that comes with Microsoft Office, but not if it’s a version that’ll work for only sixty days. Likewise, the AntiVirus screen that pops up the moment you start up the machine for the first time — or even as the system is setting itself up in some cases — will expire quite quickly, requiring additional payment to keep your protection up and running. Most of those applications will nag you incessantly about updating, which can be annoying and distracting, especially if they pop up over work you’re trying to do. Applications that you never use may install themselves to run each time the system starts up, eating up small but significant portions of your system resources as they do so. If they’re applications you use constantly, that’s quite handy as they’ll start up more quickly, but if not, you’re just wasting processing cycles. Certainly don’t make the mistake of letting your AV expire — that way lies actual malware and spyware — but equally it’s worth realising that you can always uninstall all the extra applications and use your own, depending on your tastes, needs and budgets.

What do you think? Do you use all or any of the preinstalled applications on your PC, or uninstall all of them and start with a fresh PC every single time?

The Perils Of Digital Buying

Late last week, the company behind the Borders and Angus & Robertson book chains put them into administration, citing mounting losses in the physical retail space. Online sales of books (and other items) may have played a part, and to a lesser extent, because it’s still quite a nascent market, e-book sales.

Borders Australia was a keen seller of eBooks, promoting the Kobo platform as its own, as well as selling Sony’s e-readers in its stores. One of the first stories to emerge from the collapse of Borders in Australia came from Kobo representatives (it’s actually a Canadian company) stating that Australian Kobo e-book purchases would still be valid and could still be accessed even if the physical Borders stores went under. I’m not sure what’ll happen to the physical stores, but the spectre of online sales vanishing in a puff of data centre is something that I suspect we’ll all have to face in the not-too-distant future.

Considering that it’s now possible to buy books, movies, music and software as purely digital goods, spread across devices that may have their own storage or may rely on “phoning home” to a specific server to verify that you’ve got the rights to play them, it’s a problem that’s only going to grow in scope. As an example, Nokia made a lot of noise a couple of years ago with its “Comes With Music” service, which promised unlimited music downloads for specific phone models as long as a subscription was paid, but the take up of the offer (and Nokia smartphones in general) hasn’t been great. Nokia’s virtually axed the service outside of a handful of countries (Australia’s not one of them), so if you pick up a Comes With Music phone, you’ve got a lot less value than you might think, especially if you’ve not verified your playback rights, or if your PC dies on you.

With physical goods, you’ve always got something that you can open up to read, pop into a player to listen to or view, and, naturally enough, sell on to other people. Digital goods don’t have those benefits, although they’re easier to buy, sometimes cheaper and much simpler to store. Good backing up is obviously essential, but be wary if you’re buying goods that require some kind of DRM validation (Digital Rights Management); that could come back to bite you if the DRM service goes offline.

The weak link in your security might just be you

Amongst the Twitter accounts I follow, there’s one that goes by the name of “Tweets Of Old”  (http://twitter.com/tweetsofold/). It presents ancient newspaper headlines, largely for amusement’s sake.

Late last week, the brains behind Tweets Of Old unearthed this gem:

“BEWARE! A band of confidence operators, with a spurious baking powder scheme,are roaming the vicinity, to prey upon our housewives.”

Those interested in spurious baking powder schemes can read the whole sorry story here (http://tweetsofold.com/2010/09/beware-a-band-of-confidence-operators-with-a-spurious-baking-powder-schemeare-roaming-the-vicinity-to-prey-upon-our-housewives/), but I suspect the baking powder confidence tricksters are by now long gone.

The headline dates from 1885, but it shows something that still applies today and particularly applies to technology. Back then, the technology was pretty simple stuff — a stove and some baking powder — and now the technology is much more complicated. PCs. Smartphones. Email. Web browsers. There’s all sorts of potential security holes to worry about. Having good anti-virus/anti-spyware software is a highly sensible step, but it won’t do much if the weakest link in the chain is you — and all too often it is.

Every single day I get hundreds of email entries ostensibly from Paypal, or the iTunes Music Store, or the Commonwealth Bank, or any number of recently deposed African dictators with sad stories to tell and untold wealth to share. I ignore them all, because they’re just simple scams designed to deceive (and often panic) me into clicking a link, or give up some information (such as my account login details) with a fake copy of the actual merchant store login page. There are subtle hints that give the game away, such as poor spelling, or hovering over a link to see where it redirects, but realistically the best way to combat this kind of thing is stop, take a breath, and think.

Nobody in the entire world wants to give you their millions. Sorry, but it’s true. Likewise, if your financial institution (or favourite online store) sends you a message telling you your account’s about to be suspended — or approved for thousands of dollars worth of purchases — then you’ve got a right to be concerned. Certainly, that’s sensible, but it’s equally sensible to ignore any links in emails telling you this kind of thing. Fire up a fresh web browser, manually type in the URL and log in as you usually would. If the email was genuine in the first place, you can be sure there’ll be a message waiting for you there. If there’s no message, it’s a scam, pure and simple.

