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Technology News You Can UseOctober 2009 – Issue XLVIIIIn This Newsletter
Comments from the EditorsWelcome to another timely and informative issue of Technology News You Can Use. Thanks very much to our contributors to this month’s issue. Our North Chamber tech committee volunteers continue to provide excellent content for our newsletter. Be sure to email the authors if you have any questions or would like additional clarification on any of the topics. And please let us, the editors, know if there is a subject that you’d like to see covered in a future issue. We had an excellent turnout at this month’s Technology Speaker Series breakfast on the topic of “Aligning IT with Business Strategy.” A big “thank you” goes to our panelists, Jeff Rowland, Norm Thurow and Samir Datt as well as to our 2009 series sponsors, CA and Protiviti, for making these programs interesting and relevant. We’re beginning the planning now for the 2010 Speaker Series, so please let us know if we can help you and your business by discussing topics of interest to you. Brent Daugherty and Matt Reedy Roving Reporter Matt Reedy: San Antonio – Cyber City, USA,Protecting your Business from Cyber Theft Cyber criminals continue to push the envelope of technology and social engineering as they attempt to steal identities and lure unsuspecting users into providing their login information for online financial web sites. One of the most recent attacks is through a Trojan program known as Clampi, but also known as Ligats, Ilomo or Rscan. Clampi is coordinated by a highly sophisticated organized crime ring in
One common-sense strategy for combating these types of attacks is to set up a dedicated computer for accessing financial accounts which is isolated from the rest of your local area network and the Internet, except for the specific financial sites you use. With the price of desktop computers now in the $300 to $400 price range, it is relatively cost effective to buy a computer that you use only for online financial access. Don’t use this computer for email or for browsing any web sites other than the secure sites of your bank or other financial institutions. You might even consider doing this at home if you do online banking there. Since Trojans can also be spread using removable storage devices, be sure to disable the USB ports and turn off the “auto run” feature for CDs and DVDs on this dedicated computer. If you are technically inclined, you might also consider using an Apple Mac or loading the open source Linux operating system on this computer. The Mac and Linux operating systems seem to be less susceptible to Trojan and virus attacks than Microsoft’s Windows operating system. The bottom line is, if you access your bank via your PC, make sure you pay attention to the online account when you’re accessing it. Look closely to see if anything has changed. Take notice of any new or unexpected transactions. Don’t be afraid to make a call to ask even if you think it’s you and you just forgot you did it. Another option is to keep your money in an account that can’t be accessed online. Move only the amount you need to your online accounts, when you need it, to minimize the damage that can be done by cyber criminals. Adding Maps to Your CRM Application, Larry Lentz, Lentz Computer ServicesGoing out to see a new client? Want to see a map to their location? Better, want to see what their facility looks like? Want to check out their web site? Would you like to do all this from within your contact database screen before you leave the office? You can do this and more with Microsoft Dynamics CRM and a simple customization. I won’t bore you with the technical aspects of this. If you are interested in implementing this yourself, then have a look at my blog post on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM team blog. CRM supports a feature called IFRAMEs which allows you to access external web sites from within a data display form. You can configure the IFRAME to take information from the parent record. A pretty standard use of this is a Web Site tab on the Account form. The Account’s web site URL is passed to the IFRAME and the web site can be viewed directly in the Web Site tab. An Account is a record type in CRM that describes a company or an organization.
Having done this, I thought it would be neat to add a tab to display a map of the Account’s location. I used the same process except I stuffed the Account’s address fields into the IFRAME instead of the web site. The results are pretty neat. Of course you could do this by bringing up your favorite mapping service (MapQuest, Bing, Google, or whatever) and typing in the location. But with this method all you need to do is click on the Map tab on the account record.
The Live Search Maps (now Bing) feature gives you different views such as Street Level, Overlay, and of course Bird’s Eye, which I love. This way you can have a look at what the client’s facility looks like which can be quite revealing and helpful in finding when you arrive.
