RANTS: iPhone Network Issues Since OS3.1 Update

I've been using my 3G iPhone for over a year now. I still field occasional questions about my take on the device, and, I still hesitate with my answer. I wholeheartedly admit that I've been able to do lots of things that I could only dream of doing with a basic phone and a separate wifi-enabled PDA device, like type out this post, look up quick information on the web, and check/reply to urgent email.

Now that I've become dependent on the iPhone, any interruption could cause some frustrations. The latest problem is the lack of connectivity. Basically, unbeknownst to me, the iPhone will lose it's ability to make/receive phone calls, connect to the web over 3G, and send/receive email. It's not until I try to make a phone call that I figure out connectivity has been lost. This means that if someone attempts to call or text, the iPhone does not ring or beep.

Restarting the iPhone will reconnect it to the network. Of course, this is cumbersome, to say the least, not to mention the potential missed calls and texts. I also spent 20 minutes with an AT&T CSR to troubleshoot the problem and the result there was to try replacing the SIM card. Of course, I went online to look for more answers. I found this thread on Apple's website:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2168883&start=0&tstart=0

It's quite probable that the problem is the latest upgrade to OS 3.1, which I did recently. As I reflect on it, these problems only seemed to have started to occur after the upgrade. The fix that seems to work for everyone is to turn off 3G. I haven't tried that yet, but will do so soon. Let's hope Apple figures this one out soon and posts a fix.


UPDATE, 10/8/2009:
Plugged my iPhone in to sync and found this message:


The most useful to me was the second bullet point that this update fixes "intermittent issue that may interrupt cellular network services until restart."

If this works properly, then it's another great piece of evidence that Apple has the resources to both listen to their customers and resolve their issues in a timely manner. Now if AT&T could get their act together, I would never need to think about switching to Verizon again.

Hope this helps you. Happy computing.

RANTS: List of Incompatibilities with Snow Leopard Upgrade

Finally upgraded to OS X.6. Wanted to keep a running log of things that didn't work after the upgrade:

- Printing to a Xerox WorkCentre Pro 238 stopped working, needed to update driver.
- Windows Remote Desktop, needed to delete the old one and download the new one from Microsoft.
- Cisco AnyConnect VPN client, needed to do a manual download of a newer version.

Update 10/3/2009:
- Sophos 7 hasn't been able to update in the past week or so. Ran the installer again and Sophos now updates normally.
- Possible problem with VPN allowing browser content. VPN connects fine and pinging works, but browser never connects. Need to test in a different location...Tested and found that the wireless router I was connected to did not allow a proper VPN connection. Not a Snow Leopard problem.

TIPS & TRICKS: Dell Optiplex 960 Remote Desktop Freezes and Video Problems

I was presented with a Dell Optiplex 960, which had some video problems and would not allow Windows Remote Desktop connections. My concern was heightened because this machine was built off an image that I was sure worked properly.

The screen would exhibit "snow-like" conditions, like you would see on old TV sets using "rabbit-ears" or a screen that had some electrical interference. Also, the problem would only appear intermittently. There nothing specific that I could attribute to its cause. This, obviously, would be a clear case of a video problem.

The other problem involved Windows Remote Desktop. When I would try to connect to the machine via Remote Desktop (from a Windows machine and a Mac running the Windows Remote Desktop client), the connection would attempt to connect. However, the Optiplex machine would freeze and the remote connection would never connect beyond a blue screen.

I was pondering whether the problems could be related or if they were separate issues that were only related by sheer coincidence. I was hovering around possible video and/or memory problems preventing the Remote Desktop connection. I attempted to tackle the Remote Desktop problem first, hoping that it would also solve the video problem at the same time. A search on Remote Desktop freezes yielded several scenarios of similar problems, including freezes that occurred only when there was a user already logged in, but nothing that gave me a workable solution.

I turned my attention to the video problem. After some poking around and searching for answers online, I finally came to the solution of a updated video driver for the nVidia Quadro 420 video card. The driver was posted on the Dell website and, even more coincidental, the date of the posted driver was yesterday. This problem seemed to have a known solution. After installing the driver and restarting several times (by no means a thorough test) I assumed that the problem was resolved.

Going back to the Remote Desktop problem, I tested to see if the updated video driver now allowed the Remote Desktop connection to work. No dice. Remote Desktop would still freeze the session on the Optiplex 960 and the remote session still wouldn't connect. After more searching, I finally went back to the Dell site to search more current solutions. This is when I found this:

http://en.community.dell.com/forums/p/19271963/19476610.aspx#19476610

Basically, we are putting in a new registry entry in the following location:

HKeyLocalMachine > SYSTEM > CurrentControlSet > Control > Session Manager > Memory Management

Right click to add a DWORD and call it: SessionImageSize

The value of the entry is in hexadecimal. The thread I referenced above used a value of 20. However, I checked another machine that didn't have any problems and found a value of 30. For now, just use 20. This could be a place to adjust if there are further problems.

