Tech

From The Register:

Fasthosts, "the UK's number 1 web host", has fired off emergency emails telling customers to change all their passwords after police were called in to investigate a major data breach.
"As a precautionary measure, Fasthosts has asked its customers to update their passwords. This includes their control panel, email, FTP, and database passwords, all of which can be changed via the customer control panel. Fasthosts has now implemented customer password encryption to further protect customer data."
We've asked Fasthosts why the passwords were not encrypted in the first place. It said: "Historically, Internet companies have rarely encrypted passwords to aid customer service."

I found a cool little table which shows the degredation that installing different types of AntiVirus and Firewall software - check it out:

Software	% Boot Delay	% Prime Delay	% FileIO Delay
Norton Internet Security 2006	46	20	2369
McAfee VirusScan Enterprise 8	7	20	2246
Norton Internet Security 2007	45	8	1515
Trend Micro PC-cillin AV 2006	2	0	1288
ZoneAlarm ISS	16	0	992
Norton Antivirus 2002	11	8	658
Windows Live OneCare	11	8	512
Webroot Spy Sweeper	6	8	369
Nod32 v2.5	7	8	177
avast! 4.7 Home	4	8	115
Windows Defender	5	8	54
Panda Antivirus 2007	20	4	15
AVG 7.1 Free	15	0	19

As you can see, norton's internet security suites have a huge impact on system performance. Our recommended antivirus software (AVG, Avast! and Panda) do quite well.

From Ars Technica, this article outlines BT's hopes that it's users would share their internet connection, using a new router which allows secure public access. BT's Gavin Patterson holds out hopes that the FON scheme can someday "cover every street in Britain." "We are giving our millions of Total Broadband customers a choice and an opportunity," he added in a statement. "If they are prepared to securely share a little of their broadband, they can share the broadband at hundreds of thousands of FON and BT Openzone hotspots today, without paying a penny." Sounds like a good idea to me!

Just been playing about with openVPN, and have got a multi-site network successfully working. What amazes me is the speed, we did some windows domain joining and client app transfers and they went through with no hitch, and shared folder browsing is faster than via terminal services! We love you openVPN!

At the Popular Science Blog, this entry shows a portable projector (think size of a mobile phone) in action. I want one!

I've got to say, these 3Ware Escalade raid cards are brilliant - the drivers and web-based UI are well programmed plus the performance is great - I really like it when things "Just Work"!

I've had enough of this card already... I bought it to replace our cheaper silicon image cards, only to find out that they are also re-branded silicon image cards! We have several Fujitsu Primergy servers, and one card installed fine into one of the servers, but it doesn't seem to want to work in this other identical server. If drives are attached to the card, it hangs windows2k3 startup (and safe mode doesn't work either). Disconnect the drives, and the card is fine... This is the third make of SATA RAID card that I've tried. We had some good looking Promise cards but they had bios conflicts with the Primergy's onboard SCSI Anyway, i've wasted enough time on this - we've now got some 3ware Escalade cards on order, lets hope they fare a little better.

The british government has responded to an online petition about the BBC's iPlayer on-demand TV service being windows only. As far as I can tell, there hasn't been any change bought about by the petition - the BBC had already stated that they were working on supporting other operating systems and would review this process every 6 months, which is essentially what the PM's response says.

A PCMag article by John Dvorak about the recent failure of the Windows Genuine Advantage authentication servers brings up some interesting points. With everyone becoming more reliant on online programs (i.e. Software as a Service), we're more at risk to comms faults and server outages. Why can't we go back to having applications on our desktop?!

You can image the advertising push. "Now control your own data!" "Faster processing power now." "Cheaper!" "Everything at your fingertips." "No need to worry about network outages." "Faster, cheaper, more reliable."

Singapore Airlines is adding bigger screens, and a Red Hat distribution of the Linux, in every seat on its newest planes. "KrisWorld" (cool name!) is their in-flight entertainment system which consists of a central Linux server and 'fat' clients in every seat.

KrisWorld can also be used as a PC and includes Sun Microsystems Inc.'s StarOffice application suite, which offers a word processor, spreadsheet, and a presentation program. Every seat is fitted with a USB (Universal Serial Bus) port that lets passengers access documents carried on a thumb drive or portable hard disk. The port can also be used to connect a USB keyboard or mouse, making it easier for business travellers to create and edit documents without having to dig out their laptops and power cords

- Network World I wonder why they called it KrisWorld....

ITN reports that a 39 year old man sitting on a wall outside a home in west London was arrested by two community support officers on suspicion of stealing a wireless broadband connection.

This arrest should act as a warning to anyone who thinks it is acceptable to illegally use other people's broadband connections. To do so potentially breaches the Computer Misuse Act and the Communications Act, so computer users need to be aware that this is unlawful and police will investigate any violation we become aware of.

- Detective Constable Mark Roberts, of the Metropolitan Police computer crime unit. The Register also follows this story.

The NYT reports that passengers on the London-to-Scotland east coast main line will get FREE Wi-Fi as part of National Express' winning bid. GNER completed installation of Wi-Fi broadband on all 41 of its east coast trains last year, and although the service has been free for first-class passengers, those in standard (coach) are charged. This service by National Express is free to all, and uses 3G/GPRS and satellite tech. Now we just have to wait for the south west to catch up!

Wow, a stopgap for the optimus OLED keyboard perhaps, but I want one! Check it out in action!

Now we have a new thin-client machine on our wall, I've been extending the Caller ID program I wrote. It now speaks the name of who's calling, has configurable popup size and window locations, plus the ability to automatically log the call into our CRM for all matching account phone numbers! If I get round to it, I'll write a custom server service which will replace the YAC program which is running on our server, and make it do network broadcasts instead of having to rely on pre-programmed IP addresses.

If you want to get ahead of next week's automated updates, you can now install two updates ("performance and reliability" and "compatability and reliability") which finally fix things such as the long 'estimated time remaining' when copying files and numerous other badly needed fixes!