What a fortnight! I started back at TAFE last Monday and tried to continue the set up of PCs and new Mac Pros ready for teaching this year. I set up a Windows 7 64-bit box and found that the DET* Adobe CS4 installer didn’t install Photoshop. When you install Adobe CS4 on a PC running a 64-bit version of Windows you normally get 2 versions of Photoshop – the 32-bit and 64-bit versions which support different plug-ins and effects. This meant that I had to start again with the 32-bit version of Windows 7. When I had finished this I discovered that Windows 7 Enterprise wouldn’t activate properly – #$%@&*! Windows. Time was running out so I decided to clean up last years Windows XP installations in the Lab and use those again, I’ll sort out the activation process later.

Whilst all this has been going on I have also had serious hassles with the Mac OS X Adobe CS4 DET installer, the new installer for OS X 10.6 wasn’t released until Monday this week. This was the “Intermediate” version (??? DET terminology – Design Premium ???) but it included most of the software we need to deliver courses. All of the packages installed, but every Adobe application crashed as soon as it was launched. So I was erasing the whole disk and re-installing without updates, without any other software installed and still no success. At the suggestion of the programmer who writes the DET Installer I tried on another system that hadn’t been turned on before. Success!!! So I did all of the Apple updates – half of the Adobe applications crashed as soon as they were launched. In the meantime, DET had release the “Comprehensive” version (??? DET terminology – Master Collection ???). I started comparing the two systems to identify any differences.

I decided to wipe the original system, install Adobe “Comprehensive” and then all other software when the Adobe software was working. Another successful install with all software working. I’m currently creating a deployment image so I can get as many systems working today and I’ll have to finish the classroom on Monday.

What caused the problem with Mac Pros? When I start setting up a Mac Pro with the OS X Install DVD, I use “Disk Utility” to wipe the hard drive. During this process you can choose between 2 different Mac formats – or Mac OS X (Journaled, case-sensitive). I have always chosen Mac OS X (Journaled, case-sensitive) because of using Linux and my background in web design. MyResume.docx is a different file to myresume.docx and also a different file to MYRESUME.docx. When trying the installation a the second MacPro I didn’t wipe the hard drive, I was just racing to see if I could get a working system. The default setting on new Apple computers is Mac OS X (Journaled) which ignores case-senstivity on file names and programs. This means either Adobe or the DET programmer have specified file names which are interpreted differently when a case-sensitive format is used on the hard drive. At this stage I am just imaging systems as fast as I can so I can’t identify the exact cause.

This hasn’t been a great start the new year at TAFE, hopefully things get better as we go along. On the other hand I am quite busy on the Bathurst Computer Solutions side of things with people upgrading RAM in their laptops and needing help getting new hardware and web sites set up. It seems that people are starting to see the end of the “Economic Crash” and have more confidence in the future.

* DET = NSW Department of Education & Training, who can’t supply me with the Adobe installer discs because of the contract with Adobe.

You may have noticed that my web site is “blacked out” in protest to the Federal Labor Government trying to censor the Internet. Senator Stephen Conroy and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd refuse to listen to industry experts and the wider community and continue to try to censor the Internet under the False guise of protecting children. All of the sites they talk about protecting children from are already illegal under Australian law. For more information visit The Great Australian Internet Blackout.

From http://www.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20091108
Please remember to say thank you to a Veteran on Remembrance Day.

It hasn’t been a good fortnight with a close relative passing away quickly from terminal cancer. The morning of the funeral I got a text message – no one could log in at TAFE, the Xserve was down. I ducked in and the server wouldn’t boot. There was nothing I could do so I told them I’d start the next day.

I tried the troubleshooting but the system just hung at the spinning grey circle and the grey apple turned into a grey circle. I quickly thought this would be the logic board. I grabbed a G4 and put the two hard drives in and the system reported RAID errors and wouldn’t boot. I booted from the Tiger DVD and used “Disk Utility” to repair the RAID. The system came up and was running OK, so I added the PCI 64-bit Fibre Channel card and got the students files back online. Great, it only took 9 hours to get it up and running.

The next morning whilst I was checking everything the system crashed! F**k!  The drives wouldn’t reboot at all. So it must be the drives, this time the RAID won’t rebuild. This meant I must be wrong about the logic boards. So away I went installing OS X Server again back on the other two drives in the Xserve. That took another full day and a half including setting up all of the accounts. I had to write and run a script to change all of the ownership settings of the students’ home directories. I finally got everything finished and the students were away working on final projects.

An hour later the server crashed Lots of swearing!!! At least it rebooted and everyone could access everything again. It just kept rebooting at random intervals with nothing failing in the logs. Well, I’m hoping that it lasts 5 weeks and then I can get all of the new systems set up when they arrive in a couple of weeks.

It has been an interesting 7 days for the computer “geeks” and early adopters. Windows 7 was released with much fanfare and hype over the built-in security. Canonical released the latest Ubuntu 9.10 on 29 October with a range of upgrades. Of course this has meant a couple of busy days as I copy all of the data off my laptop onto external USB drives and then totally wipe my laptop after deactivating various Windows based products. I installed Windows 7 Pro 64-bit first and the initial install was fine and It was just time consuming to add all of the other software, I’m still not sure I haven’t missed something , with Windows installing 64-bit and 32-bit to the separate “Program Files” and “Program Files(x86)” respectively. A nice surprise was Photoshop CS4 resulting in both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions being installed. Frustratingly this was the only Adobe CS4 product that was 64-bit. The little bit I’ve used it has been fine, so far so good.

