Apple approved Opera Mini, an alternative browser for the iPhone. Cool!
It’s not really a browser in the truest sense of the word, since it doesn’t actually render web pages. The pages are rendered on Opera’s servers, then the results are transmitted to the iPhone via OBML. This should make browsing very fast, so it should be a nice improvement over Safari.
I’ll download it shortly and report, but I’m optimistic!
Couple of articles on the subject:
I love Google, I really do – they generally get it right, but I’m getting concerned. I rely on Google for so much I worry that too much of my life is in one place. And although the Ad’s they push are relatively unobtrusive, I’m starting to feel very much “watched”. Like they know what I do, where I go. Big Brothery.
So what are some good alternatives for Google services?
How can we live without Google Search? Let’s face it, they are the best. Bing is ok, but I generally feel like I get what I want from Google faster than Bing, MSN or Yahoo. There are a couple of good alternatives out there though that are worth a look.
The best of them is scroogle.org. Scroogle is a web search pluggin that does some really nice things. It uses Goggle search but isolates you from the cookies that Googles writes to you , and doesn’t send your IP address to Google. Most importantly, you don’t get any Ads! As an added bonus, you get 100 search results per page. Very nice.
I use several browsers – IE, Firefox and Chrome. Chrome is usually the fastest, but I use Firefox more than the others. A good open source Chrome alternative is Chromium. It’s basically an open source version of Chrome. The user interface is nearly identical, and it doesn’t track your info like Chrome does. The home page for the project is here, and the latest windows build is here.
There are loads of online calendars out there, MSN, Yahoo, MobileMe just to name a few. I’d like to stay away from the big names – they aren’t better than Google and have many of the same privacy issues. I’ve been looking at 30 Boxes (http://30boxes.com/) and so far I really like it. The format is really nice, and it’s iCal based, so there are lots of ways to view the calendar (mobile devices, desktop, web) and there are tons of calendars to add in (holidays etc). They calendar will send appointment reminders to your mobile device, and yes, there is an iPhone app. I have not tried to hook it up to my iPhone calendar directly – would be great is that worked too.
This is a short list – just search for Google Alternatives and you will get plenty of reading material. Other honorable mentions – OpenOffice.org, Zoho.com (very cool office tool, has email, CRM, project, docs etc).
Windows 7 has some great features, but some things are very different from what you may be used to. Mirosoft has strived to extract the user from things like driver installations and other technical tasks so that “things just work”. A fantastic goal, but the reality of Windows is that as an operating system that serves the enterprise, all of the complex underlying tasks that most users don’t need or want to know about still need to be accessible to technicians.
Once such task is printer driver installation and removal. Windows 7 is really good at recognizing new devices like printers, cameras and mobile devices and for the most part will find the correct driver for the device, add it and you are off to the races without a hitch. What if the device is not recognized or the wrong driver is loaded? In previous Windows versions you would just bring up the Device Manager, go to the properties of the device in question, go to the driver tab and remove the incorrect driver before installing the new one. In Windows 7 it is more complicated than that.
When you want to remove a printer driver in Windows 7, you need to remove the driver from associating with the printer, but you also need to remove the driver from the machine.
First, remove the printer/driver association. This is what you would expect – remove the driver from the properties of the printer. Go to Start, then Devices and Printers. Right click on the printer in question and click “remove device”. This will uninstall the printer, but not the driver.
To uninstall the printer driver, go to Start then Control Pannel. Once in Control Pannel click on System and Security. From there, click on Administrative Tools. In Administrative Tools, click on Print Management to bring up the Print Management Console (PMC). Click on All Drivers to see what print drivers are installed. To uninstall a driver, just right click on the driver and choose “Remove Driver Package”.
