I like to think of myself as somewhat of an internationalist. Having worked in the travel industry and consulted for airlines, cruise lines, and resort chains, I’ve gotten around the “block” a few times. These experiences greatly widened my word view form that of a little boy growing up on a mountain in Tennessee. (BTW, as an adult I moved back to that same mountain in Tennessee and am loving every minute of it.)

One of the things that living and working abroad taught me was that most of the word does not speak English. Now don’t get me wrong, English is a widely spoken language, and you can argue that it is the defaco language of businesses, but on the streets in Munich, Mexico City, or Tokyo, they are NOT speaking English. So when I’ve been to places were English is not the native language I’ve made a great effort to learn enough of local dialect to make myself understood, and believe me when I happen across someone who does speak English I am most grateful for their help, no matter how broken his or her speech is.

However in business, if you are going to conduct commerce with another countries citizens it always does you well to either learn/speak the language or hire people who do so because knowing a person’s native language is always an endearing quality.

Now enter the Spam. Spam of course is unsolicited or unwanted email marketing and is the bane of the inter-webs. Once upon a time spam actually was sort of pseudo professional, not having to shell out tens of thousands of dollars in direct mail costs, companies could go the extra mile in the design and crafting of their marketing materials. Not anymore.

Now I get spam with all manner of odd ball language, it would seem now that not only is English NOT the first language of the spammers, it appears that they crafted there marketing messages by stringing together phrases from a pocket English guide or a pirated pornographic movie. In fact the messages are SO bad now, I’ve started reading them. This is not because I would ever refinance my house because of an e-mail, or by pharmaceuticals via e-mail to treat ED, it is because they are now just that funny. Here are some except from my mail today that made me chuckle:

“Zillion men all over world use cure” – What is a “Zillion Man”?

“Make your boyfriennd a gift!” – Just make sure to poke holes in the wrapping so he can breathe.

“V1agra c1al1s rock bottom” – Well, duh, isn’t that the point?

“everyone is our herbal program” – Sort of like Solent Green?

“Use free pills to your woman” – Here, well call that a Ruffy.

“Top qulity swiss repl1Ca modles” – But not top “qulity” spell check.

“Invest in hottest chicks in town” – Because attractive woman always make for good venture capital opportunities.

“we free 12 pills with order” – Free Tibet first, then we’ll talk about freeing those oppressed pills.

“15% discount now available on store” – I guess it is a down real estate market.

“Unleash your animal on the unsuspecting ladies” – Yes, I have a pet Zebra that I use to attack women.

“Guaranteed growth of 3-6 foots” – Can you run faster with 3 to 6 extra feet?

“Great branded for you” – OUCH!!

“Fire and Ice In Your Pants” – No comment I make would make this any funnier.

“Land Dream Chick Here” – Unless you can’t get clearance from the tower, then fly to another airport.

“She exploded herself to me” – And left a terrible mess.

This was all from a single day of Spam. I know that some Spam uses obfuscation like “V1agra” to get around keyword filtering for “Viagra”. But perhaps we can work on a new system that scans for poor grammar in e-mail. This way we can weed out the spam AND punish inept writers like myself.

I have just completed my first full week after moving from Windows Vista to Windows XP.

Before I get to long into this, perhaps I should give some back-story. I’ve always been on the cutting edge technology, in fact I stood in line to by a copy of Windows 95 at midnight after it went on sale back in the fall of 1995, and I have been an early adopter of new software ever since.

Because I am a technology elitist, I understand that “early adopters” often have “issues”. In my time I have had issues, though not as many as I think have been hyped in the media (both new media and old media). Each time I upgrade I just expect there to be some small issues with the software, but more importantly I also expect there needs to be some time for personal retraining. I found that often people will blame the software for faults which are more appropriately cased by their own lack of knowledge. So, with each new upgrade I always give myself time to get past any personal prejedust or ignorance so as to pass a more informed judgment of the software or hardware.

I ran Windows Vista on my Primary Desktop for over a year. When I first installed it I, like most, was amazed by the visual effects of the user interface (Aero). I had read enough about Vista before hand to know that I needed a higher end video card, and additional ram, to make the first impression a good one. Having been through the last two major upgrades of the user interface in Windows, 3.11 to 95, and 2000 to XP, I had come to expect great things from the UI, and Vista did not disappoint. While I never used the “rolodex” task switching feature (that was 100% hype in my opinion), I was pleased by the format of the UI, the new start menu and the overall layout of the tool bars.

However, I have to admit that the honeymoon with Vista was short. While the UI was pleasant, I found nothing about it which I could justify the cost of the additional Video Card power to my clients. Vista of course had a non-Aero UI which worked pretty much the same, and so the “eye-candy” of Aero was simply unneeded. Aside from Aero elements, there also seemed to me to be a great deal of Video mode issues. In the first few months with Vista I would get these bizarre “Windows has lowered your Video Mode” messages. I traced most of these issues back to older versions of the Java runtime environment, but I would still get those messages from time to time right up until I stop using Vista. The UI was nice, but much like a gilded Victorian house, it may look incredible, but it is most uncomfortable to live in.

