Glo Networks Technical Blog (Glo Blog)

Microsoft are soon to release their new Windows Thin PC operating system, also known as WinTPC. In fact the product has been in the RTM (‘release to manufacturer’) status since early this month. If you’re not aware of the product, it’s essentially a stripped down (and locked down) version of Windows 7 which requires less resources to install and run.

The product is designed to allow old hardware, which may not have a good enough spec to support newer operating systems, to be used as ‘thin client’ devices. Thin clients are computers which rely on other computers to the traditional computing tasks (processing, data storage etc.), while the thin client usually is responsible for just displaying the user interface.

At Glo Networks we were very interested in WinTPC, some of our customers use thin client devices quite effectively, and being able to repurpose old desktops and laptops for this would be a great way to re-use them (we all know reusing is the most efficient way to recycle!). Also WinTPC is capable of utilising RemoteFX, a new Remote Desktop technology which can be used to make connecting to a virtualised remote machine visually almost exactly like running it on the local machine (including running 3D graphics and full motion video). This could mean that with WinTPC your old hardware could offer a user experience close to that of a new, built for Windows 7, machine!

We have been testing the software, and we were looking forward to being able to offer the product to our customers. However when investigating the licensing of the product we came across an important, and disappointing detail: WinTPC licenses will only be available for use on devices that are already covered by ‘software assurance’ (SA).

While this is great news for those with SA, there are many businesses for whom SA is too costly or simply isn’t necessary. They will not have any opportunity to buy WinTPC retail licenses for their old hardware and, as such, said hardware will be likely either be relegated to the storeroom to gather dust (hardly an efficient use of the money invested!) or be disposed of (not too eco-friendly!).

In conclusion, while we are happy with WinTPC as a product, and it will no doubt be a great be benefit to those with SA, we are certainly disappointed that it won’t be more widely available.

Posted by James in General | No Comments »

There’s a Microsoft TechNet article called ‘Ten Immutable Laws Of Security’. It discusses ten security problems that the Microsoft Security Center feel cannot be ‘fixed’ by software. These are persistent problems that won’t be solved by an update from the software manufacturer but by following best practice and using good judgement. The ten laws are as follows:

Law #1: If a bad guy can persuade you to run his program on your computer, it’s not solely your computer anymore.
Law #2: If a bad guy can alter the operating system on your computer, it’s not your computer anymore.
Law #3: If a bad guy has unrestricted physical access to your computer, it’s not your computer anymore.
Law #4: If you allow a bad guy to run active content in your website, it’s not your website any more.
Law #5: Weak passwords trump strong security.
Law #6: A computer is only as secure as the administrator is trustworthy.
Law #7: Encrypted data is only as secure as its decryption key.
Law #8: An out-of-date antimalware scanner is only marginally better than no scanner at all.
Law #9: Absolute anonymity isn’t practically achievable, online or offline.
Law #10: Technology is not a panacea.

While the entire article is interesting and raises several very good points today we’d like to focus on Law #5 – Weak passwords trump strong security.

Passwords can be and frequently are a pain in the neck but they are a necessary evil. Currently they are simply the best way to verify the person accessing the computer/program is who they say they are.

That isn’t to suggest that they are the only way. Several other methods have been tried; facial recognition, finger print scanners and RSA Keys are just a few such methods. They all have their strengths and weaknesses but for the most part where they fail when compared to passwords is ease and convenience of use.

The problem with this is ease and convenience are the downfall of secure passwords. A short, simple and easy to remember password won’t stand up against an attempt to crack it for long. For a password to be secure it needs to complex and not easy to guess, and as such the securest passwords are generally randomly generated strings of letters, numbers and symbols, the longer the string the better.

But the average person will struggle to recall a 64 character string of characters that means nothing to them, so instead they trade off better security in favour of convenience. A quick read through lists of the most popular passwords reveals that many people will chose overly simple or easy to guess passwords such as ‘123456’ or simply ‘password’.

Somehow a compromise must be made.  Passwords should be as long and as complicated as possible, while still being memorable. One suggestion we at Glo Networks can offer is, rather than just a word, why not use a phrase for your password? Switch some letters for numbers/symbols and make sure it’s a phrase that will stick with you whilst not being obvious.

Here’s a quick example of how you could change a phrase to a decent passphrase:

‘spend a penny’ becomes ‘Spend4penEE’

Using this method it becomes much easier to create a longer password that you will quickly remember every time!

Posted by James in Desktops and Laptops, General, Networking, Servers | No Comments »

You may or may not know that yesterday was IPv6 day. Amongst some of us networking nerds that was a fairly big thing.

As we’ve previously mentioned in our article The sky is falling on our heads; We’re running out of addresses, IPv4 addresses are running out. To very quickly recap IPv6 is the technology to replace this.  The problem is that IPv6 has a chicken and egg situation; no content is being delivered on IPv6, so there are few mass roll outs of IPv6. But why would anyone publish on IPv6 if no one is going to see it?

The point of IPv6 day was to get a number of high profile websites running both IPv6 and IPv4 on their main addresses, and to see what happened. How many out of the total IPs were hitting those companies providing their content on IPv6? If we take facebook as an example, about 0.5%.

Now you may think that’s not many. But it’s more than a lot might have thought. That’s half a percent with working IPv6, either through a tunnel or natively from their provider(s).

The really good thing is that many network engineers were predicting that because of a number of automatic tunneling protocols, there would be a lack of connectivity to major participants. From the figures we’re seeing published publicly at the moment, it seems to have been a much smaller number than many were predicting.

Sadly Glo Networks was not one of the exclusive club. Our equipment is now in a datacentre that will have IPv6 connectivity soon, however we’re waiting on them.

The fact that nothing overtly bad was reported to us makes us believe that IPv6, whilst quiet, is the start of the migration.

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

When you’re looking for help with an IT problem a simple screen shot can be a powerful ally. Most Windows users are aware of the Print Screen key and its function (to capture what is displayed on the screen/s and copy it to the clipboard). A small drawback to taking a screen shot this way is the necessity to paste the captured image from the clipboard into another program in order to save it.

Because of this here at Glo Networks we receive a large amount of screen shots saved inside Microsoft Word files. While this isn’t exactly a problem it does make the files slightly larger than necessary and also increases the time it takes for us to open them (as we don’t always have Word loaded). This is where the Windows Snipping Tool can be very useful

The Snipping tool was introduced in Windows Vista and is also present in Windows 7 (though not the Home Basic edition) and Windows Server 2008 R2. Its function is to take screen shots, and it offers some handy tools to do so. You can chose to take Free-form, Rectangular, Window, or Full-screen screen shots, or Snips as it calls them, and then you can immediately either Save the Snip to file as a PNG, JPG, GIF or MHT file, or insert the file to into a new email (either as an embedded image or a attachment). It also includes a pen tool to make simple annotations to the snip and a highlighter.

The Snipping Tool is incredibly simple to use and perfect for its purpose. Spend a little time checking it out and you’ll get to grips with it in no time at all, or you can check out instructions on its use here

Posted by James in Desktops and Laptops, FAQ, General, Operating Systems, Software | No Comments »