January 2024 Price Increases

 

When we last increased our prices on 1st  May 2017 I commented that we were living in interesting times, as Brexit loomed and costs began to rise. Everything is, I suppose, relative, so after the horror of the pandemic, actual Brexit, the cost of living crisis, and now war in Europe and the Middle East one has to wonder what the next six years will have in store. 

Business is tough for all of us right now, and to ensure that we are still here in six years time it's inevitable that we need to increase our charges. I've tried to keep these as low as possible because I want us to remain affordable for those who might struggle to pay for what are now essential services, so our base billing rate will change from £80 to £100 per hour from 1st January. This means our charges will be:

In-House or Remote Support
First quarter hour - £30.00+VAT
Each subsequent quarter hour - £25.00 VAT

Call-out Charges
First half hour - £70.00+VAT
Each subsequent quarter hour - £25.00 VAT

Weekend/post 6pm rates: add £5.00+VAT per quarter hour

 If you wish to beat these prices increases then we would invite you to take advantage of our Guardian Angels package, our unlimited remote support and telephone support deal which will remain at the old billing rate of £25 plus VAT per person. This includes a Service Level Agreement so that you can benefit from guaranteed response times, and for those who want a higher level of service we will offer packages that also include free on-site support. Please let us know if you want more information about this.

WannaCry Ransomware Attacks

What Exactly is this Virus?

It’s a ransomware attack that encrypts your files and demands bitcoin payments to unlock them. It spreads across networks using the SMB protocol so if a single unpatched PC or server is attacked your whole network can become infected, as happened to the NHS. It’s called WannaCry because…

Where did it come from?

Well this is embarrassing. The malware is based on the EternalBlue exploit developed by the NSA. Rather than protect their citizens by letting Microsoft et al know about this security hole, the NSA chose to exploit it to spy on people instead. Then they were hacked by a group called The Shadow Brokers and the hackers made the vulnerability public, which kind of makes them the good guys. Ironic really.

I’m infected – what should I do?

Switch off the infected computer(s) immediately. If necessary just yank out the power cable as every second it’s left on it will encrypt more files. Then it’s time to call in the experts who will clean the infected systems and restore any encrypted files from your backup. This is the bit where you are glad you invested in backup software.

Will it affect me?

Hopefully not - Microsoft also found this vulnerability on their own and released critical security update MS17-010 back on 14th March 2017. As long as your systems are up to date you should be safe. For older systems (Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 R2), Microsoft released special patches. The NHS has been hard hit because they use out of date operating systems (including Windows XP!)

Does it affect Macs?
Not at present but new variants are appearing all the time, so don’t get complacent. Apply operating system updates!

How to I check for updates?

Check For and Install Updates in Windows 10:
In Windows 10, Windows Update is found within Settings.

First, tap or click on the Start menu, followed by Settings. Once there, choose Update & security, followed by Windows Update on the left.

Check for new Windows 10 updates by tapping or clicking on the Check for updates button.

In Windows 10, downloading and installing updates is automatic and will happen immediately after checking or, with some updates, at a time when you're not using your computer.

Check For and Install Updates on a Mac:
Open the App Store app on your Mac, then click Updates in the toolbar. If updates are available, click the Update buttons to download and install them

The Mac App Store shows updates for Mac, not updates for iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. If you don't have the App Store on your Mac, get updates by choosing Software Update from the Apple menu.

If you don't see an expected Mac update:
Install any updates that are available, then check for updates again. Some updates appear only after installing other updates, and some updates are part of other updates. For example, updates for Safari don't appear, because you get them as part of macOS updates.

Use the Search field in the toolbar to search for the app that you want to update.

Click Purchased in the toolbar to see which apps you got from Mac App Store. If you got an app from somewhere else, check with the maker of the app for updates.

If you're using OS X Snow Leopard or Lion, get OS X updates by choosing Software Update from the Apple menu. Get app updates from the Mac App Store.

Check For and Install Updates in Windows 8, 7 and Vista:
In Windows 8, Windows 7, and Windows Vista, the best way to access Windows Update is via the Control Panel.
In these versions of Windows, Windows Update is included as an applet in Control Panel, complete with configuration options, update history, and lots more.

Just open Control Panel and then choose Windows Update.

Tap or click Check for updates to check for new, uninstalled updates. Installation sometimes happens automatically or may need to be done by you via the Install updates button, depending on what version of Windows you're using and how you have Windows Update configured.

Check For and Install Updates in Windows XP, 2000, ME and 98:
In Windows XP and previous versions of Windows, Windows Update is available as a service hosted on Microsoft's Windows Update website.

Similar to the Control Panel applet and Windows Update tool in newer versions of Windows, available Windows updates are listed, alongside a few simple configuration options.

Checking for, and installing, uninstalled updates is as easy as clicking those respective links and buttons on the Windows Update website.

Important: Microsoft no longer supports Windows XP, nor versions of Windows that preceded it. While they have issued a specific patch for this attack this really is a wakeup call for you to upgrade!

Our Business is Changing

As the Chinese proverb says, we live in interesting times.

In recent years we seen a sharp increase in our overheads, and the impending changes in the new business rates and rent increases are going to have a significant impact on our costs, not to mention Brexit adding 20% to the cost of imported hardware. This has made for a challenging climate for most small businesses, and it's inevitable that we will need to adapt to the new business climate.

Our last price increase was in January 2011, and we’ve made every effort to keep our prices as low as possible, however as with most of our competitors, we realise that we need to increase our prices if we are to maintain the service levels that our customers expect from us, so from 1^st May 2017 we will be increasing our prices as follows:

In-House or Remote Support

First quarter hour - £25.00+VAT

Each subsequent quarter hour - £20.00 VAT

Call-out Charges

First half hour - £60.00+VAT

Each subsequent quarter hour - £20.00 VAT

Weekend/post 6pm rates: add £2.50+VAT per quarter hour

Over the last decade we’ve seen a dramatic shift in the way we support our customers. Originally we used travel to the customer’s office  to resolve anything but the simplest problems, however with the improvement of remote support tools, we now do the majority of our work remotely. This is great news for our customers as it dramatically reduces support costs, however the changing approach to how we support you means that our relationship with our customers has also evolved

One important aspect of this, particularly when we are administering cloud services for you, is that we need to keep more detailed information about your licenses and settings. Needless to say trust is of paramount importance, particularly when you also allow us remote access to your computers, and this has led to a closer relationship with our customers.

For many of our business customers in particular, we feel that the pay-as you-go model no longer suits the new style of relationship. One important aspect of this is that as support incidents take less time to resolve it has become increasingly uneconomical for us to invoice for many incidents, which has resulted in an increasing amount of our work being given away for free.   It therefore makes sense to move the remote and telephone support services into a new charging model where we charge £25+VAT per computer;  we believe that this amount is both affordable for small business, and competitive as it will include unlimited remote and telephone support, and for customers who choose this model we will continue to charge site visits at our old 2011 rate. We will be phasing in these changes over the course of the next few months, so there's no need to do anything just yet.