I can say that I did not have any single “deal killer” issue with Vista. It was more like a being killed by 1,000 little cuts, each not of great concern but combined proved both painful and lethal. Somewhat like a marriage that has reached its end, there were many things that caused the devoice, but here is what I put into the papers.

1. Unreconsilabale Differences. Vista and I could not see eye-to-eye on how to handle Files. In Vista there is an infinite number of ways to “view” the contents of a folder. Filename, Size, Dates, Descriptions, etc, etc, are all columns which can be added to a Folder View, and ordered, arranged, and sorted however you would like. BUT Vista and I could never seem to agree on a Folder View. As a developer I like to pile all the files I have for a project into a single folder for each client. Words Docs with meeting notes, Excel Docs with budgets, Bits of code in text files of different extensions, HTML, and anything else I might need for a project. This is how I work. I would set up a folder, start dropping files into it and the moment I dropped in a file of a specific type, Vista would change the Folder View on me the next time I opened it. Vista seemed to give NO weight to the number of files of any time. So I would have a folder full of 200+ PHP files, but drop in a single JPEG and now my folder view has changed, giving me things like “date taken” and “Rating” as columns rather than my “date modified” which is what I use most.
   
   I am sure that there is some logic in how Vista selects for me the file views. I am equally sure that someone from Microsoft could explain it to me. But I’m not sure that I wouldn’t slap them at the end of the explanation.
   
2. Adultery. Yes there was another Woman, my MacBook and OS 10.5. No, I’m not going to compare and contrast OS X and Windows Anything. I will admit that while I was having problems with Vista, I ran to the arms of my MacBook for comfort. I won’t say it was a deciding factor in going back to XP, after all I went back to XP and not a Mac Desktop. XP also seemed to play better over the network with my MacBook than Vista. Perhaps Vista is just a jealous lover. She seems modern in her outward appearance, but still is still very traditional and monogamous on the inside. I still have my MacBook now that I’m back with XP, I love them both, and neither is jealous of the other. They know my heart. (btw my MacBook’s is quite the little freak, she bats for both teams thanks to Parrells.)
   
3. Mental Suffering an Abuse, Battery. I’m a right clicker. My first instinct when I’m not sure what to do is to right click on it. I’ve tried this in my normal life, but pecking on things with the middle finger of my right hand does not seem to have much effect. I’m also a network user. At TCG we have over 5 TB (Tetra Bytes) of storage scattered around the empire. Some of these files are big ones 100+ GB. When I would go to a file on the network in Vista and right client on that file (out of habit mostly), all hell would break lose. I’m not sure of the technical reason, but it would seem that Vista needs to ether go through a files completely or “copy” that file locally before it will pass judgment on what I can do with a right click.
   
   The end result would be that when I would absent mindedly right click on a file, Explorer would go into partial lockdown waiting for whatever it needs to do. Of course on a small file over the network this was ok, but with a 20GB backup file on a slow link VPN link it is murder. I basically have to restart the machine if I want it to stop. Worse than the “absent minded click” was the deliberate right-click. On those big network files, Vista would be doing it thing, but because Vista remembers your mouse clicks, after right clicking on a file I could do NOTHING else until the context menu shows up. This is because if I had clicked elsewhere on the screen, then the moment the menu shows up, it goes away, and Vista does not cache such data, so if I right click again, I’m forced to wait the additional time all over.
   
   Copying the large files over my network also suffered under Vista. I have no data to support this except my “Coffee” test. I have to copy 2 or 3 Gig files on a normal bases from my desktop to a server. There is a 802.11g wifi link in this chain so the maximum bandwidth in which I could copy these file is 56MBits less the WPA overhead. In XP I could start the transfer, and it be done when I come back from refilling my coffee cup, in Vista the same transfer has a little while left after I get back with my fresh cup. I’ve believe this to be not just a fixed additional time, but a sliding scale. Larger Files seems slower, the bigger the file, the slower the transfer.

For all of these reasons and more (I got never get Kimboot to work on Vista), on Friday of last week I switched back to XP. I felt, and still feel, like somewhat of a failure. I gave Vista a year of my life, I tried to work it out, but the frustrations just kept rising. There had been a lot of hype about people “Upgrading to XP”, and I did not want to fall into the trap of being either a “fan boy” or a “hater”.

I had hoped that Vista SP1 would address some of these things, but while it did speed up the network issues, it didn’t do it fast enough to complete with XP.

So how has the week been? I think that a good test of any Software is to see what you miss. After a week with XP, the jury is still out. I miss the Start Menu Search Bar. I found myself using it to find programs rather than digging through the menus. The Start Menu itself was also very handily laid out. I think I miss that, but not enough to put up with the rest.

Once reason the jury is still out is the issues of “need to reinstall a program”. Of course after you’ve been using an OS for a year, you have everything you need installed on it. After switching OSes, you always have to reinstall software. I find that it is easier to reinstall software as I need it rather than just pile on software right from the start. So while I feel a minor a nuisance, I know that it is always that way.

In the end I’m going to give is “side-grade” a month. If I do not feel overtly completed to switch back to Vista, I’m going to just keep on using XP. I will write again on the topic after I have had some time to process it.

