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The 101 To Basic Hacking: How To Hack Facebook and Other Websites

jack@jackcola.org (Jack Cola) — Wed, 23 May 2012 02:46:00 +0000

People often ask me the question “How can I hack someone’s account”. There are many reasons why people want to hack into someone else's Facebook or Email accounts such as:

They’ve been hacked by this person
They hate this person and what to get revenge
They want to spy and snoop on people
They want to delete an email they accidently sent to someone
They’re bored
They want to be a hacker

Hacking can be very easy, or it can be quite difficult, depending on whom your target is. You could get access to someone’s email account and Facebook account in less than 5 minutes or sometimes it could take a few days and a bit of effort.

In this post, I will tell you some steps you can perform to hack someone’s email account, hack someone’s Facebook account, or hack other online accounts such as Twitter, or LinkedIn. I’m not going to go into depth of each of these services, but tell you the general techniques you can use. The second part of this article will show you some tools in which you can learn how to hack and take down websites.

Hacking Online Accounts

Hacking online accounts usually requires you to guess the targets password, or to try and their password for a particular service such as Facebook, Gmail, or Hotmail. Usually, if you can get into their email account, you can get into other services they have like their online banking accounts. So how can I break in?

Guess the Target’s Password

The first approach to do is to simply try to guess their password. So if you are trying to break into someone’s email account, go to Hotmail, Gmail (or their other email provider), and type their email address in for the username, and start guessing his or her password.

Here are a few common passwords you can try:

Common passwords such as:
- 123456
- 1234
- password
- abcd
- abcd123
- qwerty
- Other most used passwords
Personal information such as:
- Where they lived
- Their name
- Pet’s name
- Street they live on
- Girlfriend/boyfriend name
- Data of birth
- School/Uni
- Place they work
- Phone numbers
- A favourite TV show
- Favourite band
- Favourite food
- Best friend
- Favourite character
- Other passwords you know they have used

This list can go on and on and will probably take a few days to go through most of the common passwords as sites like Gmail and Hotmail will block you out after five or so invalid login attempts. Also, ensure you take into account capitalisation when entering passwords (excluding Facebook). If all else fails, and you give up, try the next option.

Forgot Password Link

Most people gain access to others people’s accounts through the forgot password link. By using this method, they will know someone has hacked their account, as they cannot log in because you have changed their password on them. So you only have until they reset their password (using the same method as you just did), or if you really hate them, you can change their secrete question, phone numbers or secondary email accounts answers so they can never log in again. However, with Facebook, and even Gmail, they can still regain access by providing friends and recently contacted people.

What this method entails is for you to go through the forgot password feature on the relevant service. Each service is different. Some may send you an email of your password, other will send an SMS to your phone or an alternative email address, or some will get you to answer your secrete question and ask information about where you live. Sometimes, this information is easily guessable, so if you know your target well, it could be easy. If not, you need to perform the next step.

Social Engineering

Social Engineering is a great way to get access to someone’s account. For example, if you try to reset someone's password for their email account, and their secrete question is “what is your mother’s maiden name” or “what was the first street you lived in”, you can find this out just by talking to them and asking the right question.

Therefore, if you’re not sure what the targets mother’s maiden name is, ask them subliminally. Start by talking to them about something irrelevant, and steer the conversion to their family history and see if you can determine their mother’s maiden name. Do this for the other secrete questions you may have to answer as well. With this step, you have to be careful, as you don’t want them to trigger what you are up to. Once you have the answers you are looking for, just go to the Forgot Password link and you should be able to log in.

The other thing you could do, if you have the skill is to create a phony website that could either look like Facebook or Hotmail, or a site where they can claim something if they enter their username and password. Alternatively, create a site saying, “I can hack someone’s Facebook account for you, just give me your password”. It’s really amazing how many people fall for this tactic.

Steal Their Phone

If your target has their phone lying around, try to get access to it. Usually, people are already logged into their email and Facebook accounts so it should be easy to change their password on their phone. It could be hard to get unlocked access to their phone, but you can prepare by getting a video uploaded onto Facebook, get them to start watching it, and then get them to leave while you continue watching it. Make sure the video doesn’t have sound though, and while they are gone, change their password. They will not know a thing. First, check their account settings on Facebook to ensure notifications are switched off. It’s very risky tactic, unless they lose their phone or you temporarily steal it – provided you know their access code to get onto their phone.

Go on their computer

If you visit their house, ask if you could check your email on their computer. Don’t check your email, but check theirs and change your password. They may derive a conclusion, but you could get short-term access (even if you don’t change their password). If you only need to read or delete their emails, you have plenty of time to do it.

While you are at it, open up their password manager and take a photo of their passwords with their phones. Make sure you know where to find it first so you don’t waste any time looking for the settings. The other thing you can do is install a Keylogger on their computer and get it to send you the logs via email.

Words of Advice

Don’t be obvious
Cover your tracks so you don’t get caught (if you know how to)
Don’t hack someone’s account who is technologically smarter then you
Know the system first, especially if the site sends email notifications
It’s most likely illegal

Once you’ve gained access to their email account, you can use the password reset feature in other services to send password reset instructions to the email account you now have access too. However, to be slyer, search their emails for passwords first.

Hacking Websites

Hacking a website is different to what is instructed above. To be able to hack websites, you need to know how to code. So if you don’t know how to code, this step will be a lot harder, or impossible for you. Nevertheless, continue to read as you might learn something.

There are many ways you can hack a site:

Viewing page source or modifying URL’s
Through JavaScript
Exploiting their code with injections or including other files
Spoofing your information to get what you want such as modifying cookie information, referral data or JavaScript variables
Through SQL Injection attacks
URL manipulation
Uploading of malicious data
Cross Site Scripting (XSS)
Through cryptography
Software cracking
and using many more ways

Depending on the site, none, one, more than one, or none of these tactics will work for you. It is all up to the developer of the website and on how good of a coder they are. For some sites, it could be very easy and for other sites, it could be very difficult. However, here is a very brief overview of some things you can try.

Viewing the page source

By viewing the source of the website, you may able to understand how the code works and what it is doing behind the scenes. It will give you clues on what sort of hacking technique you should try. In some very low secured site, it might even tell you the username and password to login.

JavaScript

If the site uses JavaScript, you maybe be able to change some of the values of the variables to get what you need. If you know JavaScript, just type your code into the web browser like this javascript:alert(“hello”);

SQL Injections

SQL Injections is probably one of the easiest and most effective ways into hacking sites. If you know how SQL statements work, you can easily change it to match your needs. For example, a SQL statement for a PHP based website could be SELECT * FROM USERS WHERE ADMIN = "$username" AND PASSWORD = "$password";

The PHP variables $username and $password will be assigned the values the user entered into the username and password textboxes. If the user correctly enters the correct username and password, they query will return a result, thus logging you in. However, instead of entering the username and password, we can inject some SQL and modify the query result. For example, we can enter fdfdfd in the username field, and gdgfd" OR "1" = "1 in the password field. By doing this, the query will be SELECT * FROM USERS WHERE ADMIN = "fdfdfd " AND PASSWORD = "gdgfd" OR "1" = "1";

This statement will return true because 1 is equal to 1 and will grant us access.

Other possibilities are to try depending on the SQL Query are:

' or 1=1--
" or 1=1--
or 1=1--
' or 'a'='a
" or "a"="a
') or ('a'='a

URL Manipulation

Sometimes you can hack a site just by modifying a URL to get what you want. For example, you can change the URL to /admin or /administrator to access the administrator section, or ?accessgroup=2 to 1 to change your permission level. However, all sites are unique and this is just an example.

Spoofing

It’s possible to hack sites through spoofing information. This could be changing your referral data, change your IP address from one country to a different country so you can access services not available in your country, or simply to change your Cookie information to pretend to be someone else.

Words of Advice

It’s challenging
It’s likely illegal
Sites might keep logs and will track you down

This is only the basics, and there is so much more to learn that I have not covered.

How can I learn to hack?

If after reading this, learning how to hack is something you may find interesting, there is a really good site called Enigma Group that will allow you to practice your skills and practice on realistic scenarios to learn how to be a hacker. So visit the site, register, and see how you can go completing some of the basic skills. Keep in mind; some of them are hard, even for experienced security experts.

So, has your view changed on hacking after reading this? Is it easier or harder than you first thought?

Everything You Need To Look Out For When Signing Up With an ISP And Connecting To The Internet

jack@jackcola.org (Jack Cola) — Tue, 15 May 2012 04:45:00 +0000

If you live in an area close to the city, you will have the option to signup with a large number of ISP’s. You could always go with the top ISP’s – Telstra, iiNet, Optus and TPG, or you could go with the smaller, unknown ISP’s. Although every ISP will get you connected to the internet, there are a few things to be aware of about the plan before you sign the deal.

The Type Of Service

At the moment, the types of internet connections you can get are NBN, ADSL1, ADSL2, Naked DSL, Cable, Dialup, ISDN, Satellite, Wireless, and a few other less common types. If you live in a metropolitan area, you will likely be offered ADSL2, Cable or Naked DSL. ADSL2 and Naked DSL is essentially the same thing from a customer’s perspective, but with ADSL2, you require a landline phone (PSTN) and pay line rental. However, with Naked DSL, you don’t need to have a home phone or a landline, which can save you $30 per month straight away. If you live in regional areas, Naked and ADSL2 may not be available to your house, so your next best option is to go with ADSL1 as that is all that would likely be available.

Cable is somewhat comparable to Naked DSL where you don’t need a landline, and with some ISP’s they will offer you a Cable over the ADSL2/Naked. The other option is to go Wireless, but this can cost a little more, is less reliable, and you would likely have slower speeds. The type of service isn’t something that you will get much of a choice in – your ISP will tell you what the best service for you to get based on what is available to your house.

