Category Archives: Tech

Google, Microsoft, Oracle, Tech

Black Hat Organizer Touts Value of Publicizing Cyber-Security Research

As the threat landscape evolves, researchers discussing their latest research and exposing vulnerabilities help organizations become more aware, a Black Hat organizer said.

 

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LAS VEGAS—The threat landscape is increasingly sophisticated, complex and volatile, but there are some promising trends on how organizations are meeting the threat, a Black Hat organizer said as he kicked off the annual security conference.

Organizations and international governments are now more aware of the necessity of cyber-security and are exerting a more concerted effort to protect core Internet infrastructure, Black Hat founder and director Jeff Moss said as he welcomed attendees to the conference in Las Vegas Aug. 3. This change could be attributed partially to researchers that publicize their security findings, Moss said.

“The researchers are always talking publicly about this, they are some of the few people who are actually talking out loud about what’s going on,” he said.

Historically, Black Hat was a good “proxy for a crystal ball” that revealed the “interesting things that will happen in the future,” according to Moss. Organizations would say, “If that’s what they’re doing now, I probably should be doing something about that,” Moss said.

The topics covered at Black Hat often are an accurate indicator of the kinds of exploits and threats that may be coming down the road, he said.

“Stories and talks that happen at Black Hat affected the world later,” Moss said, adding, “We have this great mirror” into the types of security trends that people are paying attention to.

The increased awareness also meant security was being discussed by senior executives much earlier in the decision making process, Moss said. It was easier for security professionals to make the case for security to the executive level since CIOs and CEOs were aware and nervous about what could happen.

“You’ve got more than enough stories now to explain to your management how (security) can be a business enabler,” Moss said, referring to the recent string of data breaches.

Organizations talking about security sooner in the process have more control over how it’s implemented. “If you involve us in the decision making process we can help you. If you only call us when the house is on fire, you have much fewer options,” Moss said.

The U.S. government was also increasing international collaboration on cyber-security issues, which would help make the Internet safer for everyone, Moss said. If other international governments followed suit and published a policy document similar to the Department of Defense’s Cyber-Security Strategy, than they can all start working together on “commonalities,” according to Moss.

For example, if governments agree on definitions and tactics, they can work together to stop organized crime, phishing and money laundering, Moss said.

Vendors were also reacting deliberately and “intelligently” when a security vulnerability was discovered in one of their products, Moss said, noting that was a sign the software industry was maturing. “They don’t have that knee-jerk reaction so much when someone points out a flaw in one of their products,” Moss said.

Organizations are also taking steps to protect core infrastructure by adding security features such as DNSSec to secure online traffic. The eventual IPv6 upgrade will also bolster overall security, Moss said.

Launched as a vendor-neutral alternative to industry security conferences 15 years ago, Black Hat attracted more than 8,000 researchers and security professionals, according to organizers. The more technical and edgy DEFCon follows a week of Black Hat training sessions and briefings. DEFCon begins Aug. 5.

Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Office, Tech, Twitter, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Azure, YouTube

5 ways to make your keyboard easier to use

How to use a keyboard might seem academic, but there’s more to typing than just tapping the keys. For most people, the keyboard is the primary computer input and control device—that’s why it’s important to leverage the features and shortcuts that keyboards offer. Read on for tips to maximize ease of use, comfort, and efficiency.

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1. Get to know your keyboard

Whether your keyboard is just out of the box or it has seen years of use, it may have features you don’t know about. Take a moment to review the literature that came with your keyboard, visit the manufacturer’s product website, and familiarize yourself with the layout of the keys. Knowing your keyboard’s capabilities and limitations—and where to find time-saving keys—can make it easier to use and can even increase your productivity.
2. Customize keyboard settings

After you’re familiar with your keyboard, customizing just a few basic settings can further improve your efficiency and accuracy. For instance, you can adjust:

The pause before a character starts repeating.

The speed at which characters repeat, which can help you avoid typing errors.

The rate at which the cursor blinks, which can enhance its visibility.

You can make these changes right now:

Windows 7

Windows Vista

Windows XP

3. Take shortcuts

Even if you’re a genius with the mouse, keyboard shortcuts can still save you time. They’re called shortcuts for a reason—they reduce multiple clicks to a single combination of keys, like hitting a chord on a piano. They also economize hand and arm motion.

Using keyboard shortcuts for the things you do all the time, like saving or closing files, can make computing much easier and faster. So whether you want to work more easily and efficiently in Internet Explorer, streamline your Microsoft Office Home and Student 2010 experience, or key international characters into your emails, you’ll find scores of shortcuts to speed you on your way. The table below offers only a few common standard-keyboard shortcuts, many of which work across Office applications—from Outlook to Access, from Visio to PowerPoint, from Word to Excel. You can find a more complete list of built-in keyboard shortcuts for a particular application by searching in Help for keyboard shortcuts. You can even peruse keyboard-shortcut lists:

Windows 7

Windows Vista

Windows XP

Press this

To do this

F1

Open Help

F7

Check the spelling of titles or words in any Office application with the Spelling & Grammar checker

Windows logo keyWindows logo key

Open the Start menu

Alt+F4

Quit a program

Alt+Tab

Switch between open programs or windows

Ctrl+N

Open a new (blank) document

Ctrl+A

Select all content in a document, window, or text box

Ctrl+S

Save the current file or document (works in most programs)

Ctrl+C

Copy the selection

Ctrl+X

Cut the selection

Ctrl+V

Paste the selection

Ctrl+P

Print a document or webpage

Ctrl+Z

Undo an action

Ctrl+Y

Redo an action

Ctrl+F

Find text in a document

Ctrl+H

Find and replace text in a document

Ctrl+B

Boldface text

Ctrl+I

Italicize text

Ctrl+U

Underline text

Ctrl+G

Go to a page, line, or bookmark in a document

Windows logo key Windows logo key +F1

Display Windows Help and Support

Esc

Cancel the current task

Application key Application key

Open a menu of commands related to a selection in a program (equivalent to right-clicking the selection)
4. Make it easier to press multiple keys

If pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del seems an acrobatic feat, you can set up Sticky Keys. The Sticky Keys feature lets you hit shortcut keys one at a time rather than all at once. You can even set Sticky Keys to make a noise so you know it’s working.
All together now

You can set up Sticky Keys:

Windows 7

Windows Vista

Windows XP

(Tip: In Windows 7 and Windows Vista, Sticky Keys has a keyboard shortcut—press Shift five times in a row.)
5. Find a comfortable keyboard

Keyboards come in many shapes and sizes, and the Natural Ergonomic Keyboard your coworker swears by might feel downright awkward compared to the Comfort Curve 2000 you covet. Keyboards come in a variety of colors and key styles, too, not to mention with and without wires. And some keyboards are definitely louder than others. All Microsoft keyboards are carefully designed to balance form and function with comfort. Test drive a keyboard or two to find the right one for you.

Although using the right keyboard can really make a difference, ergonomics also play a key role when it comes to typing comfortably.
Tips for using your keyboard ergonomically

It is essential to use good ergonomic practices to help prevent or reduce soreness or injury to your wrists, hands, and arms. It is particularly important if you’re in front of your computer for long periods.

Here are some ergonomic tips for a safer, more comfortable computer session:

Position your keyboard at elbow level, with your upper arms relaxed at your sides.

Center your keyboard in front of you. If it has a numeric keypad, use the Spacebar as the centering point.

While typing, use a light touch and keep your wrists straight.

When you’re not typing, relax your arms and hands.

Take a short break every 15 to 20 minutes.

Type with your hands and wrists floating above the keyboard, so that you can use your whole arm to reach for distant keys instead of stretching your fingers.

Avoid resting your palms or wrists on any surface while typing. If your keyboard has a palm rest, use it only during breaks from typing.

How you use the keyboard is up to you. But by taking the time to adjust a few settings and to follow the guidelines above, typing on it can become easier, faster, and even safer.

Google, Microsoft, Tech

Getting Data from Google Docs into Excel

With the growing use of Google Docs and other cloud based systems, we face the problem of how to get ‘live’ data from, for example, a Google Docs spreadsheet into Excel. This article pulls together a whole bunch of other work from previous articles on Google Visualization, Excel to jSon Serialization and various other related topics, and will end up with a downloable tool to get data right out of google docs.

 

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Getting data out of Google Docs into Excel

In previous related articles such as Excel-jSon conversion, Google Visualization from Excel, and abstracting data in Excel, I began to look at how to get better integration between web based and pc based data. In this article, we’ll bring together all that work and provide a capability to get data live right out of Google Docs, or Google Gadgets, and into Excel. We’ll end up with a downloadble set of reusable classes and an example application all of which you can download for your own use.
Google Wire Protocol

Google has implemented something they call the ‘wire protocol’ to provide data feeds between Google Docs, Gadgets and so on. It’s jSon-like in fomat, and is used to describe data tables, and would be provided as an https: response to an request to an appropriately structured https: request. For this article we will use some data in this GoogleDocs Spreadsheet, which I have been using to demonstrate Roadmap Generation both in VBA and javascript versions.

Data Source URL
In Google Docs, if you create a table gadget for example, examining the gadget’s properties will give you the data source URL that will provoke a wire protocol response. In the case of the example sheet, you will see that the URL given on the table gadget is

https://spreadsheets.google.com/a/ mcpher.com/spreadsheet/tq?range=A1:H14&key=0At2ExLh4POiZdHBJYnlwaERpYTRZSWl1VEw1TEpQVkE&gid=0

If you enter that into a browser (Chrome or firefox – as usual IE does something strange) , you will see the Google Wire response below

Our task then, is to decode this, and populate an excel sheet on demand with this kind of data. The good thing is that most of the code is available from the work related to the previous articles already mentioned

Data Conversion and Spreadsheet Population
Conversion of jSon to Excel is covered here, however with Google Wire protocol we are not exactly looking at jSon, and neither is the structure a simple two dimensional table that the capability we have already developed is expecting to find. In order to fully utilize all the components that have already been developed, the data needs some preparation.

* Leverage a cBrowser object to deal with the https: request/response.
* Extract out the {table:[]} part of the google wire response
* Convert it to a more jSon friendly ( change the new Date() javascript construct to a proper date, ‘quote’ the key names etc). We’ll use Regular Expressions for that, then deserialize it using Excel JSON conversion
* Crush it down into a 2 dimensional table. We’ll need to write new something for that.
* Use the Data Abstraction cDataSet to populate our Excel sheet.

These classes also use a number of Excel additional references which are already selected in the example cDataSet worksheet you can download. These are the references that are needed.

Implementation example
This is the module that will do the work. Likely a real implementation would provide some kind of dialogue to collect the request URL and the output range , and then execute the data transfer and conversion. In this example, the data in the Google Docs Sheet will be copied to the Excel worksheet name ‘Clone’. If you just want to use this as is, then you are good to go. Just create a module of a similar structure as below. Read on further to find out how it all works, or if you want to harden up the code against data structure errors.

Option Explicit
Const Url = “https://spreadsheets.google.com/a/mcpher.com/spreadsheet/tq?range=A1:H14&key=0At2ExLh4POiZdHBJYnlwaERpYTRZSWl1VEw1TEpQVkE&gid=0”
Public Sub googleWireExample()
Dim dSet As cDataSet, dsClone As cDataSet, jo As cJobject, cb As cBrowser
Dim sWire As String
‘ get the google wire string
Set cb = New cBrowser
sWire = cb.httpGET(Url)
‘ load to a dataset
Set dSet = New cDataSet
With dSet
.populateGoogleWire sWire, Range(“Clone!$a$1”)

If .Where Is Nothing Then
MsgBox (“No data to process”)
Else
‘ it worked

End If
End With
Set dSet = Nothing
Set cb = Nothing
End Sub

The https: request/response
This is rather straightforward at least, using the already available cBrowser object.