I own both an iPod and a Zune, (5g Video and First Generation, respectively) I paid about the same for both on the ebay/woot after market. From a technical stand point my Zune far outreaches my iPod. Out of the box the G1 Zune had Wi-Fi, a faster processor and larger screen. But the iPod is the clear market dominator, so there is a virtual sea of third party “stuff” that will work with the iPod and not the Zune. Case in point, my car’s radio head unit works with my iPod, Bose makes my desktop iPod “Dock” with speakers, and because of the economy of scale, stuff like charges are much cheaper than comparable stuff for the Zune.

However market dominance in third party add-ons is not the only reasons to pick a device. So let me compare the two devices on a one-two-one scale.

Both devices play DRM free MP3s, and nether play open source OGG file. Both devices require trans-coding of Video to play it on the device, Apple uses MP4/H.264 while Zune uses the Windows Media format. The trans-coded files are roughly the same size and quality once finished, both can be played back on their respective platforms (Mac/Windows for the iPod and just Windows for the Zune), and both can be played via the “extension” options for the Desktop, (Apple TV for iPod, Xbox 360 for Zune).

The Zune has a larger screen, which makes viewing video much easier. I watched most of the first season of House MD while on the plain to Africa last fall on my Zune. The video screen on the iPod is more like an afterthought, or perhaps it was kept small to keep continuity with the earlier non-video iPods.

The Zune also has Wi-Fi, but that Wi-Fi is COMPLETELLY useless. You can use Wi-Fi to “Sync” your Zune, or to “Squirt” crippled music files to another Zune User, and that is all, nothing more. The Zune has an FM radio. The iPod is completely without any wireless connectively, in or out.

Real World battery life on both devices is about comparable. 2 to 3 hours of Video, 4 to 6 hours of Music. Both devices can store and show resized images synced for the desktop. This is where I was caught of guard with both units. I have 100,000+ images socked away on my systems. This amount of pictures can easily fit on the available memory of both devices, but both iTunes and Zune Desktop “resize” an image to make it fit on your device’s screen (which makes the image smaller in both pixels and bytes). However the resizing/coping process takes a few moments per image, and with the amount of images I have, the process took most of a day.

The Desktop Software is where the two devices really diverge. Both iTunes and the Zune Desktop take an “all your media are belong to us” approach to your music and video libraries. It’s more fare to compare Zune Desktop 2 to iTunes rather than Zune Desktop 1. ZD1 was a joke, ZD2 is more like a farce.

iTunes benefits from it’s long standing install base, so the software guys at Apple have some experience, feedback, etc, on what iTunes needs to be. Microsoft’s ZD2 chose to live in a cave and ignore the lessons learned by Apple.

<aside> To be fair to Microsoft, a cooperate lawyer was most likely standing over the shoulder of each programmer, everyday, to make sure that ZD did not look or act like iTunes, just to avoid a lawsuit. A note to Microsoft, patent law in this country needs serious reform, and that will only happen when a) congress does something (unlikely) or b) corporate titans fight it out to prove that software and basic concepts are not patentable. Microsoft, take the hit in the court room, your save money in the long run, have a better product, and we just may have a better society. </aside>

ZD2 just seems so illogical to me, and they also have made it Pink. Now I’m not opposed to the color Pink, I have a seven year old daughter, so most of my house is Pink. However I do want my Windows apps to look like Windows apps. ZD2 goes out of its way to look “cool”, but in reality it’s user interface is just annoying.

In the end it was the uselessness of the wifi, and the sad shape of the Zune Desktop which made me chose to use my iPod as my daily PMP. Ironically the Zune has the greater potential, so if the hacking community will rewrite the Zune OS I could very will see myself switching back to the Zune hardware (less the Zune Hardware).

With just some very basic software changes the downsides of the Zune could be over shadowed by the additional benefits. With full and complete Wi-Fi the Zune could easily become a Wireless Streaming Content receiver. The Zune could also have some basic information apps like weather, stocks, traffic, etc. While the physical interface is somewhat limited, Microsoft could do an online system very much like they used for their SPOT technology. A user could, from their desktop, go to MSN and select the content and apps they would want to use from their Wi-Fi Zune. Then when connecting from the Zune the user would have a more limited, but completely mobile, access to those previously selected items.

With better Wi-Fi access the Zune could become a great and easy Wi-Fi Network Attached Storage. All of the hardware and processing power are there, this is just simple software changes.

The Wi-Fi angle on the Zune still bugs me. Why not have used Bluetooth? You could accomplish the same limited “Syncing” and “Squirting” but also have added Bluetooth Stereo headset support. While this article has been limited to the Zune G1 vs. the iPod G5 Video, the same question hold true for the newer iPod Touch.

I have started to use a new open source program called “TrueCrypt” and I wanted to share some of my first impressions.

Data protection is quickly becoming the number one priority in computer security. In fact it could be argued that the data carried on your computer is more valuable than the computer itself. For example, last year the Nashville Election Commission had stolen a laptop containing data on every Nashville voter. With this data a criminal could have assumed the identify of any Nashville voter and done any of the typical “identify theft” things such as opened credit card accounts under that ID, opened/closed utilities, etc, etc. Fortunately Nashville got the laptop back, but the other data loss situations are popping up all the time.