We will also offer these customers a Service Level Agreement so that you can benefit from guaranteed response times, and for those who want a higher level of service we will offer packages that also include free on-site support. Please let us know if you want more information about this.

Windows 10 Upgrade Advice

If you’re using Windows 7 or 8 you will have noticed a little Windows 10 icon that has appeared in your system tray and is by now probably nagging you to ‘reserve’ your upgrade. We’ve received many queries from our customers about this and our standard answer has been to advise them to wait for 6 months to allow the early adopters to iron out the pain of the new operating system for them.

While this advice is conservative, so is our average customer.

We all know somebody who absolutely has to install the very latest piece of software as soon as it’s available. They want to stay at the leading edge of technology, but when things don’t go smoothly they rapidly find themselves at the bleeding edge instead, and I have to admit that we were rubbing our hands at the prospect of all these failed upgrades arriving at our service centres for resuscitation.

The reality has been quite the opposite. While we’ve seen a few problems, all the upgrades that we’ve carried out ourselves have been fault free, and the one problem we have seen has been in Eset firewall software blocking network traffic after the upgrade, which is easily fixed by reinstalling the software.

Several of these upgrades have been so that we can familiarise ourselves with the final release of the operating system, and others have been at the request of clients, but we’ve also carried out several upgrades as a quick and easy way or repairing broken operating systems, and we’ve been very impressed with what we’ve seen so far.

I’ve only been using Windows 8 on my home PC for a couple of months after breaking Windows 7, and I’ve never been a big fan of metro interface on my desktop PC, although I love it on my 8” Linx tablet. I was therefore quite happy to take the plunge this weekend, although I did take a precautionary backup of my entire system before proceeding, but in the event the upgrade was so uneventful as to be almost disappointing.

The few problems we have seen have come in to our service centres as casualties, and we’ve found the problem was down to  the original operating systems being riddled with malware.

As of today our official advice is that you can upgrade when you want to, but if you are already having problems that might indicate a virus please give us a call first. I’m going to recommend you take a full back up before you start, because you can’t have too many backups, though I don’t expect you’ll need it.

Next week I will publish our definitive list of this you need to do after you upgrade, so watch out for more…

Companies Behaving Badly

There are some things that we are simply better without; things that, once they are gone, you feel little reason to mourn. Things like Windows 98, or the Windows 8 Charm bar. This week I've added the Comet Group to that list. You'll probably remember the consumer electronics and white goods giant that went bust at the end of 2012, and one of our customers is unlikely to forget them in a hurry either.

The story starts with the MacBook Pro that was brought in with a faulty touchpad. Our initial thoughts were that this was most likely to have been caused by a liquid spill, but the customer was adamant that he had never had any little accidents with his laptop. He explained that he had bought it from Comet shortly before they went into administration using a voucher provided by his insurance company which allowed him to purchase a brand-new machine to replace one which he had broken. The touchpad problem had started shortly afterwards, but hadn't been a problem initially as it was only intermittent to begin with. Over time the problem got worse and when we opened up the laptop there was visible corrosion on the motherboard that could only have been caused by liquid damage.

At that point we simply assumed that the customer had spilt liquid on his laptop without noticing it, or somebody else had without telling him, but then we made a rather curious discovery. If you're familiar with the insides of Apple's laptops you will know that there are several liquid indicators incorporated into the case. When they get wet they turn red and stay red, and the one mystery was that despite clear evidence of water damage all the indicators were still white. While we were pondering this mystery Lee peered closely at one of the indicators and suddenly got a glimpse of red where the indicator appeared to be peeling up slightly. It turned out that what we were actually looking at were some small round and very professionally produced stickers that had been placed over the top of the liquid indicators to disguise the tell-tale red warnings.

Our client assures us that we are the first people to take his laptop apart since he bought it, which leads us to believe that he had been sold a water damaged, and poorly reconditioned unit, which had led to the eventual failure of the touchpad.

This is the sort of despicable behaviour that we sometimes see at the bottom end of our industry, but when this sort of fraudulent behaviour comes from a large plc it is absolutely reprehensible, and my only regret is that we are unable to take any action against Comet as they no longer exist. Which on balance is probably a good thing.

Calling Dick Tracys everywhere

you've probably seen quite a lot of coverage of the 60^th  anniversary of VE Day, and by coincidence I recently been reading through my late father's diary which he started writing at that time. He was working as a junior newspaper reporter in East Sussex at the time, and was only 16 at the time he started writing them, which you would never have worked out from reading them because as an orphan and a refugee he had to grow up pretty fast. After hours of immersion in the pages of his diary I began to get a real sense of what life was like at that time.

In those days before the Internet, and even television, entertainment came in the form of whist drives or trips to the cinema, and I can understand his captivation with Dick Tracy's iconic wrist radio, but while that was only a dream for his generation for ours it's fast becoming a reality. In fact I've recently taken to talking to my watch in much the same way as Dick Tracy did.

I have to say that mine is a little slimmer than Dick’s, and comes in the form of the Microsoft Band. I've wanted one of these since they were first launched in limited numbers in the US six months ago, so as soon as they were made available for pre-launch in the UK I signed up for one. Its arrival was a moment of great excitement in the office, and after a month of using it I'm convinced that the days of dumb watches are numbered.

I'm almost ashamed at the speed with which my trusty old watch, which has served me well for almost 20 years, was cast aside in favour of the shiny new usurper. At least watches don't have feelings, at least not just yet.

Let's get the negatives out of the way; while it's comfortable to wear the form factor is bulky and it catches on my shirt cuffs. The rectangular screen is designed to be worn on the inside of the wrist, which I was surprised to find I got used to quite quickly. It is however a flat screen on a curved wrist which makes it cumbersome, and although the screen comes with a screen protector I know from other users' experiences that it's prone to scratching, and compared to my old analogue watch it’s pathetically fragile, so don't even think of using it as a knuckle duster, Mr. Bond.

And that's about it. As far as I'm concerned all the rest is positive.

The other great contender for the space my wrist was of course the Apple watch which I finally got to play with at the weekend. As I expected its far prettier than the Microsoft Band, and I had fully expected it to match or exceed its specifications, but in this respect the Band stood head and shoulders above the Apple watch. The biggest omission in my opinion is that Apple have decided not to include GPS with their watch, which means that most of its functions depend upon it being paired with an iPhone via Bluetooth. Break that connection and a lot of the smart in smart watch falls away.

The biggest opportunity that Apple are missing here is for using the watch is a sports tracker, and one of my main reasons for buying the band was that it allows me to go running without carrying my phone. As soon as I finish my run and get back to my phone it synchronises my run data (including the GPS data of course) so that I can immediately look at my splits or check out the route I took on a map.

The other huge difference is in battery life; Apple are quoting 18 hours, which in practice may mean substantially less. I still don't know how long my battery lasts at its never run out, but if I wear it at night (of course I do, it tracks my sleep patterns) and then charge it for half an hour while I'm in the bathroom it's good for the rest of the day.

Having said that I have absolutely no doubt that when it launches the Apple watch the far outsell Microsoft band, and what they both do very well as provide notifications that you can glance at without having to get your phone out of your pocket. If I was to say that this has changed my life I might be exaggerating a little, but it has certainly changed my behaviour. Now whenever I get an email a quick glance at my wrist tells me whether it's urgent or not and this is changing the way I manage my email, which marks a fundamental shift in the way I manage my workflow.

I'm not sure if this is good or bad; whereas before I would check my mail every few minutes or hours now I'm constantly screening them, and on one hand it might make me more efficient, but on the other hand my work-life is now constantly intruding into my personal life in a way that it didn't before. At the moment that's fine, but when I head off on holiday this summer I'm going to be interested to see whether this behaviour has become a habit that I can't leave behind.

Who knows? After spending most of my life wanting to be like Dick Tracy, maybe what I'm really going to be reminiscing about in the future is my good old analogue watch.

Feedback Loop

It seems every time I visit a website these days I'm prompted to fill in a survey.

Let's get one thing straight. I've nothing against feedback. We invite our customers to leave feedback every time we do work for them, but the way we do it is to send them a link that they can elect to click on that will take them to a nice, simple and short questionnaire. What we don't do is foist a huge pop-up over the top of the webpage they're on which they have to dismiss they want to proceed any further.

To say that I find this irritating would be something of an understatement; it's particularly galling when it happens on websites that I visit frequently, and where the option not to take a survey could at least have been noted so that I'm not prompted every couple of days (usually when I'm in a hurry to get something done), to once again let them know what I think. I do wonder who completes these feedback forms, and come to that, what they look like as I've never ever in all my time of using the Internet filled one out. For all I know they could be beautifully crafted questionnaires that offer you marvellous free gifts with every question answered. But somehow I doubt it.

I'm also curious to know if the majority of feedback that is left has to do about the irritating requests for feedback, which am sure must figure quite prominently on the list of negative criticisms of any site that offers visitors the opportunity to respond to a feedback survey. Clearly, if I'm right in this assumption, feedback is ignored as I haven't noted any reduction in the number of tedious pop-ups getting in the way of my work. I'm also curious to know what exactly this feedback is being used for; somebody somewhere is probably analysing the feedback data as a way of justifying their existence, but the cynical side of me wonders whether the process is simply about identifying people who are prepared to leave feedback in the first place, which will then allow them to be targeted for advertising, or more active sales activities, in an attempt to convert the respondents’ accommodating nature into hard cash (at their expense of course).

Sometime soon I'll have to accept a feedback request just to see what happens. Unless of course that's exactly what they counting on.

These days I do quite a lot of my surfing from the comfort of my sofa using a tablet, or on the move using my phone, and these these pop-ups reach a whole new level of irritation as I often fail miserably to dismiss them because the screen isn't large enough me to get to the ‘no’ button. It's a bit like the ubiquitous pop-up advert that is easy to get rid of using a mouse, but nearly impossible to dismiss by pressing the little cross in the top right-hand corner when you're using a tablet. I used to think that I was simply a really bad aim when it came to hitting the cross, but I now realise that this is just a cynical trick by the advertiser who, having identified that you're using a tablet, is going to take you to their website regardless of whether you have managed to hit the cross or not, and you of course will just assume that your aim was poor as usual.

All of these irritations pales to insignificance, however, when compared to my pet hate which is adverts in the form of videos embedded at the side of webpages that decide to pay themselves without any intervention from you. One of the neat features of Chrome is that you can at least see which tab the sound is coming from, but this in no way reduces the heinous nature of the internet crimes being committed by advertisers in their attempts to promote more rubbish. And if I'm beginning to sound like a grumpy old man I'd just like to remind our advertisers and survey monkeys that they're the ones that have driven me to this.

Ignorance Is Bliss

If you’ve visited one of our service centres you will have seen that we have wire mesh wall displays that are used to organise small peripherals, accessories, and of course many, many cables. Over time the range of cables that manufacturers produce, and the frequency with which we sell individual cables will change, so for the last month or so we've been reviewing the ranges of cables that we want to carry in our retail display area.

Unlike Currys or PC World, we are a real tech shop, and this is reflected in the cables, accessories and peripherals that we stock, and over the years we've built up a diverse collection of legacy connectors and cables that we tuck away in the corner, but it's been the mainstream products that have been causing us the most problems. Generally for cables our preferred manufacturer is Belkin, but our experience with the business-to-business sales team has been pretty poor, to the point that, rather than relying on the stock codes they are giving me, I've been visiting competitors’ stores and quietly photographing stock codes from the retail packaged items that they carry.

We’ve got to the point where we can offer a fantastic selection of excellent quality cables, unless of course you want to plug anything into your network, at which point things get a little more difficult.

If like most people you aren’t familiar with both purchasing processes as well as network technologies I need to explain a few things: firstly cables are sold in two ways; retail packaged (these are the ones that come in boxes or blister packaging and hang on hooks) and OEM, which stands for own equipment manufacturer, and this means they come in plastic bags, and are intended for bulk use. Next we need determine what we mean by a patch cable; these are network cables that are intended to be used over short distances, often to connect routers, switches, or computers to the network. And finally we get to the tricky bit; there are many specific variations of cable types, but when it comes to patch cables they come as either STP or UTP, which stands for shielded twisted pair and unshielded twisted pair.

What we want to stock are retail packaged UTP patch cables, preferably in a range of lengths up to 15 meters, and we also like to use snagless cables as these are easier to work with them ones with sheaths. The problem is that the retail lines we used to order have been discontinued, and while we can still buy these cables in OEM packaging, Belkin only stock STP cables in retail packaging.

This clearly isn't an issue for all our competitors who are quite happy to fill their shelves with these STP cables, however for us this is a serious issue, because we know our networking technologies and simply put, Belkin, probably the largest cable manufacturer there is, have got it wrong. If you're going to put something in retail packaging then you can reasonably assume that it's going to be bought by consumers, and if a consumer is using a network cable it should definitely be a UTP cable. STP cables have their place, and that place is in the hands of professional cable installers who know how to manage the cable, and how to ensure that the shielding is optimised by way of earthed terminals.

This next bit is going to get a little bit technical, so I'll forgive you if you want to skip the next couple of paragraphs. Shielded cables are used to protect data packets from interference, and this is achieved by sheathing the cables in foil which is then protected by the (usually) PVC outer layer. You can also identify them by the metal sleeve on the outside of the RJ45 connector at each end. The shielding is important when you're running bundles of cables together (as they can interfere with each other, which is called cross-talk), and also when running cables in close proximity to power cables, but it also comes at a price. Because the shielding material is thin the cable is quite delicate, and something as simple as coiling it for packaging can cause the shielding to tear (particularly for CAT6 cable). Any tears will severely compromise the shielding, as will failing to terminate the shielding, preferably at both ends, using an RJ45 socket design for that purpose.