Set cb = New cBrowser
sWire = cb.httpGET(Url)

Public Function httpGET(fn As String) As String
pHtml = fn
Dim oHttp As Object
Set oHttp = CreateObject(“Microsoft.XMLHTTP”)
Call oHttp.Open(“GET”, pHtml, False)
Call oHttp.Send(“”)
httpGET = oHttp.ResponseText
Set oHttp = Nothing
End Function

This gets us the google wire string containing the spreadsheet data

The populateGoogleWire method
This is a method of the cDataSet class, and can be used to abstract data from Google Wire Protocol, and dump it to a sheet.

Public Function populateGoogleWire(sWire As String, rstart As Range, Optional wClearContents As Boolean = True) As cDataSet
Dim jo As cJobject, s As String, p As Long, e As Long, joc As cJobject, jc As cJobject, jr As cJobject, cr As cJobject
Dim jt As cJobject, v As Variant, astring As Variant

Const jSTart = “table:”
Const jEnd = “);”

‘ take a google wire string and apply it to a range
p = InStr(1, sWire, jSTart)
e = InStr(1, sWire, jEnd)

If p = 0 Or e = 0 Or p > e Then
MsgBox ” did not find table definition data”
Exit Function
End If
‘ encode the ‘table:’ part to a cjobject
p = p + Len(jSTart)
s = “{” & jSTart & “[” & Mid(sWire, p, e – p – 1) & “]}”
‘ google protocol doesnt have quotes round the key of key value pairs,
‘ and i also need to convert date from javascript syntax new Date()
s = rxReplace(“(new\sDate)(\()(\d+)(,)(\d+)(,)(\d+)(\))”, s, “‘$3/$5/$7′”)
s = rxReplace(“(\w+)(:)”, s, “‘$1’:”)
‘ this should return an object as follow
‘ {table:[ cols:[c:[{id:x,label:x,pattern:x,type:x}] , rows:[ c:[(v:x,f:x}] ]}
Set jo = New cJobject
Set jo = jo.deSerialize(s, eDeserializeGoogleWire)
‘need to convert that to cdataset:[{label:”x”,,,},{},,,]
‘column labels can be extracted then from jo.child(“1.cols.n.label”)  .. where ‘n’= column number

Set joc = New cJobject
Set cr = joc.init(Nothing, cJobName).AddArray
For Each jr In jo.Child(“1.rows”).Children
With cr.add
For Each jc In jo.Child(“1.cols”).Children
Set jt = jr.Child(“c”).Children(jc.ChildIndex)
‘ sometimes there is no “v” if a null value
If Not jt.ChildExists(“v”) Is Nothing Then
Set jt = jt.Child(“v”)
End If
If jc.Child(“type”).toString = “date” Then
‘ month starts at zero in javascript
astring = Split(jt.toString, “/”)
If LBound(astring) <= UBound(astring) Then
v = DateSerial(CInt(astring(0)), CInt(astring(1)) + 1, CInt(astring(2)) + 1)
Else
v = Empty
End If
Else
v = jt.Value
End If
.add jc.Child(“label”).toString, v
Next jc
End With
Next jr
Set populateGoogleWire = populateJSON(joc, rstart, wClearContents)

End Function

Extracting the table[]
As with most of the code in this example, we need to still add a bunch of error handling, so please beef that up if you implement any of these modules. For now we are assuming that the wire string is valid and contains a data table.

Const jSTart = “table:”
Const jEnd = “);”

‘ take a google wire string and apply it to a range
p = InStr(1, sWire, jSTart)
e = InStr(1, sWire, jEnd)

If p = 0 Or e = 0 Or p > e Then
MsgBox ” did not find table definition data”
Exit Function
End If
‘ encode the ‘table:’ part to a cjobject
p = p + Len(jSTart)
s = “{” & jSTart & “[” & Mid(sWire, p, e – p – 1) & “]}”

Cleaning up the jSon
The Wire Protocol needs a bit of work to fix quoting of key names and regularization of date format, but it’s going to be a piece of cake with the regEx capability.

‘ google protocol doesnt have quotes round the key of key value pairs,
‘ and i also need to convert date from javascript syntax new Date()
s = rxReplace(“(new\sDate)(\()(\d+)(,)(\d+)(,)(\d+)(\))”, s, “‘$3/$5/$7′”)
s = rxReplace(“(\w+)(:)”, s, “‘$1’:”)

Deserializing the cleaned up jSon
Now we can get to a cJobject we can work with.

‘ this should return an object as follow
‘ {table:[ cols:[c:[{id:x,label:x,pattern:x,type:x}] , rows:[ c:[(v:x,f:x}] ]}
Set jo = New cJobject
Set jo = jo.deSerialize(s, eDeserializeGoogleWire)

Crush down to 2 dimensional table
As you can see the wire protocol is a bit verbose, and will have been deserialized into a cJobject with too many layers, so our challenge here is now to move to something 2 dimensional that we can represent in Excel.

‘need to convert that to cdataset:[{label:”x”,,,},{},,,]
‘column labels can be extracted then from jo.child(“1.cols.n.label”)  .. where ‘n’= column number

Set joc = New cJobject
Set cr = joc.init(Nothing, cJobName).AddArray
For Each jr In jo.Child(“1.rows”).Children
With cr.add
For Each jc In jo.Child(“1.cols”).Children
Set jt = jr.Child(“c”).Children(jc.ChildIndex)
‘ sometimes there is no “v” if a null value
If Not jt.ChildExists(“v”) Is Nothing Then
Set jt = jt.Child(“v”)
End If
If jc.Child(“type”).toString = “date” Then
‘ month starts at zero in javascript
astring = Split(jt.toString, “/”)
If LBound(astring) <= UBound(astring) Then
v = DateSerial(CInt(astring(0)), CInt(astring(1)) + 1, CInt(astring(2)) + 1)
Else
v = Empty
End If
Else
v = jt.Value
End If
.add jc.Child(“label”).toString, v
Next jc
End With
Next jr