It’s a fact of life that someone is going to lose a computer component that will have sensitive data on it. Be it a laptop, desktop hard drive, backup tape, or USB thumb drive, accidental loss or just plan theft will occur. Of course when that laptop is stolen, did the thief just steal it to pawn for drug money, or was it a calculated attack aim at getting sensitive data? Who’s to say that even if it did get pawned, what if the new owner finds the data and sells it? The only sure defense for your data is to encrypt it, and that is what TrueCrypt does.

TrueCrypt takes different approaches to how it encrypts your data. One method is the concept of using a “virtual drive” or “drive image”. Basically, a “virtual drive” or “drive image” is a file on the hard drive which the OS (Windows in this case) “mounts” as a normal drive in and of itself. So the file in My Documents called “Some_cd_image.iso” is mounted to look like it’s the “L:\” Drive. Any data read or written to the “L:\” Drive actually goes into “Some_cd_image.iso” in My Documents. Mac users are more accustom to this concept because Mac Software from the Internet is generally distributed using a “.dmg” file, which is a drive image. People who “back up” there CD ROMs also work with drive images, because those backups are simply sector-by-sector image copies of the original optical disk. But I digress.

One method for TrueCrypt is to create a file which is then mounted as a drive image. TrueCrypt will then automatically encrypt and decrypt data as it written or read from the “drive”/file.

TrueCrypt can also encrypt whole drives, so rather than having an encrypted file which is then mounted as a virtual drive, you can choose to encrypt an entire thumb drive, or a second hard disk. Again, once the drive in created and mounted, you can read and write data to it just like any drive. TrueCrypt handles the encryption and decryption automatically.

TrueCrypt also has a “whole drive encryption” feature for the system drive. This is the really COOL feature in which you can encrypt your ENTIRE computer. When your computer boots, TrueCrypt will ask for a password (this is the encryption key), after you enter the correct password, your system will boot and run as normal. If your computer is lost or stolen, your data is safe. TrueCrypt isn’t a password, it’s encryption, so even if they thief took the hard drive out and put it into a another system, they would not be able to “see” any of the data on it. Because you only have to enter your password at boot time, there is no consent “in-your-face” element to TrueCrypt, all new data, email, or programs, you put on your system are safe.

TrueCrypt also has some other features which I really like.

1. Total lack of data structure in a secured file. This means that if you had a file you mounted as a drive image, there is no way for anyone to tell what exactly that file is or how full that “virtual drive” might be without knowing your encryption key (password). In fact, a TrueCrypt file is nothing more than random “noise” before you use your encryption key, thus someone could not actually PROVE that the file they are looking at is even an encrypted file.
2. Hidden Volumes and Plausible Deniability. TrueCrypt lets you create a “file within a file”. Let’s say that you have a situation where you are forced by some means to give over your encryption key (password). There are many far-fetched examples on why this would happen such as “someone has a gun to your head”. However a more realistic example would be “you are under court order to turn over a password”. With Hidden Volumes and Plausible Deniability you could have 2 passwords, one opens up your real secret stuff, the other opens up somewhat secret stuff. If forced you simply give up the “somewhat secret stuff” password. There is NO technical way to prove that you gave up the wrong one.
3. Key Files. These are files which you can use in place of, or along with, a password. For example, you have a picture, or ten pictures, which you can use as “passwords”. You simply tell TrueCrypt to use the “hashed sums” from that or those image files as the password. A “hashed sum” is a mathematical representation of a computer file which is always the same so long as the file does not change. What makes the use of “hashed sums” of key files interesting is that you can avoid using the keyboard to input the key to unlock your data. Criminals have used “key board loggers” which record every key stroke to record passwords from victim’s computers.

I have really stared to beat the drum about security with my clients here at TCG. TrueCrypt is perhaps the best tool I have found thus far for the lay-person to help guard against data theft.

The arrogance of the federal government is astounding. On top of everything else they do that irks me, they also feel like they can change time itself.

Just to give some prospective, Modern Daylight Savings Time (DST) was the ideal of a Britton named William Willett, who sought to impose his own “morning person” world view. It was adopted in the US in 1918 as part of the irrational rise of nationalism in the early part of the 20^th century. DST has gone through some adjustments, most recently in 2007 when the switch dates where moved.

I have to admit here that I am somewhat biases against time change. In my line of work I have to keep accurate and synchronized time across a wide variety of computing devises. So twice a year I get the job of going around to 50+ computers, phones, printers, fax machines, etc, and make sure that they ether have made the time jump, or adjust them to match the new correct time. I also have to go to many of my clients and make sure that their computers, phones, printers, fax machines, etc, have done the same. So the Sunday and Monday following a time change is a big headache for me, and enviably something gets missed, or decides to revert/jump and weeks later I’m track down a problem, or worse not finding a problem because the logs are an hour (or two) off. Not only does the “act” of switching cause problems, but also this notion of moving the switch dates also cause its own spate problems. A lot of software, OSes, and time centric hardware have the DST switch dates hard coded into them. So for these legacy systems I have to now set the clocks forward or back on the new switch dates, and then reset them on the old switch dates when they change themselves.