Unshielded twisted pair takes a different approach, and uses different twist patterns and pairing of the eight wires that make up the cable to tune out cross-talk. Because it doesn't rely on metal sheathing it is far more robust, and can turn in a much tighter radius than STP cable. As there was no sheathing to earth it also doesn't require the earthing of RJ45 sockets. While we wouldn't recommend it we know from our experience that UTP cable can survive the chair test, which is where you run over it on your swivel chair (probably several times a day), and I'm constantly surprised to find UTP cables that have been shredded to the point of multicoloured spaghetti which still manage to transmit data adequately.

So what on earth are Belkin doing selling STP cables to consumers? The first thing your average home user is going to do is use them to connect their computer to their router, and a quick check of the router plug will show that the earth prong is made of plastic, so the cable clearly isn't being earthed at that end. The next thing that's going to happen is they are going to ride their swivel chair over that cable repeatedly, in between letting the cat, dog, and a small child have a good chew of the cable (and probably in that order). Once the foil shielding has been completely destroyed you’re left with a compromised cable that's pretty much guaranteed to perform poorly.

All this could be solved by Belkin quite simply by using UTP cables in their retail lines, and relegating STP cables to their OEM lines. What beggars belief is that somebody in a senior enough position at Belkin was able to make this mistake in the first place. It's a sad indication that the company whose name is synonymous with cables no longer employs decision-makers who actually understand how they work.

And spare a thought for us as well, because we would much rather wallow in ignorance like our competitors than have to face the near-impossible task of trying to get a large company like Belkin to change the way they are doing things.

Superfish? Never Been a Problem for Us.

If you've been following the tech news this week you will have noticed a breaking story about Lenovo bundling malware with its newlaptops. I think in many ways this is quite a sad story, because for a reputable company to ship laptops which include software like Superfish is a tragic indication of where the industry is at the moment.

Superfish is a piece of software that would euphemistically describe itself as something that enhances your web experience, and it does this by inserting targeted advertising directly into webpages that you are viewing. The average user won't even notice the presence of the software, and will assume that the advertising is embedded in the webpage itself, and it's the mechanism whereby this is achieved that is particularly scary. Without boring you with the technical details, what the software does is inject its own content directly into the data from websites you are visiting, and it's a technique that is also used in something called "man in the middle" attacks, where hackers use the same technique to embed password capture elements into, for example, your online banking website.

This in itself is frightening enough, but because the Superfish software was poorly secured a hacker could hijack the program and use it to fundamentally compromise the security of your computer, so that you next visit to your online bank might actually take you directly to a site in Russia where your banking details would be used to empty your account in pretty short order, and because you're going to see that green certificate flag next to the website address in your browser, your will have absolutely no idea that this is happening.

This isn't actually a new story, with Superfish being a regular topic of conversation in the Lenovo help forums over the last few months, and once the vulnerability was exposed Lenovo were quick to pull the software from all new laptops. What we don't know is whether its inclusion resulted in any real-world attacks.

You might be wondering why Lenovo were bundling this software in the first place, and the reason is quite simply because of the microscopic margins on consumer laptops. When manufacturers may only be making a profit of $5 on every laptop they sell, the temptation to include third-party software (for which they paid) is a strong one. That's why most new consumer laptops come bundled with all sorts of software that, if you know what you're doing, you will remove as soon as you turn on the computer.

This is a practice that's been going on the decades in what many see as a race to the bottom, and we've even created a word for it in the industry; crapware. You are statistically likely to be using a computer that still contains crapware that the manufacturer was paid to install. It's a business model that sees companies such as McAfee and Norton enjoying a far greater share of the antivirus market than they should based on the technical excellence of the products, so clearly it's a sustainable business model for some, and if at the end of the day it means that consumers are able to buy excellent laptops like the £300 LenovoEssential B50-70 then I've no problem with that for reasons I've given below.

So what should you, as a Computer Angels customer do? Well, if you bought your laptop through us, or if we prepared it for you then the answer is absolutely nothing. That's because the first thing we do when we’re preparing at Lenovo laptop for use is wipe the hard drive clean and reinstall everything from scratch. Not only does this removes the risk posed by this crapware, it also substantially increases the performance of the computer.

And if we didn’t prepare your laptop for you, and you’re worried that you might have a copy of Superfish lurking somewhere on your hard drive you can check for it here.

Rotten Apple

Today the Apple online store refused to sell me a laptop.

I was more than a little surprised when this happened because I'm clearly not from North Korea, and as a regular Apple customer I really didn't foresee any problems with my purchase. My mistake when I tried to telephone in my order was in telling Apple that we, a business, were going to resell the laptop to a customer. Apparently Apple doesn't allow this, though whether they can legally refuse to sell me a laptop on this basis is an altogether different question.

As a business we regularly act as resellers of hardware. We are for example Dell Partners, and we buy Dell hardware in our own name which we sell on to customers, often at cost if it's a bespoke order, charging only for the time it takes us to specify and procure the hardware. This model works extremely well for some of the larger orders that our customers want to place, particularly ones involving servers, because our customers don't have to worry that we are over specifying the hardware in order to increase our margins. It's a model that is quite unusual because most companies see large hardware orders as extremely attractive business; we on the other hand would rather concentrate on the service we are offering, and we are also avoiding the temptation of simply becoming box shifters. If you have visited one of our service centres you'll also see that we keep Dell computers in stock, and you're buying one of these you'll find that our price is generally less or equal to Dell's consumer price, because Dell allow us sufficient profit margins to justify holding stock.

If a customer comes to us and wants to buy an Apple computer we advise them to buy directly from Apple. We have explored the benefits are becoming an Apple reseller, but the margins that Apple allow resellers are ludicrously small, and certainly don't compensate us for the responsibilities we take on as a retailer under the Sale Of Goods Act. It therefore makes sense for us to advise customers to purchase directly; at the end of the day we are a service company and it's our expertise in preparing computers and migrating data and software that customers pay as for. We do the same for other brands that are aimed at consumers, and therefore are sold at extremely tight margins; our favourite budget laptop at the moment is the Lenovo B50-70 which offers a solid specification at a very reasonable price.

There are however some customers who are reluctant to either shop online, even when we’re standing next to them telling them which buttons to press, or who don't want, or are unable to visit a physical store, and in this case we offer them the option of ordering through us because that's what a good value added service provider should do.

As a business, Apple retail stores will generally allow us a discount of around 5% on new computers, and we explain to our customers that we will take this discount to cover our expenses in making the purchase, as well as the responsibilities we undertake as retailer (if there are any problems, we, not Apple are legally their first port of call). At the end of the day the customer is happy because they are still only paying the price that Apple would have charged them had they bought directly, and we’re happy because our customers are happy. As for the onus of being the first port of call when things go wrong, we're quite happy with this and in most cases would rather our customers called us before calling the manufacturer, as we're probably going to provide a better level of service.

In the end I'm happy to report that everything worked out nicely; I phoned the nice people at my local Apple store in White city, and they were more than happy to let me place an order. I'm not going to make any comments about organisational dysfunction, but isn't it nice to know that you can't beat your local retailer

The Problem With Passwords

Selecting a password is an art; hackers attempting brute force attacks will use dictionaries containing millions of known words and common password combinations, so if your password is ‘123456’ or ‘password12’ you will lose control of your account in a few seconds if attacked. Also beware of using the same password in more than one place, as if any single password file is cracked hackers wille routinely try the same username and password combinations on other common sites. If you follow these rules you will, like me, end up with a long list (for me it's hundreds) of different passwords, hopefully containing capitals, numbers and punctuation marks, all of which you need to be able to retrieve at any time. And of course you won’t be storing them as remembered passwords in your web browser as these are generally very easy to access.