On Net Vs Off Net

Not all ISP’s can offer you an internet connection to your home, but in most cases, Telstra/Bigpond can. This is where the term On Net and Off Net come into play. If you are on an Off Net plan, the ISP you signup to will be using Telstra’s Wholesale Network that means you are using Telstra’s infrastructure. The good news is you only have to deal with your ISP, and not Telstra. Telstra sells this connection at a flat rate to ISP’s, with the ISP then adding their costs on top such as support, account management or other additional services they offer you. This allows you to choose the ISP of your choice if they don’t offer their own service using their own infrastructure and if you don’t like dealing with Telstra. However, in most situations, choosing an ISP to use the Telstra Wholesale network is usually expensive, especially if you can get a home phone and broadband bundle with Telstra.

Speed

The speed of your service is also another variable that you don’t get much say on as there are many factors out of your control that play a huge factor in the speeds you get. However, the speed of your internet connection is depended on the type of Internet service you choose. All services, apart from the NBN, the below speeds are the maximum speed you can get, but in the majority of cases, it will be much lower depending on your line quality, distance from exchange, or neighbourhood traffic congestion.

Service Type	Download
ADSL1	8MB/s
ADSL2/Naked	24MB/s
Cable	100MB/s
NBN	100MB/s*

*Guaranteed speed

The estimated speed you will get depending on your distance from the Exchange

ADSL2 Exchanges provides a lookup services to calculate the approximate distance you are away from the telephone exchange.

Monthly Cost and Setup Fees

Once you’ve determined the type of service you want, it’s time to determine what are the monthly costs and setup fees are for an ISP you are going to choose. Monthly costs are what you have to pay each month, and setup fees are the upfront fees that you have to pay to get connected. Most ISP’s offer a 12 or 24 month contract, so looking at the total cost for 12 or 24 months, is a great way to determine how much it will cost you.

Rapid Transfer

If you already have an internet connection, and want to change ISP’s because you have found a better deal, there is what’s called “Rapid Transfer” which allows you to change ISP’s in a few hours with only a little downtime. Both your old and new ISP has to support rapid transfer. If either your old or new ISP does not support rapid transfer, it may take 1-2 weeks to be connected, which means you won’t have an internet connection until it’s done. Rapid transfers are usually cheaper as well and have a reduced setup cost.

Product Bundling and Discounts

When looking at the monthly price, you also have to consider other services such as Mobile Phones, Pay TV, and home phones. Usually ISP’s offer you bundles, which in the long run, can save you lots of money. So if you are paying $30 for your home phone, and $50 for your internet and another $30 for your mobile phone each from a different service provider, you may want to consider bundling them up with one services provider. Another option could be to get a Naked connection and use VOIP as your landline. iiNet offers a good deal on this. Usually, if you bundle a home phone with your internet connection, your internet connection is a lot cheaper.

Included Quota

Every webpage you visit, every YouTube clip you watch is a download, and every photo you upload onto Facebook, is an upload. When choosing an internet plan, you must ensure you choose a plan that gives you enough Gigabytes per month. If you accidently go over your allowed quota, either your internet speed will slow down, or you are hit with a large bill.

Excess Usage Charges

Excess usage charges aren’t around much as they were a few years ago, but on some plans they do still exist. If a plan has excess usage charges, my advice would be to not go with them. If you go over the limit, you will be stung a huge fee, and in the long run, you will end up usually paying a lot more money. It’s also risky as if your computer gets a virus and starts downloading things, or your a neighbour breaks into your Wi-Fi network and starts downloading torrents, you could face huge bills. This will just cause you stress. Each ISP also has a different excess usage costs, so make sure you find one that you are prepared to pay.

Shaping

Thus, why it is best to choose an internet plan that shapes your speed. Therefore, if you go over your included allowance, your internet speed will be reduced (shaped), but you will always know your internet bill will always remain the same.

Counted Uploads

You have to also consider if uploads are counted. Most plans today count uploads, so if your included quota is 50GB, you will go over your quota if you download 40GB and upload 10GB. If uploads aren’t counted, you can download 40GB, and upload 200GB and nothing will change as your uploads are not counted. So if you tend to do a lot of seeding of torrents, uploading of YouTube video’s and Facebook photo’s, you might want to consider going on a plan that doesn’t count uploads.

Unmetered Content

Some ISP’s offer “unmetered content” which is content that they don’t count towards your allowed monthly quota. For example, for iiNet Customers, anything you watch on Freezone is not counted towards your quota. Most ISP’s have a range of unmetered content, you just have to find out what it is for them.

On Peak and Off Peak Times

Your included quota may be divided into On Peak and Off Peak. For example, between 8am and 12am might be considered on peak, and 12am to 8am might be considered off peak. Anything you download between those hours use your on peak or off peak data allowance. You have to careful when choosing an ISP that has on peak and off peak times as some ISP’s have offered 500GB of included quota, but you can only use 20GB a month between the hours of 6am and 2am, and the other 450GB only between 2am and 6am. Although the plan might sound good, it really isn’t if you are always asleep then.

Network Limitations

Not all ISP’s give you access to everything. Some ISP’s purposely slow down torrent speeds (as torrents are the main consumer of bandwidth), or they might block ports so you can’t run web servers or use VOIP. Therefore, if an ISP blocks traffic that you need, you need to consider heavily if you want to go with them.

Optional Service Extra’s

The last things you have to consider is what you get with the service.

Do they give you a static IP address or a Dynamic IP address?
How many email accounts do they give you?
How much free webspace do they give you?
Do they give you any backup space or online storage?
Do they give you a spare dialup account in case your internet connection goes down?

So if you need any of these optional extra’s, make sure the ISP you go with has them.

Internet Filtering

ISP’s like Bigpond and Optus have an internet filter running, so highly illegal sites are not accessible. So if you need to access these illegal sites on the internet (hopefully you don’t though), or you don’t want to go with a company who wants to filter and censorship you, make sure you don’t go with a company that has an internet filter. However, if you are a parent, it could be worth it. Keep in mind, 99.99% of the sites are still accessible.

Support Methods and Hours of Operation

Apart from the technical side of things, you have to consider the company supplying you with the internet connection. If something goes wrong, how can you get them to help? Are they good at helping their customers? Do you have to spend hours waiting on the phone before someone picks up? Can you call them at 3am in the morning? Can you email them? Can you contact them on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter? All this has to be considered. There is nothing worse than not being able to access the internet, and not being able to contact them and ask why

Service Reliability

Is the ISP’s service reliable? Some ISP’s have problems day after day; some can work all year round without a problem. Just don’t get scared off on the things you read on the internet. It’s only the people who have problems complain. The majority of people don’t complain because they don’t have problems with their internet connection.

Legal Stuff

You also have to beware of their legal side. When signing up, you have to ensure you comply with their terms of use, acceptable use policy, privacy policy, and terms and conditions. Though, most people don’t read them, it outlines whether or not the company can change your internet plan without telling you, and informing you what happens if you need to leave your contract early and other important information you need to know. ISP’s are slightly different, so it’s best to check and read their policies. As a minimum, make sure you know the following:

Are you signing up on a fixed contract?
What’s the minimum cost over 24 months?
Can they change your plan?
What notice do they need to give?
What happens if you want to leave?
Are there exit fees?
Can you run servers, use VOIP and download torrents?
How many calls can you make per month (if you have VOIP)
What is the service level guarantee?
If your internet goes out, do they give you refund, to what amount?
Do you have to sign any wavers ensuring the ISP isn’t responsible for any problems you have?

Fees and Discounts

You also have to take into account any fees and discounts you may get for making changes to your service. For example:

Are you able to upgrade or downgrade your plan at any time? What are the fees associated?
What happens if you need to terminate your contact early?
What happens if you move home?
Do you get any discounts, or free hardware if you signup to a 24 month plan?
Do you have to buy your own hardware to use their service?
What discounts to you get if you bundle with other products?

Company Brand

Most people choose an ISP based on the brand name. Some people love a brand and will go with them, even though they may pay more compared with going with another ISP.

Some people might only want to go with well-known brands. Some people may hate going with the big brands and choose to go with the smaller companies.

So what sort of company brand are you going to go with?

Payment Methods

Paying for your service is also something you have to consider based on your needs. Some companies now charge you extra for them to send you a bill in the mail. Are you happy with electronic bills, or do you want to stick with paper bills and have the surcharge?

How do you want to pay? Through credit card, a cheque, at the post office, or BPAY? Do they offer your preferred payment method?

You have to ensure the ISP you go with offers they way you want to pay.

So what ISP’s can I choose from?

Now you know what to look for, you should be able to find yourself a good deal. To help with your search, Whirlpool’s Broadband Choice will be able to help you.

Over to you…

A Roundup Of The Best Floppy Drive Music You Must Listen To

jack@jackcola.org (Jack Cola) — Fri, 11 May 2012 04:18:00 +0000

Remember the old floppy disks we all used to use before USB sticks? Well, they are back in fashion, this time, for a different reason… Music.

Yes, that’s right. People have been making some pretty good tunes out of floppy disks. Here’s a roundup of my favourite Floppy Drive Music.