The PMC is actually a great tool that is used not only to manage local printers and drivers, but also print servers in the enterprise. There are a lot of great features introduced in Windows 7 for printer management that do a lot to improve management of printers, ease driver deployment and protect the print servers from bad drivers. You can run drivers in Driver Isolation mode which will isolates the driver into a separate process so that if it crashes, is doesn’t take down the rest of the print system. ACL’s can be managed form the PMC too – much needed improvement.
Here’s a nice list of the top 5 data center construcion companies (repost from here). I would like to see reviews on these people, not just a list – anyone had experience with any of them?
Data & Technology
Holder Construction Company is the industry leader in Data Center construction. Holder has maintained the #1 ranking on ENR’s Top 10 Data Center Contractors list for the past three years. Holder’s reputation for delivering the highest level of service on mission critical data center facilities is second to none.
- Experience on over 100 data center projects in last 10 years
- Over 7 million square feet of space
- Over 3.5 million square feet of raised floor
- Over 50 new construction projects
- Majority of facilities have a fault tolerant, concurrently maintainable design
- Experience in data center construction in 21 states and 2 foreign countries
- Leader of LEED data center construction
When it comes to mission critical construction, we deliver 24/7/365.
Featured Project
Retail Client
Texas
As a joint-venture partner, we managed construction of a new, 98,000sf facility data center that More…
Having built over 21,000,000sf of mission critical facilities at all levels of density and redundancy, we are acutely aware of the quality and resilency demands that are unique to mission critical spaces. We are also attune to the specific, and differing, requirements that these demands place on operators, end-users and designers.
Not simply a mission critical builder, Structure Tone offers our mission critical customers 360◦ solutions that encompass technology, facilities, design and construction. Our dedicated mission critical construction staff is comprised of mechanical, electrical, technology, commissioning and construction professionals who have unmatched, hands-on experience developing, installing, building and commissioning complex, redundant infrastructure. In addition, many of our mission critical specialists have walked in our customers shoes as mission critical operators and/or end-users.
Project Management to Meet Your Specific Needs
Turner believes in collaboration and bringing value to every aspect of a project. Turner’s mission critical facility experience and service offerings include:
- LEED Accredited staff experienced in critical facilities projects, including construction managers, electrical and mechanical specialists and supply chain managers with extensive product, manufacturing and commissioning experience
- Customized software applications to increase communication for real-time updates and proactive issue resolution in preconstruction, construction, commissioning, and post turnover operations
Web-hosting. Colocation. Telecom. Data processing. Call Center. DPR’s proven technical expertise hyper-tracks the delivery of mission critical facilities. Every day presents new opportunities for exploring alternative techniques to improve design and construction in a 24×7 environment. DPR’s building specialists look at each project with a fresh approach to provide the right team and services for the job. Offering customers a single point of contact and up-front collaboration to shorten schedules and control costs, DPR takes the process to new heights with its program management, construction management and design/build capabilities, ensuring that facilities are ready to ramp up to full running capacity immediately upon completion and continue operating without failure.
View All Mission Critical Projects
Equinix
Data Center Tenant ImprovementDigital Realty Trust
Loudoun Exchange Data CenterAdvanced Micro Devices
One AMD PlaceE*TRADE Securities
Call Center and Data Center ExpansionKaiser Permanente
Napa Data Center
Skanska is a world leader in data center and resilient infrastructure construction. Capitalizing on our mission critical expertise, Skanska has developed the Mission Critical Center of Excellence (“COE”). Our team of experts offers an end-to-end service from initial design through commissioning and close-out. Additionally, we also offer energy optimization services for new and existing data centers.
This has been floating around for a bit, but here it is. This is a little hack for Widows 7 that puts a bunch of administrative functions all in one place. Very useful for tweaking Window 7.
All you need to to is to create a folder anywhere you want, then rename it to “GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}”. That’s it. Bask in the glory of Power!
Folder Icon - Looks like Control Pannel
FEEL THE POWER!!!