This is one of the great problems of the Internet age. How do we manage our passwords? As somebody who has more than a passing interest in hacking, and understands many of the ways in which passwords are cracked, I probably have a bit of a head start. I've also been interested in cryptography for many years, and I've managed to develop a simple and ingenious method for generating passwords that I can then reverse engineer on-the-fly when I need to use them. And if you think I'm telling you what this is then I'm afraid you're going to be disappointed.

This may sound a little smug, but I assure you it's not; I may have been careful in crafting my keys, but as I have little control over the locks they are used in I don't have any illusions about the security my precautions give me. Instead I rely on simple maxim that if I absolutely don't want to share something, then it probably shouldn't be anywhere on-line anyway. That and two step authentication. Always. Let me give you an example of how my thinking has been shaped.

Fully ten years ago my home broadband was provided by Tiscali, who have long since been absorbed by TalkTalk. When I came to cancel my contract with them I was told that I would have to do this by logging in to their portal, using the username consisting of my Tiscali e-mail address which I had never used and a password that I had noted down when I first opened the account one year previously.

You would be right in thinking that this was unnecessarily complicated, as I was already speaking to an agent who had authenticated me. Most people ten years ago wouldn't have known their username or password anyway, unless they were actually using the e-mail address. All in all the cancellation process seemed designed to be as difficult as possible, no doubt in a sad attempt at “customer retention”. Things were easier for me because I had noted down my username, and obfuscated password.

So I logged in to my portal where I was presented with thousands of unread e-mails every single one of which was spam. After cancelling, I contacted Tiscali to ask them how an e-mail address that I had never used had ended up in the hands of every spammer under the sun. They declined to reply.

I'm not in the least bit surprised to read in the Guardian that TalkTalk customers are suffering from the same problem. TalkTalk are being particularly coy about the issue which seems to be resulting in fake service calls on a large scale. 

These leaks are of course entirely predictable; if you're going to pay call centre staff in India a pittance then don't be surprised if they look at other ways of supplementing their income. It's not as if they are being set a shining example by our own governments, who seemed quite happy with the idea of collecting all our data, much of which I am sure will one day be left on the back seat of a taxi.

So there are two things to remember here - firstly beware of callers offering to clean up your PC (Unless it's one of us, of course), and secondly, like I said, it doesn't matter how clever your key is if the lock you are putting it in is made of tissue paper.

What Did You Do in the Cyber War, Daddy?

We often read about cyber-attacks, and some of you may even have heard of the expression zero day vulnerability, but this exotic world is usually pretty far removed from our everyday lives.

If for example you’ve been following the story of the Sony Pictures hack, or FBI reports on the widespread proliferation of Iranian malware, and you would be forgiven for thinking that this doesn’t actually affect you. This week, however, I’m beginning to realise that this may not be the case.

We see computers with malware infections every day, and most of these are actually relatively unsophisticated, regardless of the harm they cause to the system. A typical infection is most likely to come from visiting a compromised website, as these days people are too savvy to risk opening infected attachments. Anybody can radically reduce the risk of what we call drive-by infections by ensuring that their operating system is up to date, and that they have a good (also up to date) antivirus program in place*.

If it is a superficial infection then we use a variety of cleaning tools - the art is in determining which tools to use at any given time, and in which order, and also how the tool is used, and our standard operating procedure will change according to the prevalent threats at any given time. Most customers won't appreciate the level of care that goes into what we call a Level 1 clean.

A proportion of machines, typically 10% to 20% depending upon the threat cycle, will be so badly compromised that we carry out what we call a Level 2 clean, which is where we back up any user data, and completely wipe and reinstall the computer. In most cases this is because we’ve identified a root kit, which is where the operating system itself has been overwritten to mask nefarious activities; in this case wiping the machine is often the only way we can be sure that we are returning the computer with an operating system which has not been compromised.

In the last couple of weeks however, we've seen a fundamental shift in the nature of malware attacks, and while our industry is used to reading over-hyped articles about malware threats in the press, in this case you would be hard pressed to find any mention of this in the mainstream newspapers.

At the start of the week the technical press reported that a widely used plug-in for WordPress had been compromised on a huge scale with more than 100,000 infected sites having been identified. It appears that these attacks were exploiting what’s known as a zero day vulnerability in Firefox and Internet Explorer. The term zero day attack refers to an attack that has not been previously identified, and is therefore one that developers have not had time to address and patch.

Since this happened we have seen a surge in cases of computers misbehaving without any apparent reason, which is to say our scanning tools aren't finding anything to explain this behaviour.

What’s been particularly worrying is the case of a customer who has just narrowly avoided a bank fraud which almost certainly resulted from the interception of his on-line banking credentials. In itself this isn’t unusual, however unlike most victims he didn’t click on a link in some phishing email, but logged on via a bookmark. Most worrying of all is the fact that two weeks ago the machine in question came in with a malware infection and we carried out a level 2 clean, which means that we can be sure that he was using the most up-to-date virus scanner, drivers, and operating system updates.

So this Christmas I’d like to wish you a particularly vigilant holiday, and a cyber safe New Year.

*If you’re on a budget we recommend AVG Free , although the most recent versions have become so insistent in their nagging you to purchase the paid-for version that I’m more inclined to point you towards our preferred paid-for option which is Eset Smart Security, which has consistently been at the top of our A list for a decade.  

Lying is Cheaper than Acting

So if you're wondering what happened with my BT HomeHub let me give you the latest.

I'm sorry to say that I've given up. It's not for want of trying, as I have repeatedly called BT, but each time despite my protestations they carry out the same checks, make the same setting changes, and then trot out the same promises about calling me back at a set time to ensure that everything is working smoothly, which of course they don't. I'm effectively stuck in a loop, and it's a loop which takes about half an hour out of my day each time I fancy taking my support issue for another spin around the block. Given this level of intransigence it just doesn't make sense to persevere, particularly when I can easily replace and configure the HomeHub with a better router, because of course that's what I do for a living.

It has at least give me some insight into the frustrations that our customers face, and BT should hang their heads in shame at the service they are offering their customers.

What is worse is that this behaviour seems to be becoming more common. You may recall that last month I also discussed the problems I was having with my Nokia Lumia 930. As I predicted I was simply unable to get Carphone Warehouse to budge from their position, and given that I'd rather live with defective camera on my phone than lose the smart phone capabilities that I've come to depend upon, I'm still in exactly the same position that I was two weeks ago. One would think that this adequately demonstrates the level of inconvenience that I would suffer if I were to lose my smart phone, but Carphone Warehouse don't seem in the least bit concerned.