Both in 1918 and in 2007, DST technology has been justified by congress to the public as money saving venture. Well, personally I lose money every time the time changes because of the aforementioned reasons. Finally I have learned that I’m not alone. The Wall Street Journal published an article discussing a paper written by Matthew J. Kotchen and Laura E. Grant, economists at the University of California at Santa Barbara. The article and paper are part of a growing movement to show that DST is neither cost saving nor necessary in the US.

Most of the rest of the world does not observe a DST, and those that do rarely switch on the same dates as we do. So those of us who do a lot of international business also have the additional gripe of having to figure out what time it is in another country based on what day of the year it is. It makes setting up conference calls tricky. If the US did away with DST, I feel that we would set a new standard for the world to follow, and this arcane system would fall away.

I urge everyone to contact their congress critters and ask them to set aside this folly of DST.

Exchange is Microsoft’s “Messaging and Collaboration” server. In plain English, Exchange is the server which an office can use to receive e-mail and share address books and schedules with each other. It is quite possibly the single best product offered by Microsoft, and the one that works most reliably.

Most people think of e-mail in the POP3 dial-up ISP model. They open up their e-mail program and “download” messages from the internet to Outlook Express or Mail.app. Of course anyone who has tried to use the same e-mail address from the office and from home knows the great limiting factor. If you download a message at the office, you won’t have access to it at home or vice-versa. There have been several “hacks” over the years to try and get around this, the most notable one being “leave a copy of mail on server”. But here you are forced to sort through mail that you may or may not have read, and you do not have access to messages to may have already sent, or that you were in the process of writing. The final great downside to this style of e-mail is that you must have an e-mail program configured for each place you may want to get you mail. For most business professionals this turns out to be 3 places, office, home, laptop.

One way of addressing these problems has been the rise of wed based e-mail, yahoo.com, hotmail.com, and gmail.com. While these fix most of the problems with the POP3 model, they still have a few serious drawbacks. Chief of which is that they are not corporate e-mail systems. You lose the professional face of joe.user@mycompany.com in favor of finding an awkward e-mail address with the service, juser-mycomp1977@gmail.com. I cannot over state how deeply unprofessional it is for me to get a business card with an “@aol.com”, or “@gmail.com” address. There are again “hacks” to make web based systems look more corporate, but these systems are still “single user” and thus sharing your data across the office is not easily done.

Enter Microsoft Exchange. Exchange has solved the problem of multiple locations (work, home, road), and the problem of installed software (Exchange can be accessed from either Outlook or via a web browser). Exchange also has the advantage of being a corporate e-mail system (i.e. @mycompany.com), and allowing each user of the server to share out his or her address book and schedule so that other people in the office know what’s going on. Except for answering the phone, it’s about the only communication service/server you will ever need.

Exchange also has a mobile e-mail access feature which is exactly like ubiquitous Blackberry, but without the ridiculous Blackberry costs. Microsoft calls this “Push Email”. A message sent to joe.user@mycompany.com not only shows up in Joes Outlook Inbox, but also a copy is sent to his Windows Mobile Phone. If he reads the e-mail on his phone, the message is marked as read when he sits down at his computer. If he replies to the e-mail from his phone, then the reply is also in his Outlook folders for him to refer back to.

In fact it is the sync of Exchange that is its greatest virtue. No mater were you use it from, Mobile, Outlook, Office, Home, or via the Web, it always looks the same, has the same messages, and the same read/not-read statuses. The Contacts and Calendars are the same. In fact address books and schedules are automatically synced to your cell phone over the air. This means that if you enter an address in Outlook it will be on your phone (no more tying to type in a name and number of the keypad). If you run into someone and schedule a meeting while waiting in line at the post office, you can put that meeting right into your cell phone and then it will show up at the office. No need to plug in your phone to your computer, it just works.

Exchange is not at all expensive. A typical small office can have all of the virtues of exchange, for less than $1500. There are some additional “data plan” coasts from the cell phone provider if you want to use Push e-mail, but those are only $10 to $15 a month depending on carrier, where Blackberry services can be $50 per-month in total or more. Of course your office will also have to have internet access via broadband.

1. He Calls Himself a “Webmaster”

Any web guy that calls himself a “webmaster” probably isn’t a master of anything. The term “webmaster” has become a translation for the word “amateur.” The web has diversified into so many different realms that webmaster is no longer meaningful (was it ever though?)

2. He’s a FrontPage Expert

Any developer / designer with a degree knows that Microsoft FrontPage most definitely isn’t a professional tool. FrontPage will pass for Mom and Dad who want to create a website dedicated to their dogs, not someone who’s trying to do business. I’d argue that a solid Web Developer should work at code level.

3. He’ll Submit Your Website to [Inflated Number Here] Search Engines

Submitting your website to hundreds of search engines would be great…10 years ago. Websites are indexed by relevant search engines by how rich their content and keywords are. Search engine optimization is big business and submitting sites to search engines simply isn’t the way to get to the top of Google.

