Recently got hold of an ACER Aspire One, ACER’s landmark device that marks its entry into the ultraportable market. So there they are with the likes of HP and ASUS. One thing’s weird though. In the tech specs of the Aspire, it says that with the bundled 1GB of RAM composed of two sticks of RAM, one half is actually soldered into the device while the other 512MB is expandable. Now here’s the thing - the RAM is expandable to a MAXIMUM of 1GB which means that you have an odd assembly of 1.5GB of RAM for an ultraportable. Damnit! Why create expandability options that only allow for half a gigabyte?
ALSO …. there seem to NOT be any way to remove the RAM chip and tampering may actually - *we’re speculating* - void the warranty.
eWeek had a great article/annoying slide show about the top 10 security risks that your users pose to your organization. One interesting thing I noted was with all of the increases in security (firewalls, IPS/IDS, NAC, password hardening, etc) in today’s organization, most of these are not even looked at.
Think about the easy of someone to walk out with their laptop and have it lost on the train (with not encryption)… Or someone with P2P software on their machine (that is sharing out their entire C drive)… Or worse yet, wifi (without separating it from the rest of the network) that isn’t secured with WPA2… Oh the horror!
USB Flash Drives
Laptops
P2P
Web Mail
Wi-Fi
Smart Phones
Collaboration Tools
Social Networks
Unauthorized Software Updates
Virtual Worlds
What are some of the other security risks you can think of that companies face?
As an IT guy, I very rarely leave my cell phone, laptop, Blackberry or other computer-related device behind. I hate the though of going somewhere without being connected to the rest of “my world”. The internet is supposed to be a never-ending place. And I never want to be without it just in case it does end. I would have to be the first to hear it.
When I started at Rohm and Haas, I was without a phone, desk, computer or login accounts for 3 days. This was one of the strangest feelings I’ve had since learning to drive a car, or the first time I partied too hard in college. It wasn’t fun. Sure, I wasn’t stuck over a toilet or driving like a granny, trying to not go over the speed limit, but it was almost painful.
I’m used to being connected to anyone and everyone at the push of a button. Now, I had to pre-plan what route I was going to take (no Google Maps), who I might need to call (no company directory at hand) and what I had to do (no Blackberry connected to my datebook). I think in the end though, it was good for me. I learned over the past couple months to not always stare at my email, respond to them in near real-time and to live on the Internet (especially Twitter) day in and day out.
With this, I ask you, do you have nomophobia? If so, what do you think you should do about it? Face your fears or live with it?
Why, even the big dogs (read: companies) still have very “small” IT departments. No, I don’t mean they have little people or even a small number of people — they do have a small-group feeling, though. Having recently switched from a company of a few thousand to one of tens of thousands of people, I’ve learned something very quickly…
Every company out there has to run about the same way. Sure, a publicly traded company has rules and regulations they must follow but when it comes down to the real work, it takes small teams of people to get the jobs done.
Take for example, a recent need — a few switches installed in a data center. These were not production switches but they were being used for development and testing, so they were no laughing matter. Rather than the normal steps:
Submit a ticket (with a difficult system)
Wait for a reply from the helpdesk (shouldn’t take more than 2 hours for them to type in a ticket)
Talk to the person the ticket is assigned to (good luck reaching them by phone, email or telepathy)
Go back and forth with IT and the group that needs the switches (because IT likes to feel real important)
Order the parts (even though they exist somewhere else in an old storage area)
Wait for an outtage window (that isn’t necessary because it’s not production)
Have the switches installed and tested (that means, make sure the lights are on)
The way that a good IT department handles it is by skipping steps 3-6. In most organizations, that just saved 2 weeks worth of waiting time. Don’t get me wrong, it’s very important to keep track of what everyone is working on. It’s even more important to test things, especially if they might impact something else. But it’s not always necessary for IT to put up a tough image that says, “I am IT and I can put you off and make you wait for my help because you have no option.”
Next time, the finance or HR guy needs a bit of help, keep in mind, you have to give a little to get a little — And sometimes, acting little isn’t always bad either.
Number 1, we picked the name for the confessional — correction, you picked the name for the confessional — and it will be…
The IT Confessional
I know, you’re all surprised and excited. I know I am. The second piece to this post is what you’re all want to hear. Who won the contest?
The winner of this particular contest is Kevin Potter for his awesome, “Is that a big or little zero?” story! I will be contacting Kevin (or better yet, if he wants to email me at jesse.middleton at b5media dot com) to get him his KB.
I want to thank everyone who posted and emailed in their stories, they were a great read and many of them will be used to form some, hopefully, entertaining posts at That Damn PC.
Keep checking back for me and sending your stories in.
Image via WikipediaThis is just a quick rant. Meets are a pain in the butt. I mean, sometimes it’s necessary to meet and talk about a project or get people up to speed on the latest information. We have them each week for the bloggers and our group and I usually held a network meeting each week at my last company but to have meetings to decide what will be accomplished at the next meeting is rediculous.
People who set these types of meetings up — and you know who you are — stop it! Email and IM are great tools to collaborate while getting work done. A quick, “Who will do the research on the new cat toy?” email will do wonders. It doesn’t take blocking out 30 minutes of someone else’s time to decide on this.