If you want any further examples of this sort of behaviour let me tell you the story of a client of ours who recently suffered a power outage. As it wasn't in an internal problem they called out UK Power Networks who are responsible for the incoming mains supply. UK Power Networks determined that the problem was a break in the cable between the cut-out and the meter, and that our client would need to get an electrician to run a new cable, and then contact EDF to connect it. 

I only got involved in this because the power surge that took out the cable also took out one of their PCs, but as I unravelled the story I pointed out that my client was being lied to. The rules are quite clear; the cable at fault is not his responsibility, and it's up to the two electricity companies to repair it. As I'm not an electrician I posted the problem on a specialist forum where this position was confirmed as correct by experts, however the consensus was also that the chances of getting these two parties to affect a repair would cause so much disruption, and take so long, that my client would be better off doing the repair themselves, and footing the bill, rather than waiting for the power companies to do the right thing. 

The power companies know that this is the position, which is why they are being so obstructive. Worse still is the fact that they know they're going to get away with this, because the complaints procedures are so time consuming and convoluted that, like my efforts to get my HomeHub replaced, they are simply not worth the effort. All I can do is name and shame the companies involved, so if by chance anybody who works for British Telecom, the Carphone Warehouse, UK Power Networks or EDF happens to read this I would just like you to know that you really suck. As for the various ombudsman services, you are not only useless, but we're paying your salaries to be useless which in some ways is even worse.

The only positive in this story is that at least small businesses can beat the big boys by providing far better levels of customer service, and above and beyond that by treating our customers with respect.

It's All About Data

I spend more time than most talking to help lines – it’s not a particularly enjoyable task, but I find that by sticking to a few simple rules I can minimise the tedium. First off remain polite regardless of how frustrated you are getting – you are at the mercy of a call centre operative, and they are far more likely to make an effort to help you if you treat them with courtesy. I like to make it clear that I’m technically trained quite early on and then try to treat them as fellow techies. In between tasks I’ll often ask where they are working from, and what the weather is like there (usually a lot warmer).  These people have what I’d consider to be pretty horrible jobs, and take a lot of abuse from angry callers, so if I can make their day a little better then I’m doing us both a favour.

This week, however, has tested my patience to the limit. The problem has been a failing BT Home Hub 3 – twice a day or more it needs to be rebooted to restart the wireless services, and as is common with these routers the signal strength has dropped off so that I’m lucky if I can get a working connecting from 10m away. And worst of all is that it’s my own Home Hub, so I have to live with this problem myself.  I considered replacing it with a nice fast Netgear router, which is what I’d suggest to a customer, but pennies are short this month, and out of some perverse sense of masochism I also wanted to see just what it takes to work my way through the labyrinthine BT fault finding service.

This problem itself is a common one – Home Hubs fail often enough that we Angels have all seen this problem before, and it’s going to be something that is well documented on BT’s knowledgebase. You’d think therefore that it would be a relatively straightforward job to get them to replace it – but actually no.

The first obstacle is their insistence that this is caused by wireless interference. I'm pretty sure that they are working to a script because I've heard exactly the same things said twice now, and as these technicians have been taught this is part of their training the clearly believe it. Wireless interference can be a problem, particularly in neighbourhoods with lots of wireless routers, but there is an excellent little tool called inSSIDer that allows you to map the levels and frequencies of any interference, and once you know which frequencies to avoid you can set a channel for your network that you can be sure will minimise interference. When interference does occur you wireless won't stop working except in the most severe cases (think embassies making burst transmissions which are probably damaging you health as well as you wireless signal), but you will notice a performance drop as your wireless connection slows.

After two weeks the engineers have repeatedly change my channel (although without once resorting to any channel analysis), and all this has at least taught me is that the Home Hub’s intelligent channel selection feature is a complete joke. Yesterday for the first time one of the engineers actually agreed that we might need to replace the Home Hub, but he then kept me on hold so long that I actually forgot I was still supposed to be waiting on the phone and went out. This should allow them to drag out my misery for another few days at least. All the while the shiny new Netgear router is beckoning and I have to admit my resolve is weakening, which is probably what British Telecom are depending on.

In separate news I've been getting along very well with my Nokia Lumia 930, but last week I suddenly noticed that I was getting a blemish on all my photographs. The camera on this phone is pretty amazing, especially for such a tiny device and I'm guessing that there is a speck of dust inside the lens assembly itself which is causing the problem, however trying to get this resolved has been another uphill battle. I purchased the phone from Carphone Warehouse a couple of months ago and according to the advice given by the OFT in their publication ‘Sale Of Goods Act Explained’:

“Any refund, repair or replacement you arrange with your customer relating to faulty goods must not cause them too much inconvenience and you will have to pay for other costs, for example, collection or delivery”.

The problem here is that Carphone Warehouse wants to give me a dumb phone (as in one without any data) as a replacement while they sort out my phone, which will cause a great deal of inconvenience as I pretty much run my business from my phone now I don't have a permanent desk in either of our service centres. At the moment I'm pushing for them to replace the phone as the only viable solution that complies with their obligations under SOGA, but something tells me that this is will be a case where what should happen will fall short of what actually happens, and I'll be the one losing out. Where we've faced similar problems ourselves as the retailer we've either bent over backwards to expedite a rapid repair so the customer isn't inconvenienced, or taken the hit and replaced the equipment - this isn't a case of us trying to keep to the letter of the Sale Of Goods Act, but rather just a demonstration of good customer service.

One thing that both these stories demonstrate is our total and utter dependence on a data connection both at home, in the office, and on the road. In the old days we used to think of data loss as being one of the greatest risks to a business, but with all the cloud services employed these days that risk has moved into the background: the new risk is not being able to access all that data. So what's your disaster recovery plan?

Two Thousand Reasons to be Cheerful

Although we’re still enjoying a spectacular Indian summer I can't help but notice that the leaves on the trees are starting to turn glorious shades of gold, bronze and copper, and it's a sure indication that it's that time of year again.

I'm talking of course about the Hammersmith and Fulham Brilliant Business Awards for which we are this year defending our position as Best Business Supporters of the Community. If you can spare a moment, and of course if you think we deserve it, we would be delighted if you could vote for us here.

If you're still uncertain and you happen to run a retail business in the Borough then perhaps I can give you two thousand reasons to change your mind by informing you about the Retail Rates Relief scheme. 

If you follow this blog you'll know that we have two shops, one in Fulham and one in Surbiton, but neither of these councils seems to have publicised the scheme yet, so congratulations to Wandsworth Council who have kicked off a pink envelope campaign to inform local shops, cafes, and other small retail businesses about the scheme; as I live in Putney I was lucky enough to read about this in the council magazine that comes through my letterbox.

All you need to do is ensure that you qualify as a retail business which is fairly self-explanatory, but do check the list of exceptions which is on page 2 of the form, and if you do qualify then download the form from here:

http://www.lbhf.gov.uk/Images/BRATES_RETAIL_PRICE_RELIEF_2014_15_2015_16_tcm21-187787.pdf

Then it’s just a case of filling it in and sending it to the council's Business Rates Department at:

London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham

Town Hall

King Street

London W6 9JU

A single application will allow you to claim the rebate for 2014/15 and 2015/16.