If you are fighting a virus/malware on your computer, it is best to boot in safe mode before you start removing things and running scans. If you don’t, it is likely that the malware will likely just re-install itself. I’m not going to go into a whole tutorial on virus fighting (maybe in a future post) but the basics are as follows:
1) As soon as you notice you are infected, unplug your internet connection or turn off your wireless. This will prevent the infection from spreading, and will isolate the offending program from its source.
2) Boot into Safe Mode
3) Run your favorite antivirus/anti-malware program.
This post is really about Safe Mode – how do you get there? There are a couple of ways depending on the operating system you are using. Here’s the Microsoft Page on the topic.
Windows XP
If XP is the only operating system installed on your computer, boot into Safe Mode with these instructions.
If you don’t want to bother with function keys, you can use the System Configuration Utility method.
Windows 7
Safe Mode in Windows 7 is basically the same as XP – use F8 to get to the Safe Mode startup screen. MSCONFIG is slightly different – Safe Mode is called Safe Boot, but otherwise the process is the same.
I think so – especially for home and small business users. What is it? MSE or Microsoft Security Essentials is MSFT’s free antivirus software (previously, this was Windows Forefront) for home users. It’s not enterprise class since it has no consolidated reporting or node management software, but is great for homes and small businesses. It’s free – did I mention that?
I’ve put this on a Windows 7 laptop and have only had a couple of days to evaluate it, but so far it is very nice. Low on resources, unobtrusive, and thorough. Oh, and it passed the August VB tests. I don’t subscribe to the VB reports, but you can register for free here and see the VB100 results. This is a list of Anti-Virus vendors that pass a series of tests designed by Virus Bulletin to see how well the protect your computer. The VB100 logo is a certification that the software does what it is supposed to do.
I’m a big fan of anything that adds hassle free virus protection for people, and I hope this is packaged with Windows soon. I know that will create all kinds of licensing issues with the AV vendors who have third party deals with resellers to package their software with Windows, but I think people need AV protection and it should be free. Especially from Microsoft, since IE and Windows are such huge sources/targets for the virus writers, Microsoft has an obligation to provide free and comprehensive virus protection, and I’m very pleased that they are stepping up to the plate.
By popular demand, here are 10 Blackberry tips that are somewhat obscure.
1) Change the signal strength indicator from bars to numbers. Rather than looking at signal bars, you can change the coverage indicator to show ‘signal strength’ in digital (dBm) format. While at the home (icon) screen, hold down the ALT key while you type NMLL. The bars change to digital mode. A lower number is better, and anything between -90 to -50 dBm is good. To get the signal bars back, repeat the process: hold down the ALT key while you type NMLL.
2) Email Address shortcut. When typing in an Email field, press the SPACE key to insert the “@” and “.” (period). e.g. Type: john <space> xyz <space> com to create: john@xyz.com. Backspace and type again to over-ride this like you would with AutoText
3) Bunch of Calendar tips (From Calendar screen, click Menu key & choose Options, then General Options. Change ‘Enable Quick Entry’ to NO.)
4) Help Me Screen
While holding down the ALT key -AND- the Left Shift key at the same time, press the letter ‘h’. This brings up the “Help Me!” screen that lists detailed device information including software version, pin, IMEI, uptime, signal strength, battery level, file free, and file total.
5) Event Log
Hold down the ALT while you type LGLG. This brings up the event log where you can clear events (frees some memory).
6) Include Phone # or PIN # in a Email Message using AutoText:
In the message body, type the following AutoText entries followed by the spacebar to insert information into a message:
7) A bunch of navigation tips:
8) Make notes while on a call
While on a phone call, press Menu key and choose Notes to take notes while on a call. Saved call notes appear in Messages folder as a call log entry, along with your emails.
9) Look up contacts while on a call
While on a call, click the green Send key to open up the phone application and call log. When your call log is on screen, hold down Send again for a couple of seconds until the address book information appears.
10) View URL’s while browsing.