Oh yeah, and when the research comes in, email it out to the group before the meeting. It’s of almost no use if people have to thumb through 30 pages of junk at a meeting table before they can even start to talk. Archives, message boards, wikis and more are great tools that businesses and groups of people should not take lightly. They are productivity tools for a reason. They increase it.
I was looking at my Eee PC computer the other day and I was trying to figure what applications I should leave on there. I decided to ask you all what programs you might use on a daily basis. Then I decided I’d probably get answers like, “YouPorn and Firefox or my web cam for chatting up on CamContacts.” These would not be helpful to me as I need to keep these around anyway.
Image via WikipediaI looked through and figured out what apps I rely on. Firefox is probably the most used. I chat with Meebo, read my email through Gmail, write this blog via WordPress and search Google all in this wonderful browser. Second to that came Skype. It’s an important application to keep around because I use it daily to chat with friends near and far and have video chats with family members. Finally, the Microsoft Office suite. I know that I could use Open Office or Google Docs (which I use regularly) for all of my reading and writing needs but there’s something clean about Microsoft’s version. I still use 2003, since 2007 seems to be a memory hog on most of my machines (and I don’t have much to spare on the Eee).
After that, I can pretty much remove all of my other applications. Now I open the floor up to you. What do you use the most on your PC? Or Mac? Or Linux variant? Go ahead and share your dirty secrets. It’ll make you feel better.
Image via WikipediaI always find it funny how many people don’t simply search Google for their answers. Half of my IT knowledge comes directly off of a Google search anyway. I’ve always said that “Google is my friend” and at least one other person agrees with me. What’s even more amazing is when people search Google and still choose to not listen to what the all-knowing brain says. Take for example a story I heard the other day…
A friend was trying to clean up his old Apple Mac computer. His hard drive was getting low on space (he only had a 20GB drive) so he went through to see what was taking up so much space. He happened upon the “System” directory. He knew that he have never used that directory before and he had also never saved anything into it. After a quick Google search on what the “System” folder was he decided is what not useful. How he could have came to the conclusion that is wasn’t helpful is beyond me. Needless to say, a reformat was in order.
Now I am not a Mac guy at heart. I don’t have an iPhone and my iPod is probably 27 generations behind but I know enough about the system that the “System” directory is necessary. I mean, would you touch your “Windows” directory on a PC? If you would, listen up now — DON’T DO IT! Within the top 5 Google responses for this search were:
In Mac OS, what is the System Folder? - Knowledge Base
Bombich.com: Recovering from a Blinking “?”
Mac OS 9 - The Basics of the System Folder
All of these clearly explain what it is and what it does. They are written in fairly plain English so I expect most people should understand it. The next time you feel like cleaning house, check Google and listen to what it has to tell you. It’s most definitely smarter than your average IT guy.
I’ve been a big fan of Billeo for a long time and more recently Vidoop (with their cross-browser, online storage, secure password management system) for password management. I have over 150 different logins to sites and it’s easy to forget which one I used where. The “Forgot Your Password” link is a pain to use — type your info, answer challenge questions, check your email, and finally choose a new password that has never been used before. That’s too much work for me. These great password management tools help alleviate this problem.
Billeo was developed to be a bill management application. It can track when bills are due, how much has been paid and can take snapshots of pages you are viewing. In addition, on Windows, it can keep track of your web passwords. This includes banking, credit card, email and some of those more risqué sites that you may or may not (but probably do) visit. The downside is the passwords are only stored on your computer and it’s Windows only.
Vidoop has come aboard and has not only created a great cross-browser application but they have a great security mechanism for keeping people out of your account. In order to log in (and install the toolbar/plugin), a user must first type their username, answer a security question and then verify by either telephone or email that they are in fact the user logging in. Finally, each time you want to log in during future sessions from that machine, a user has to pick out the three “types” of pictures that they chose during setup. This could be a computer, a fruit, an animal or almost anything else you can think of.
Finally, Passpack has made great advances in the security area. In addition to being able to access your information from almost anywhere on the internet, user’s information is never stored unencrypted on Passpack’s servers (it’s browser-side encrypted always) and can contain more than simple username and password combinations. This is great for storing other useful info like a bank account number or your hit list (if you’re in to that kind of thing). Tara, one of the founders of Passpack writes a great post of how to replace some of the tools that you may already be using with theirs (such as Google’s Browser Sync).
All-in-all there are some great tools for managing your passwords in your browser. Using these and other tools, you can keep both your information safe and your memory in tact.
With the new section of the blog being formed, the “IT Confessional” and the contest where you’re going to win a free, awesome keyboard, I figured I’d open it up to you guys and gals as to what to call the confessional. Please choose an answer from the poll below, add your own or comment and let me know what you’d like to see it called. We’ll be calling on graphic designers next to help us brand this section of the blog.
From gadgets to gizmos, whether you do Windows, Linux, XBox, Playstation or Wii, old school hacker, lEE7 and n00b unite here on the Tech channel. We've got your back.
As an IT guy, I very rarely leave my cell phone, laptop, Blackberry or other computer-related device behind. I hate the though of going somewhere without being connected to the rest of “my world”. The internet is supposed to be a never-ending place. And I never want to be without it just in case it does end. I would have to be the first to hear it.
Take for example, a recent need — a few switches installed in a data center. These were not production switches but they were being used for development and testing, so they were no laughing matter. Rather than the normal steps:
