GEEKNOTE:  Windows 8.1 has been released and includes a few new features.  One of our customers asked me to comment on Windows 8 / 8.1 and so here goes:

Windows 8 was designed for use in a tablet environment.  The app buttons you see when you first start it up are supposed to let you do pretty much everything you want without ever going to a desktop.  For casual web surfing and email, that may be true.  I’m not a big fan of 7″ or even 10″ tablets, probably due to my 50-plus year old eyes.

Microsoft’s foray into Windows 8 hardware has been an unmitigated disaster.  They started selling the Surface line first only direct and through their stores.  They have since started selling it through some major retail outlets, but have yet to allow their tens of thousands of partners to sell the Surface.  Would you care to guess why the sales have been disappointing?  Windows 8 remains a bit player in the tablet market and I predict it will continue to be such until Microsoft plays to its strength by enlisting the tens of thousands of Microsoft partners in the process.

The bigger issue is the OS itself.  If the big box stores weren’t selling Windows 8 exclusively on new machines, the OS wouldn’t have gotten any distribution whatsoever.

There are several reasons why Windows 8 has been met with massive indifference.  The first of these is that it is optimized for a tablet / phone form factor and touch screens.  Most of businesses don’t use tablets or phones for serious day to day computing.

As someone who uses a desktop computer for hours each day, a conventional keyboard and mouse are far better options for me than a touch screen.  I can’t touch type on a touch screen.

Don’t get me wrong.  Tablets have their place and I use one when I’m traveling and need to respond to email and other things.  Likewise, my new smart phone is very handy.  Neither use Windows 8.   It’s fun to post pictures like the one I took at church this morning to facebook directly from my phone.

While tablets are the current “in thing” and have their place, I believe that reports of the death of the desktop are highly overstated.  There are simply too many people who need a real keyboard and the sort of screen real estate that only a conventional desktop with 2 or more big screens can provide when they are working.  I’m using both of my 22″ widescreens at work every day and could use a third one if I could figure where to mount it.  Quickbooks, Outlook, a couple of copies of Internet Explorer, and two or three separate instances of Firefox all running at the same time chew up screen space quickly.

My idea of a nice “casual” system is my home computer with a single 19″ flat screen.  I may check in on facebook with my phone, but you can bet that I’ll be sitting in front of my desktop system when I’m composing these GEEKNOTES or posting some missive on facebook.

It’s all a matter of picking the right tool for the right job.

We ran into an interesting Windows 8 issue with a school customer this week.  The default apps that show up when you fire up a Windows 8 machine include a news feed.  With two school shootings this week, this is NOT what I’d want to have presented to young students when they turn on their computers.

Setup is “interesting” in that a new Windows 8 machine wants you to give it your email address and a password before you set it up.  Passwords make lots of sense on tablets and phones, but probably not so much on a personal desktop.

Another issue is maintenance.  With Windows 8, it has become MUCH more difficult to get into safe mode.  When a machine is badly infected, this is often the only option short of restoring the machine to factory settings.  Because of changes in the boot process, even booting to a CD becomes a chore.

Another subtle change we’ve seen is the decision to drop POP support in the email client.  This is easily cured by installing an email client that isn’t crippled, but it is another little “gotcha” built into Windows 8.

Are there options?  Yes.

Windows 7 is still readily available via several channels and it remains a better choice for both desktops and notebooks.  You get to keep the desktop you are used to, you don’t have to relearn how to use your computer, and you can quickly get down to doing productive work with your new computer.  You won’t find Windows 7 on the shelves of the local big box stores, but they ARE available at the same prices you see for Windows 8 machines.  We generally have Windows 7 machines in stock and we can special order quite a few different configurations for delivery within a couple of days.

If you already have a Windows 8 machine and want it to look more like what you loved with Windows XP or Windows 7, I recommend “Classic Shell” to add back the start button and menu structure to a more familiar form.

Have you purchased a Windows 8 machine?  If so, let us know what YOU think about it and if not, let us know why.

Rob Marlowe, Senior Geek

GEEKNOTE:  My longstanding recommendation to businesses regarding spam filtering is “don’t”.  The risk of missing that million dollar deal, though small, is generally too great a risk compared to the annoyance of spam.

I had to break my own rule this week after the Russians started flooding my mailbox with “enlargement” ads.  I get a LOT of business emails, often 100 or more a day, not counting various automated alerts and reports generated by our monitoring system.

Suddenly, I started getting four or five ads from the Russians for every legitmate message.  Every time I would open up Outlook, there would be another 250 or 300 messages for “enlargement” products.

I briefly considered setting up a filter to forward all these messages to the members of the US House that are currently exhibiting feelings of inadequacy, but then thought better of it.  They are having enough problems doing anything useful without distracting them further.  I wouldn’t want to be responsible for a government shutdown.

I’m not quite sure why the Russians have taken a sudden interest in my love life, but I suspect it may have been because one of my male customers clicked on a link they shouldn’t have and got their address book stolen.

How do I know the primary culprits are the Russians?  Check this out:

Sep 21 21:53:08 [81.26.91.7:58692][RU]SMTP Server: DNSBL Reject from dominatelethe@freedownloadscenter.com To: rob@gulfcoastnetworking.com (ru.countries.nerd.dk.)

I solved the issue by removing the spam filtering exemption for my email address.   The message shown above, one of over 650 that came in yesterday, was rejected by a DNS Blacklist that identifies and blocks everything from Russia.  For good measure, I also blocked it with a GEOBLOCK that blocks Russia.  The two references to “ru” show where the filters caught this message.  I don’t have any friends in Krasnoyarsk, so it’s a pretty safe bet that it is garbage.

We utilize a multi-level spam defense on our servers.  While it doesn’t catch everything, it definitely cuts down the clutter.  I’ve only gotten a few enlargement ads today, as compared with hundreds a day early this week.

Just to avoid the risk of missing that proverbial million dollar deal, I tweaked our server filters to allow mail from badly misconfigured mail servers in the US to get through.  I’d still like to get those emails, since I might be able to sell them my services in fixing their IT mess.

For what it is worth, the Russians aren’t in this alone.  We also see large amounts of junk mail coming from Romania, China, and Vietnam.  Proving that even communists and former communists are capitalists at heart, there is an economic motive in sending out these emails.  First off, with no pun intended, some small percentage of men will actually click on the links and even send in money in search of a cure for their perceived problem.  More often than not, clicking on the links downloads malware onto the poor fellow’s computer, stealing email address, credit card numbers and other identifying information.  If they thought they had a problem BEFORE they clicked on the link, they haven’t seen anything until the Russians, Romanians, Chinese, and Vietnamese get their information!

When this sort of spam first started coming some years ago, there were a like number of messages offering breast enhancements.  I think it says something about the relative gulibility of guys and gals that the breast enhancement ads have pretty much disappeared.  Apparently, the ladies aren’t quite as likely to fall for this sort of offer.

I’ll close by saying that the only thing I’m interested in enlarging is our customer base, so please let us help you when you need computer or IT help and refer us to your friends.

Rob Marlowe, Senior Geek
Gulfcoast Networking, Inc.

Computer Solutions

Back in the middle of July, I wrote a GEEKNOTE titled “Domain Registrations” about the hazards of incorrectly registering a domain name.

I described a specific instance we were dealing with for a company who had their domain name transferred into a personal account with Network Solutions.  We finally got control of the domain for our client.  It wasn’t easy.  Faced with the prospect of either having to go to court or find the person who most recently controlled the domain, but had moved somewhere out west with no forwarding address, we decided to get creative.  Even so it took nearly eight weeks and required us to do the following:

• We contacted the current owner of the now defunct domain used for the email address used for the domain account owner with Network Solutions and paid them to temporarily point the defunct domain’s MX record  at one of our mail servers.
• We went through the lost password process with Network Solutions and then changed the Administrative contact’s email address to a valid one.
• We then waited 30 days for Network Solutions to unlock the customer’s domain.
• We initiated a domain transfer to another registrar, changing the registration into our client’s corporate name in the process.
• We waited a week while Network Solutions first took several days to send us a valid transfer code and then several more days before Network Solutions finally approved the transfer.