There are lots of things you can do with IFRAMEs. Hopefully this will get your imagination going. Do you remember when servers and PCs first came out? They had 10 megabyte (MB) hard disks (HD). You were ecstatic when they made 1 gigabyte (GB) HD because you could get a 3GB machine with a CD-ROM. This was the grand age of MS-DOS. If you are still running these types of applications (Red or Blue Screens, Amber or Green), this article really pertains to you. Why? Your critical business data is so small that an educated user with an old USB stick can copy all of your data and walk out the door. POOF! You are now a victim of Data Theft. For the rest of us, this is a lesson on what to look for so your critical data does not take a proverbial hike! They tell us that technology evolves exponentially. In other words, the technology that is used today will be outdated actually before it is released. This is usually a good thing. However, I would imagine that the average organization is running on older technology due to the cost of keeping it current. This is usually a bad thing, for two reasons. First, your organization cannot take advantage of the technological advancements that happen with each new version release. These advancements might include faster speed, application stability, hardwired security and larger storage space to name a few. Second, the quality and reliability of “new” technology has eclipsed the older server’s technology. This means that the inexpensive technology of today is better than what is running on the production servers that we use for business. Let me clarify - this is not about hackers. This is about dishonest people who are associated with you in someway. They can be employees, vendors, ex-employees, or bad friends. I am talking about anyone in your building with access to one of your computers for an hour at the max, but more likely 5-10 minutes. They might say something like this; Can I check my e-mail on your computer? Can I print something? Can I sit at this desk for a moment? Yes, you should have security policies in place to stop this. Just remember it only takes one failure in any part of those policies and you lose everything. What is the most important thing you store on your network? Even if you have the world’s largest server, the majority of the important data is small. For example, letters, plans, resources, analyzed data, proposals, graphs, or photographs are all small items. I know of huge databases that run multi-million dollar companies that are lucky to be over 100 GBs of a server hard drive. The point of the story is that many items that you might perceive as cool toys can be used to remove data from your organization. Cost Description Capacity $20 MP3 player (Music) 4 GB $40 Camera Memory Card 8 GB $450 Solid State Thumb Drive 128 GB $250 USB External Hard Drive 2 Terabytes (2, 048 GB) $1200 External USB Hard Drive 6 Terabytes (6, 144 GB) As you walk around your computers, be aware and vigilant. This is really about physical security. If someone asks to use a computer, have credentials that limit their access. Be aware of MP3 players, iPods or photo card readers for the sole reason they can be used to store or remove data. Most importantly, be aware of the equipment in the building. You should be able to notice when something new is in the building and when something is missing. A Network Area Storage (NAS) device only needs an outlet and a network connection to move 8 TB or more off of your network. Finally, take the time to ask yourself or those who are responsible for the security of your network, “What is our defense against ______________?” It might just save you when you are not looking. Setting the Record Straight on Servers, Sean Franzen, Mobius Partners
Once you've decided to buy a computer server for your business, your next step is to decide what kind to buy: a rack-mounted server or blade server. Rack-mounted servers look a little like a pizza box and will, for small, entry-level servers, be just 1.75 inches high. That's because racks are measured in standard increments called "units" and one unit is 1.75 inches high. You'll see rack-mounted servers described in terms of how many units they occupy, with a one-unit tall server described as "1U", a two-unit device "2U" and so on. A blade server is essentially a single circuit board populated with components such as processors, memory, and network connections that are usually found on multiple boards. Since they use laptop technology, blades are usually thin and require less power and cooling than traditional rackmount servers. Blade servers fit into slots in a dedicated chassis. Blade servers are designed to be easily replaced--taking one in and out of a chassis is not much harder than assembling a Lego--and are even more densely-packed than rack-mounted servers. Why should you consider blades over the traditional stand alone servers or even the rackmount form factors you’ve been using for years?. There are many good reasons to select blades as your next platform of choice over traditional servers or rackmounts and a couple of reasons you might not. The pros of using blades: · High density computing. In an HP C-7000 Blade enclosure you can pack the equivalent of 32 two processer servers in a 10U form factor. That’s a lot of computing power in a very small space and they keep coming up with more ways to achieve even greater density. · An even greater ability is to better be able to manage your environment through the intelligence of the enclosure needed to house the blade servers. With an intelligent enclosure, you can pre-provision slots for automatic deployment or recovery of servers as they are inserted and removed. Automatic fail over, hotswapping, full redundancy, etc, are all standard offerings for a blade enclosure. · With HP’s Virtual Connect, things like network