4. He Wants a “Designed By ….” Plug on the Bottom of Every Page

You’ve paid this person to create a marketing tool for you — not a billboard for him. Your website is a launch pad for your business and Poindexter McScooner is simply the man behind the curtain — keep him there.

5. He Created a Cool Website for [Insert Family Member / Friend Here]

Your business needs someone who’s been there before. The most common answer to my “Who was he and what business did they work for?” question is “Oh, he did a website for the CEO’s daughter’s [insert lame organization here].” I honestly hear that friend-of-a-friend story all the time. Choose someone with a sizable portfolio that can provide references.

6. He Can Make You a Great Splash Page Flash Animation

Translation: “I can spend dozens of hours wasting your money to create something that will take too long to load and will be skipped more times than dessert at a bad restaurant.” Consistency and website flow are important to web design — not meaningless animations that waste visitors’ time and your money.

7. He Mentions He’s a HTML Expert

Who isn’t? I would argue that dropping any language acronym on a customer (PHP, Ruby on Rails, ColdFusion, etc.) unless they ask is meaningless fluff. A mechanic could use a banana on my car if it would fix it. Keep your tools, especially HTML, to yourself — the customer doesn’t care.

8. He’ll Fit a Cool Counter on Your Site

You’ll add an ugly relic of the early internet on my site so that my competitors have an idea of my web stats? Sweet!

Counters make a website look as unprofessional as possible — don’t use them.

9. He’ll Place a “Best If View in…” Message on Your Website

Any real Web Developer knows that he doesn’t make the rules. Follow standards in the initial build and then fix it in Internet Explorer — that’s the flow. No responsible programmer would place a “best if view in…” message on the front-end of a website.

Note: I pulled this off of a copy of a mirror to a site that had crashed. I’m not sure of the original author (not me), but I’ll credited it when I find him. Otherwise I thought it was good advice. Yes I know that part of what TCG does is web design, but if there is something more important than web design to us, it making sure that web design is done “the right way” regardless of who does it.

BONUS 10. Charges for your site by the Page/Picture

This one is my own personal pet peeve. It encourages people to design pages that are too long and don’t work. Website design and hosting should ALWAYS be priced on a “per-job” bases. The fact is that a text only site with 50 pages where the client hands you all the text in Word Docs on CD is easier to do than a site with 5 pages full of images where the client hands you a manila file folder full of Kodak slides that need to be scan.

Understanding Malwared-Ware, Spy-Ware, and Viruses

By: McKinley H. Tabor, August 5, 2005

Fully 70% of my practice now involves problem with, or stemming from, Ad-ware, Spy-ware, and Viruses, (collectively called Mal-ware, for “Malicious Software”). However, with a few simple steps you can make sure your computer is free of these modern technology scourges.

The Culprits:

To understand how to avoid mal-ware, some back ground on what mal-ware is might be helpful.

Ad-ware, is a program installed on your computer that an advertising company will use to send you advertising. Most often this is done via the dreaded “Popup” window. The most aggressive forms of Ad-ware even monitors your keystrokes and web searches so as to custom tailor it’s ads to you. For example you may go to Google and search on the work “travel”, and an ad for a travel company will pop up. Normally ad-ware is just an annoyance rather than a destructive force. (it would be counter productive for an advertising company to disable your computer). But a large infestation of ad-ware on a system will cause it to crash simply because of the load that the program puts on the system. Furthermore, some types of ad-ware programs are not compatible with each other, as a result they will crash the system when run simultaneously, jut like any two other legitimate but incompatible program will.

Spy-ware comes in two flavors. While the term “spy” my conger up images of dark forces collecting secret information about you, this is only one flavor of spy-ware, and is actually very, very rare. Most spy-ware is actually just sisitiscsal gathering programs, used to track the computing habits of many hundreds of thousands of people. Unlike ad-ware, these programs can do real harm, not to your computer, but you personally. Some types of spy-ware are used in conjunction with “Phishing” scams, and try to collect data from you such as passwords, credit card numbers, and personal identification information like driver’s license data and social security numbers.

Viruses are and old threat with a new twist. Back in the mid 1980s the first computer virus was found “in the wild” (meaning not in a lab or a test center). Oddly, it was the old world Macintosh which first fell victim to viruses because of it superb multitasking operating system. Back then viruses had to be spread on floppy disks. Now in the Internet age, the most common way for a virus to spread is by e-mail. One of the most annoying types of virus (at least from a system administrators stand point) is the “worm”. This is a type of virus which moves form computer to computer infecting a system, then reaching out to other system to try and infect them. This movement from computer to computer almost always comes about from a flaw in the software which that computer runs and the method of movement can be either from a direct connection, or through an email set out to everyone in the computers address book. An infected computer is at the whim of whatever the virus wants to do. Sometimes virus do little more then spread themselves, with little or no negative effect on the computer they are on. Some viruses are used by malicious computer experts to co-op an infected system to help the malicious expert attack an internet site, or spread “Spam” (unwanted advertising e-mail). Some viruses are used to get ad-ware and spy-ware on a system.