Hope this helps someone. Happy computing.

RANTS: Hackers Targeting Credit Unions

http://threatpost.com/blogs/attackers-sending-malware-infected-cds-credit-unions-127

It's interesting that these people are targeting Credit Unions for their attacks. It's a pretty safe bet that the larger institutions will be much less vulnerable to this type of attack. How can we make Credit Unions safer? Would the person who found the CDs question the validity and source of the content? Or would he/she mindlessly try to run the CD because that's just what people do? At the end of the day, if everyone were educated on potential vulnerabilities work and we took conscious steps to protect ourselves and those things that are entrusted to us, then the hackers would have a much harder accomplishing their goals.

RANTS: Don't Think You're Safe By Giving Junk Email Address

The gist of this is that there are marketers out there there who are paying retailers, not just for your contact information, but for your financial information as well.

Have you ever made an online purchase and during the check-out process, you are presented with some sort of coupon or discount deal through some sort of customer loyalty program? You might think that you are safe from marketers by giving your junk email address in this situation. However, the act of giving your junk email address has given permission to the retailer to give your financial information to the partner marketer who now has permission to charge your credit card, even on a recurring basis. Basically, the third party marketer can charge you for a "loyalty program" for which you didn't know you were signing up, even though you didn't given them your credit card number. Here is CNET's article about this:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10293633-93.html

RANTS/RAVES: Apple Releases iPhone OS 3.0.1 to Address SMS Security Vulnerability

Rant because it was there in the first place. Rave because of the fast turn around. Here's a MacRumors posting on it:

http://www.macrumors.com/2009/07/31/apple-releases-iphone-os-3-0-1-to-address-sms-security-vulnerability/

RANTS: Email Excess

I work with plenty of fairly high-level people. I see these people's email boxes. There really is no easy way to really manage one's email. Let's think about that for a second because you may say "How hard is it to hit delete on messages you don't want?"

First, the sheer volume of email that some people receive is mind-boggling in itself. My email address is subscribed to multiple pertinent mailing lists. Some of the content from those subscriptions is interesting and I may want to read it. Then there are messages of varying importance sent, specifically, to me. These messages may or may not require action on my part beyond reading the message. But, just reading a message will take time. Then there's the spam. I'm pretty good at filtering spam without even opening the message. But, again, that takes more time. Finally, there are messages that come in the form of confirmations and acknowledgments. These messages include, but are not limited to, things like purchase and shipping confirmations.

Now take that and multiply the volume by 10 or more and remember that there are actual things that need to be done in your day besides reading and responding to email. As I said before, mind-boggling. It's no wonder that as I happen to glance at other people's subject lines, I realize that there's probably at least half of all email received by one person is not read because assumptions are made on the content (i.e. shipping confirmations). If she needed to go back to find something, she'll vaguely remember that it's in her email box.

Now will there ever be email filters or other automated processes that help us filter our messages? I'm not talking about spam filters because we know that those already work. I'm talking about filters or other tools that will help us take our electronic receipts and file them away so that we will be confident that we will be able to find them in the future? Something that will take our electronic newsletters and file them away so that when we have time to go back and read them, we will know exactly where to find them; or the message will automatically delete because I might have read about the latest mobile technology elsewhere.

At the end of the day, the closest thing these fairytale filters is an real life assistant. But, even in my dealings with people's assistants, they have too much of their own mail to handle.

What's the next management tool for email? As much as I hear that other tools will replace email, I don't think email will disappear any time soon. It's too universal, too prevalent, and we rely too much on it. I predict that he who invents this holy grail of email will make a killing. Let me get back to the drawing board...

Happy computing.

TIPS & TRICKS: No video for Skype, Photo Booth, and iChat

In the office, I've been imaging new Macs with an image I have been keeping updated off an external hard drive. I captured the image from a newer Intel machine, though I don't recall which Apple model. It was most likely one of the notebooks.

I used this image to reload a brand new 24" silver iMac. The image process with Carbon Copy Cloner (http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html) worked flawlessly. The only thing, I had to beyond the image was update the software, install some Adobe software, and install the iLife suite. Everything else seemed to work fine, until I received a request to install Skype.

