This got me thinking.  Should we be teaching kids things that the manufacturers want them to learn (eg Word, Excel etc)  or rather to think outside the box and use whatever tools are available to them?

Personally I think the latter and there are some very good reasons for this. The first is that opensource skills are becoming increasingly desirable to businesses who are not looking for vendor lock in, especially in the enterprise.

Secondly in my experience if you work exclusively with one manufacturer (eg Microsoft) then you can’t give balanced advice when asked by a client. For example if you work solely with Microsoft software you will say they offer the best software, however their offering may not be suitable for your client or business. If you have knowledge of both opensource and Microsoft then you are able to offer a more balanced argument depending on the clients circumstances and what they are looking to achieve.

To illustrate this point I was asked by a potential client a couple of months back about installing a server.  All they wanted was something to sync their files with Dropbox and sit quite happily in the corner with minimal of maintenance.  I advised them that a Debian Linux server would fit the bill quite nicely.  If I had gone down the Microsoft route it would have cost them more during installation (ie licences and more powerful hardware) and not given them any more functionality than the Linux server.  The ongoing maintenance would have been higher too.  If I had no experience with opensource then I could not have made this judgement.  At this point I will say that opensource software does not always suit client requirements either and in these cases I would recommend Microsoft software instead.

Thirdly at the moment people with opensource experience are paid more than their Microsoft equivalents due to the fact they are seen as having better all round skills.  From my experience I have met both good and bad Linux and Windows technicians so I guess this depends on the individual.

So over to you guys how important are opensource skills?

About the Author

Hi I am Chris Wakefield the owner of ComTech IT Support. I provide Windows and Linux based IT Support, laptop repairs and computer repairs to both business and personal clients in and around Stirling.

For a list of what I can offer you why not visit my website www.comtech247.net where you will find a list of my services, testimonials, blog and much more.

The PC was originally designed for the workplace but overtime as they got cheaper more and more average people could afford them and so they slowly made their way into our homes. Your home PC will very rarily be used to its limits though.  Most users will download and play a bit of music, maybe watch some videos, surf the internet and might do some word processing but that is about it.  For a home user a touch screen accomplishes most, if not all, of these tasks and this is why tablets and smartphones are on the rise.  Last time I looked there is no need for a desktop on a smartphone or tablet so in the consumer market I would say the desktop is on its way out.

Now lets look at the business market where the mouse and keyboard are king.   Employees in a business environment need to be productive or their company will start to lose money.  A lot of people would miss the desktop if it disappeared simply because they have become used to it.  Without the desktop staff would have to be retrained which would cost businesses a lot of time and money.

A lot of business applications have also been written with the desktop in mind and to get rid of the desktop would mean re-writing a lot of applications and again this would cost businesses A LOT OF MONEY.  In the foreseeable future this will not happen.  Not even Microsoft would throw away billions in revenue just to get rid of the desktop.

Ah but what about the increase in BYOD into the workplace? This is a funny one.  Yes the employee could decide to buy an iPad and then use it for work but, and this is a big but, if they can’t be productive on it then management will pull the plug and get them back on either laptops or desktops.  Yes BYOD is a good thing (keeps costs down) but as yet it is still unproven in the workplace.  Only time will tell but at the moment I can’t see the desktop going anywhere in a business environment and Microsoft will struggle to get businesses to upgrade to Windows 8 as a result.

Here is a thought for you should Microsoft have brought out both a business version and consumer version of Windows 8? The business version could default to the desktop while the consumer version could default to Modern UI as it does now.  This way Microsoft could give both markets what they want.

What do you think?

About the Author

Hi I am Chris Wakefield the owner of ComTech IT Support. I provide Windows and Linux based IT Support, laptop repairs and computer repairs to both business and personal clients in and around Stirling.

For a list of what I can offer you why not visit my website www.comtech247.net where you will find a list of my services, testimonials, blog and much more.