How Mal-ware gets on a computer.

Ironically 99% of all mal-ware is put on at the user’s request. This is because Mal-ware writers and distributors are very cunning in how they move their “product”.

Also 99% of all mal-ware installs take advantage of security holes in the popular web browser “Internet Explorer”. These security holes in IE often will allow software to be install from the internet with little or no warning to the user, and can be start be just one click. Sadly, Microsoft is reluctant to fix these holes because it is the same security holes when used properly by reputable companies that allow for online updates to legitimate software, certain types of online databases, and some online banking programs.

Nothing is “Free”.

A lot of mal-ware is installed when a user installs a bit of “free” software from the internet. Most of these “free” software programs are paid for by adverting, is the form of ad-ware. Popular programs for things like, weather, e-mail customization, desktop enhancement, similes, emoticons, chatting, search toolbars, and music downloading (the worst) all support themselves by ad-ware.

“You’re a winner”

Most, if not all of the flashing “winner” banners are way to lure people into installing mal-ware. Furthermore some of these “winner” banners or “do this, and win a prize” games are used to collect personal information which can be used in Identity theft.

Bait and Click

Some popup windows come right out and asks if you want to install something “yes” or “no”…. but if you click “no” it will install anyway. (remember, the IE hole can install software with only one click, doesn’t mater what you clicked on in the window) ALSO, many more popup are putting images that look like real Windows XP objects, such as the close X, and Notification Windows. Thus a user can be “tricked” into clicking on a part of the IE window which looks like part of Windows XP, and hens install software.

E-mail attachments

The most common virus/worm movement is through e-mail attachments. You may get an e-mail form someone you know, but it’s really from a virus, so if your not expecting the message, don’t open it. Also some new e-mails don’t have attachments, but have Web hyper links in them, which satisfies the “one click” to install flaw.

Guerrilla warfare

The term “Guerrilla” warfare has come to represent a covert war fought in irregular ways. The term “Guerrilla” originally comes from the Spanish, and means “Little War”. Having said that, there is open warfare between the writers of mal-ware software, and the writers of anti-mal-ware software, and the add to the confusion there are even confects between the various mal-ware writers.

There are (at the time of writing this) about 30 to 50 thousand different and specific type of ad-ware and spy-ware. These however come from only about 1,000 different “firms” which write and spread these programs. (There are of course many, many little independent shops that do this as well) Anti-mal-ware programs try to detect and remove mal-ware based on what and where it is installed. Naturally, mal-ware writers are always changing that they do and how they do it to stay ahead of the anti-mal-ware people.

But mal-ware writers also know that if there are too many bits of mal-ware on a given system, the user of that system will be more inclined to spend money to remove ALL the mal-ware. But if there is just a few mal-ware programs, most users will tolerate the ads, not knowing any better to remove them, or not pestered enough to pay for software or services to remove a small announce. Hens, most of the major mal-ware writers are also in the business of removing the mal-ware of there competitors. This is where you get the “you have ad-ware/spy-ware on your computer, would you like us to remove it for free?” popup. This most often is a mal-ware writer trying to remove all but their own mal-ware.

Mal-ware writers will so make their products friendly with each other. Meaning that once you have a bit of mal-ware on your system, that mal-ware could allow other bits of mal-ware from the same company onto your system, even going to far as to seek out and download other program totally outside of the users awareness.

This constant adding and removing of programs, especially those programs which operate “under the radar”, can case havoc with a system, leaving little bits of partially removed and partially installed programs all over the hard drive. Again, just like the damage you would do if you decided to install, uninstall, and then reinstall any program several dozen times.

How to dispose of Mal-ware and how to protect yourself in the future

The bad news is that there is no fool proof way to remove a bad mal-ware infestation. A system that is covered with mal-ware could take hours and hours to clean off, and you can never be 100% sure you got everything. Sometimes when approaching an infestation the easiest way to clean it off is to wipe the computer and start from scratch. Backup all of your data files, format the hard drive and reinstall Windows, your drivers, and your programs. It may take a couple of hours, but it’s better that twice that long trying in vain to remove something which will never come out all the way.

Once on a system mal-ware can be very tricky to deal with. For example, a bit of mal-ware may have two programs running at once. If you succeed in defeating program 1 (by stopping the program while running and deleting it from your hard drive) program 2 will simply restore program 1 while you are tying to defeat program 2. The same works in reverse.

Mal-ware will also hide in the shutdown scripts of the computer. So, just as soon as you remove the program, it will reinstall itself as you are shutting down. Mal-ware once on will also seek to cripple those programs which hunt it (more Guerrilla warfare). If the mal-ware program starts before the anti-mal-ware program starts, then the mal-ware can hide itself from the anti-mal-ware or worse the mal-ware and disable the anti-mal-ware all together, and the user is completely unaware of their lack of protection.

The best way to avoid mal-ware is to install anti-mal-ware software right from the start. Most of the blocking software packages also have a cleaning element which can be used to clean off small (and try to clean off large) amounts of mal-ware.

This however no one “Magic Bullet” software that clean and protects all types of mal-ware. Most people will use a “cocktail” of software to protect their system. They come mainly is three “styles” of software.

