Switch Systems Blog

PHP6 new features

nospam@example.com (Kris Sum) — 2008-05-12T08:36:39Z

PHP6 has some interesting new features (some of which will be back-ported to PHP5.3), including

Namespaces

namespace NathanAGood;
class XMLWriter 
{
    // Implementation here...
}

$writer = new NathanAGood::XMLWriter();

Removal of magic_quotes, register_globals, register_long_arrays, safe_mode

Vista SP1 problem - .xls is Not a Valid Win32 Application?!

nospam@example.com (Kris Sum) — 2008-05-09T08:09:02Z

It seems that quite a few people are having issues with opening Excel 2007, Access 2007 after an installation of Vista SP1. I only just experienced this, and a log off / log on will fix this temporarily, but microsoft is aware of the issue and is working on a fix.

£10 device could speed up your adsl?

nospam@example.com (Kris Sum) — 2008-03-25T22:16:03Z

PCPro says BT is reportedly testing an 'interstatial plate' which plugs into your BT master socket to help reduce noise (and thus increase your ADSL sync speed!).
We already remove all unneeded phones and use a decent master socket face plate on our BT ADSL lines, so it'll be interesting to see the results!
Updated with some pics:

Windows Server 2008 Launch Party

nospam@example.com (Kris Sum) — 2008-03-25T10:39:42Z

Switch recently attended the MS Windows Server 2008 launch party in Birmingham, a great event and we can safely say that 2008 will be a fantastic year for providing advanced IT services to all our clients! Read more ...
Continue reading "Windows Server 2008 Launch Party"

Public Wifi Downtime

nospam@example.com (Kris Sum) — 2008-03-25T09:00:00Z

Our free public wifi hotspot is currently offline due to hardware failure, we expect to have it back up and running soon!

Microsoft News...

nospam@example.com (Kris Sum) — 2008-03-18T16:26:29Z

Microsoft have just released a case study about EDF Energy, one of Exeter's newest large company to reloacte to the city.

Action Pack subscribers are to receive an update mid-march (so, roughly now then?) with Windows Vista SP1. I'll be installing it as soon as it lands on my desk!

3d engine....in EXCEL?!

nospam@example.com (Kris Sum) — 2008-03-06T22:19:43Z

By using a series of formulae, and a worksheet resized so that each cell represents a pixel, you can get a rudimentary 3d engine out of it:

And by using the Office Graphics Abstraction Layer, we can get shading!

Read more at Gamasutra

Phun - a nice 2d physics engine

nospam@example.com (Kris Sum) — 2008-02-25T09:12:47Z

Phun is a Master of Science Theises by Computing Science student Emil Ernerfeldt for supervisor Kenneth Bodin at VRLab, Umeå University. The solver is based on work by Claude Lacoursière
Phun is meant to be a playground where people can be creative. It can also be used as an educational tool to learn about physics concepts such as restitution and friction.

Thanks Kotaku!

Sony Ericsson reveals 'Xperia X1'

nospam@example.com (Kris Sum) — 2008-02-11T08:56:03Z

Some details have been revealed about SE's next new phone, the Xperia X1. It's a windows mobile device combined with a nice UI and iPhone style touch features, more details (and pics) on their website.

Truecrypt 5 major update released

nospam@example.com (Kris Sum) — 2008-02-06T23:17:28Z

A major update to TrueCrypt (the free open source on-the-fly encryption software) has been released with the following juicy updates:

Ability to encrypt a windows system partition/drive with pre-boot authentication (anyone who wants to gain access and use the system, read and write files, etc., needs to enter the correct password each time before the system starts).
Pipelined operations increasing read/write speed by up to 100% (Windows)
Mac OS X version

I'm gonna give the system drive encryption a go and see what the performance/battery life impact is like!

Mid-week news

nospam@example.com (Kris Sum) — 2008-01-23T15:22:16Z

Dell are slashing a shed-load off of their low-end servers, we picked up an Opteron with raid1 for £228 exVAT saving us £261 (the base unit starts at just £99!) The offer expires in two days though.

Ourselves and JJC Design recently collaborated on another web project, and launched www.audisouthwest.com last week. The clients (a collection of Audi dealerships across the south west region) love the self-managing site, we got to write a funky backend (which automagically pulls car data and car images from other systems) and also got to use a nice google maps implementation (see the contact page and click on a marker!)

We're investigating using openVPN to create a fully meshed VPN network across 4 sites. We'll post our findings up on the blog once we've setup the test environment!

Steal This WiFi

nospam@example.com (Kris Sum) — 2008-01-12T13:55:58Z

Security "guru" Bruce Schneier writes on Wired about how he runs a completely open wireless network. He thinks this is a good idea. Others disagree.

I for one, think he misses the most fundamental flaws in running an open network - the fact that strangers have access to your local network. From there, they can easily scan/exploit your local computers, brute-force your router login credentials, or poisen the ARP cache on your machines to perform man-in-the-middle attacks (to capture passwords, SSL sessions, voip phonecalls, http sessions) and so on.

Similar to the way Jeremy Clarkson didn't think anyone could do anything malicious when he posted his bank account numer and sort code in his newpaper column (he was proved wrong when monies were taken out of his account via a fraudulent direct debit), journalists quite often miss the point completely.

Public Wifi Upgraded

nospam@example.com (Kris Sum) — 2008-01-08T16:13:43Z

Our wifi hotspot has been upgraded and now is using openDNS for content filtering, ensuring our users a safer browsing experience.
Continue reading "Public Wifi Upgraded"

End of week news...

nospam@example.com (Kris Sum) — 2008-01-04T11:24:11Z

A new amendment to the UK Computer Misuse Act could outlaw developing and distributing tools which could be used for hacking, according to The Register. Sysadmins look out!

Burnout Paradise is getting some people hot under the collar. Criterion's responses don't do much in their favour. Maybe they shouldn't have released this under the Burnout name?

Doom89 has been released for the TI89, 92+, and V200 graphical calculators. Awesome.

Happy New Year!

nospam@example.com (Kris Sum) — 2008-01-03T10:39:32Z

Happy new year to everyone!

2008 has got off to a busy start for Switch - some new projects we'll be revealing on the website soon, but for now here is a roundup of the news:

IPv6 - coming to a root server near you... icann are adding ipv6 addresses to the root servers, which now means that ipv6 hosts will now be able to communicate without having to rely on any IPv4 architecture.

27 billion gigabytes of data to be archived by 2010 (in the private sector alone), with email accounting for a large proportion - according to a survey of IT managers carried out by Computerworld.

Windows Home Server corrupts files if edited with certain programs, those programs being MS Money, Outlook, OneNote and others...

Google Apps slow to replace competition is an article saying that not many businesses have switched over to using google's web-based applications for office use (I thought this was something everyone would have realised...)