If your business is based in another Borough then you should be able to find details on your councils website if you search for 'retail rates relief'; I believe the scheme is being run nationally.

Customer Service with a Sting

Many of our customers, both businesses and individuals, will have heard that Westminster are to change the providers of their pay-by-phone service, which as we all know is extremely popular with Londoners, particularly for the way in which it doesn’t try to profit from drivers.

The new suppliers of this service are a company called Ringgo, who are part of a sizeable corporation servicing over 500 cities, yet when I tried contacting them to discuss how to register multiple vehicles for our business I couldn’t find any number listed on their website. I tried arguing with their automated payment system and after a few minutes of robot I managed to get through to an what I assume was a human only to find out that my options were either to send an email or call a 09 (premium) number at a pound a minute.

I have nothing against 09 numbers – there are lots of suitable applications for premium services, but as a policy we bar these from our phone system because there is no situation in which our employees should be calling them. Our reasoning is that any supplier who wants to charge us to talk to them isn’t really interested in our business anyway, and we are happy to find an alternative supplier. Except of course where this service is being provided by a public body such as Westminster Council, where choice isn’t a luxury we are offered, and the ‘service’ allegory doesn't really work because we aren’t the customer, we’re the hostage.

I’m not alone in thinking that the use of a premium number for a customer service line is unreasonable – The Cabinet Office seems to agree so rest assured that I’ll be taking this up with Westminster’s CEO, Charlie Parker.

In the meantime I’m looking forward to finding out how quickly Ringgo respond to support emails when we find out this Thursday that we can’t park our scooters, and specifically whether it’s going to be faster that the reaction time of Westminster’s friendly parking enforcement officers.

The Right to be Forgotten

Until today I’d never heard of  Stan O'Neal, but this gentleman has succeeded in making the news despite trying to achieve exactly the opposite.

O'Neal is suspected of using the new "right to be forgotten", following a ruling in May by the European Court of Justice that Google must delete "inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant" data from its results when a member of the public requests it. I say suspected because he is the only person mentioned in the linked article, and if that’s the case he gets very little sympathy from me.

When Google received the take-down request it contacted Robert Peston who wrote the original article informing him of this development, which is a clever move because it’s galvanising the press into exposing the ECJ ruling as utter nonsense.

Peston points out that his reporting shouldn’t be classified as inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant, and I believe the same goes for all factually accurate reporting – and remember that the original article is remaining in place – it’s Google’s link to it that is being removed. So we’re not actually burning books here, just making them inaccessible.

I see this as an ominous development, and would go so far as describing it as Orwellian because Orwell knew that once you control the news a person sees, you control what they think. I also think that sleaze bags - especially those in public life - shouldn't be allowed to crawl away from their sordid pasts.

Free speech aside, I am reminded of my first forays onto the internet in the early nineties primarily because it was utter rubbish. Unless you knew exactly where you wanted to go you were unlikely to find anything relevant because the search engines of the day were useless. Admittedly there wasn’t actually much content out there in those days, but now we’ve finally got so tantalisingly close to the font of all knowledge it seems we are looking for ways of turning off the tap.

It’s not just the right to be forgotten that jeopardises our future – most governments want to control us by restricting what we see; censorship starts by targeting the universally abhorrent, but pretty soon you’re into grey areas  and then it’s back to quoting Orwell (or Heine) again.

I’m passionate about the freedom of the internet because it transcends governments and borders – it’s the ultimate medium of communication; all we need to do is make sure we keep talking. And in the meantime we can use it to answer all the important questions like is there vitamin C in oatmeal (no), and is Stan O'Neal a total dickhead (you know the answer to that).

The Outlook is Cloudy

I had  problem with iCloud that I couldn’t solve, which is ironic as I don’t actually use iCloud. Every time I plug my iPhone into my PC, iTunes starts, which is fine as I like to back up my iPhone regularly. The problem is that each time it started, up popped a message asking me if I wanted to install the iCloud Control Panel, which I really didn’t, and nor did I want to be 'reminded later', which was the only other option. It’s a very Apple thing – you do it their way or you don’t do it at all. What’s wrong with a ‘No thanks’ option – or even better now I’ve seen the message a few dozen times, a ‘shove your iCloud where the sun don’t’ shine button. Then one day the same message popped up with a slight difference –the ‘Later’ button read ‘No Thanks’. I clicked on it. It was magical.

I’ve never been a big fan of Apple’s iCloud and in particular the way it works with Outlook– it makes no attempt at logically synchronising data but instead duplicates data, and every time I’ve worked with it I’ve started by doing a full backup of the Outlook data files which more often than not has saved my bacon. I’m told that even Apple themselves regard iCal as a joke. Probably the only useful feature of iCloud is that it can back up my devices wirelessly, but as the limit is a paltry 5GB before I start having to pay for the service I’m quite happy to stick with Microsoft’s OneDrive which happily backs up the Photostream from my iPhone, and rely on backing up the rest via iTunes.

OneDrive is part of the Office 365 family of products which in the past 12 months has matured into a robust and reliable platform, and for some time it’s been our solution of choice for both SMBs and home users who want to seamlessly synchronise their contact, calendars and data across multiple devices.

This is a market that is all about 365 Hosted Exchange, which is the preferred back-end of Outlook. Whatever Microsoft’s competitors would like to think, Outlook is what we see being used on pretty much every business computer and a fair proportion of home ones too. Mobile devices may not use Outlook, but they work seamlessly with Exchange, and even Blackberry devices manage to work reasonably reliably with it.

It’s been interesting to see the marketplace evolve – 365 is displacing Google Apps for Business almost completely; a couple of years ago Google ruled the roost, but their offering has hardly changed, and their delay in supporting Outlook 2013 was disastrous.

Before 365 the other option was to use Hosted Exchange which we regarded as the Rolls Royce solution – solid and reliable but expensive. This is still a sizeable market in our industry, but this has more to do with the profit margins offered to resellers than value to the customer. We still regularly meet customers who are paying hundreds of pounds a month for a mailbox that would fit nicely into a 50Gb £3.30 a month 365 Small Business subscription. To be sure, you’ll have trouble getting rich on the miniscule commission that Microsoft pays their Cloud Partners, but if it’s value to the customer you’re looking for then this is really the only choice.

As a result a lot of our work right now involves migrating customers to 365 Hosted Exchange, and this includes many of our customers who were using POP or IMAP email via our decrepit old 1and1 server. I’m looking forward to turning this server off – we haven’t actually used it for hosting for over a year, after 1and1 proved incapable of installing a secure image on it for us to work with (or for that matter to offer any support), and as they offered no migration path for the associated mailboxes we’ve been stuck with an expensive white elephant for far too long. For me the retiring of POP and IMAP marks a fundamental change in the way we use computers. It’s indicative of the move away from a single fixed device to multiple mobile devices, but it’s also about the move from locally stored (and easy-to-lose) data to cloud hosted systems.