Push abstracted data to the target worksheet
Now that we have a cJobject in the correct structure, we can use the cDataSet.populateJSON (already covered here) method to push the data to the target worksheet

Set populateGoogleWire = populateJSON(joc, rstart, wClearContents)

When serialized this simplified jSon structure now would be

{“cDataSet”:[{“Activate”:””,”Deactivate”:”6/21/2007″, “Description”:”Cellphone”,”ID”:”cell”,”Target”:”smart”,”Custom”:””,”Cost”:”200″,”Callout”:””} ,{“Activate”:”1/7/2006″,”Deactivate”:”3/22/2011″, “Description”:”Mac”,”ID”:”mac”, “Target”:”iPad”,”Custom”:””,”Cost”:”300″,”Callout”:””},{“Activate”:””,”Deactivate”:”3/21/2012″, “Description”:”PC”,”ID”:”pc”,”Target”:”android”,”Custom”:””,”Cost”:”250″,”Callout”:””},{“Activate”:”1/2/2009″, “Deactivate”:”11/7/2011″, “Description”:”Netbook”,”ID”:”net”, “Target”:”pc”,”Custom”:”dislike”, “Cost”:”150″,”Callout”:”this was a waste of money”}, {“Activate”:”1/2/2006″,”Deactivate”:”2/2/2010″, “Description”:”Windows Phone”,”ID”:”smart”,”Target”:”iphone”,”Custom”:””, “Cost”:”240″,”Callout”:”Windows Mobile was so bad”},{“Activate”:”9/3/2010″,”Deactivate”:””, “Description”:”Tablet”,”ID”:”tablet”,”Target”:””,”Custom”:”family”,”Cost”:””,”Callout”:””},{“Activate”:”10/29/2003″,”Deactivate”:”6/13/2008″, “Description”:”MP3 player”,”ID”:”mp3″,”Target”:”ipod”, “Custom”:””,”Cost”:”20″,”Callout”:””},{“Activate”:”10/30/2004″,”Deactivate”:”1/2/2009″, “Description”:”Personal Video”,”ID”:”pv”,”Target”:”ipod”,”Custom”:””,”Cost”:”25″,”Callout”:””}, {“Activate”:”4/12/2008″,”Deactivate”:”6/2/2011″, “Description”:”iPod”,”ID”:”ipod”,”Target”:”ipad”,”Custom”:”like” ,”Cost”:”25″,”Callout”:””},{“Activate”:”1/5/2009″,”Deactivate”:””, “Description”:”iPhone”,”ID”:”iphone”,”Target”:”android”, “Custom”:”like”,”Cost”:”360″,”Callout”:””},{“Activate”:”11/2/2010″,”Deactivate”:””, “Description”:”iPad”,”ID”:”ipad”,”Target”:”tablet”, “Custom”:”like”,”Cost”:”480″,”Callout”:””},{“Activate”:”12/13/2009″,”Deactivate”:””, “Description”:”Android/Chrome”,”ID”:”android”,”Target”:””, “Custom”:””,”Cost”:”400″,”Callout”:””},{“Activate”:”12/3/2005″,”Deactivate”:”12/12/2007″, “Description”:”windows tablet”,”ID”:”wtab”,”Target”:”pc”, “Custom”:”dislike”,”Cost”:””,”Callout”:”this really sucked”} ]}

Summary
You can get all the code of these downloadable tools, which I hope you can find a use for as the basis for your own application. As always I welcome suggestions, improvements, questions and bug fixes at my forum.

Facebook, Google, Tech

HowTo Migrate Facebook Friends, Photos, Videos to Google Plus

The permanent migration from Facebook to Google Plus may not happen for you immediately as most of your friends never made it to Plus, and to your surprise most of them didn’t even hear about it. Its a good time to actually make that happen by inviting them all in single shot, as you migrate your Facebook data including Photos, Friends to Google Plus.

 


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How to Migrate Facebook friends to Google Plus

Facebook won’t let you export your Facebook friends to Gmail or Google Plus for their own anti-competitive reasons. But what you can do is export Facebook contacts to a new Yahoo account and then import to Google Plus. It might silly but this is the only reliable way to do it.

1. Exporting Facebook contacts: Create a new Yahoo account, if you don’t have it already. Once you’ve created an account, sign in and head to the Contacts tab. Click on “Import Contacts” and choose the Facebook option. You should now see all your Facebok friends in your Yahoo address book.

2. Importing Facebook contacts, Inviting all: Now goto Google+ Circles tab. Click “Find and Invite” and then click the Yahoo button. It’ll add all your Facebook Contacts that were previously added to your yahoo account. In Find and Invite page, add your Facebook friends to your circles and they should get the invites. You may also find all the people that already are on Plus.

Migrate Facebook Photos to Google Plus

You can even migrate all your Facebook photo albums to Picasa (hence Google Plus) using Chrome a& Firefox extensions. Install & run them, it should take couple of minutes depending your number of photos.

Migrate Facebook Videos to Google Plus

Unfortunately,  this one takes some effort as you would have to download them all and re-upload. You can do this Account > Account Settings, and scroll down to “Download Your Information”. Click on “learn more” link and then Download button. It will take a while to gather your info, but you’ll receive an email when it’s done, and you can download a ZIP file full of your photos, videos and profile information.

Goto Google+, click on your profile, and go to “Videos”. Hit the “Upload New Videos” link and re-upload your videos to your Google+ profile.

Tech, Windows 7, Windows 8

Windows 8 Tiles, Metro-Style UI on Windows 7

Windows 8 would ditch the Windows 7 Aero interface in favor of Metro UI,  which exists on Windows Phone today. If you love the MEtro style tiles and interface, you can get the Metro UI on windows 7 using Zetro UI.