The Skype install went fine. However, the testing did not. Photo Booth, which I used because Skype was not working either, with this message:

Photo Booth cannot open.
The graphics card installed in this computer does not support Photo Booth.

I checked to make sure that the camera was showing up in System Profiler, which it did. I also tested iChat to see if it would find the built-in camera and that was unsuccessful.

After a few restarts, I decided to call Apple. Unfortunately, they were not much help either. They recommended an Archive & Install mainly because I told them my image came from a different machine. Not wanting to take the time to do that unless absolutely necessary, I decided to reset the PRAM. The key combination is Command-Option-P-R. While starting up the machine before the Apple logo showing up, hit this key combination and hold it all down until, at least, 2 bongs are heard.

This step fixed my problem. Skype, Photo Booth, and iChat were all able to detect the built-in web cam after the PRAM was reset. I also happened to search for the error message and found this link on Apple's Discussion Forums:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1753144&tstart=0

Hope this helps. Happy computing.

RAVES: Continue using original iPhone without cellular service

It's hard not to be an Apple enthusiast, when they seem to think of things ahead of time. For those of you who are upgrading from your original iPhone to iPhone 3GS, you'll be happy to know that your original iPhone is still usable after you've moved your AT&T cellular service over to the new iPhone. Here's the instructions from Apple:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3406

Good luck and happy computing.

RANTS: Finally, Active Directory Users and Computers for Vista

It sure took MS a long time to get this out, considering Server 2008 has been available for awhile. In any case, I'm installing it now and am excited to finally be able to administer from my Vista box, though I'll probably be upgrading to Win7 soon.

Here's the official MS link:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941314

TIPS & TRICKS: How To Stop iTunes From Launching When iPhone Is Plugged In

The iPhone battery leaves me wanting more. Some day we won't even worry about battery life. For now, I find that I have to charge pretty regularly. I don't think I can get through a full day of pretty regular usage without charging. Because of the short battery life, I always keep the charging cable with me. However, I don't keep the USB to AC adapter with me. Usually, I'm near a computer with a USB port to help charge the iPhone.

In this process, one minor annoyance is that iTunes insists on launching when the iPhone is plugged in. Since, I don't always plug into the same machine that I normally sync with, I wanted to find a way to keep iTunes from launching when I plug into other machines for charging purposes. Googled it and couldn't find a quick answer.

Here's the simple way to do it. Remove the iTunes Helper application from running on startup. In Mac OS X, go to System Preferences > Accounts > Your User Account > Login Items and remove the iTunes Helper Application. The next time you login to your profile and plug in your iPhone, iTunes will not launch. I haven't tried it on a Windows machine yet, but I know that there is an iTunes Helper Application there too. Just remove it and iTunes will not launch.

Hope this helps with this slightly annoying problem. Happy computing.

RAVES: Social Networking for Enterprise

The explosion of social networking sites has been incredible. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc all have people updating themselves in one way or another. However, in the enterprise environment, I'm tasked with the duty of keeping data, content and IP safe. This goal and public social networking sites do not go well together.

Enter enterprise-level business networking sites. I just finished reading the eWeek article reviewing 3 potential solutions: Socialcast, Socialtext, and Huddle. We are seriously considering our options for capturing, processing, and presenting different types of videos. In reading the article, I kept an eye out for these sites to include video. Not much to be said, but the video aspect may be something that draws us into SAAS (Software As A Service) solution.

At the end of the day, our users are becoming more savvy. The way they handle personal business will easily carry over to work-related business and make them more productive if we provide the tools to do it.

More to come, I'm sure. Happy computing.

RANTS: Hackers Turn to Extortion

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/05/virginia_medical_records_extortion/

On or offline, there are plenty of people out there who want to take advantage because of greed. This is no different. I bring this up to continue to illustrate that security is not a confined job of your friendly neighborhood IT person. We all have a part in this process by having strong passwords, not sharing our passwords, and not letting anyone use our computers, among other things. Let's face it, as we become more connected in this online world, the tools that make work easy for us also make it easy for those who seek to do us harm.

Moral of the story? Don't plan to make every part of your online life easy. Some complexity is good.

Happy (and safe) computing.

RAVES: Print Greener and Make PDFs

I haven't yet tried this tool:

http://printgreener.com/

But, the motivation behind it is good. It doesn't seem that much different than a print preview, except that you can modify the print job further before hitting the actual printer AND it's a PDF creator, which means no need to go out and purchase Acrobat. I know Acrobat has lots of additional features, but most people only need basic PDF creation and this could be a good tool.

