Tech

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!

DNS Re-pinning may be the latest big security vulnerability to hit the net. Essentially, using short TTLs on a DNS server when sending back an [A] record (or by using multiple [A] records to serve an address round-robin style), an attacker can circumvent the same-origin policy of browsers and use it to launch code in a protected zone. This PDF has the full details.

Most probably after the scaremongering tactics of this BBC Panarama program, The Register reports that teachers have voted to ban WiFI from schools.

Parkin demanded an inquiry into the technology, pointing to a range of maladies which could be down to radio waves cooking the brains of pupils and teachers alike. These include loss of concentration, fatigue, reduced memory and headaches.

- The Register.

With the release of new 'script kiddie' software such as XRumer which looks like it can detect and get past a lot of captcha's. What can you do against it? Remember to change the image dimensions and other attributes from their default settings - this simple step greatly reduced the amount of spam on some of my forums.

Hot on the heels of Intel acquiring a $218.5m stake in VMware, the register reports that Cisco is purchasing a $150m stake in the rapidly growing virtualisation company. Virtualisation it seems is going to be very, very big (and understandably so).

After playing about more with openVPN on windows, i've come up with some checkpoints that most users (i think) will come across:

• On the server, make sure you DO NOT have Routing and Remote Access enabled!
• Enable IP forwarding on the server so that your clients can access the rest of your network -
  1. Use Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe) to view the following registry key:
     HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters
  2. Set the following registry value:
     Value Name: IPEnableRouter
     Value type: REG_DWORD
     Value Data: 1
     NOTE: A value of 1 enables TCP/IP forwarding for all network connections installed and used by this computer.

Also check that your LAN has an appropriate static route to the VPN address range!

I just bought a 2gb NW E015 from Comet (the display model, after them being unable to find a black model for 2 weeks...) and it's a great unit for £50. Whilst the display isn't quite as flashy as the OLED display on my old NW E507, the sound quality and build quality are top notch. The supplied headphones aren't bad, but most audiophiles will prefer something more expensive. It also has a sports mode (where you can set a timer and it will then play music for X number of minutes), and has the regular playlist/shuffle features. As with most sony walkmans, SonicStage is required to transfer music. The beautiful iRiver S10 has dropped in price to £89 but as I bought this to go in the car, the 30 hours battery life of the Sony swung my decision.

I finally got Office 2007 deployment working via group policies - turns out that the Domain Computer group wasn't allowed access to the 'SharedApps' directory on the server which is why the install was failing. Doh! I also made sure that I added the Shell MST file so that English (UK) was added instead of English (US). Why this would result in Office 2007 then being uninstalled from my Vista machine is beyond me, but it's all working properly now. Vista has a nice feature where it switches between your local desktop session and a virtual desktop session where the software is being installed, letting you reply to prompts and dialogs if needed without interrupting your main desktop session.

Sysinternals have just released Active Directory Explorer 1.0, an advanced AD explorer with snapshot and compare facilities.

I'd heard about TrueCrypt before and never got round to trying it out, but recently a client has requested need for such a program. Setting the program to run in 'traveller mode', you can 'install' the software to a USB key / external hard drive (so that you can use it on any computer without having to install software) and then create an encrypted volume file (of any size). This file can then be made to auto-mount whenever the USB key/HD is inserted (by way of a simple autorun.inf). I've just tried it out, creating a 512mb encrypted partition on my 2gb pen drive and it's flawless!