 

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Zetro UI is very simple to install and configure. Extract the zip after downloading the theme from the link below. When done, follow the below two simple steps:

* Opening the Extras folder, running the Theme Patcher, and clicking on all three “patch” buttons contained within.
* Opening the Theme folder and copying both of the files inside it to C:\Windows\Resources\Themes.

When finished, Open the Control Panel and “Change the Theme” under Appearance and Personalization. The Zetro theme should be available in “Installed themes”.

metro-ui-windows7

The look and feel of the theme makes you windows 7 look simple with white all over the place, which might look a bit odd for the first few minutes. You can tweak it using the extra tweaks available in the readme file that comes along with the zip.

Extending the tweak further, feel free to blend it with something like the Metro-inspired Omnimo 4 theme for Rainmeter.

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Gartner: Windows Phone 7 sales modest, but promising

Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 sold 1.6 million units in the first quarter of 2011, according to Gartner. Though this represents only “modest sales,” Nokia’s support for the new smartphone OS will help it move forward in the future, the research firm adds.

 

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Microsofts Windows Phone sold 1.6 million units in the first quarter, according to new data from research firm Gartner. The smartphones, which represent Microsoft’s attempt to take market share from the likes of Google Android and the Apple iPhone, originally made their debut in late 2010.

Windows Phone “devices launched at the end of 2010 failed to grow in consumer preference and CSPs [communication service providers] continued to focus on Android,” reads Gartners May 19 research note. However, “in the long term, Nokias support will accelerate Windows Phones momentum.”

Microsofts deal with Nokia will see Windows Phone ported onto the latters hardware. As Nokia begins to abandon its homegrown Symbian platform in favor of Microsofts offering, however, it could create an opening for the companies competitors to seize additional market share.

“This will precipitate a competitors rush to capture Symbians market share in the mid-tier,” Roberta Cozza, principal research analyst at Gartner, wrote in the May 19 research note. Should Google or Apple succeed, it could prove an unwelcome consequence to an agreement designed to bolster Microsofts and Nokias fortunes in the space.

Worldwide smartphone sales to end users by operating system in 1Q11 (thousands of units)

Source: Gartner

Gartner’s numbers (above) show that about 3.6 million phones with Microsoft operating systems were sold during the first quarter of 2011. This suggests that, ironically, Redmond’s earlier Windows Mobile 6.5 is still more popular than Windows Phone 7, despite regularly being criticized as obsolete. (Windows Mobile has a large application base and many enterprise-friendly features, so it obviously still appeals to conservative customers.)

Meanwhile, Microsoft is developing a substantial Windows Phone 7.5 update, code-named “Mango,” which will introduce a broad range of consumer and enterprise functionality, including the ability to search a server for email items no longer stored on the device, and share and save Office documents via Office 365 and Windows Live SkyDrive. “Mango” (below) will also include Bing Audio, which identifies any songs playing in the vicinity, and Bing Vision, an augmented-reality feature that lets a smartphones camera scan bar codes and QR Codes.

Windows Phone 7.5’s conversation view (left) and Lync capabilities (right)
Source: Microsoft

Despite the challenges facing Windows Phone, the past quarter was a good one for smartphones as a whole. “Smartphones accounted for 23.6 percent of overall sales in the first quarter of 2011, an increase of 85 percent year-on-year,” Cozza wrote. “This share could have been higher, but manufacturers announced a number of high-profile devices during the first quarter of 2011 that would not ship until the second quarter of 2011.”

The current advantage lies with smartphones that offer a broad apps ecosystem. “Every time a user downloads a native app to their smartphone or puts their data into a platforms cloud service, they are committing to a particular ecosystem and reducing the chances of switching to a new platform,” she added. “This is a clear advantage for the current stronger ecosystem partners Apple and Google.”

Recent data from The Nielsen Company had six percent of consumers indicating they wanted a Windows Mobile/Windows Phone 7 smartphone as their next device, compared with 31 percent for Android, 30 percent for Apples iOS and 11 percent for Research In Motions BlackBerry.

Further information

The Gartner numbers cited in this story derive from the firm’s “Market Share Analysis: Mobile Devices, Worldwide, 1Q11” report, available on Gartner’s website for $1,295.

a+ certification, a+ certification exam, a+ certification training, a+ certifications, Apple, CCNA, CCNA Certification, ccna exam, Dell, Facebook, Google, IBM, MCITP, mcitp certification, MCITP Training, MCTS, Tech, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Azure

The 5 biggest IT security mistakes

IT security can be a thankless task no doubt and mistakes only magnify problems Like cleaning the windows, IT security can be a thankless task because they only notice when you don’t do it. But to get the job done in the era of virtualization, smartphones and cloud computing, you’ve got to avoid technical and political mistakes. In particular, here are five security mistakes to avoid:

 

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1. Thinking that the business mindset of the organization is the same as five years ago.

It’s not. Your power and influence are being whittled away as the organization you work for flings open the doors to allowing employees to use personal mobile devices at work, and pushes traditional computing resources and applications into the cloud — sometimes without your knowledge. You have to be proactive in introducing reasonable security practices onto what are fast-moving technology choices which are sometimes made by those outside the IT department altogether. It’s a “mission-impossible” assignment, but it’s yours. It may involve developing new policy guidance to clearly spell out risk factors so there are no false assumptions.

VIRTUALIZATION SECURITY: Shift to virtualized environments shaking up security practices

2. Failing to build working relationships with IT and upper-level managers.

IT security divisions are typically small in relation to the rest of the IT department. IT security leans on IT staffers to get basic security jobs done. The security professional may have specialized knowledge and a pocketful of certifications like the CISSP, but that doesn’t mean he or she is necessarily admired or liked because of that — especially as security people are usually the ones saying “no” to other people’s projects.

Moreover, don’t think the power structure is always pointing toward the chief information officer as top decision maker. A fundamental shift is occurring in which the traditional role of the CIO as commander of IT projects is declining in favor of the rise of the chief financial officer having the final say on IT projects. Some evidence shows the CFO doesn’t even like the IT department. The CFO’s ideas about security may only go as far as the general legal idea of “compliance.” The job for the security professional must be to communicate, communicate, communicate.