Right now I’d love to spend some meaningful time living with a Windows phone to see how much of a difference this cross platform integration makes with a ‘native’ device, but the sad fact is that while I’d love to dump my iPhone 4 which has become rather lethargic since I reluctantly updated from iOS5 (and yes – I hate Apple maps as much as I expected to), I can’t because I’m too heavily invested in apps that aren’t available on the Windows Phone platform – yet…

Software from the Shadows

If I were to ask you what software was installed on your computer would you be able to tell me?

It’s a simple enough question to answer you’d think – you’ve got your browser or two, probably a version of Office, some antivirus software, and maybe an account package or some games. If you install your software using standard install packages then you will find them listed in the control panel under Programs and Features. It’s always interesting to see what’s listed, and what you can identify, because when I examine a customer’s computer I’ll invariably find several programs they had no knowledge of installing and one or two really obscure ones that I have to Google for (almost always before I remove them). When I write up the job I describe this part of it as ‘removed unwanted programs’.

The question we are always asked is “how did this software get there”. And the answer is of course that you installed it. This certainly wasn't something you did intentionally but the sad fact is that a lot of the free software that we regularly install will come with a hidden payload that you will only see if you look carefully while you are installing it.

We are talking here about the fringes of the dark Internet; that borderland where what is going on certainly isn't good, but falls short of the activities of the criminal dark side. It's a confusing world where a button on a webpage may not do what you think it's going to do; where you need to be on your toes to make sure you don't click the big green ‘Start Download’ button because the one you really want is a little one above it, and it’s the sort of place that would confuse the hell out of your parents. Welcome to the world of foist-ware

At one end of the scale you've got Adobe who I seem to mention far too frequently - their default download of Adobe reader tries to foist a copy of McAfee Security Scan, which is top of our list for instant removal. Two respectable companies there, both of which should know better.

Next let's take the example of another respected name; Java. As you'll know Java will regularly prompt you for an upgrade. If you look carefully at the install screen it will have a pre-ticked box that will install the Ask toolbar and make Ask your default search provider. Apart from the fact that the Ask search engine is absolutely terrible, this resetting of your search engine without your actual permission is exactly the sort of thing that malware will do. Evil is as evil does.

Another piece of software that we regularly see installed is uTorrent, which has gone from being a well-respected bit torrent client to a bit of a whore when it comes to foist-ware. Their recent partnerships have included the Ask toolbar, another piece of borderline malware called Search Protect, and at one stage even the Bing toolbar. I mean which self-respecting user would ever knowingly install any of that tat?

There is of course a reason for all this and it comes down to the commission that is paid for deploying these nasty bits of software, but the ends shouldn’t justify the means. It reminds me a little bit of the old days of trying to book a flight with budget airline, where just as you were about to check out you noticed that the price has mysteriously changed, and on closer examination you'd spot that travel insurance had been added to your purchase.

In the name of consumer protection this sort of practice has since been stopped, but for some reason the low-life that pedal a lot of the software that we customarily remove from computers seem to think that the same rules shouldn't apply to them. Given that generally users don't want their software, didn't ask for it, and suffer in performance terms as a result of it running, I have no hesitation in calling them out as peddlers of malware.

They may claim legitimacy and threatened to sue those who attack their business model, but it seems to me that a simple code of conduct that states that software may only be installed on a computer when explicitly requested by a user, rather than by means of a pre-ticked box, would see these companies put out of business overnight. This simple change would at least allow some separation between the bad guys and the rest of us, and I've no doubt that products like Search Protect will find no place to hide if they are forced to come out of the shadows.

How Computers are Creating a Lost Generation

This post has been a while in the making – it’s a subject I first thought about covering when Fred, one of our long standing and well liked customers started passing beyond the point of understandable confusion with the ever-changing digital world, and regressed in a few months into crippling and overwhelming dementia.

It’s a tragic thing to watch; Fred enjoyed a successful career and headed up a French property group before retiring. He had much in common with the  large number of seniors amongst our clients, many of whom came to computing late in life, but still managed to embrace it with enthusiasm. We are terribly proud of them, and I’m happy to say that usually the sequence of events isn’t as dramatic as Fred’s but I’m sure we see a side of computing that those who write code are rarely exposed to – after all that’s a young man’s world, and the last thing they are concerned about is anything that interferes with the pace of progress. I should know - I was once one of them.

These days I realise that I am now no longer part of that generation because I’ve failed the PSU test – it’s a simple metric – I can officially no longer read the power rating  labels on laptop power supplies without reading glasses, and the same goes for most of the serial codes and the badly etched lettering you find on motherboards.

Fortunately I’m still able to use my screen at native resolution, but I know from my clients that eventually I’ll be forced to step it down to be able to read it – and that’s where another set of problems start. A few weeks ago I dropped in on another of our senior clients who was unable to print PDF files. I assumed this was a user problem, but as it turned out it was actually an Adobe problem – their custom print dialog was so large that on a 640x480 screen that the bottom of the form wasn’t visible, and as this was where the OK button was the only way to print was by using the TAB button to get down to it; easy enough if you know this trick, but I’m still going to name and shame Adobe for failing to take into account the needs of poorly sighted users.

Developers love updating their software, and one the things that I’m sure contributed to Fred’s decline was when Yahoo Mail rolled out their major revamp of the widely used webmail service. Developers probably don’t give a thought about moving buttons around on a page, but they should be aware that something as simple as a relocated print button can throw older users into total confusion – they lack the good eyesight that allows them to spot the newly located button in the first place, and they don’t have the same cognitive abilities as younger users that allow them to remember where it now is even if they do find it.

In a month Microsoft’s support for XP will officially end. It’s had a good run since it’s release in 2001 (and we conveniently forget just how bad it was in the early days), but things move on. Since XP we’ve had Vista, Win7 and now Win8, so it’s a long way behind the curve. I fear, however, that this will orphan two important groups – those who cannot afford to replace their computers with newer ones, and those who are unable to adapt to a new operating system. Stop there and imagine these two groups on an intersecting Venn diagram. Do you see the huge intersection, and can you guess the demographic?

I’m not sure that the end of support means the end of XP – after such a long run I suspect that most of the vulnerabilities have been discovered and patched, so hopefully any new vulnerabilities will be minor ones. I also suspect that the technical community will step up to the mark and introduce patches if they are required, and I think this is going to be important, as I see XP being used by a select group of older users for some time to come.

I’m not the only one who hopes I’ve got it right. Susan has suffered through a series of neurological problems and suffers from frontal lobe epilepsy; her ability to cope with even the smallest change on her computer is severely reduced by the cognitive impairment caused by her injuries, and worse still, the stress of trying to cope with something as simple as a revamped web page layout can cause her to have a seizure. As her laptop is approaching the end of its life, our solution is to take a new laptop and recreate her old working environment as closely as we can. With a bit of luck she should be using XP and Office 2002 until well into the 2020’s.

It’s time that we all woke up to the dangers leaving our parents and grandparents behind – there are lots of simple things that can be done, such as extending the legacy layouts of webpages like Yahoo mail, and simple things like testing page layouts and minimum resolutions, but it’s got to start with developers, so spread the word, because if we’re lucky, one day we’ll be old too...