RANTS: OS X-targeted Malware is Increasing

http://www.f-secure.com/v-descs/trojan_osx_dnschanger.shtml

As Apple gains marketshare, malware for OS X is on the rise. Here's a quote from a recent email I received:

About 35% of [some org] is OS X and 73% Windows yet [some org] has had _more_ OS X boxes infected with the DNS changer than Windows boxes.

Please make sure to practice safe surfing. Remember, just because OS X has very few viruses that you've heard of, doesn't mean that your Mac is 100% safe. Nothing is 100%.

Happy "safe" computing.

TIPS & TRICKS: Binding OS X Leopard to Active Directory

I neglected to document how I successfully did it the first time around. In trying to retrace my steps, I started with this site:

http://www.makemacwork.com/bind-to-active-directory.htm

After following these steps, I was expecting the login screen of OS X to show blank fields for the username and password. However, I still saw the original list of users.

After poking around the settings a bit more, I realized that there were a couple settings that I changed when binding the machine to the AD the first time. After clicking on Bind... OS X asks for AD credentials that have permission to bind machines to the Active Directory. Just below the username and password fields there are a couple of check boxes that should be left checked. Here's what they should look like:


After I unbinded the machine and rebinded with those boxes checked, I was able to login to the machine with my AD credentials. NOTE: You might also be able to specify the directory domain on the Authentication server and contacts lists under Directory Utility > Search Policy without unbinding and rebinding. Just go to the Authentication tab click the plus button and check to see if the directory domain is listed. This can also be done with the contacts as well.

One other note, I would also go into System Preferences > Accounts > Login Options and change Display login window as: to Name and password for security and clarity that the user needs to provide their own username and password.

Happy computing...

TIPS & TRICKS: MacBook Pro, 3-Time Blinking Sleep Light on Startup

Symptom: Sleep light on MacBook Pro blinks 3 times quickly, pauses, blinks 3 times quickly again, and repeats.

Reason: Startup process is finding a RAM problem.

Not confirmed, but I'm betting that this also applies to other Apple notebooks that have the sleep light.

RANTS: Network Outage in the Bay Area

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/09/BAP816VTE6.DTL&tsp=1

I'm uneasy about how easy it is to disrupt so many people with one act of "vandalism." If this infrastructure plays such a centralized role in how so many people and business do their work, shouldn't it be more heavily protected. I have already come across at least one report of the connectivity problem in the Bay Area affecting work down here in San Diego.

Also, could this constitute "terrorism"?

RANTS: The search for a Latitude E6400 USB device driver

I'm still amazed that drivers are still so cumbersome to find and install. I consider Dell to be a bit better at providing stand-alone drivers, which is handy because I like to build the software on machines from scratch, as opposed to running a restore image from a manufacturer. In this case, I'm having trouble finding the correct driver for a USB Device, according to Device Manager in Windows XP.

I tried talking to Dell Support yesterday via online chat. The CSR gave me two things to try, but I ended the session because I thought of something else that I needed to do before trying the two suggest downloads. The two downloads were the AMT HECI and AMT SOL/LMS drivers. Neither of these installed correctly. Both resulted the following error message:

This computer does not meet the minimum requirements for installing the software. Setup will exit.

Today, I got back online to talk to Dell Support again via chat. We ran through all the usual drivers and possible problems. At some point, I gave him the Device ID from Device Manager for the device in question, which was USB\VID_413C&PID_8149\6&6060274&0&1. I believe this helped him with discovering that the Dell HTML site does not have a driver (R197537) for the radio control on the bluetooth chip. This is different than the bluetooth driver (R197513) on the included discs, which I already installed. The HTML site did not have either of these drivers listed for Windows XP.

For future reference, here's the link to that driver:

http://ftp.us.dell.com/network/R197537.EXE

Hope this helps someone. Happy computing...

RANTS/RAVES: Researchers find ways to sniff keystrokes from thin air

On one hand, I'm excited to see the research that people are doing and the results from it. On the other hand, it's another security threat that I might need to address in the future. How would I protect against this? Touch-screen keyboard like the iPhone? Virtual keyboard like the bluetooth Virtual Laser Keyboard? More importantly, what are the chances that there are people who would go to the great lengths carry out this plan?

Here's the rest of the story:

http://www.itworld.com/security/64193/researchers-find-ways-sniff-keystrokes-thin-air

RANTS: Time Warner DNS Woes

I was talking with someone last week about how he was having problems with internet connectivity. His TW cable modem was working, the router was working and the computers all were working fine. Only thing was that the browsers were not serving up web pages. He was telling me how he figured out that TWs DNS servers were not working properly. I told him that I wasn't experiencing any of the those problems.