What Is Love

Avicii - Levels

{iframe width="560" height="315"}http://www.youtube.com/embed/OSiHucm45D0{/iframe}

Party Rock Anthem

{iframe width="560" height="315"}http://www.youtube.com/embed/d0sU6ZK5g_E{/iframe}

Owl City - Fireflies

{iframe width="560" height="315"}http://www.youtube.com/embed/u-eOLBABl1E{/iframe}

Smile Song

{iframe width="560" height="315"}http://www.youtube.com/embed/pOA9PGYeP3E{/iframe}

Flight of the Floppy Drives

{iframe width="560" height="315"}http://www.youtube.com/embed/Nrp1PALeWCI{/iframe}

Touhou - Bad Apple

{iframe width="560" height="315"}http://www.youtube.com/embed/hkZbAJHeu9w{/iframe}

Winter Wrap Up

{iframe width="560" height="315"}http://www.youtube.com/embed/_HhoIku_-yM{/iframe}

Through the Fire and Floppies (Flames)

{iframe width="560" height="315"}http://www.youtube.com/embed/uKZP8fNcYHU{/iframe}

He's A Pirate

{iframe width="560" height="315"}http://www.youtube.com/embed/hZ2kUtDtYm8{/iframe}

In the Hall of the Mountain King

{iframe width="560" height="315"}http://www.youtube.com/embed/LHvyhyvpT7Q{/iframe}

Metallica: Master of Floppys

{iframe width="560" height="315"}http://www.youtube.com/embed/JoJHjuHrthI{/iframe}

Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites - Skrillex

{iframe width="560" height="315"}http://www.youtube.com/embed/yBabh9SsWcg{/iframe}

Starts Wars

{iframe width="560" height="315"}http://www.youtube.com/embed/X4SCSGRVAQE{/iframe}

This is Halloween

{iframe width="560" height="315"}http://www.youtube.com/embed/v-vChCbwBKQ{/iframe}

Want You Gone

{iframe width="560" height="315"}http://www.youtube.com/embed/wjfkcdzPpLw{/iframe}

Still Alive

{iframe width="560" height="315"}http://www.youtube.com/embed/IY0mDRrqcVU{/iframe}

Phantom of the Floppera

{iframe width="560" height="315"}http://www.youtube.com/embed/dmoDLyiQYKw{/iframe}

007 Theme

{iframe width="560" height="315"} http://www.youtube.com/embed/vZe0_dk4czE{/iframe}

And the songs that didn't quite make the cut

A big thanks goes to MrSolidSnake745, and Sammy1Am for creating some of these best Floppy Drive Sounds.

So what do you think of Floppy Disk Music? Did you ever think it was possible back in the 90's?

15 Free Copies of Crave Invoice Pro To Giveaway

jack@jackcola.org (Jack Cola) — Mon, 07 May 2012 07:00:00 +0000

Thanks to Manoj from Reflection Software Solutions, I have 15 free copies of Crave Invoice Pro (Version 1.7.3.1) to giveaway to readers. To win, simply answer How much does Crave Invoice Pro cost in USD?

The first 15 people to answer correctly will win a free full, non-expiry license key for Crave Invoice Pro version 1.7.3.1. If you know the answer, continue reading for the entry form.

What is Crave Invoice? - It's Invoicing Software

Crave invoice is an invoicing and billing program that allows businesses to manage products, customers, invoices and receipts easily through an application installed on their computer. There are many powerful features built in which include:

Automatically email recurring invoices to customers
Customise the templates of invoices, quotations and more to meet your business needs
A whole range of reports that can be generated at a click of a button
Easy to learn and use interface

Installing and Configuring

Installing Crave Invoice was a breeze and was no different to other software installs that you have done in the past. Once installed, you will be presented with a setup screen to configure your organisation’s company, tax, and currency details.

Once you’re done with the initial setup, you are instantly on your way to create your first invoice.

Products

One thing I like about Crave Invoice is that it is very easy to use. There is a consistent layout and you are not overwhelmed with options as you are with other invoicing tools. Just click the Products tab and you can create a new product and view your existing products.

This is pretty much all there is to it. For small business this would be a perfect solution, but for larger ones, it might not offer the flexibility that you want such if each product you sell has a unique serial number that has to be recorded. However, for a sporting club or freelancer, it is a perfect solution.

Customers

Adding customers is just as easy and contains all the fields that you need.

Invoices and Sales Orders

This is where Crave Invoice does what it does best – the invoicing.

One of my requirements of good software is that it allows tasks to be done easily and fast. There is nothing worse of having to do 10 or so of the same task and it takes forever to do. Creating an invoice is as easy as selecting the customer’s name which populates their details into the form. You then just have to select the items to be invoiced and few other optional options like adding notes or selecting a payment term. Once everything is filled out, just click on the email button and the software automatically emails the customer. Printing it out is just as easy.

As for creating Sales orders, it is almost an identical step to creating an invoice.

Receipts

Once a customer has paid for the invoice, select Receipts to record the payment and enter the details.

Once entered, you can then print out, or email the receipt to the customer.

Customisation

In terms of features, that’s basically the core functions of Crave Invoice. However, there are quite a lot of things you can do to customise it to your business needs. Here are a few things you can do:

Use it with multiple companies – you are not stuck with just one company name

Use it with multiple users with user accounts and set access permissions – if you work in a team, you can give access to certain parts of the software

Configure automatic numbering – you can easy change the auto numbering sequence for your documents

Add Periods – such as between summer or winter periods

Manage Currencies – working in AUD, USD, Euro or any other currency

Importing Data – easily import your data from an existing database

Advance Settlements – accept payments for the future

Reports Viewer – view a whole range of sales, customers or tax reports

Customising Templates – customise your template design to meet any requirements you have

And there are even more features:

Manage countries and cities
Transport and courier information
Add sales persons
Add payment terms
Add units of measurements
Change product prices in bulk
Payment Receipts
Managing expense accounts and expense groups
Batch printing
Tax rates

If you think this software will be useful for you or your business, why not try to win a copy, saving you $theanswer!

{iframe height="654"}https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/embeddedform?formkey=dHFsdHZVTkNmODFJcDlsN3hHOFh6N2c6MQ{/iframe}

Win A One Year License of Bitdefender Internet Security 2012

jack@jackcola.org (Jack Cola) — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 07:00:00 +0000

Thanks to Bitdefender Antivirus, I have a one a year license to giveaway for their award winning software Bitdefender Internet Security 2012.

To win, simply answer the following question:

Explain your worst computer moment?

The winner will be chosen by me based on whoever faced the most hardship, or made good light of a bad situation. To enter, simply enter your details into the entry form after the review.

Review: Bitdefender Internet Security 2012

In the past, I have questioned is Antivirus software really necessary, and have listed a few ways you can live without them. I’ve also complained that they slow down your computer. However, if you ever get a virus, it can be a pain to remove.

Bitdefender Internet Security 2012 is $74.95 per year for a license that can be used on one computer. The software integrates antivirus, antispam, antiphishing, firewall, parental controls and social network safeguards into one ultimate security suite.

There is an abundance of features with the software, and Bitdefender has done a really good job in making it very easy to use and install compared to competitors.

Installation

Installation was a breeze, and strangely enough, didn’t have many clicks. Once you entered your license key, it starts installing straight away.

Once installed, you are instantly protected, but it’s best to do an update and then a full system scan to detect any hidden viruses.

The Full System Scan

The full system scan is not that quick. It took 30 or so minutes to scan a hard drive that has 20GB of files stored on it. However, you would probably only run this once a month as a quick scan and the always-on protection will be sufficient.

I did notice, the scan process estimated time remaining is not accurate. Even though the scan estimated 6 minutes remaining, 25 minutes later, it is still going. As long as the software detects viruses and infected items, that is all that matters.

When the scan finished, those infected files were not viruses (which was good), they were tracking Cookies that were automatically deleted once the scan finished. Nevertheless, deleting these cookies is not hard at all.

Parental Controls

A great feature of Bitdefender Internet Security 2012 is that it offers Parental Control. It allows you to restrict access (or allow access) to sites based on the user accounts on your computer. If a user visits a blocked site, they will be presented with the following screen.

The Parental Control feature is quite advance that allows you to control based on ages, block websites, keywords, computer applications and Instant Messenger chats. However, with every filter, they are not always perfect. For example, I set the child’s age to 3 thinking it will block adult content, but it did not block adult content on Google Image. The only way I could block these images was to add the keyword of the searched term to the block list, or block the google.com/images URL. However, doing this for every adult website is impossible.

Another good feature is that you can receive email notification when web pages or applications are blocked. You can also view the log online if you turn this feature on.

Overall, Bitdefender Internet Security 2012 does get the job done. Now it’s your turn to use if you enter to win a one year license.

The Winner

Congratulations Justin W for your answer:

I was fixing my mums computer which did nothing but show up the blue screen of death which I couldn't understand what was doing it. I tried everything except re formatting it as she still wanted everything on the computer so after about 4hrs going into safe mode and trying to fix and adjust things thinking she installed something that was screwing around with the boot up then finally I went into the bios set up and what she had done was changed it to boot up from the other hard drive without the installed windows but a previous windows with old files. Later after fixing it I showed my mother the bios screen and she said oh yes I accedntly got into this and then I got out of it, to think if she told me 4hrs before I might have fixed it within minutes haha.

Review: Ekahau Mobile Survey–The Perfect WiFi Analysis Tool For System Administrators

jack@jackcola.org (Jack Cola) — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 03:30:00 +0000

In this day in age, Wi-Fi is just something that every organisation, home, and public area requires. However, if you are just an end user of a Wi-Fi network in your workplace, school, University, or public place; a lot of planning, monitoring and improvements need to take place so you can browse the internet from almost any location within the covered areas.

If you are an IT Manager or System Administrator in charge of setting up, maintaining, or configuring a Wi-Fi network, you need to look at the Ekahau product range. I first covered Ekahau Heat Mapper on MakeUseOf.com, and found it incredibly useful. I also recently used it to measure the Wi-Fi signal strength of iiNet’s BoB1, BoB Lite and BoB2 products.

Now there is an easier way thanks to Ekahau Mobile Survey.

Ekahau allows you to monitor the strength of the Wi-Fi signal around you. You get information such as the signal strength, speed of the network, percentage of packet loss, delays, rogues and the actual network information such as the SSID, Access Point MAC address and the channel number.

While you walk around your organisation, Mobile Survey informs you of all the information about the networks you are in range of.

Ekahau’s other product Site Survey works well with Mobile Survey. Site Survey is somewhat similar to Heat Mapper, which allows you to plot signal strength measurements on a map. With Site Survey, you can save a map, export it to your phone, and use the Map feature of Mobile Survey to map out the signal strength, as you would do in Heat Mapper. This provides you with more information that is valuable and you don’t have to carry a laptop around when performing a survey – just your phone.

Whenever the signal reaches limits set by you, it adds a record in your log, so you can see where the Wi-Fi network needs to be improved.