3. Not understanding that virtualization has pulled the rug out from under everyone’s security footing.

Organizations are well on their way to achieving 80% virtualization of their server infrastructure, and desktop virtualization projects are increasing. But security is lagging, with many incorrectly assuming it begins and ends with VLANs. The reality is that virtualization architectures change everything by opening new pathways that can be exploited. As has happened so many times before in the IT industry, groundbreaking technologies have become available for use with inadequate attention paid to the security impact.

Some traditional security products, such as anti-virus software for instance, often don’t work well in virtual machines. Physical appliances may have new “blind spots.” Today, specialized security products for virtualized environments are finally coming to market — and security professionals need to figure out if any of them should be used, while also keeping up with evolving security plans from vendors such as VMware, Microsoft and Citrix. Virtualization holds tremendous promise in eventually improving security, especially disaster recovery.

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New book: MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-643): Configuring Windows Server 2008 Applications Infrastructure (2nd Edition)

We’re pleased to announce that MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-643): Configuring Windows Server 2008 Applications Infrastructure (2nd Edition) (ISBN 9780735648784; 640 pages) is available for purchase here, here, and here. This Training Kit is designed for information (IT) professionals who support or plan to support Windows Server 2008 R2 networks and who also plan to take the Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) 70-643 exam.

 

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This 2-in-1 kit includes the official Microsoft study guide, plus practice tests on CD to help you assess your skills. It comes packed with the tools and features exam candidates want most—including in-depth, self-paced training based on final exam content; rigorous, objective-by-objective review; exam tips from expert, exam-certified authors; and customizable testing options. It also provides real-world scenarios, case study examples, and troubleshooting labs for the skills and expertise you can use on the job.

You can find the book’s Table of Contents in this previous post.

Here is an excerpt from this Training Kit:
Chapter 2: Configuring Server Storage and Clusters

Storage area networks (SANs), host bus adapters (HBAs), and logical unit numbers (LUNs) were once the sole domain of storage specialists, far removed from the expertise of your average Windows administrator. However, the arrival of new technologies, such as the Windows Virtual Disk service and Internet SCSI (iSCSI), along with the increasingly complex realities of enterprise storage, has brought these once-specialized topics into the realm of Windows Server 2008 administration. To be an effective Windows server administrator today, you still need to know the difference between the various RAID levels, but you also need to know quite a bit more about advanced server storage technologies.

This chapter introduces you to the basics of disk management in Windows Server 2008 R2, along with more advanced storage technologies such as SANs. The chapter then builds upon this storage information to introduce the various clustering technologies available in Windows Server 2008 R2.
Exam objectives in this chapter:

* Configure storage.
* Configure high availability.

Lessons in this chapter:

* Lesson 1: Configuring Server Storage
* Lesson 2: Configuring Server Clusters

Before You Begin

To complete the lessons in this chapter, you must have:

* A computer named Server2 that is running Windows Server 2008 R2. Beyond the disk on which the operating system is installed, Server2 must be equipped with two additional hard disks of equal size.
* A basic understanding of Windows administration.

Lesson 1: Configuring Server Storage

A variety of server storage solutions is available for corporate networks, and Windows Server 2008 R2 connects to these technologies in new ways. This lesson introduces you to the major server storage types and the tools built into Windows Server 2008 R2 you can use to manage them.

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Understanding Server Storage Technologies

As the demand for server storage has grown, so too has the number of new storage technologies. Over the years, the range of server storage options has broadened from simple direct-attached storage (DAS) to network-attached storage (NAS) and, most recently, to Fibre Channel (FC) and iSCSI SANs.
Direct-Attached Storage

DAS is storage attached to one server only. Examples of DAS solutions are a set of internal hard disks within a server or a rack-mounted RAID connected to a server through a SCSI or FC controller. The main feature of DAS is that it provides a single server with fast, block-based data access to storage directly through an internal or external bus. (Block-based, as opposed to file-based, means that data is moved in unformatted blocks rather than in formatted files.)
DAS is an affordable solution for servers that need good performance and do not need enormous amounts of storage. For example, DAS is often suitable for infrastructure servers, such as DNS, WINS and DHCP servers, and domain controllers. File servers and web servers can also run well on a server with DAS.

The main limitation of DAS is that it is directly accessible from a single server only, which leads to inefficient storage management. For example, Figure 2-1 shows a LAN in which all storage is attached directly to servers. Despite the web and App2 servers having excess storage, there is no easy way for these resources to be redeployed to either the Mail or App1 server, which need more storage space.

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The main tool used for managing DAS in Windows is the Disk Management console. This tool, which you can access in Server Manager, enables you to partition disks and format volume sets. You can also use the Diskpart.exe command-line utility to perform the same functions available in Disk Management and to perform additional functions as well.
Network-Attached Storage

NAS is self-contained storage that other servers and clients can easily access over the network. A NAS device or appliance is a preconfigured server that runs an operating system specifically designed for handling file services. The main advantage of NAS is that it is simple to implement and can provide a large amount of storage space to clients and servers on a LAN. The downside of NAS is that, because your servers and clients access a NAS device over the LAN as opposed to over a local bus, access to data is slower and file-based as opposed to block-based. NAS performance is, therefore, almost always slower than that of DAS.

Because of its features and limitations, NAS is often a good fit for file servers, web servers, and other servers that don’t need extremely fast access to data. In addition, NAS appliances come with their own management tools, which are typically web-based.

Figure 2-2 shows a network in which clients use a NAS appliance as a file server.

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Storage-Area Networks

SANs are high-performance networks dedicated to delivering block data between servers and storage subsystems. From the point of view of the operating system, SAN storage appears as if it were installed locally. The most important characteristic that distinguishes a SAN from DAS is that in a SAN, the storage is not restricted to one server but is, in fact, available to any of a number of servers. (SAN storage can be moved from server to server, but outside of clustered file system environments, it is not accessible by more than one server at a time.)