Don’t for one moment think this only happens in the home market.  I had a call out (again in the early days) from a company who were having issues with their server running Small Business Server 2011 Essentials.  There was a guy who worked there who thought he was a bit of a wiz kid when it came to computers and had been ‘tweaking’ the settings and cleaning up the system.  During one of his ‘clean up’ operations he deleted the antivirus on the system thinking it was out of date and it was getting replaced with a newer piece of software.  It wasn’t and it didn’t get replaced  Having left the server completely unprotected for two weeks the server contracted a virus which resulted in the whole thing getting reset and restoring from backups.  Needless to say the company was not best pleased!!

So the moral of todays story is do not to touch your computer systems unless you are certain you know what you are doing.  If you are in any doubt then contact someone who does know and leave them sort it and whatever happens DO NOT DELETE ANYTHING OFF THE SYSTEM UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT IT IS.

About the Author

Hi I am Chris Wakefield the owner of ComTech IT Support. I provide Windows and Linux based IT Support, laptop repairs and computer repairs to both business and personal clients in and around Stirling.

For a list of what I can offer you why not visit my website www.comtech247.net where you will find a list of my services, testimonials, blog and much more.

Physical Security

1. When you are the last person out of the office lock the door so no one can get in.  Sounds simple but you would be horrified by the number of people who go for lunch and don’t. Leave the door open and someone WILL get in.

2. If your business has a server your best bet is a server room however for a lot of smaller companies this is not an option.  In this case position your server OUT OF SIGHT.  If people don’t know you have one then they can’t take it.  I know of one company who positions their server in front of the windows in the front office.  All it takes is for someone to walk past, smash the glass and the server is gone.

3. Don’t allow people to wander into your office unchallenged.  When I first started out I went to see a client to do some work on their server.  I went in the main door and turned into the first office thinking it was the reception.  It wasn’t it was the room they kept their server in and it was empty.  I could easily have walked upto their server unchallenged and started playing.  I could have caused havoc!!

Software related security

1. Use passwords.  The first line of defence when someone has access to your system is your password.  Pick a password that you can remember and DO NOT write it on a postit note and then stick it on the monitor!! It should be a mixture of letters and numbers.  This point also works on tablets and smartphones.  Use passwords to lock them during startup.

2. Encryption. There are loads of options if you are looking to encrypt your files.  Three of the main ones I have come across are BitLocker, TrueCrtypt and DesLock.  All offer full disk encryption and require a password to unlock the drive (BitLocker can also use a TPM chip on the motherboard).  The only downside to using encryption is that if you lose the password (encryption key) you can’t access your data – PERIOD.

3. Wireless encryption. All of us will have used wireless at some point but how many people know how to check the level of your wireless encryption? Almost all wireless access points, by default, come with no encryption and the user is required to set it up (routers from ISP’s will).  Leave your network open and anyone can access it and your data suddenly becomes very tempting.

4. When leaving your laptop unattended lock the screen.  This way no one passing can access your laptop and have a sneak preview of all your files.

Backups

1.Take some!! If you don’t and the hard drive in your laptop or server dies (unless you have RAID) you could lose the lot.  Once you have backed up your data that is not the end of it. You still need to address where are you going to store it? I always tell clients that the backup must be stored in a different location to the computer it was taken from.  For example don’t backup your server to an external hard drive and then the hard drive ontop of the server!!

2. Consider using online backups.  The main advantage of online backups is that all your data is automatically backed up off site.  Be careful though who you go with and check out the security features they offer as part of the deal.  I tend to go with Dropbox for small businesses but some other people prefer Box. Whoever you go with check out their security policies first after all they will be looking after your data.

Data policies

Implement a data policy specifically stating what users can do with your data and more importantly what they can’t.  Get everyone to sign it and review it on a regular basis.  If everyone is ‘singing from the same hymm sheet’ with regards to data security it makes securing your data much easier.

Can you think of anything I have missed? If so please let me know!!

About the Author

Hi I am Chris Wakefield the owner of ComTech IT Support. I provide Windows and Linux based IT Support, laptop repairs and computer repairs to both business and personal clients in and around Stirling.

For a list of what I can offer you why not visit my website www.comtech247.net where you will find a list of my services, testimonials, blog and much more.

That app people is Smart Office 2.  Smart Office 2 was originally an Android app which has been ported over to Blackberry.  It isn’t free (£7.50) but in my experience so far well worth the money.