While on a Web page, just click your BlackBerry’s P key at any time to see that specific page’s Web address and title. A dialogue box will then appear asking if you want to copy the address or send it via e-mail, SMS, MMS or PIN message.
To determine the URL of specific links on a Web page, simply scroll over the links so that they’re highlighted, and click the L key. Again, you’ll be prompted with the option to send the address or return to the page from which you came.
Enjoy –
A note on Passwords. If yours is on the list below, change it now. Seriously, it’s just not secure.
In doing some research on this topic, I came across a lot of scary stats. There was a MySpace exploit not that long ago from which a lot of password data was generated. Have a look at the write up here. The gist of the report is that for the most part, people are getting better at using good passwords, but there are significant number of passwords that are easy to guess. In addition, the article makes the very good point that passwords are just a bad way to secure things because crackers are getting better and better.
None of this changes the reality that passwords have outlived their usefulness as a serious security device. Over the years, password crackers have been getting faster and faster. Current commercial products can test tens — even hundreds — of millions of passwords per second. At the same time, there’s a maximum complexity to the passwords average people are willing to memorize (.pdf). Those lines crossed years ago, and typical real-world passwords are now software-guessable. AccessData’s Password Recovery Toolkit would have been able to crack 23 percent of the MySpace passwords in 30 minutes, 55 percent in 8 hours.
So, back to the list of passwords – this list is from PC Magazine:
To expand on this list, here are some common password themes (source):
If you recognize you password or your password tendencies on the lists above, change them! You should always use what are called “Strong” passwords. Microsoft defines strong passwords as follows:
A strong password:
The best passwords are random – generate it once, remember it forever and you are secure. PC Tools has a great generator here. It stinks to have to remember something that is not intuitive, but it’s way better than identity theft.
Another question I get asked a lot is on Wireless security. People get very confused by the security options out there, and the industry doesn’t help by adding acronym after acronym. So what do you do? The answer is fairly simple – secure your network with WPA!!
There are lots of methods to use to secure your wireless network. The most common is WEP, but that is being replaced by the newer (and better) WPA protocol. You can also secure the network by allowing only specific computers on the network. This is simple to do, and doesn’t require security keys and messy settings. The problem with it is that the data you send wirelessly is not encrypted. With WEP and WPA, the data is encrypted.
What are these things anyway?
WEP or Wired Equivalent Privacy (see the Wiki for more info) is an encryption protocol developed in the late 1990’s to secure wireless networks. It offers 64bit and 128 bit encryption using a key generated by a passphrase you enter, but is easily cracked. Despite this, there are a ton of people who still use WEP since it is the default protection on many routers.
WPA (WiFi Protected Access) is the next generation encryption algorithm that replaced WEP. WPA uses 256bit encryption keys, and is far more secure than WEP. It’s not the be-all-end-all, but is very good. As with WEP, you have the option of generating a security key using a passphrase so that you don’t have to remember a string of random hex digits. This is great, BUT you have to be careful about the passphrase you use. DON’T use things like your pets name, your kid’s name, your street, or anything that can be guessed.
The clear answer is to secure your network with WPA.
BUT – do you have to secure your network at all? The safe answer is yes.
What happens if you don’t secure your network? That depends on where you live, how close your neighbors are, and how you secure your computers. Most wireless routers have a range of 150 feet. That means that if your neighbors are more than 150 feet away, they will not be able to get on your network unless they are standing outside your house with their laptop.
If you don’t change the default security settings on your computers, chances are that even if someone did get on your network, they wouldn’t be able to do much. By default settings I mean:
Of course, this is not always realistic – I have lots of shared directories, and remote control enabled on my machines because I like to be able to work on any machine from anywhere if I need to. For that reason, I like to secure the network so that if someone manages to get on they won’t get to my personal files.
The bottom line on security for wireless networks is best practice is to secure your network using WPA. That said, if you live in a remote area where no one will likely be in range of your wireless, it’s not really necessary, just a good idea.
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