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A SAN is made up of special devices, including SAN network adapters, called HBAs, on the host servers, cables and switches that help route storage traffic, disk storage subsystems, and tape libraries. These hardware devices that connect servers and storage in a SAN are called the SAN fabric. All these devices are interconnected by fiber or copper. When connected to the fabric, the available storage is divided up into virtual partitions called logical unit numbers (LUNs), which then appear to servers as local disks.

SANs are designed to enable centralization of storage resources while eliminating the distance and connectivity limitations posed by DAS. For example, parallel SCSI bus architecture limits DAS to 16 devices at a maximum (including the controller) distance of 25 meters. Fibre Channel SANs extend this distance limitation to 10 km or more and enable an essentially unlimited number of devices to attach to the network. These advantages enable SANs to separate storage from individual servers and to pool unlimited storage on a network where that storage can be shared.

SANs are a good solution for servers that require fast access to very large amounts of data (especially block-based data). Such servers can include mail servers, backup servers, streaming media servers, application servers, and database servers. The use of SANs also enables efficient long-distance data replication, which is typically part of a disaster recovery (DR) solution.

Figure 2-3 illustrates a simple SAN.

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SANs generally occur in two varieties: Fibre Channel and iSCSI.
FIBRE CHANNEL SANS

Fibre Channel (FC) delivers high-performance block input/output (I/O) to storage devices. Based on serial SCSI, FC is the oldest and most widely adopted SAN interconnect technology. Unlike parallel SCSI devices, FC devices do not need to arbitrate (or contend) for a shared bus. Instead, FC uses special switches to transmit information between multiple servers and storage devices at the same time.

The main advantage of FC is that it is the most widely implemented SAN technology and has, at least until recently, offered the best performance. The disadvantages of FC technology are the cost of its hardware and the complexity of its implementation. Fibre Channel network components include server HBAs, cabling, and switches. All these components are specialized for FC, lack interoperability among vendors, are relatively expensive, and require special expertise.
ISCSI SANS

Internet SCSI (iSCSI) is an industry standard developed to enable transmission of SCSI block commands over an Ethernet network by using the TCP/IP protocol. Servers communicate with iSCSI devices through a locally installed software agent known as an iSCSI initiator. The iSCSI initiator executes requests and receives responses from an iSCSI target, which itself can be the end-node storage device or an intermediary device such as a switch. For iSCSI fabrics, the network also includes one or more Internet Storage Name Service (iSNS) servers that, much like DNS servers on a LAN, provide discoverability and zoning of SAN resources.

By relying on TCP/IP, iSCSI SANs take advantage of networking devices and expertise that are widely available, a fact that makes iSCSI SANs generally simpler and less expensive to implement than FC SANs.

Aside from lower cost and greater ease of implementation, other advantages of iSCSI over FC include:

* Connectivity over long distances   Organizations distributed over wide areas might have a series of unlinked SAN islands that the current FC connectivity limitation of 10 km cannot bridge. (There are new means of extending Fibre Channel connectivity up to several hundred kilometers, but these methods are both complex and costly.) In contrast, iSCSI can connect SANs in distant offi ces by using in-place metropolitan area networks (MANs) and wide-area networks (WANs).
* Built-in security   No security measures are built into the Fibre Channel protocol. Instead, security is implemented primarily through limiting physical access to the SAN. In contrast to FC, the Microsoft implementation of the iSCSI protocol provides security for devices on the network by using the Challenge Handshake Authentication Protocol (CHAP) for authentication, and the Internet Protocol security (IPsec) standard for encryption. Because these methods of securing communications already exist in Windows networks, they can be readily extended from LANs to SANs.

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The main disadvantage of an iSCSI SAN is that, unless it is built with dedicated (and expensive) 10-GB Ethernet cabling and switches, the I/O transfer of iSCSI is slower than an FC-based SAN can deliver. And if you do choose to use 10-GB equipment for your iSCSI SAN instead of the much more common choice of gigabit Ethernet, the high cost of such a 10-GB solution would eliminate the price advantage of iSCSI relative to FC.

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Configuring a SAN Connection with iSCSI Initiator

You can use the iSCSI Initiator built into Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 to connect to an iSCSI SAN, configure the features of this iSCSI connection, and provision storage. To configure a SAN connection with iSCSI Initiator, select the tool from the Administrative Tools group in the Start menu. This step opens the Targets tab of the iSCSI Initiator Properties dialog box, as shown in Figure 2-4.

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To connect to an iSCSI SAN, specify an iSCSI target by name in the Target text box and then click Quick Connect. (Quick Connect is a new feature in Windows Server 2008 R2.) The Targets tab also provides access to Multipath I/O (MPIO) settings through the Devices and Connect buttons. MPIO enables you to configure multiple simultaneous connections to an iSCSI target so that if one adapter fails, another connection can continue processing I/O without any interruption of service. To enable MPIO, use the Add Features Wizard to add the Multipath I/O feature.

After you establish a connection to an iSCSI target, you can use the following tabs to configure the connection:

* Discovery   On this tab, you can discover targets on specified portals and choose iSNS servers.
* Favorite Targets   Use this tab to ensure that connections to selected iSCSI targets are restored every time the local computer restarts.
* Volumes And Devices   This tab enables you to provision volumes and devices on targets and bind to them so they are readily available on system restart.
* RADIUS   This tab enables you to specify a RADIUS server and shared secret for the authentication of the iSCSI connection.
* Configuration   This tab enables you to require negotiation of the CHAP authentication protocol and IPsec encryption for all connections to the local iSCSI Initiator. The tab also provides a unique identification number for the iSCSI Initator, which you can specify on a remote iSCSI target to configure a connection to the local machine.