It allows you to open, edit and save any file in your documents along with the ability to access your Dropbox, Google Docs or Box account which is very handy.  Since all my files are stored in Dropbox the ability to access, edit and save them back to Dropbox is great.

The best part however is that the original file keeps its format so when I make up and send an invoice to a client it looks exactly as it should.

If you work on the move and are lucky enough to own a Blackberry Playbook you should seriously check this app out.

About the Author

Hi I am Chris Wakefield the owner of ComTech IT Support. I provide Windows and Linux based IT Support, laptop repairs and computer repairs to both business and personal clients in and around Stirling.

For a list of what I can offer you why not visit my website www.comtech247.net where you will find a list of my services, testimonials, blog and much more.

First all the boring stuff.  The hospitality was superb (did you expect anything else) with both food and drink in plentiful supply throughout the day.  I was so full after lunch I really could have done with a lie down!!

Now onto the interesting stuff.  Microsoft has recently tried to positioned itself as one of the leading cloud providers in the industry and is heading full steam ahead into the cloud.  They feel that this is where the industry is heading (I agree with them to a point) and so their newest server offering Windows Server 2012 is all about virtualization and cloud computing and how to manage them successfully from one platform.  The capabilities that Server 2012 offers is staggering and I was very impressed.  This is coming from a Linux guy too!!

I currently run Oracle Virtualbox for my virtualization needs so one of the main objectives for me was to see what Hyper V offers.  Hyper V is a completely different beast to Virtualbox. It looks very easy to use and has a lot more features than Virtualbox and all I need to do now is learn it.  Looks like I am going to have to buy some new hardware to run it on as I currently don’t have a spare 64 bit machine lying around.  Sorry kids it is back to spam sandwiches!!

Another cloud offering we were introduced too was Windows Azure. I will be honest and say I had never really paid attention to Windows Azure in the past as I have tended to use Amazon Web Services instead for testing software.  Both offer a pay as you go service for any extra server capacity that your network might need along with the option of either Linux or Windows servers. Both are very powerful platforms.

One thing I kept seeing time and again throughout the day was Linux.  During the demonstrations there were Linux virtual machines in both Hyper V and Windows Azure so I am guessing that Microsoft has finally come around to the fact that some businesses chose to use Linux rather than Windows (especially on servers).  What Microsoft is banking on is that you use them to manage ALL your virtual servers whether they run Windows or not.  From what I saw they are capable of doing just that.

After lunch we were introduced to System Center 2012 and some of its components (Operations Manager and Virtual Machine Manager to name just two).  This was a very heavy session (boy did my head hurt) and all I can say is that you can manage just about anything on your network (inc iOS and Android software deployment) with System Center 2012.  The type of clients I have will never use System Center 2012 and it is definitely aimed at the enterprise.

One of the surprises of the day was the Surface RT tablet I had a play with during lunch.  I like!! It is a cracking piece of kit and I want one. There I have said it.  Yes it is restricted to software from the Windows store but it comes with Office 2013 installed and has the ability to print.  The keyboard (optional) was nicely laid out and even the mouse pad worked. Only the high price is holding me back form buying one.  If they dropped the price they would sell a shed more of these I am sure but at this price (£400 +) they will struggle.

So what did I think overall?

I was surprised that Office 365 wasn’t mentioned especially with Microsoft marching full steam into the cloud and I was also surprised they only mentioned Windows Server 2012 Essentials in passing.  Yes a lot of the software on show is aimed straight at the enterprise but Microsoft can’t forget the small businesses who don’t need virtualization rights or want to keep their stuff inhouse (lack of broadband speed anyone?) and for these Windows  Server 2012 Essentials will be the software of choice.  Most of my customers (if not all) would probably choose Windows Server 2012 Essentials when Small Business Server 2011 reaches end of life.

I was pleasantly surprised by the Surface RT and Hyper V and it will be these snippets I will take away from the course and learn more about.

About the Author

Hi I am Chris Wakefield the owner of ComTech IT Support. I provide Windows and Linux based IT Support, laptop repairs and computer repairs to both business and personal clients in and around Stirling.

For a list of what I can offer you why not visit my website www.comtech247.net where you will find a list of my services, testimonials, blog and much more.