Pure and simple scams have been around for hundreds of years, but they only work if we invite them to work upon us. A little forethought, and doing your own research can save you from the perils of not only the loss of cash, but also identity theft, destruction of your credit history and any number of spin-off scams and problems.

Can Networking be made easy?

Most — not quite all, but almost all — of the home broadband connections sold in Australia come with a network attached. I’m not talking here of the internet that you pay money for and connect to, but the wired/wireless network delivered by a router of some sort. It’s certainly possible to set up a broadband connection using only a modem, but they’re becoming increasingly rare in the marketplace. Most ISPs push the router option over a simple modem if you’re buying from them, and even store shelves are stacked high with combination modem-routers, with a tiny section at the bottom for the basic modem models.

From one perspective, this makes a lot of sense. A router acts like a digital post office, sending your internet connection to any computer (or other device) you’d care to share your internet connection and files with. There are some pretty well known problems with security — especially wireless security — with routers, but there’s a bigger and more fundamental problem. Most routers can be utter torture just to get up and running.

I was recently at the launch of a new range of Belkin routers where the company revealed some of its support statistics. Belkin, like most vendors, offers two different ways to set up one of its routers. Those with plenty of networking knowledge can dive right into the web-based interface, tweaking MTU, VPI and PPPoE settings to their heart’s content. That’s not most folks, however. Most people will opt for the installation CD provided with the router, hoping that the automated setup wizard will step them easily through getting the router working.

Quite how many fail is rather eye opening. Only 10% of those who buy a router, according to Belkin, will get it working without having to call tech support, and even those folks have to interact with the router some 45 times — presumably that’s a lot of button clicking and password entry — before things are up and running. That’s a lot of stress in an area that few people are all that au fait with, really. I’m in a position where I do know my way around a router, but to put it in a context for myself, if I had to interact with my car 45 times before I could get it started, I’d give up and take the bus every time. And I really don’t like the bus much.

There’s a certain undeniable extent to which networking can’t be made easy when and if things go wrong, as there’s a lot of failure points to deal with. One solution would be to go for a product that’s either pre-configured by your ISP, which often comes with the extra dangling carrot of being “free”, or at least rather cheap. You can’t get something for nothing, however, as most of the models sold this way are locked to a single ISP, and they’re not always optimally configured in terms of wireless security in any case. Change ISPs, and you’d have to wastefully get an entirely new router, or pay a penalty fee for “unlocking” your own property. This isn’t always the case, so be sure to check carefully upfront.

Can you get ISP satisfaction?

Internet connectivity is everywhere you look, from PCs to smart phones to games consoles, whether it’s delivered over cables, phone lines or even wirelessly. For most of us, we don’t really think about our Internet Service Provider (ISP) except in two key areas. Firstly, there’s the time when we’ve got to pay the bill, although with bundling and direct debits quite normal for most ISPs you may never even think about that. Competition is still fierce and the price of both wireless and fixed line broadband services still continues to tumble on a per-gigabyte basis.

The other time, of course, is when things go wrong. When your connection is slow, flaky, or worst of all inexplicably “down”, you’re going to want to know why, and fast. Quite how your ISP responds (if they respond at all) will form a big part of how you relate to them, as beyond picking your plan details, it’s the primary time that you do relate to them at all. If the support person has an impenetrable accent, a poor line connection, baffles you with jargon or rigidly sticks to a support script that doesn’t help you in the least, it can quickly get annoying.

A recent Roy Morgan poll of ISP Satisfaction ratings reveals some interesting figures.  Overall, ISPs must be getting something right. In the six month period from July to December 2009, 73.3% of surveyed customers were at least “satisfied”. Of those, 43.7 were “Fairly Satisfied” and 29.6%” were “Very Satisfied”. Breaking it out into the actual providers reveals a lot more detail. Internode (90.3% satisfied) and iiNet (86.8%) customers seemed happiest with their service.

The wooden spoons — those ISPs whose customers fell below the 73.3% industry average — fared worse. Amongst the major players, these included dodo (66.9%), Telstra BigPond (66.1%) and iPrimus (65.1%). The interesting thing there is the gap between the the bottom rung and top rung, which Roy Morgan notes is higher than in other service industries. In other words, where you might expect a small gap between ISPs depending on how cranky given customers were, it’s odd that it’s this large. Either the good guys are exceptionally good, or the bad guys are doing particularly poorly. Telstra’s a particularly interesting case, as they’ve still got the lion’s share of the overall market. Are Telstra customers more irritable with some facet of their service, or does the number of customers give rise to a higher level of “squeaky wheel” dissatisfaction?

So what can an ISP do to “improve” customer satisfaction, given that in an ideal world, the only time you’d even notice your ISP is if they improved your service?

How safe is your data?