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Other Tools for Managing SANs

Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 include the Virtual Disk service (VDS), an application programming interface (API) that enables FC and iSCSI SAN hardware vendors to expose disk subsystems and SAN hardware to administrative tools in Windows. When vendor hardware includes the VDS hardware provider, you can manage that hardware within Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 by using iSCSI Initiator and other tools, such as Disk Management, Storage Manager for SANs (SMfS), Storage Explorer, or the command-line tool, DiskRAID.exe.

* Storage Manager for SANs   SMfS is available in Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 as a feature you can add by using the Add Features Wizard. You can use SMfS to manage SANs by provisioning disks, creating LUNs, and assigning LUNs to different servers in the SAN.
* Storage Explorer   Storage Explorer is available by default in Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 through the Administrative Tools program group. You can use Storage Explorer to display detailed information about servers connected to the SAN and about fabric components such as HBAs, FC switches, and iSCSI initiators and targets. You can also use Storage Explorer to perform administrative tasks on an iSCSI fabric.
* DiskRAID   DiskRAID is a command-line tool that enables you to manage LUNs in a VDS-enabled hardware RAID.

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IE Users Have Lower IQ Than Users of Other Web Browsers [STUDY]

A recent study links intelligence test results with browser usage — and the results don’t look good for users of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, especially its older versions.

 

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The study, titled “Intelligence Quotient (IQ) and Browser Usage” by Canadian company AptiQuant, compiled IQ test scores of 101,326 individuals older than the age of 16 and divided them into groups according to the browser they use.

The results are fascinating. Users of Internet Explorer 6 have an average IQ score barely more than 80; Firefox and Chrome users fare much better, with average IQ scores of around 110, while Opera and Camino users have an average IQ score more than 120.

It’s also interesting to note that average IQ scores of IE6 users were significantly higher in 2006, and that the IQ scores get better with newer versions of IE.

Internet Explorer 6 has long been a thorn in the side of developers who hated it for its non-compliance with web standards, while users struggled with its many security flaws. This new study will probably induce more mockery of the ancient (but still sometimes found on older computers) browser and its users, but it’s probably not telling us that much about the browser itself — it’s about unwillingness to upgrade to a new version of any software.

The study concludes that “individuals on the lower side of the IQ scale tend to resist a change/upgrade of their browsers.” It’s only logical that users with a higher IQ are more likely to experiment, choose a different software version or variant (notice that users of IE with Chrome frame score very high on IQ tests) or listen to upgrade suggestions and security advice.

In March, Microsoft started a campaign to get users to stop using Internet Explorer 6. But did it take into account the fact that many IE6 users tend to have lower than average IQ scores? Maybe that’s the key to finally getting rid of the world’s most hated web browser.

“Individuals on the lower side of the IQ scale tend to resist a change/upgrade of their browsers. … Now that we have a statistical pattern on the continuous usage of incompatible browsers, better steps can be taken to eradicate this nuisance,” the study concludes.

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Yahoo, Facebook and Google to IETF: Where are the IPv6 users?

Meeting of Internet standards body indicates shift in IPv6 debate from content to carriers

QUEBEC CITY — Where are the users? That’s what popular websites including Yahoo, Google and Facebook are asking the Internet engineering community when they are questioned about their long-range plans to deploy IPv6.

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These popular websites — and tens of thousands of others — participated in a successful, 24-hour trial of IPv6 on June 8 dubbed World IPv6 Day. Sponsored by the Internet Society, World IPv6 Day was a large-scale experiment designed to test the readiness of IPv6 to replace IPv4, which has been the Internet’s main communications protocol since its inception 40 years ago.

The Internet’s largest players are providing detailed analysis about their experiences on World IPv6 Day and they are discussing next steps for IPv6 deployment at a meeting of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) being held here this week.

BACKGROUND: World IPv6 Day: Tech industry’s most-watched event since Y2K

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What’s evident at the IETF meeting is a shift in focus on the IPv6 debate from content to carriers. The Internet engineering community appears to be ratcheting up the pressure on ISPs, particularly residential broadband providers, to enable IPv6 to home users as the next step to IPv6 deployment.

“The focus is absolutely on the access networks,” said IETF Chairman Russ Housley. “What World IPv6 Day showed is individuals who wanted to participate from home could not get IPv6 support from their ISPs. They had to set up their own [IPv6-over-IPv4] tunnels, and the average user doesn’t have the knowledge to do that.”

Yahoo said it deployed dual-stack IPv6 and IPv4 proxy servers at seven locations worldwide and created a special infrastructure to improve the performance of the 6to4 tunneling protocol for World IPv6 Day. Yahoo also modified its geolocation and ad-targeting code to be IPv6 aware, and it over-provisioned its IPv6 servers as an extra precaution.

On World IPv6 Day, Yahoo served IPv6 content to more than 2.2 million users, representing a peak of 0.229% of the overall traffic on 30 different Yahoo-affiliated sites. Yahoo hailed World IPv6 Day as a success but turned off IPv6 support after the event.

“IPv6 is not a wide deployment,” said Igor Gashinsky, a principal architect with Yahoo. “That was a lot of work for 0.229%. We need more IPv6 access. Can we break single digits, please, and then we can talk about leaving it on?”

Similarly, Facebook served content to more than 1 million IPv6 users on World IPv6 Day. But this represented only a small fraction — 0.2% — of Facebook users that are IPv6 capable. Of those Facebook users, 0.16% had native IPv6 access and the other 0.04% used 6to4 tunneling.

“There are some people who are very, very passionate about IPv6 … but it’s difficult for most people to understand,” said Donn Lee, a member of Facebook’s network engineering team. “It’s very much a concept of, ‘I have restored my Internet connection.’ That’s what the user cares about. The user doesn’t care about if it’s IPv6 or IPv4.”

The IETF created IPv6 a decade ago because the Internet is running out of addresses using IPv4. The free pool of unassigned IPv4 addresses expired in February, and in April the Asia Pacific region ran out of all but a few IPv4 addresses being held in reserve for startups. The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN), which doles out IP addresses to network operators in North America, says it will deplete its supply of IPv4 addresses this fall.