This morning I found a nice new web site that makes it easy to install the various open source and free software options available on Windows XP/Vista/7. It works in the background and only installs verified software with all the junk toolbars and other crap disabled. Try the free Ninite as you upgrade to Windows 7 or just to get the software in XP or Vista.

Ubuntu 9.10 amd64 was a simple ISO download and burn to CD. The installation was the customary 7 steps, with the only hassle being that I like to create a “/home” partition to make backups easy. This involved manually resizing the Windows 7 main partition (Windows 7 creates 2 partitions as part of the install – a 100 MB “recovery” partition and the rest for Windows) and then manually creating the three partitions (/, swap and /home) before continuing the installation. A working system in 30 minutes! I then started copying my data across and installing the extra applications that I use all the time. The only hassle I found was with Synaptic’s “Quick search” not finding some extra packages but the full search did. Adding the extra repositories for Medibuntu and VirtualBox was simple so multimedia support and virtual machines were quickly enabled. KDE4 installed fairly easily and the new login screen with the option boxes on the bottom menu bar made it simple to change desktop environments.

Microsoft’s new Windows 7 has arrived with much fanfare from journalists and Microsoft. Microsoft also revealed some new TV ads which vaunt “Windows 7 is the most secure operating system we’ve produced”. That isn’t much of a boast considering the major problems viruses and malware cause Microsoft Windows users. However, Jeff Putt, the Windows consumer team leader, has admitted that the ad is “slightly” misleading and that users need to get security advice from third parties.

Windows 7 – Australian security ad – YouTube

Whilst agreeing that Windows 7 is marketably better than Vista, I haven’t found that Windows 7’s security is nearly as good as Linux or Mac OS X. Windows 7 still doesn’t ask for a password when elevated privileges are required and quite a few programs still require Administrator priviliges to run. This includes times when you are using Internet Explorer, both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Microsoft still haven’t got the business sense to rewrite Windows from the ground up. Apple did this with OS X and have gone ahead in leaps and bounds. Microsoft could even start with FreeBSD as well LOL

As a follow up to my last post, an article on TechRepublic titled “Crimeware: How it works” explains how the two most popular Trojans are created and what they are used for.

The Zeus Trojan Kit costs about $US700 and each Trojan created is different, so antivirus software has problems stopping the Trojan. This because each time a new version is created the antivirus vendors have to update their signature files. There is an obvious gap between release and the antivirus vendors getting the new Trojan and releasing the fix. The Zeus Trojan is specifically designed to capture online banking details.

The URLZone Trojan Kit is also designed to create Trojans that capture online banking details. This is newer, more complex software that creates a Trojan targetting one financial institution. The URLZone Trojans all check back with a “control server” for updates.

These Trojans only work on Windows, so one of the recommended solutions is to use a Linux LiveCD to do your online banking. It really is becoming more important that Internet users adopt alternative methods for accessing the Internet when doing online banking.

As reported by ITNews at the NSW Parliamentary Hearing into Cybercrime, Detective Inspector Bruce van der Graaf from the Computer Crime Investigation Unit has told the MPs that you shouldn’t use Microsoft Windows for Internet banking. He recommended using Linux or the Apple iPhone. The politicians were a bit confused when he mentioned Linux so he explained that you could boot a computer using a Linux Live CD, like Puppy Linux or Ubuntu, and you have a graphical operating system. “It gives you an operating system which is perfectly clean and  operates only in the memory of the computer and is a perfectly safe way of doing internet banking,” van der Graaf said. This gives you a secure environment that can’t run Windows viruses or malware, even if the installed Windows system is infected. Provided you always type the URL of your bank instead of following hyperlinks, the only possible issue is hardware keyloggers which you can physically check on any computers you use.

An example of a USB keylogger is the KeyGhost KeyLogger* whick is available from $US199.

*Note: This link is only provided so you can see images of typical keyloggers. It in no way recommends or promotes these products or the illegal use of this hardware.

According to an article on AustralianIT the Internet filtering trial “works”. However, its no surprise that the actual report hasn’t been released yet and no date has been set for its release. This just smacks of political propoganda spin. Of particular concern is:

“The trial shows that filtering does work and that the gear stops identified IP addresses without major degradation to network speed,” sources close to the trial said.”

What is “major degradation”? A 5% reuction in speed, a 10% reduction in speed, a 50% reduction in speed? The trial was on an opt-in basis so you have to ask how many people actucally chose to participate? The actual number of sites blocked hasn’t been released and one of the changes was to only filter websites classified as RC. Whilst many sites classified as RC should definitely be banned, those sites are already illegal under other existing laws and the host/producers can be prosecuted under those laws. The Australian Classification Board has a long history of making mistakes when classifying content. There is also no independent review of sites and no-one can publish the list of sites so there is no way anyone can find out what sites are blocked.  If all of the money and resources used for the “trial” had been spent investigating and prosecuting the perpetrators of child pornography the world would be a better, safer place.

I encourage everyone to join the campaign at GetUp! to ensure Australians have the best possible Internet speed and that resources are used to actually catch and prosecute

As reported on smh.com.au and theinquirer.net yesterday, Integral Energy had a major problem with it’s IT control network. A virus (W32.Virut.CF) infected the Windows based computers used by operators controlling the power grid. They were saved when some quick thinking techs replaced the Windows PCs with Linux PCs that were being used for development and testing. The Windows PCs are used to control the power grid’s system control and data acquisition (SCADA) servers running Solaris Unix.

Symantec software is used to protect the Windows PCs and they had released a fix for this particular virus in February, so it looks like poor maintenance procedures are a major problem at Integral Energy.