Hours of work and hundreds of dollars in expense, just to fix a problem that shouldn’t have happened in the first place.  Company domain names should NEVER be registered in the name of an individual.  Had the domain been registered with Network Solutions as a company registration, a simple faxed letter to change the contact would have been all that was necessary.

Maybe it is just because I have twenty years of experience registering and managing domain names, but it really doesn’t seem to me that it should be this difficult to do things right in the first place.

Want to register a domain name and do it right?  Feel free to give me a shout.

 

 

GEEKNOTE:   Domain names are your identity on the Internet.  They are “nice to have” for individuals, but critical for businesses.  You simply won’t be taken seriously as a business if you are using a free email account with a “generic” domain name like gmail.com, etc.

While, your company should have its own domain name,  there seem to be an almost infinite number of ways of screwing up the process.

One company I know lost their domain name after they ignored the renewal notices and a foreign company swooped in and grabbed the domain right after it expired.  Mercifully, this is more difficult to do now as there is a “redemption period” after the domain expires before someone else can grab it.

The reason that they ignored the valid notice is because there are a number of companies that send out solicitations that look like domain renewal notices and they didn’t want to fall into the trap of paying the wrong company.  You have to know how to tell the difference between a valid renewal notice and a scam.

Another company had issues with their website and the person handling their web work, so they went out and bought a new domain.  This failed on three levels:  They had to trash everything they had with the old domain name, they picked a new domain with a “.CO” (Columbia, South America) extension, and another business in town had the exact same domain name, except with a “.COM” extension, potentially creating confusion between the two.

Yet another company chose a domain registrar in Vancouver, who essentially held  their domain for ransom when they tried to transfer the domain to a US host.  We’ve also seen folks use a registrar in Australia, with a 12 hour time zone difference to deal with when you want to talk to someone.  Having your domain registered through a foreign country is never a good idea.

Most recently, we’ve been trying to assist a company that we had helped register a domain name a dozen years ago.  They got their own internal IT person and took over management of their domain five or six years ago.  The IT person transferred the company’s domain into a PERSONAL account at Network Solutions and then, when the IT person changed, the new one changed the name of the account holder at Network Solutions, but not the contact email address.  The second IT person left the company early this year and moved to parts unknown out west.  I’m still listed as the technical contact for the domain, so I got the call when things broke.  The email address on file with Network Solutions for the account holder is no longer valid.  Because the domain is now registered as a “personal” domain, the company is faced with three options:

1. Get the missing account holder to tell Network Solutions that it is okay to transfer the domain or produce a death certificate for the account holder.
2. Get a court order directing Network Solutions to release the domain to them.
3. Buy a new domain and just abandon the domain they have had for a dozen years.

Mind you, the domain name is composed of the initials of the company and, if you go to the website, it clearly belongs to the company.  As much as the company staff would now like to assist in qualifying the MIA account holder for a death certificate, I suspect cooler heads will prevail and they will seek a court order.

There are a number of reasons I avoid using Network Solutions, and this could well be “Exhibit A”.  It is simply impossible to find anyone there with a lick of common sense.  Network Solution’s status as the largest registrar in the world simply makes them more bureaucratic.

Business domains should be registered in the name of the business.  If the administrative contact dies or otherwise becomes unavailable, it is a fairly simple process to fax the registrar a change of contact form and get a new person assigned as the contact.  The registrar we use doesn’t distinguish between types of owners.  There are registration fields sufficient to cover both individuals registering a domain name as well as companies doing so.