Unfortunately, Ekahau Mobile Survey and Site Survey is not free software as with Heat Mapper, but is a very useful tool for organisations that have a lot of ground to cover with their Wi-Fi networks.

Ekahau provided me with a free copy of Mobile Survey and a 1 month license for Site Survey for review purposes.

Google Fools Us All: Google’s 2012 April Fool Jokes

jack@jackcola.org (Jack Cola) — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 12:45:00 +0000

Every year, we all wait for what Google has to offer on April Fool’s Day. Last year, Google showed us that we can Teleport, we saw Google Motion, and were introduced to Chromercise. We’ve also seen some Google April Fools jokes become a reality.

This year, there was no exception. Google continued delivering April Fool’s jokes all day. Let’s have a look what Google had in store for us today (in case you missed some).

8-bit Google Maps

If you went to Google Maps today, you may have felt you went back into time when the first colour video game was released. Google showed an 8-bit map of the World.

Gmail Tap

Writing a message on your phone using 26+ keys can be a challenge and time consuming. But thanks to Gmail tap, you can write all your messages with only pressing two buttons. It also provides an option to allow you to send two emails at once – a great improvement over speech to text technology where you can only send one message at a time. Visit Gmail Tap to find out more.

Google Fibre

No, it has nothing to do with the NBN, but it does have something to do with what you eat. So Get Google Fibre today.

Go Ro?

There are millions of mobile devices, but dozens of rotary phones. But those using Rotary phones will have trouble visiting your website. So learn why optimizing for Rotary matters.

Click-To-Teleport

I remember making a comment a while back in a competition by Virgin Mobile (see my comment here). It appears Google has been stalking me – I’m sticking with that, rather than saying it was a co-incidence, but Google has introduced the Click-to-Teleport Extension. This allows you to teleport directly to any business you want to visit. So say goodbye Google’s Driving Directions. Nevertheless, a great way to drive more customers into the doors of your business.

Google’s Advance Search

Sometimes it can be hard to find what you are searching for on Google, so Google added to the Advance Search and called it “Really Advanced Search”. Really Advanced Search gives you so many more fields you can fill out to really find what you are looking for.

Google Street Roo

Exploring the Australian Desert would be a tiring task for people – it’s just too big. But thanks to this great invention, we can now all see the Australian Outback. “The Australian Outback, brought to you by thousands of jumping Kangaroo’s with 360 degree cameras on their heads.” Read the full article on the Official Google Australia Blog.

A new way to multitask

It’s true! When we use a computer, we are only using 50% of our available hands. So what Google Chrome Multitask Mode allows us to do is to browse the web faster with two mouses. So you can get twice the amount of productivity in. Want to try out Multitask mode? Just visit this link.

Google TV Click

Welcome to the new way of watching TV. Forget 3D TV, forget social media integration, and say hello to Google TV Click. Google TV Click allows you to interact with the shows and movies that are playing. It gives you control of the storyline and the actors. TV viewing has just reached a completely new level.

The YouTube Collection

Don’t really like watching YouTube online? The YouTube Collection is all of YouTube on disk and delivered to your door weekly.

Google Racing

It actually looks quite believable, and could possibly be another April Fools reality. But who knows, but maybe in the future, Racing might not involve a driver, but a coder to program a driverless car – the best coder wins. You can visit the Google Racing site here.

Change the Weather

Not a big fan of todays or the next few days’ weather? Don’t worry, Google will let you change it to however it suits.

Jargon-Bot for Google Apps

Being a developer, we have to be able to talk technically to other developers and talk in plain English to consumers, but for many, this can be difficult. But thankfully, Google has just launched Jargon-Bot for Google Apps. The App translates business jargon into plain English. So now, everyone will be on the same page.

Google Voice for Pets

That’s right! We can now call our pets thanks to technology that records audio directly from their vocal cords. If you pet likes sending SMS’s instead, a tiny inbuilt micro-LED emitter can project a keyboard to the floor. The other great feature is that Google Voice for Pets has an inbuilt transcription engine to translate meows and barks into plain English. But for some of us, we will still like the voice translation the other way so our pets do what we tell them too.

So what was your favourite Google 2012 April Fool’s Joke? Did I miss any?

Need to Rent a Car? Hire a Car Through Apex Car Rentals Australia

jack@jackcola.org (Jack Cola) — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 01:20:00 +0000

At the start of March, I had to go to Brisbane for 7 days. I hoped some of my friends could pick me up from the airport, but I had no luck; every one of them was either at work or sleeping in a University lecture. Therefore, in the end, I decided to hire a car for the 7 days I was up there. However, this proved even more difficult, because since I am under 25, most car hire companies charged a surcharge that was about the same cost as the rental itself.

I checked out Budget, Avis, Thrifty, Europcar, but they all charged well over $400 for the week, and their excess for being under 25 was up to $2000, if not more – even if it wasn’t your fault.

However, I found a great car rental company that has only been operating in Brisbane for about 8 months and has a fleet of about 150 vehicles. I ended up hiring my car from Apex Car Rentals Australia. I hired a Hyundai i20 for $378 for 7 days. Although, it’s quite expensive, it was the cheapest I could find for my age. The price wasn’t the only factor why I chose them, it had a $0 excess, a free GPS, free roadside assistance, and for an extra $2 a day, unlimited use of Toll roads.

Why Apex Car Rentals: Simple Pricing

When doing my car rental searches for other companies in Brisbane, you are presented with a price of say $25. You think, “Wow, that’s cheap”, but when you reach the checkout page, your total costs comes to about $50 a month. This is because they also add a booking fee, admin fee, license registration fee, this fee, that fee, and in the end, it all adds up. Apex Car Rentals Australia has three plans, three prices, and that’s all you pay – no more, no less.

Because I predicted I would do a lot of travelling, 100km per day wasn’t enough, and the excess is quite large with the cheaper option, I opted for The Works package. This meant if I had an accident, I would not have to pay an excess, and I also got a free GPS to use as well (which came in handy). Not many car rental companies have $0 excess, especially for people under 25, and paying a little extra gave me more piece of mind.

Why Apex Car Rentals: Airport Pickup

Unlike most car rental companies, Apex Car Rentals Australia is about a 5 minute drive from the Airport. However, don’t worry about that. Simple give them a call when you plane lands, and they will come pick you up straight away in their free Airport Shuttle Bus. I waited about 10 minutes because they just left the airport, but a 10 minute wait was a lot quicker than an extra 20 minute wait for the Brisbane Air Train that leaves every half an hour.

Why Apex Car Rentals: Simple Paperwork

This is the first time I’ve hired a car, so I can’t comment on other car rental companies in Brisbane, but after arriving, it took about 10 minutes for them to do the paperwork and I was on my way. I handed them my receipt I printed out when ordering online; they checked my License and I gave them my credit card to process. They only billed my credit card when I was there, not online when I placed my order. A point to make is that you need to be on your Open license, they don’t hire out to people on their provisional. So people who live interstate, keep that in mind.

Why Apex Car Rentals: Unlimited Tolls for $2/day

The other great thing was you could pay $2 a day and they will give you an e-Tag which gives you unlimited use of the Toll Roads. I well used my $14 dollars of Tolls going through the new Clem Jones Tunnel. For an extra $14, I didn’t have to worry about paying the tolls myself or hope I don’t get infringement notices.

Why Apex Car Rentals: Free Roadside Assistance

Apex Car Rentals in Brisbane also offered free RACQ Roadside Assistance, so if anything happened to the car, you were covered. If it was your fault (like you ran out of petrol), you were unfortunately charged for the callout fee.

Why Apex Car Rentals: The Car

As I said previously, I had a Hyundai i20 Auto. The car only had 9000km on it, it was very clean inside, and mechanically, in a very good condition. The only problem was, I was used to a car which had more acceleration power.

Returning the Car

Returning the car was even easier. They inspected it for damage, and then dropped me off at the airport for my plane. I didn’t have to do anything.

I Strongly Recommend Them

Next time I need to hire a car in Brisbane, I will use Apex Car Rentals Australia again. I absolutely had no issues with them, no worries, and no stress. For $378, I had $0 excess, unlimited kilometres, a free GPS and unlimited use of Toll roads; I couldn’t fault them. The only downside, I now see a lot of Google Adsense ads for them.

So if you need a car rental in Brisbane, make sure you first check out Apex Car Rentals for your Brisbane car hire needs.

Jack Cola’s Facebook Resources For February 2012

jack@jackcola.org (Jack Cola) — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 05:45:00 +0000

Every month, when I find useful resources, interesting video’s or something I think you will love, I post it on my Facebook Page. So if you haven’t yet liked JackCola.org on Facebook, here’s what you missed.

Did you like these resources? Get them everyday when you Like JackCola.org on Facebook.

Thankyou Virgin Mobile For Your Present!

jack@jackcola.org (Jack Cola) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 02:45:00 +0000

After writing my review of the Xperia Arc I purchased from Virgin Mobile, and for responding to comments on Virgin’s Get Satisfaction page, Jordan from Virgin Mobile sent me this gift pack as a kind thankyou.

Photo taken with the Xperia Arc

The pack contains a hacky sack, strawberry stress ball, guitar keyring, and a 4GB Wireless Headphone MP3 player with 3 hours of music and radio from RadioFree.com.au. This comes at a really good time as I was looking to purchase a very to easy use MP3 player for my mother. She’ll be happy!

So Virgin Mobile Australia, thanks again - and no, it won't be going on eBay.

6 Things Businesses Should Know To Not Piss Off Customers

jack@jackcola.org (Jack Cola) — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0000

Throughout my life, I have dealt with numerous numbers of businesses. I’ve had bad experiences turned good, and have bad experiences get even worse. So here’s a few things, I think, businesses should be doing to create more success and increase customer satisfaction.

1) Look after existing customers before finding new customers

I see so many businesses do everything they can to get new customers, but when you are a customer, they treat you like utter crap. I don’t get why they do this as gaining new customers usually cost more money than it takes to retain existing customers.