These days our PCs are much more than just computers, they’re our life. Most of, if not all, the important information in our life is now stored electronically on a computer. Whether it’s those precious family photos, that beloved music collection or critical business documents and financial records, everything is digital. Hardware failure, a virus, fire, theft, a power surge, or even a disgruntled employee and you could be left with all of your data gone forever. The possibilities of how it can happen are endless (trust us we’ve seen them all) and we can only guarantee one thing – all hard drives will fail, often without any warning whatsoever. That’s the bad news. The good news is that it’s simple to address.

Geeks2U is proud to announce the launch of GeekVault, a secure, affordable, set and forget online data backup service. GeekVault came about after Geeks2U technicians became increasingly distressed with being called out to thousands of jobs a year where their valued customers had lost crucial personal and business data and it was either irretrievable or the cost of recovery was uneconomical. Our Geeks demanded a better way to do things and so we developed GeekVault.

Why GeekVault?

1. LOCAL: We backup your data to a leading Australian data centre so it’s never far away.
2. SECURE: Data is encrypted using 256 bit AES “bank grade” encryption before it even leaves your computer and is then sent via a secure 128 bit encrypted SSL link.
3. FAIL-SAFE: All backups are securely replicated across our network of data centres spanning the globe. All of these data centres are “bank-grade” with only the best security, uninterrupted power sources, dedicated internet connections and climate control.
4. LIVE: LiveProtect™ offers constant and continuous protection – whenever a file is changed, it’s backed up.
5. LIGHT: Minimal bandwidth usage – only the incremental change to a file is backed up, not the whole file, minimising your internet usage.
6. SAFE: Safest form of backup – unlike a local backup, your data is not susceptible to fire, theft or the many other risks of storing your backups locally.
7. SET IT. FORGET IT: Gone are the days of having to remember to regularly perform that backup which you know is so important but seldom bother to do. Once setup, GeekVault simply charges your credit card once a month for as long as you wish to use the service (there is no minimum contract) all the while fiercely protecting your data. Every photo, every email, every document, all safe with GeekVault.
8. ONLINE: Access files anytime, anywhere – all you need is an internet connection. Enjoy one click file & folder sharing. Share your files with anyone with an email address.
9. SHARE: Utilise your plan’s data allowance across as many PCs as you like rather than having to sign up each computer to a separate account.
10. ROLL-BACK: GeekVault keeps an unlimited version history of every one of your files allowing you to roll-back to any past version at any time. Best of all, we keep these for you for free without using any of your data allowance.

Sign up now for as little as $9.95 a month and never have to worry about your data again. It’s a tiny price to pay for huge peace of mind!

Find out more

The Intel i7

Intel has played a significant role in all things computer ever since the development of the personal PC… and beyond. In fact, many people are not aware that Intel was formed way back in 1968. Since their formation, they have steadily made strides in the development of semiconductors and computer processors. Intel became a household name during the 90’s through their popular “Intel Inside” advertising campaign and because of the fact that theirs was the processor of choice when it came to manufacturing personal computers.

Although Intel is known historically for developing microchips, they now offer a variety of products for computer manufacturers:

• Graphic Chips
• Motherboard chipsets
• Flash memory
• Network Interface Controllers and Integrated Circuits
• Embedded Processors

The latest product offering by Intel is creating somewhat of a stir. It is the new Intel i7 and it is their most recent processor. The Intel i7 expands on what they have already done in the area of computer processors and it is said to be extremely fast. I have been hearing a lot about this product but wanted to get the facts for myself, so I decided to do a bit of investigation. When I first heard that Intel had a new processor, my questions were along the lines of how quick would it be? What would it offer the user that is new in comparison to what we have seen before and what features have been improved upon since their last release?

What I have discovered is that the i7 processor makes the most of all of Intel’s breakthrough technologies and then combines them together for maximum power:

• Intel Turbo Boost technology
• Intel Hyper-Threading technology
• Intel Virtualization technology
• Enhanced Intel SpeedStep technology
• Execute disable bit
• Intel 64 architecture

Excitingly, the Intel i7 is described as “adrenaline on a chip”! It appears that Intel went all out when it came to packing the processor with all of its most successful technologies. The i7 uses multi-core technology. This is a feature that helps the processor to direct and send power to the places that your computer needs it most at any particular moment in time. The i7 has the ability to perform 8-way multi-tasking and has increased cache size. All of this works together to make things much easier for computer users that multi-task in a serious way. They can now open several applications at the same time without worrying about their computer getting sluggish or freezing. Multimedia users will also be happy about how smoothly their PCs run even with their heaviest applications open.

Two powerful technologies that Intel have included with this processor are Turbo Boost technology and Hyperthreading. Both of these have worked well for Intel in the past. They contribute to increased processor speeds and better multitasking capabilities.

Keep your eye out in the media you will be sure to hear about this amazing advancement in computing

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