If you aren’t familiar with the ins and outs of domain registrations, pick someone who is and let them handle the domain registration for you.    This can be your IT company,  your web hosting company, or whoever handles your email.  One benefit of having an outsider handle this for you is that, if something bad happens to your domain (eg. Your Exchange Server dies and you need to make changes to where your email is going), the person charged with fixing the problem has an email address in a different domain that is unaffected by the outage.

It is also important to have multiple people able to deal with a crisis situation.  We handle something on the order of 150 domains for our customers and they can rest easy knowing that if I get hit by a truck, my partner can make one phone call direct  to the president of the organization we do our registrations through and get things updated.

We also bill our customers for the renewals so they know that they can safely ignore any domain registration “bills” that come from anyone else.

It simply doesn’t have to be as complicated as Network Solutions and some of the other registrars want to make it.

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Contact us if you would like a review of your current domain registration or assistance registering a domain name for your company.

GEEKNOTE:  A little over three months ago, I reported on Intel’s “Next Unit of Computing” or “NUC”.  We now have our hands on all three processor versions….the Celeron, the i3, and the i5 versions.

We’ve run the Windows Experience Ratings for each of them, plus three conventional workstations as reference systems.

The 1.1ghz Celeron NUC came in dead last in processor performance, scoring a 3.9.  My six year old Quad core system at home came in second at 5.9.  Mid pack were an older 2.8ghz E5500 desktop and the i3 version of the NUC at 6.2.  The 1.8ghz i5 NUC came in a little better at 6.9, just a tad below the 7.1 of a 3.1ghz i3-2100 and my screaming i5 quad core (less than a year old)  at work.  What is interesting to me is the fact that the clock speed doesn’t mean that much anymore.  The newer systems tend to run faster than the older ones, even those with faster clock speeds or more processor cores.

Graphics performance is even more interesting.  The Celeron NUC out performs all of the conventional desktops except my i5 quad core at the office, and my quad core at the office can’t keep up with either the i3 or i5 versions of the NUC when it comes to graphics.  Again, this is an example of the newer systems simply out performing older ones and a good reason to consider replacing older systems.

The NUCs take everything on hard drive performance, but that isn’t a bit surprising, given that they all use solid state drives.  My SSD equipped desktop at work is the only one of the conventional systems that has similar performance.

The conclusion I’ve come to from this exercise is that the Celeron NUC is passable for light duty use, such as the email and web surfing duties that many of our customers do.  With a boot time of just 20 seconds and extremely low power consumption, the Celeron NUC  worth looking at.

The i3 and i5 versions are quite capable desktop replacements for office use.  They both have plenty of horsepower for normal office duties.

One feature of the i5 version is that it supports vPRO, meaning that it supports “out of band” network communication.  Put in layman’s terms:  We can take remote control of an i5 NUC even if the system won’t boot and needs to have Windows reinstalled.  For our customers trying to minimize tech time onsite, this is potentially a huge benefit.  The i5 NUC will also drive three monitors compared to the dual monitor capabilities of the other two NUCs (The i5 has one HDMI and two Displayport interfaces, the i3 and the Celeron units have dual HDMI interfaces).

There are four things to consider before picking any NUC as a replacement for your current desktop system:

1. The NUCs have limited storage.  The largest SSD I’ve found for the NUCs is a 480gb unit.  If you store large audio and video files, you can fill one of these up pretty quickly.
2. The NUCs do not have an optical drive.  With so much software now coming as downloads, this is less of an issue than it might seem.  If you back up your data to the cloud, or another machine on your network, then this is not a problem.  External optical drives run about $50.
3. The NUCs only have three USB ports.  If you plug in a keyboard, mouse, and a printer, you have used up all the ports.  Fortunately, USB hubs are inexpensive.
4. Audio output is via the video ports, so your monitor needs to have speakers or you are going to be using one of your USB ports for a USB audio device.

Does all this sound like fun?  Drop by and we’ll let you take them through their paces.

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