• Surf and search with confidence
• Keep tough threats out
• Stay protected on social networks
• Download, share files and chat safely
• Support and assistance
• Play games and watch movies without interruption
• Scan smarter and faster

Sounds impressive but what exactly is ‘Stay Protected on social networks’?  It won’t stop people from slurring you or writing things you don’t want people to know about.  What is Play games and watch movies without interruption all about? Does it increase the speed of the internet connection now?

Some suites offer the facility to backup your files to cloud storage and beefier firewalls. Features like these are not really required on a standard PC.  In a business environment there will usually be a network firewall keeping everyone safe who is behind it.  Why do you need another one on your system which, in my experience, can cause problems.  I had a business laptop once which couldn’t connect to a wifi printer because Norton’s firewall kept blocking the connection.  On a home system Windows comes with a good firewall as standard (except XP) so why change it.

As for cloud storage yes it is handy but call me old fashioned but I want my antivirus to concentrate on one thing and that is to stop virus before they hit my system.  If I want cloud storage I will get some.

All these extra features have one big drawback – computing resources.  Have you tried to run any recent Internet Security Suite on a desktop with 1 GB RAM (a lot of home users and businesses with tight budgets still have these).  The system crawls and it is very hard to actually do work so it defeats the purpose of actually having the software in the first place.

So what do you think is antivirus getting too bloated?

About the Author

Hi I am Chris Wakefield the owner of ComTech IT Support. I provide Windows and Linux based IT Support, laptop repairs and computer repairs to both business and personal clients in and around Stirling.

For a list of what I can offer you why not visit my website www.comtech247.net where you will find a list of my services, testimonials, blog and much more.

When Microsoft announced the release of Office 2013 they had slowly but surely moved the goalposts (not in a technical way but a monetary one).  This was the first time that Office was offered on a yearly subscription having always previously been a box set .  Yes you can still buy Office 2013 but not as a disk.  You get access to a download that you can only use on one system whereas the subscription allows you to install on 5 systems (Home Premium) along with a host of features not available if you only bought the download.

It is not only Microsoft that has started charging for a subscription as Google are also at it. Google Apps which was once free (personal use) is now offered on a yearly subscription of $50 whilst Adobe are also charging a subscription for their Creative Suite software like Photoshop.

In the depths of online storage Dropbox, Google Drive and the rest charge a monthly fee if you require more storage space then they offer for free.

So where does this leave the consumer?  To put it blunt out of pocket.  The reason that companies are charging a subscription for their software rather than a one off price is that they can make more money – pure and simple.  Is there anything you can do to mitigate this?

Yes and No.

If you have a copy of Microsoft Office dating back to 2000 – 2010 it will still work for a while yet until Microsoft decides that newer formats will not be compatible and you would have to move over to the subscription model.  You could switch to an opensource productivity suite like Libreoffice which is free and can do almost everything Office can (besides Outlook).  If however you rely on Office in some shape or form you would have to start paying your monthly (Office 365) or yearly (Office 2013) subscription at some point.

It is not all doom and gloom though as subscription software does have its benefits.  You will always be on the most updated software as this would happen automatically and in the case of Microsoft Office (Office 365) and Google Apps you can access it through a browser.  You would also be able to deal with software budgets better as you know how much is spent on a monthly or yearly basis.

At some point though you will be paying (unless you run Linux of course!!).

About the Author

Hi I am Chris Wakefield the owner of ComTech IT Support. I provide Windows and Linux based IT Support, laptop repairs and computer repairs to both business and personal clients in and around Stirling.

For a list of what I can offer you why not visit my website www.comtech247.net where you will find a list of my services, testimonials, blog and much more.

Open up a terminal and type:

xrandr

You should get output similar to the following:

chris@xubuntu1204:~$ xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 64 x 64, current 2876 x 825, maximum 32000 x 32000
VBOX0 connected 1428×768+0+0 0mm x 0mm
1428×768 60.0*+
1024×768 60.0
800×600 60.0
640×480 60.0
VBOX1 connected 1438×825+1438+0 0mm x 0mm
1438×825 60.0*+
1024×768 60.0
800×600 60.0
640×480 60.0
chris@xubuntu1204:~$

Take a note of the name of both your monitors.  In this case mine are VBOX0 and VBOX1 (I am using Xubuntu within a virtual machine hence the VBOX designation).