· Blade computing provides an unparalleled control over power. Now you can control power utilization and the individual blade and enclosure level. Systems can be power-capped to ensure they don’t exceed user-defined thresholds and enclosure power supplies can be placed on standby when not needed. Power usage can be tracked and trended easily. The cons: · Slightly higher initial infrastructure investment. It’s not just the server but the intelligent enclosure that allows you to realize many of the benefits above. · Sometimes there are physical parts or expansion requirements that can’t be achieved with blade servers. What do customers need to know to get started and follow through to implementation? The key is to focus on and document your business requirements before you begin thinking about the solution. The more information you can gather up front, the better prepared you will be when developing the actual plan. After you have the business requirements, either internally or with a partner’s help you can begin a high-level design that will guide you later in your choice of hardware/software. Then find a few strong vender partners with whom you can discuss your business and technical requirements. . A good partner will make the investment in understanding your specific circumstances to help achieve your goal. What products, tools, and programs will customers need to invest in? The vendors’ web sites (HP, IBM, SUN, EMC, etc) normally provide a plethora of sizing, configuration and technical documentation that could keep you busy for a long time. It’s a good idea to look for case studies that closely resemble what you’re attempting to accomplish and ask for partner suggestions/references that are relevant. It’s important to try not to re-invent the wheel. Instead, focus on how you can modify and improve on any processes that you can re-use. What are the costs involved? The main cost of any evaluation process is going to be your time and possibly the hardware/software you might need for a proof of concept. This is why it’s especially important to consider using a knowledgeable partner and/or vendor resources to minimize duplication of effort. What are the benefits and pitfalls? With appropriate planning and utilization of resources, you should end up with an ideal solution in a timely manner. Without a clearly defined business goal and knowledge about the possible solutions, it would be easy to get off track. Don’t waste cycles trying to do something from scratch and without the appropriate resources Windows 7 Tips & Tricks, Bryan Guinn, Prism TechnologiesBuilt on the Windows Vista® foundation, Windows® 7 has been shaped by the evolving needs of end users and IT professionals in business’ and homes like yours. You are becoming more computer-savvy, and expect more from the technology that you use at work. You need to be able to work from home, from branch offices, and on-the-road-with the same level of productivity. You need to have the best speed and features when watching movies or streaming video. Windows 7 helps you meet those expectations and more. Here are a few handy tips and tricks to use once you get your system running with Windows 7. 1. Opening multiple Instances of the same program Want to open multiple instances of the same program? Instead of opening the program again the usual way you can simply press the SHIFT key and left-click on the first instance in the Windows Taskbar to open a second one. 2. Clear the Desktop If there are too many windows on the desktop, you can clear it by shaking a window from left to right and all others will minimize. To restore the other windows you have to shake the active one again. 3. Dock the Current Windows to the Left Side of the Screen This new feature seems useful because sometimes it’s disturbing that windows seems to float like crazy on the screen and it’s hard to attach them to one side of it. Now this can easily be done using a keyboard shortcut. Press the Windows key + Left key to dock it to the left side of the screen. 4. Dock the Current Windows to the Right Side of the Screen Press the Windows key + Right key to dock it to the right side of the screen. 5. Maximize or Restore the Foreground Window Press Windows Key + Up Key. 6. Minimize the Active Window Press Windows Key + Down Key 8. Problem Step Recorder The Problem Step Recorder is a great tool that can be used in more circumstances. You can turn it on by pressing the Windows Key, then typing “PSR.exe” and click Record. Now it will record all your moves and save them as a HTML document that you can view or write descriptions to it. This can help you with troubleshooting or when writing a guidance or tutorial. 9. Desktop Magnifier Press the Windows Key and the Plus Key to zoom in or Windows Key and the Minus Key to zoom out. You can zoom anywhere on the desktop and you can even configure your magnifier. You can choose to invert colors, follow the mouse pointer, follow the keyboard focus, or the text insertion point. 10. Windows + [Number] Programs (and new instances) pinned to your Taskbar can be launched by hitting Windows and the number corresponding to its placement on the Taskbar. Windows + 1, for example, launch the first application, while Windows + 4 will launch the fourth. We realize that this is actually one key-press more than just clicking the icon with your mouse, but it saves your hand the trouble of leaving the comfort of the keyboard. Your Business and Digital Forensics, Zach McGaugh,
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