Firewalls, which watches your internet connection and keeps bad stuff from flowing in/out or malicious computer experts from getting into your system

Anti-Viruses, which scan computers looking for Virus and their virus components

Anti-Ad-ware/Anti-spy-ware, which looks for ad-ware and spy-ware, but also stop popup not caused by ad-ware, and stop legitimate programs from starting at boot time (which can slow down your computer), and stop legitimate programs from tweaking your system setting (again, not ad-ware, but very, very annoying)

Here are some of the software packages out there and what they do:

    Norton Intern Security: This is the closest thing to a Magic Bullet out there, but it’s actually a collection of existing Symantec products. It has a firewall, anti-virus, but it’s a little weak on the anti-ad-ware side. Norton also has a history of being very invasive on a system, it takes also of system resources to do what it does, and bombards the user with windows tell him or her very detail of what’s going on (while this can be interesting and helpful for the first couple of days, after a few weeks the Norton popup are more of a hassle than the ad-ware popups). Norton also uses a “subscription” model for it’s software. You pay yearly for the software to work. If you stop paying the software loses most of its effectiveness.

Macafee: MacAfee has a history as good anti-virus and their firewall is also it has a subscription model as well, but is less invasive and uses less system over head. Like Norton, a long time player in the anti-virus realm, they too are weak in their anti-ad-ware department.

Microsoft: Mother Microsoft has two products, both for XP. First, XP service pack 2 contains its own firewall, thus rendering any other firewall as redundant. Second Microsoft has their own Anti-Ad-ware product, Windows Defender. On the up side, both products are free to XP users (which most of the world is). The firewall is integrated into the TCP/IP stack of the computer, which in a perfect world would mean that the firewall would be bullet proof. Because Microsoft also makes IE (the primary case of mal-ware) one would figure that its anti-mal-ware scanner/blocker would take full advantage of their own knowledge of the proprietary code of both IE and Windows.

Microsoft also releases updates to windows, IE, office, and all if their products on a fairly regular bases, just as other software vendors do. You should download these updates daily to help protect your system.

    AVG: Avg anti-virus is arguably the best “free” anti-virus around today. AVG dies has a pay version they sell to larger customers, but their free product is not crippled in any way. AVG also has just as many updates to their software as Norton and MacAfee (remember an anti-virus not updated regularly is soon useless), but AVG is NOT subscription based. Like most other anti-virus programs it scans your e-mail (to remove viruses and worms not spam), and does a full system scan late at night (if you leave your computer on.)

    Mozilla Firefox: This is the golden arrow of computer safety. As stated 99% of all mal-ware comes in because of security holes in IE, well if you stop using IE, your 99% safe. Firefox does just about everything IE will do in term as day-to-day surfing. Firefox will not connect to Microsoft to download updates and there are some online things which need IE to work, but you can keep IE just for that takes, and use Firefox for your general surfing. Firefox has build in non-mal-ware popup blocking and an integrated search toolbar for Google, Yahoo and other search engines. Is Firefox completely safe? No, nothing is, but it is far and away a better browser than IE. If fact, studies of the surfing habits of normal Internet users show that just with Firefox alone, you are better protected than using IE and the best anti-virus, anti-mal-ware, and firewall systems money can buy. Firefox is of course a free download.

    Ad-aware: Ad-ware with the first widespread anti-adware systems available, and still one of the best. The free ad-aware product scans and removes ad-ware and spy-ware, and is updated regularly. If you want “real time” protection you have to buy the full product, but it’s not subscription based.

Spybot Search and Destroy: Another early pioreer in the anti-mal-ware group, this it of software is funded by donations, free to download, and works great for older system. It was a real-time protection system which blocks EVERYTHING even overzealous legitimate software

Hijack-this!: This is very technical program which defeats mal-ware by removing its ability to start. Once a mal-ware program fails to start, removing it with anti-mal-ware products becomes much easier. Hijack-this also give the user a read on all processes that start on the computer, giving the more knowable computer user the ability to better control his or her system.

I’m really enjoying working with Word Press. Long I have searched for a good CMS (content management system), and this seems to be the one I’ve liked best. Even though my team and I have work on our own in house CMS for now 5 years, I am seriously considering moving new web projects to WP. We can focus our design efforts on the visual front end, using WP theme system, and let clients manage their own data input through the page and blog system.

Some of the advantages of WP I’ve seen thus far are:

1. Fully installable on our servers, we (clients and us) control the content, no relying on third parties which may or may not be there a year from now
2. Highly customizable, both on a visual level and a technical level.
3. Highly extendable via plugins/widgets
4. It’s free and Open Source, no additional cost to the client
5. It’s LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP), no Windows Server Complications
6. Very eye candy, for those who are impressed by such trivial things

The TCG Site is now fully under its management with our custom work. Let’s see how it works.

I’ve been working on an update to our local Hospice’s site, and I’m leaning to using WP for Article Publishing and Events Calendar Management. It will be a good test of the system to see if we can take a WP CMS site and “module” it into our existing home grown framework.

I Love My Job!