Next in your terminal type:

xrandr –output VBOX0 –left-of VBOX1 (replacing VBOX0 and VBOX1 with your own monitors)

You should now have both monitors working however the minute you logout you will lose all configuration settings.  You solve this by going to:

Start (top left) – Settings – Settings Manager – Session and Startup and click on the Application Autostart tab.

Click Add to get the screenshot below.

Enter a name and then in the Command section type the following:

xrandr –output VBOX0 –left-of VBOX1 (replacing VBOX0 and VBOX1 with your own monitors)

Press ok and this should save the settings.  Next time your system restarts it will keep the dual monitor configuration.

About the Author

Hi I am Chris Wakefield the owner of ComTech IT Support. I provide Windows and Linux based IT Support, laptop repairs and computer repairs to both business and personal clients in and around Stirling.

For a list of what I can offer you why not visit my website www.comtech247.net where you will find a list of my services, testimonials, blog and much more.

My system would be a desktop with Ubuntu 12.04 installed on a 500GB hard drive which I would wipe completely (simulating hard drive failure) and replace with Debian 6.  After installation I would then install Dropbox and see how long it took to sync all the files (in this case 200 GB).  My internet speed for this test was 13 Mb/sec.

So without waiting to see if Dropbox was synced (real world disaster scenario) I wiped the hard drive and set about installing Debian 6.  It didn’t matter what the new operating system was but I had Debian to hand and decided to use that. Installation went smoothly enough and then I set about reinstalling Evolution (email client) and Dropbox.  All the Evolution emails were backed up to Dropbox so I could either wait until the whole thing synced or go onto the Dropbox website and download them.  Website it was and the download took over an hour.  Once downloaded it was easy to restore and soon enough we had emails.

During this time Dropbox was quite happily downloading files from its servers (in this case 200 GB) but it was taking ages.  At one point the estimated time was 35 days!!!  This is the one major drawback when only using online services for data storage.  If you store a lot of data online and you need to download the whole lot it can take forever.  If that data happens to be business critical which you require instant access to then you will have problems unless your broadband speed is very high.

Another problem I encountered was that of bandwidth.  If you change the upload and download settings in Dropbox to maximum then your internet performance will suffer dramatically.  I tried to access my website on another system on the network and to say the performance was sluggish is an understatement.  At times it was unworkable so I adjusted the settings again but this had the effect of increasing the time it took for the files to be completely downloaded.  It is a tradeoff between requiring internet access and requiring access to all your files.

After 8 hours I had only downloaded 60GB.  I still had 140 GB to go.

So all in all what can I take away from this test?

1. If possible don’t have Dropbox installed on a single hard drive.  Recently I have been installing Debian Linux servers which are set up as RAID 1 onto which Dropbox is installed.  If one hard drive fails then the second takes over which means there is less chance of you needing to resync all your files.

2. Only sync the files that you need.  Keep all your business critical files in one or two folders in Dropbox so if your hard drive does fail you can quickly download the required files on another system and not have to wait for a complete resync.

3. Get the best broadband speed you can afford.  The faster the broadband speed the quicker your files can be downloaded.

4. Don’t rely on cloud backups alone.  Cloud storage is great for backing up all your files but when you don’t have access to your files (eg broadband outage, hard drive failure etc) it doesn’t really work.  I would seriously have a think about not keeping all your files on your laptop or desktop but instead keep a full copy on a dedicated server with Dropbox installed and RAID (RAID 1 minimum).  This way you can continue to access the files through Dropbox but when you lose the connection you can still access all your files locally.

Cloud storage is great but don’t get caught out when  you can’t access it.

About the Author

Hi I am Chris Wakefield the owner of ComTech IT Support. I provide Windows and Linux based IT Support, laptop repairs and computer repairs to both business and personal clients in and around Stirling.

For a list of what I can offer you why not visit my website www.comtech247.net where you will find a list of my services, testimonials, blog and much more.