• Web Pioneer Calls For IPv6 Incentives. Vint Cerf, the godfather of the net, has said the UK government should offer tax credits for upgrading to IPv6. We belive this is only a good thing, should it happen. Unfortunately given the climate I imagine it won’t happen.
• Is your banner/MOTD leaving you open to attack? Running an open telnet or ssh server? You might care about this article!
• Beware: European banks are starting to see new cash machine skimming attacks.
• Hot off the “press”, Theo Watson published yet another [awesome] video showing off the hacking attempts with the Microsoft Kinect (yes, I’ve spelt it correctly this week). This time it’s an interactive puppet.
• Apparently we either don’t have the time to finish computer games any more, or we just don’t play them if they’re bad. IGN has an interesting breakdown on just how little we play.
• Want to watch some tech videos and other sites to keep up to date with Microsoft technology? The SBSDiva has some handy links.
• Stuck with a user who really needs a fixed NK2 file? Tried NK2Edit with no luck? If so you might want to check out Ingressor.

Posted by Karl in Cool Stuff, General | No Comments »

If you’ve been interested in this series so far, I apologise it’s a little bit late. Unfortunately real work got in the way of posting on Friday. Madness, I know.

• RockMelt was announced this week. It’s a newly developed web browser that integrated Facebook and Twitter. It’s based on Chromium, the open source bits of Google’s Chrome, and is backed by one of the Netscape founders, Marc Andreessen. If you’re not old enough to remember Netscape, check out the wikipedia page.
• Microsoft Windows was 25 years old on the 11th. PC Advisor has an interesting breakdown on previous versions. If you dont remember using some form of DOS, as your main OS, then you maybe interested in checking out the article.
• If you’re a Terminal Services, sorry make that Remote Desktop Services, nerd and you’ve not yet seen the RDS Team’s blog on wrapping up RemoteFX, you’ll want to check it out. If you’re not nerdy, but use RDS, what does this mean? Well in newer versions, with applicable hardware, a richer experience.
• Bruce Schneier weighed in on changing passwords on the 11th. Bruce is a prolific American cryptographer, computer security specialist, and writer.
• Love programming? Love learning new Algorithms? Then check out and bookmark the algowiki. It’s a work in progress, but if you spot something missing you can just add it. After all, it is a wiki.
• Less than a week after launch working Linux drivers have been created for the Microsoft Kinnect. This could be the start of some really cool Human-Computer interaction techniques.
• Samsung have developed and demoed some see-through AMOLED screens. Useless you may think, but check out the video at frequency.com.
• Apple’s recent OS X update causes more IPv6 “brokenness”. As we race towards a lack of IPv4 addresses it’s still disconcerting to see these sorts of things happen.

Posted by Karl in Cool Stuff, General | No Comments »

Glo-Networks have always been an advocate of large/dual screen setups. Of course we’re geeky IT people so there’s nothing surprising about that really. What may surprise some is that because of our love of massive displays our productivity is likely a fair bit higher than if we were using single, small (<19”) displays!

You don’t have to take our word for it however; the research has been done already. In an amusing and interesting article on the subject for The New York Times, Farhad Manjoo discusses the benefits more screen space. In the article he draws attention to a study commissioned by the electronics company NEC. The study found that office workers using 2 x 20” displays were 44% more efficient when performing some text-editing operations than if they used a single 18” monitor.

Farhad goes on to test various monitor setups to try to find what he calls his own “multiple-monitor Zen”. The article is well worth a read and can be found here. With LCD screen prices lower than ever before, upgrading from a small, single screen setup may be a quick and relatively inexpensive way of increasing your efficiency whilst working.

Posted by James in General | 1 Comment »

Microsoft have officially announced the next release of their Server OS for small businesses; Windows Small Business Server 2011. There will be three editions available: Essentials, Standard and Premium (Add-on).

SBS 2011 Essentials (formally codenamed Aurora) is intended for Businesses with 25 users or less. Described by Microsoft as ‘ideal as a first server for small businesses’, it will include improved features for Backups (and restores), File Management and Remote Access. As you may expect in an OS aimed for small businesses, Essentials looks primarily concentrated towards offering  simple and centralised user management, backups, storage and printing. A significant exclusion from Essentials is Exchange; however it does looks like it will come ready to connect to Microsoft’s Online Services and Office 365 (upon it’s release). Essentials is slated for release in the first half of 2011 with an estimated USD price of $545 and will require no additional client access licences (CALs).

SBS 2011 Standard (formally codenamed Windows Small Business Server “7”) is the up to 75 user option. Building on SBS 2008, the Standard edition includes Exchange 2010, WSUS and Sharepoint Foundation 2010. User/Computer Management will be via an AD and backup tools will be included. Migration from SBS 2008 will be possible and should be eased by a host of tools, checks and guides provided for this purpose. Standard is expected to be released in December 2010, will have an estimated USD price $1,096 and will require 1 CAL per user at an additional $72 each.

SBS 2011 Premium Add-on is an additional bundle to be deployed along side either the Essentials or Standard editions. It consists of Windows Server 2008 R2 and SQL Server 2008 R2 for Small Businesses.  Designed to provide flexibility to SBS Essentials and Standard deployments,  the Premium Add-on can be used to perform additional roles (on top of SQL), Remote Desktop Services, Hyper-V Virtualization etc.. Premium is also due for a December 2010 release, estimated USD price of $1604, plus $92 per CAL for each SQL user.

We at Glo-Networks have the test versions of the OS’s installed at present, if you’d like further information the products please feel free to contact us.

Posted by James in General | 2 Comments »

Everyone loves interesting links. Here are more of them!

• Google launches mod_pagespeed, an Apache module to help you get your pages loading quicker. It’ll perform many of the options that you will do when you take your web product live, but don’t let this put you off trying it out!
• The NMap project has a new script for fingerprinting HTTP servers. they’re after help for getting more fingerprints.
• Cisco launched it’s stalker-esque SocialMiner software this week. We’re just not sure how useful it’s going to be.
• Microsoft Kinnect launched in the US a few days ago. If you’re curious about this new Xbox, and possibly soon to be PC/other peripheral, then check out Kotaku’s review.
• New Skype Beta for Mac OS X. We don’t like it. It’s fiddly to use.
• Apple have quietly announced that they’re discontinuing Xserve, however there is a migration path.
• Xero is an interesting experiment in the “Cloud” sphere of software. It’s Cloud-Based Accountancy. Think Quickbooks, or Sage, but in your web browser. We’re yet to use it for anything “real” yet, however we’ll make sure that we report back when we do!
• Microsoft have open sourced the F# compiler and libraries. They’re planning on using the same model as Google’s mobile operating system, Android. Every few months/years they’ll drop the next revision out the door.

Posted by Karl in General | 1 Comment »