2) The customer is always right – even though they may be wrong

I really like the saying “The customer is always right” – although, in some cases they will be wrong. However, if the customer thinks they are right, and you say they are wrong, they are likely going to tell all their friends to never do business with you. If a business accepts the loss of one customer by giving them something to make them happy, than that customer may tell all their friends to do business with you. Therefore, instead of writing off a loss on one customer, you gain another 10.

3) One upset customer can cause a chain reaction

I had a falling out with one online business – but I won’t name them. They had a competition, in which I won some money, and they accused me of cheating the system – which I can honestly say, I did not cheat the system – but they thought I did. In my frustration, I wrote a Blog post (on this site) telling the world my side of the story and why from now on, I would never do business with them again. I emailed the link to them as part of my argument as to why I wasn’t cheating. They said, Ok, we’ll give you the money back and forget that this all happened if you delete the article. So I did what was right and deleted the article. A few years later, I am now consistently promoting that company wherever I can, and I have driven a number of sales too them already. So it was lucky they reimburse my winnings, otherwise I would have been saying, “Don’t go with this company” instead of saying, “go with this company”. This is almost exactly the same as “the customer is always right”.

4) Customer satisfaction should be the highest priority

I once purchased a pushbike from Kmart for $150. I rode it every day, and about one month in, the pedal would fall off – not just the pedal, but also the whole crank. Every time I would pedal, the screw will loosen (because the way you pedal is the way the screw loosens). So I took the bike back to Kmart to get a repaired. A few days later (after no one contacted me), I asked about the bike, and they said it was malicious damage and would cost $70 to repair. That’s half the price of what I paid for the bike. I couldn’t understand their justification in that price, and why they said it was malicious damage – the pedal falls off every time you ride it! That is a design fault as the bike was not able to be used how it was intended.

At this stage, I was pretty pissed off. So I called up the store manager in which we had a very intense argument. My argument was that I should be able to get my bike repaired or my money refunded as it was faulty because you’d expect to be able to pedal without having to tighten a bolt up all the time. The store manager got really frustrated – to a point he was almost about to swear at me, and he gave in giving me a full refund.

As a customer, I was not satisfied in the with having to pay half the purchase price of a bike to repair for something that was a design fault. Since I had to go to extreme lengths, this is the reason why I am shaming Kmart. If it was Aldi, you could return the bike within 60 days, and no questions ask – this is excellent customer satisfaction as if you are not satisfied with the product, you are free to return it.

On the positive side, companies such as iiNet and Virgin Mobile have moved my satisfaction levels to over 100%. I won a BoB2 from iiNet, and in return, I wrote a review about it for my own interests and iiNet gave me other iiNet Lab products to give away. My mum also won a 1Gb iiNet USB stick which she got, then about a week later, she get’s two more in the mail from Westnet – still not sure why. Nevertheless, I am happy.

The same with Virgin Mobile – I purchased a new phone from them, wrote a review about the phone, and they are sending me a surprise in the mail. At the moment, I am really happy with these two companies – they have it 100% correct on how to create customer satisfaction.

5) Respond to customers’ needs

As a business, you may know the direction you want to go into, but your customers may think differently. Remember when Telstra added a surcharge for paying bills at the Post Office – this was something that a large percentage of Telstra customers did because it was the only way they knew how to pay their bills. Telstra listened to their customers, and ditched the surcharge and customers where again happy.

Companies should have a team responsible for responding to customers’ needs. Companies such as Virgin Mobile and iiNet do this through their Social Media team. They’re getting valuable feedback from what people are saying about their company on forums, Twitter, Facebook, Blogs and turning that feedback into actions that meet customers’ needs.

6) One person to deal with your issues

Telecommunication companies are also a good example for this. I had a probably with my iiNet account, so I sent them an email. A representative got back to me, worked through the issue with me and even gave me their email address in case the problem occurred again and so I could follow up with them in one month’s time. This was good because I only had to deal with one person and I didn’t have to tell the same story to ten different people, get ten different answers, and talk to 10 different departments. I spoke with one person and that person did all the talking to all the other departments on my behalf.

As with Telstra, it was a different story. I called them up, spoke to one person who referred me to a different department. That person didn’t have the correct permissions, so they had to refer me to another person. Then that person had to deal with the other department and for the entire phone call, I was being directed department to department telling the same story 10 times. All I should have to do is call one person and tell that person what I want archived. I hang up, that person talks to everyone in all the departments on my behalf and then calls me back 20 minutes later with the problem fixed. That way, I am happy, as I don’t have to waste my time explaining the same thing to everyone. Telstra, take the hint in what iiNet does.

Two Negative Examples Of Companies Going Bad

GoDaddy.com and SOPA

This has to be one of my favourite examples. When SOPA was being passed through Congress, GoDaddy – a domain and webhosting company said they supported SOPA. Well, did the people of the internet speak out! In one week, GoDaddy lost 72000 domain names from people boycotting a domain name register for supporting SOPA. Then unexpectedly, GoDaddy decided to oppose SOPA, but the damage has already been done.

Qantas Luxury

Back in October 2011, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce grounded the entire Qantas fleet over industrial action ‘just because he could’. This left thousands of passengers stranded at airports around Australia, but thankfully, Virgin Australia saved the day. Then a month later, Qantas’s social media team had a competition where you could win Pyjama's with the hashtag #QantasLuxury. The question was “What is your dream luxury inflight experience? (Be creative)”. Moreover, you could imagine, they were all about having a plane that actually flies and were workers weren’t locked out.

@smurray38 said: ''#qantasluxury is seeing your planes on Getaway not Four Corners.''
@jaseellis tweeted: ''#qantasluxury is a QANTAS plane that actually flies.''
@louisamdeasey said: ''it was nice of them to make it easy 4 people to tweet their biggest gripes about qantas. PR fail! #qantasluxury.''

As it turns out, Qantas doesn’t actually know who won.

“So @QantasAirways finally replied to my email asking who won#qantasluxury. They are very sorry but they don't know”

Therefore businesses, I hope you have learnt something here. Do you have any suggestions for businesses?

Image Credits: Loyalty and Customers, We are Social, Peth Now

Review of Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc

jack@jackcola.org (Jack Cola) — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 02:30:00 +0000

A few weeks ago, I purchased a new phone from Virgin Mobile Australia as my previous 24 month contract ended in which I got a Nokia 5800 Xpress Music. I renewed my contract for another 24 months and got the Xperia Arc. I have to say that this time was so much easier and hassle free compared to the last time I purchased a phone from Virgin. I ordered the new phone on a Thursday over the phone with the call only lasting 13 minutes and 55 seconds, which I tweeted “Impressive. Only 13min 55sec and I purchased a new phone from@VirginMobileAus Now only if companies can get support time as quick as sales.” The good thing about it, the phone arrived the very next day, so it took less than 24 hours for it to get into my hands. It was a very impressive turnaround time considering the time my last purchase from Virgin took. I was assuming it would come on Monday or Tuesday.

Xperia Arc Lock Screen

The Design and Feel

Nokia 5800 rubber case. Photo taken with Xperia Arc

If you had a look at the rubber case I was using for my Nokia 5800 Xpress Music, you would find that it looked like a massive brick, but the Xperia Arc is probably 4 times as thin and 1.5 times more wider, and the phone feels really nice when you slide it into your side pocket. People say on other reviews that they don’t like the three bottom buttons (back, home and menu), but I find nothing wrong with them – I just think they are being very meticulous. There is also a camera button on the bottom right, two volume buttons on the top right, and the power button/screen lock button on the top left.

Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc Dialler screen

When I purchase new phones, I always like to put a screen protector on and put them in a case, just in case I drop it and so it sounds nicer when you put it on a desk, rather than the phone making a sound as if it was being broken. However, with the case I got, it makes the camera button unusable so when taking photo’s you have to touch the screen. I also love the screen, it’s a huge 4.2” touch screen (powered by the Sony Mobile BRAVIA Engine) and a big screen is exactly what you want in a smart phone, especially if you do a lot of web browsing on it. (The iPhone 4s screen is only 3.5”) When I first got my Express Music, I thought that screen was big. Then I got the Samsung Wave, and I thought that screen was even bigger, but the Xperia Arc feels like you are using a mini tablet.

Left to right: Xperia Arc Menu Screen and contacts

Left to right: A phone Contacts Facebook photo’s and interests

Using the Phone

This is my very first Android phone, so I can’t compare it to other Android devices, but I do like Android very much. When setting up the phone for the first time, I connected my phone straight to Facebook and Google, and I have to say this is probably the best thing you could do, as the Xperia Arc will synchronise all your Facebook contacts and their details to your phone. Connecting with Google, I did the exact same thing. However, in doing so, you can have a whole heap of contacts stored on your phone, but no phone numbers. So what I did, I created a new Contract group on Google Contacts and imported all my contacts from my old phone there through the web interface. Then on the phone, I filtered out all my synced contacts, and only displayed contacts that are in my “phone contact” group on Google Contacts. Therefore, the end result is that all my contact details are stored online on Google in one group, which only that group displayed on my phone. Since the names are the same on my Google and on Facebook account, it automatically pulled the Facebook contact info and automatically merged the details with the Google Contacts. So for each contact, I have a photo, I know their birthday, what they like, and I can just flick through onto the photo tab and view all there photo’s without having to go on Facebook. It is so easy to do. Gone are the days when you get a new phone and manually have to enter your entire contact list again – not one of my contact details is stored on the phone. They are automatically synced with Google Contacts and Facebook. You don’t even need to be online to access them as well.

The display I setup to see after you unlock your phone. Can switch on/off Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, Data Packs, Sound and backlight.