I spoke too soon. Starting yesterday, I had the exact same symptoms. The fix is to change your router's (or computer's) DNS servers. Open DNS seems to be the easiest solution. Here are the instructions:

https://www.opendns.com/start

A quick search shows that Time Warner has had this problem for some time now and many people are plagued by it. When will they realize it and deal with it?

TIPS & TRICKS: Leopard Quick Look

In OS X (10.5), there's a feature called Quick Look:

http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/quicklook.html

I knew it was there, but never really bothered to integrate it into my everyday usage. But, I saw yet another tip for it today and decided to see if it will help productivity. The basics:

1. Highlight a file (or folder)
2. Hit the space bar or command y

I love keyboard shortcuts so this will likely stay in my bag of tools, mostly because, in addition to being able to preview contents of a file without waiting for the application to launch (we all know how long it takes for Word or Excel to launch), I can hit the esc key to close it out. Yet another way to avoid needing to reach for the mouse.

TIPS & TRICKS: Do Not Run As Admin

Continuing evidence of why no one should run as administrator or with administrative privileges on their user account:

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewarticlebasic&articleid=9127318&source=rss_news

Yes, when you first purchase a new computer, you'll need admin privileges to install your software. But, after all the software is installed, there will be few instances where admin rights are need to execute anything. This holds true for all operating systems and all devices, especially internet devices, including mobile devices.

The main point from the article above:

Nine of out 10 critical bugs reported by Microsoft Corp. last year could have been made moot, or at least made less dangerous, if people ran Windows without administrative rights, a developer of enterprise rights management software claimed today.

RANT/RAVE: OS X Network Locations

Earlier this evening I worked on a client's Apple MacBook Pro. The machine had many configurations setup by someone else, other than the user. One of these configuration steps included configuring the network locations. First, within a network location (Apple > System Preferences > Network > Location), there can be multiple active network ports. By default Apple includes 4 ports: Airport, Bluetooth, Ethernet, and FireWire. Each of these can be set to inactive simply by selecting the port and clicking the button with the picture of a gear below the list and choosing Make Service Inactive.

This was important because I found that there was 2 network locations set: Airport and Ethernet. The Airport network location had everything else disabled, including Ethernet, FireWire, and Bluetooth. The Ethernet network location had everything else disabled, including Airport, FireWire, and Bluetooth. Initially, I wondered why this was configured this way. It could be inconvenient to have to manually switch network locations just to switch between Ethernet and Airport.

Then I understood why a network port having a dedicated Network Location might be important. Unexpected behavior may result if a Network Location has multiple active network ports. Fortunately, my personal experience has resulted in very few issues, if at all. In fact, Apple OS X's default configuration is for a single location to have all the network ports active simultaneously.

Nevertheless, to avoid problems it might be good practice in specific situations. At the end of the day, there should be a good balance between usability and preventing problems. I would say that this practice of separating the network ports is only good practice is a few situations. For the general user, it's more useful to just keep one network location with all the network ports active, as Apple has done by default.

TIPS & TRICKS: Vista WiFi Connectivity Problems

Found this article

http://windowssecrets.com/comp/081211#story1

that has a simple write up on why so many Vista users are having trouble with wireless connectivity. From the description of the fix listed here,:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928233/en-us

this problem extends to wired connections as well. Remember that editing the registry could irreparably harm your computer. Please be careful and ask a qualified professional (or at least someone who knows what they are doing) for help.

Hope this helps someone. Good luck and happy computing.

TIPS & TRICKS: Thunderbird Fails to Update as Non-Adminstrator

I already knew that some software fails to update when running as non-administrator in Windows XP. Thunderbird is one of those pieces of software. Firefox also has the same problem. Another part of this problem is that both Thunderbird and Firefox, by default, run automatic Software Updates even as non-administrator. When Software Update runs automatically as non-administrator, the update will fail. The solution to the non-administrator problem seems to be to, periodically, run the updates manually as a user with administrative rights before the Software Update process has a chance to check. You can take this a step further and disable the automatic Software Update process in the non-administrator profile by going to Tools > Options > Advanced > Update and change to Ask me what I want to do.

To throw in an added complexity, Logitech webcam software also causes Thunderbird to not update. This is the error message I received:

"Software Update Failed. One or more files could not be updated. Please make sure all other applications are closed and that you have permission to modify files, and then restart Thunderbird to try again."

This fix is documented on mozillazine.org here:

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Software_Update

This seems to affect even users with administrative rights to install software. The fix is, basically, shutdown the Logitech webcam software and the update will run normally.

Good luck and happy computing.