Customising the Phone

How the Xperia Arc first shipped, I didn’t really like how the menu and home screen was setup, but it’s good that you can customise it so much, and put buttons and widgets all over the place. I don’t like having my Wi-Fi turned on all the time, same with my Data packets and GPS as this uses the battery a lot more, and could cost me a lot, if something was unexpectedly synchronising in the background. Therefore, on the home screen, I displayed buttons to easily turn these on and off without having to go into the menu. The good thing about my Nokia 5800 Xpress Music was that I could set it up so the GPS will only connect when I want it, the WLAN connect automatically when I use the internet, and the Data packets will needs my approval first to connect. The only downside with this, I have to turn them on manually before launching applications that need them.

Sending a text message on the Xperia Arc

Google Maps

I have to say Google; you’ve developed good apps for your phone. Google Maps on Android, you’ve just blown away the competition. You can find my location within seconds, the voice navigation is the best, and it’s so easy to get Street view images of the turns you have to make. Google Maps is so much better than the Navigation you get on Nokia phones (Ovi/Nokia Navigation) which they charged $300 when I first got the phone. Google Places is also well implemented, and Google Voice is to die for. I can just say an address, and it picks it up first go. You can even say, “Message mum, Message Hi, how are you” and it will go ahead and said that message to mum (or another contact). It’s very similar to Siri.

Locking and Unlocking

You can set the Xperia Arc to lock the phone automatically after a period of seconds, but if you need to lock it straight away, you simply press the power button. I find this a bit hard to do, especially with the case, but I suppose I have to get used to it. To lock and unlock my Xpress Music, you had a slider button on the right hand side. To unlock the Xperia Arc, you first have to press the home screen button, and then slide your finger across the bar (or you can set pin code or pattern to unlock. I just find pressing the home screen and sliding more effort than it should be.

Xperia Arc: information about the phone – also known as LT15i

Browsing the Web – Twitter and Facebook

I rarely use my mobile phone to make calls. I primarily use it to send SMS messages, surf the internet and check up on Facebook and Twitter. The Xperia Arc does this all-very well. As I said above, Facebook is integrated in to the phone quite well, and when connected to the internet, notifications even appear on your home screen, the same with Twitter. The mobile versions of Facebook and Twitter is great, but the Xperia Arc also has an installed App which provides you with all your social feeds – Facebook, Twitter, Email and SMS messages all in the once place. You can just scroll your finger up and down and read all your Twitter, SMS and Facebook posts in once place.

Photos

Something that people may like or don’t like, I am still undecided is that when you go into your photo menu, your entire Facebook photo’s are included there as well. If you have a lot of photo’s, it may seem a bit cluttered, or if you have limited data available, you may find you could face a high monthly bill. Nevertheless, it’s a nice touch keeping all your photos together in one place.

Xperia Arc photo viewer

Panoramic Images

Below are two panoramic images I took of the ocean. The look of these images are quite impressive, but if you look at the horizon, you can see some stitching issues and the photo’s have a bit of a bend – but I would suppose that’s normal. Nevertheless, they are a great shot.

Video

As with the video, I don’t think it’s great, but I don’t think it’s bad. I have a video here and another video here of filming my dog inside with the Xperia Arc. However, when you film outside in more light, you'll get a sharper image and better image.

What’s Missing?

No Video Calling

There is one thing that this phone is missing, which I assumed it has. It’s video calling – the Xperia Arc doesn’t have video calling. I used to use it all the time with my Xpress Music, but since the Xperia Arc doesn’t have a front facing camera, no one can video call you. The good thing about video calling was that using it Virgin to Virgin, it is free.

Xperia Arc Settings Page

Overall

Overall, I think it is a great phone – 1000% times better than my old Nokia 5800 Xpress Music, and I would prefer it over shelling out $50 a month for an iPhone that does pretty much the exact same thing. I can see myself using for another 2 years. For a minimum of $24 per month on Virgin Mobile, you can get the Xperia Arc for yourself.

Got a Question?

If you have any questions about the phone, or mobile phones in general, I am happy to respond to your queries in the comments.

Phone Specification

Provided from Virgin Mobile.

What Type Of Laptop Should You Get For Uni?

jack@jackcola.org (Jack Cola) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 05:35:00 +0000

With the majority of kids now back to school and Uni starting in the next few weeks, it’s time for University students to prepare for the academic year. Although, according to my calculations, there is only 15% of the year that’s actually hard work if you are a University student.

I just finished three years at University, and I probably picked up a pen on average once a month. For the rest of the time, I used a laptop for my studies. Using a laptop is great because you can Google the things you are confused about in the lecture, or to the lesser extent, surf Facebook when the lecturer is boring you. Nevertheless, on the serious side, I used Microsoft OneNote to record and scribble over my lecture notes on my laptop and over the 3 years of doing this, I’m happy with my high grades. Using a Laptop or Pen and Paper to take notes does have advantages and disadvantages as I discovered in my research, but the main theme I got was it all depends on personal preferences and the subjects the person is doing.

Therefore, if you need a new laptop, or want to try to study without the traditional pen and paper, here’s what to look out for when buying a student laptop.

How long does the battery last?

The only disadvantage with using a laptop for University is to ensure you have enough battery power to get you through your day. There is nothing worse when your battery is flat, you left your power cable at home, or there are no power points to charge your flat laptop. Having no form of electricity sucks.

My laptop for my first year of University only lasted two hours – and in most cases, would only last the time of a lecture. However, I was extremely lucky as my lecture or tutorial rooms and power points, or I had a break so I could head to the library and study with my laptop plugged in. There was only one day for three weeks when I couldn’t use my laptop in class because it was flat.

The good news is most new laptop batteries can last between 2 and 10 hours. Therefore, when looking for a laptop, get one that you know will last you an entire day at University (or ensure you can charge it up during class).

Big and Heavy or Small and Light?

The size of the laptop you get also plays a significant factor. Having a small laptop (between 10-13inch) is good because it is extremely light, incredibly portable, the battery usually lasts much longer, and it can easily fit on lecture theatre chairs (as some lecture rooms have a very small desk). Performance is limited, so it’s not a good idea if you need to run high resourced applications on it as part of your study – such as 3D modelling applications. The downsides with small laptops is that is can sometimes be hard to do your work, especially if you need to compare multiple word documents and look at websites for research. In my experience, trying to do research on small laptops is much harder than on a 24” monitor. That being said, if you just need to type up notes and revise them when you get home, it’s the perfect size (because that is exactly what I did).

On the other hand, if you get a big laptop (more than 15”) in size it can be very heavy if you need to walk around a lot, it could be hard to fit it on your desk, and it’s just too hard to manage overall unless you setup in a permanent location. However, you can reap the benefits of the screen size and performance. If you don’t have another desktop computer at home, and you only have a laptop, I’d suggest getting a larger laptop than a smaller one.

Depending on the course you are doing, larger laptops are better than smaller ones. For example, you will probably want a large screen for your laptop if you are doing a lot of research because it’s easy to speed read, or looking at high-resolution diagrams.

Other Things And Tips To Think About

Ensuring that your battery lasts your entire day is the most critical thing you have to think about when getting a laptop for University. You then have to decide whether you want a big or small laptop – in other words, do you want portability or performance. I went down the portability side of things, and it worked out great. Here are some other things to think about:

Installed software

My netbook could boot up in the matter of seconds when I used hibernation. Why? Because all that was installed was Chrome and FireFox, and Microsoft Office. That is all I needed as all I was doing was taking notes. If you install games, or other unnecessary programs, you will lose out waiting for your laptop to boot. There is nothing worse coming 10 minutes late into an important lecture and having to wait another 5 minutes while your laptop starts up. In the mean time, that’s 5 minutes of important information you didn’t have a chance to write down. So if you get a small laptop, only install the essentials and no games. This will also prevent you from getting distracted.

Know your tools

I used Microsoft Office OneNote. I printed my PowerPoint slides to OneNote, which allowed me to take notes over them. It saves printing paper realms of paper and time writing. There are a few other tools, but I found OneNote best suited my needs. In addition, it automatically synchronised with my Desktop Computer, so I had the notes anywhere I needed them.

You can take notes collaboratively with a laptop

If your University has Wi-Fi, you can take notes with your peers with Google Docs. Just set up a spreadsheet, share it with your friends and you can all start typing to work on taking notes together. This is something you couldn’t do on pen and paper. I have some tips here about using DropBox and Google Docs and keeping track of time.

What not to get…

I’m overall happy about computers that I get from Aldi – in fact, I’ve purchased 1 desktop, and 2 laptops from them which I liked. However, I purchased my third (this one by Fission, not Medion), and let me say, this was the worst computer I have ever laid my hands on. However, a friend purchased this (second hand) for University, and she seems to like it.

So Remember…

Battery
Size / Performance
Software you need
Base your decision on your course and needs
Know your tools to get the most out of using a laptop
And collaborate
Also, check out my post in what to look out for (hardware wise) when buying a laptop

Do you have any other tips on what sort of laptop you should get for University? If you are still not sure, or have any questions about using laptops while at University, let me know in the comments.

Create Unique And Custom Designed Website Templates With A Click Of A Button

jack@jackcola.org (Jack Cola) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 03:00:00 +0000

Please answer the following questions:

Do you have a website using Joomla, Drupal, Wordpress, Blogger, DotNetNuke, ASP.Net, or HTML?
Do you want a unique custom design template for your website but don’t know how to code or have no skills in graphic design?

If you answered yes to both of the above questions, you want to look at Artisteer.

What is Artisteer?

Artisteer is an excellent tool to make professional looking website templates in Joomla, Blogger, Wordpress and Drupal without having to write a single line of code. You do not even have to be a good graphic designer as Artisteer can automatically generate unique theme designs that you can further customise if you want.

So say goodbye to learning HTML, CSS, PHP, Photoshop and say hello to Artisteer.

How Easy It Is To Create A Theme

Just watch the below video on how easy it is to create a Wordpress template. The video only goes for 5 minutes and that is the time it took me to create a unique custom designed Wordpress template. Artisteer is truly a great piece of software.

It is not shown in the video, but you can also export a Wordpress design to a Joomla template. There are many websites that use both Joomla and Wordpress as part of their site, so Artisteer makes it easy for those sites to have a consistent theme across Joomla and Wordpress.

The Downside

The only downside is that the software is not free. It costs $49.95 to export Wordpress and Blogger Themes, or $129.95 for the standard edition which allows exports to Wordpress, Blogger, Joomla 1.5, 1.6, 1.7, Drupal 5/6/7, DotNetNuke 4.9, ASP.Net Applications and CodeCharge. Artisteer offers a free trial version, which allows you to export templates with the word trial on all images, and it also does not let you save your themes to edit them later.

However, when you actually think of the costs to buy a unique custom design template, it will be more than $129.95, and Artisteer allows you to create unlimited amounts of templates, so it is a necessary tool for those in the industry.

The Upside

You can use the templates you create however you like (with a small limitation on certain images). You can resell them or redescribe them as well, so if you will find yourself making many websites for yourself, friends, or family.

Download My Theme

If you would like to download and use the theme I created in this video, you can download the template files here. The Zip-File contains the templates for ASP.Net, Blogger, CodeCharge, DotNetNuke6, Drupal 7, HTML, Joomla, and Wordpress.

View More Samples

For more samples on what Artisteer can produce, just check out Artisteer’s Free Website Template Gallery.

Review of Kogan’s Android Wireless Keyboard and Trackpad

jack@jackcola.org (Jack Cola) — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 01:25:00 +0000

Have you ever found yourself sitting on the couch with your computer connected to your TV watching videos, only to find you have to get off your comfortable couch, to skip the boring parts or go to the next video? Alternatively, you may find it awkward to use a full size wireless laser mouse and keyboard on your lap.

Well, I find that scenario very annoying. I have my laptop connected to my TV, and I find it frustrating to get up to select the next video I want.

However, this is a thing of the past thanks to my new Kogan Android Wireless Keyboard and Trackpad – I can now do it on the comfort of the couch.

Kogan’s Wireless Keyboard and Trackpad is bigger than my mobile phone, but smaller than most TV remotes, and is a device I can no longer live without.

Last night I demonstrated the device to some friends. Sitting around the dinner table, we were surfing YouTube on our TV through my laptop without having to leave our chairs. We had complete control of the laptop. It was an experience like no other. Usually I would be the one sitting on the floor controlling my laptop, while they tell me what to do; but now, we’re all at the table passing the remote around trying. The hardest part was to think of something to watch on YouTube. We settled to watch Arab Drifting, and then the crashes.

Specification

Operating Systems

The Android Wireless Keyboard and Trackpad works with almost anything: Android, Linux, Windows, OSX. According to Kogan’s overview, it also works with Smart TV’s, Xbox, PlayStation, and How Theatre systems – almost anything with a USB port, (but I have only tested it on Windows). The USB receiver automatically installs the relevant drivers.

Distance

I’m quite impressed with the distance the device works in. It claims 20 meters unobstructed and I could control my computer that was up stairs in my bedroom while I was downstairs in the living room; but wouldn’t work in the bathroom. However, there is no point of controlling a computer from so far away as you cannot see the screen. Unless of course your speakers up and want to control your volume.

Battery

It runs off a Built in Li-Ion Battery. I’m not sure whether you can replace it, but you can unscrew the back cover (but doing so probably voids your 1-year warranty). According to the specifications, it only takes two hours to charge via USB, and lasts about 1 week with moderate use. Since I only got it yesterday, I haven’t yet charged it, so I’ll see how long it lasts.

Buttons and Features

If you look at the pictures above you can see the keys. If you are used to texting with your thumbs, then you’ll have no issue using this device. If you are left-handed, you may have issues using the trackpad that is on the right-side, but for me, it’s very easy to use. The USB dongle fits snugly in the top of the device so you’ll never lose it, and on the right-side you have a light, which I think is pretty cool to have. There is nothing worse watching a movie in the dark and not being able to see where you are going when you finally head to bed at 2am in the morning. It’s not overly bright, but it still does the job. The keyboard is also backlit with a button to turn the backlight on and off.

My Thoughts

I actually quite like it. I thought it was bigger when I ordered it – it’s actually quite small. The images on the Kogan’s website are actually bigger than the device itself.

Typing with your thumbs can be a bit awkward, especially with your right thumb because of the trackpad get’s in the way – you really have to stretch your thumb to type – but I wouldn’t think people would do a lot of typing on it anyway. In addition, you need to make sure you press the spacebar in the centre, as it does not register the click when pressing it on the side.

Finding the special character keys are a bit hard on first go, especially the + and – keys to be able to zoom in and out when you are far away from your TV. But after using it for a while, you’ll know your way around. The other issue while typing, it’s hard to write a capital letter that’s on the left-side of the keyboard as there isn’t a shift key on the right-side, so you can either use the caps lock key, or move your right thumb and hand to press the key.

The last problem I can think of is that the volume, next, previous, and pause/play buttons don’t match up on Windows. Volume down is volume up, volume up is some sort of cancel button, play/pause is mute, and the next button is volume down. Therefore, it’s very confusing, but on Koga’s Agora TV range, this probably matches. It would be good if you can reprogram those keys to match, and the other hotkeys to something else.

Other Brands

Though this isn’t the first of its kind. Logitech has the Wireless Touch Keyboard K400 that you can pick up from JB Hi Fi for $55, or OfficeWorks for $69.75.

Overall

This was the first item I have purchased off Kogan. I ordered it on Tuesday, and received it Friday. My friend, on that day was also looking at a digital radio, and he ordered it the same day and he loves the sound.

Update: Kogan had this order listed as "Will usually dispatch within 24 hours", however, I placed the order on Tuesday and it didn't get dispatched until Thursday. I just received an email from Ruslan Kogan saying they've had a 408% increase in last quarter of 2011 from last quarter of 2010, in which they couldn't handle the demands - so they gave affected customers a $25 giftcard. Kogan is really setting a high standard for online retailers. In February 2012, they also plan to have a maximum of 1 business hour response time for sales, support, and helpdesk enquiries, 2 minute hold time on the phone and 100% live chat all during business hours.

For $39 Kogan’s Android Wireless Keyboard and Trackpad for the Agora range is a cool little device. I only wish I had it when I was doing presentations, it would have come in handy then as well.

If you have any questions about it, please ask in the comments. If you would like to buy one, you can do so at Kogan.com.au.

What I Would Like To See In iiNet’s Next BoB Modem/Router

jack@jackcola.org (Jack Cola) — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 11:45:00 +0000

I got pretty excited when I got my BoB2 after enjoying my BoB1 for almost two years. It’s a great little device, and you can read my full review of BoB2 here. However, after using BoB2 for quite some time now, there are a few improvements that would make BoB2 an even better modem/router, which I hope iiNet would read and consider implementing it in the next BoB2 firmware upgrade, or the next BoB device.

BoB2 Enhancements

Make the time on the login page (home page) of BoB2 display like 15d, 8h, 39m rather than just 15:8:39 – without context, this doesn’t mean much
When you click on the “Diagnostics”, “Security Log”, or “ADSL Status” buttons, the password entry box needs to become active so you can type your password straight in without having to click on it
When you change default password of “admin” to something else, the text that says “The default password is admin” should be removed
When viewing your call logs, provide the ability to erase, delete all, and backup the logs. Also, increase the amount of calls it logs, or possibly synchronise it with iiNet Toolbox. Other improvements could be sorting through calls (like in Toolbox), and splitting up the logs for each VOIP account
The call logs section should also expand for those who have larger screens
A link to the call logs on the home/login screen
A way to erase call history (apart from restarting the modem)
Improved access and parental controls. Condense the configuration options, but keep the features. It needs to be redesigned to be a little more user friendly. For example, it says “Computer Filter Rule”, which once clicked; it goes to a “MAC Filtering Table”. The wording on this section is pretty bad and confusing
Provide the ability to set bandwidth limits and speed throttling on individual devices at certain times
Record a list of URL’s that have been accessed through devices – make sure you can turn this feature on and off though
Implement something like the Tomizone Hotspot so you can sell Wi-Fi access to other people. The payment gateway can be through iiNet, which iiNet can take a small cut for the processing of payment, and revenue generated can be added to the customer’s bill as credits.
A quick links section to certain things like call logs, ADSL logs, Security logs, DHCP lists. Trying to find ADSL logs after logging in can be hard. But before logging in, it’s easy to find.
Dropdown menus for the main navigation links to speed up access to things, rather than having to wait for the next page to load
USB support for a print server
USB support for a USB Hub
Provide more handy tools such as DNS Lookup, and WhoIs Lookups
The DHCP logs should tell when the computer was last online and the total time online. But having Online/Offline is still useful

BoB2 Handset and Answering Machine Enhancements

Allow the handset (or other DECT handsets if possible) to synchronise with the phonebook in iiNet Toolbox. There isn’t a global address book that all DECT phones can access.
Allow the built in answering machine to synchronise with iiNet’s Message bank
Someone how messages sent to BoB2’s answering machine and to email – currently, you can only have one or the other
The default idle setting of the handset is incredibly bright, especially at night. I wouldn’t want to sleep next to it – maybe have white text on dark background, not black text on white background
Play messages through your computer, instead of through BoB2 when you play them back through the BoB2 Administration screen

Problems with BoB2

Some of the wording and capitalisation. There doesn’t seem to be any consistencies for words in titles to be capitalised. E.g, “Set up my wireless”, “Set up my Voip”, “Handy Tools”, and “VoIP Settings”, “ADSL status”
On the homepage, there are 4 icons, but only three tickets. Where’s the forth tick?
Voicemails are still emailed to me, even though the Toolbox settings say forward to email after 45 seconds, and BoB2 has forward to answering machine in 30 seconds. If the internet is down, I would still like to get an email voicemail just in case, but use BoB2 Answering machine for when it’s up. (Note: I have got the Answering machine working by setting the Answering machine time to 29 seconds, instead of 30 – after 30 seconds (even though it’s set to 45 seconds in Toolbox), seems to not work properly)
Cables should be plugged into the back, not the side as it can look a little untidy
Pulling out some of the cables, like the LAN cables or even a USB can be somewhat difficult in confined spaces
The time on the BoB1 handset does not sync with the time with BoB2, and there is no way to set the time manually with the BoB1 handset

Problems with the BoB2 Handset

I can’t find the “last called list” on the handset
It’s actually quite hard to pick up the handset from the cradle. You cannot just “grab” it like the BoB1 handset in its cradle. It takes some skill picking up the BoB2 handset
Have the time automatically set on the BoB2 handset, like with BoB1 – it doesn’t appear to sync
Although the room monitoring feature is really good, it would be nice if it could email you recordings as well (or simply record the sound) – and if the next BoB has a camera… image capturing as well. It would be handy if it didn’t say “Calling” and the phone number when it detects sound – a little more stealth would be nice.

That’s It

That’s all the things I can think of to improve BoB2 in the future. Most of them are little things that can be easily fixed, but I do hope to see them in a later firmware release. Although, there are quite a lot of improvements, overall, it’s a great modem/router.

Review of iiNet’s Wireless Bridge

jack@jackcola.org (Jack Cola) — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 23:46:00 +0000

iiNet’s Wireless Bridge is a handy little device that removes the need of having an Ethernet (or network cable) from one end of your house to the other; specifically from your modem (hopefully you have a BoB2) to your TV where you have internet enabled devices such as Fetch TV, your Xbox or PS3.

I am sure many people have tried connecting their Xbox or PS3 to the internet only to find a 20+ metre Ethernet cable lying around on the floor to be such an inconvenience, or to face the costs of having a cable professionally installed. iiNet’s Wireless Bridge solves this problem by replacing the cable with a high-speed wireless connection between two devices.

The iiNet Wireless Bridge is targeted to those who have iiNet Fetch TV and to those who have the problem of connecting Fetch TV to their Modem as it could be in another room or it can’t be physically connected via an Ethernet cable due to the location of the Modem or Fetch TV. The Wireless Bridge solves this issue to easily connect Fetch TV to the internet without the need of having a cable.

You may be interested in reading my article “What Does iiNet’s BoB1, BoB Lite, BoB2 and Wireless Bridge Actually Do, And Why Would You Want One” for another explanation about the Wireless Bridge.

iiNet also has a very easy to read description about the Wireless Bridge:

The Specs

The Wireless Bridge comes with two Wireless Bridge units (one to have near your Modem, and one to have near your TV; two CAT5e Ethernet cables; and two AC adapters. It supports Wireless LAN 802.11n and runs on the 5GHz band that can deliver speeds of up to 300Mbps, with support of the latest encryption standards. More information about the specification can be found here.

The back view of iiNet’s Wireless Bridges with my armature camera work with my Nokia 5800 phone.

My Thoughts

Although I don’t have Fetch TV (or one of the latest gaming consoles for that matter), I do see a use for the Wireless Bridge as there are a number of different scenarios you can use it for such as:

Connecting your desktop computer in a far away room that doesn’t have a Wireless Adapter
Connecting the Wireless Bridge to a switch to allow multiple computers in a room such as a backyard garage/room (that’s away from the Router/Modem) to access the internet instead of using a cable
Share an Internet connection with your neighbour
Connect Fetch TV, Xbox, PS3 to the internet easily
Extend the range of your Wireless in your house my connecting the Wireless Bridge to another access point

When I unboxed it, I was shocked to find that there wasn’t any documentation with the Wireless Bridge at all, no instruction manuals or anything, which was a bit weird for a tech gadget. However, you don’t really need any unless you brick it, as I’ve seemed to have done! Simply plug the “Host” Wireless Bridge into your Modem, and the “client” Wireless Bridge unit into your device you want to connect, press the WPS button and you’re good to go in a about 30 seconds after everything connects. However, if your network uses static IP addresses, you may have to log into the Wireless Bridge Administration page to configure it. The default username and password for iiNet’s Wireless Bridge is admin/admin, which I had to ask for on Whirlpool. However, you don’t need to use the Administration page as it simply works out of the box.

The labelling of “Host” and “Client” is just an ordinary sticker on the back which makes it look a little unprofessional in my opinion. It would have been better underneath, or use a different style label (like the ones on the bottom) as it retracts from the overall design of it. Then again, you don’t really look at the back of it.

In terms of performance, it’s quite good. I have my laptop upstairs, and the Wireless Signal I get from BoB2 isn’t that strong, so transferring files from Desktop computer (connected by cable) to my laptop, I was only getting about 300-350kbps which is pretty slow. I then connected my laptop to the Wireless Bridge, and that speed went up to 7-10Mb/s for receiving files on my laptop from my Desktop, and about 5Mb/s for sending data from my laptop to my Desktop which is a huge increase compared to using the Wireless connection provided by BoB2.

This goes for downloading files off the Internet. Through BoB2’s Wireless Connection using my laptop, my transfer rate was less than 1Mb/s, but being connected through the Wireless Bridge, I got the same download speed that my Desktop computer receives when it’s connected via LAN which is 2.1Mb/s from downloading the same file (with BoB1, I could never get higher than 1.9Mb/s downloading from the internet, so there is an improve with BoB2 over BoB1).

In terms of range, I haven’t really tested it out as I don’t have PowerPoint's far away enough from my router, but inside my house, I got pretty much maximum speeds everywhere which is a great sign.

Problems…

There aren’t many problems with it when it comes straight out of the box. Plugged it in and BoB2 gave both Wireless Bridges an IP Address and I was good to go. However, it took me a while to realise that the Wireless Bridges have a configuration page, inwhich I couldn’t seem to access when I did my first tests. Testing it a few weeks later, I could access it. However, there isn’t really much you need to configure there. I did have a play around with a few settings, and I changed the two devices from Client to Host, and Host to Client, but I seemed to have lost access to the configuration page on both Wireless Bridges, but I can still connect and send data to my laptop, which is still connected through the Wireless Bridge.

Update: I would have published this post ages ago, because I wanted to include screenshots of the configuration page, however, I’ve seemed to brick the Wireless Bridges, which BoB2 won’t give it an IP address, and I can’t access the configuration pages to revert them back. I believe they are both still stuck in client mode, and I can’t change them back, even after trying numerous factory resets. A device that I would appreciate documentation for, iiNet doesn’t seem to provide any.

Apart from that, there aren’t really any other problems I’ve had with it.

Should You Get One?

If you are planning to run a long Ethernet cable through your house, or across the floor where everyone walks, then yeah, I would seriously consider getting one. If your wireless signal lacks in a particular area of your house where you have a computer, and need a bit of a speed boost, then I would think about getting one. The other alternative to the Wireless Bridge is to get one of these Ethernet over Power devices as an alternative, or look around for other Bridge type devices.

Further Reading: Make sure you check out my other iiNet reviews

Disclaimer: iiNet gave me a Wireless Bridge to review and two to giveaway. These views are of my own.

A Comparison of BoB1, BoB Lite, and BoB2 Wi-Fi Strength

jack@jackcola.org (Jack Cola) — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 13:15:16 +0000

After being a proud owner of a BoB1, BoB Lite, and a BoB2, I decided to use a program called HeatMapper to test out the Wireless range and signal strength of all three BoB routers.

Unbelievably, HeatMapper was my first article I have written on web blog MakeUseOf.com. Heatmapper is software that you install on your laptop to measure the strength of Wi-Fi signals. All you have to do is upload a map, or use just a simple grid and start walking and clicking to record the strength of the wireless signal in that particular location. To be able to accurately record the signal strength, I quickly made up a floor plan of my house using Gliffy.com.

The house is split-level house on three levels. The area on the right hand side is on the middle level, and the area on the left is upstairs. I didn’t measure the strength of downstairs, as this would have skewered the results slightly.

BoB1 Wireless Coverage Map

As you can see, the BoB1 map covered most of the house weakening in the upstairs bedrooms, with outside also losing some signal strength. During the survey, a number of neighbouring wireless routers were also discovered. One good thing I like about HeatMapper, if you’re in a place like a University, or a workplace with full Wireless Coverage, HeatMapper will almost pickup the location of that router 100%, as you can accurately see in this drawing.

BoB Lite Wireless Coverage Map

The BoB Lite wireless signal was also very close to BoB1. Although, I didn’t measure outside the house (see right of image), so this may have skewered the results slightly. Coverage also seemed weaker in the room adjacent to the pool, and I am not entirely sure why in that area, there is a green circle indicating a stronger signal.

BoB2 Wireless Coverage Maps

According to the BoB2 map, the wireless strength isn’t that great compared to the BoB1 and BoB Lite. However, I think this survey result is not entirely accurate as it only picked up four neighbouring routers, not seven like the BoB1 and BoB Lite did during the surveying. Nevertheless, I did the test again just to double check.

Second BoB2 Wireless Map

This image seemed to have slightly better results in some areas compared with the first test, although it mostly appears the same especially when inside the house. This time, I did not go into the room adjacent to the pool, so that is probably why you are seeing more orange inside that room compared to other tests.

My Old NetGear DI-524 Router

On the same session that I did the second BoB2 map, I also recorded the signal strength of one of my old NetGear DI-524 Router.

It does appear that the old DI-524 Router has better coverage than the BoB2, but you have to take into consideration that you would only get a maximum 54Mbps with the NetGear, while you can peak with 300Mbps with the BoB2.

Conclusion

To put it all together in a nice animated GIF…

It’s up to you to form your own conclusion whether or not these routers are for you. I do have to say that these tests aren't perfect, as there is a range of other variables and factors involved. You can see this with the two different results of the BoB2 tests. It does however, give you a brief insight to the general coverage, but not the speeds you can get in those areas. This house is quite large and I seem to have coverage throughout the entire property.

If you do find you lack coverage in your house, you can use another old wireless router in bridge mode to boost your wireless coverage.

Disclaimer: iiNet gave me a BoB Lite to review after I wrote a review about the BoB2 which I won.

Review of iiNet BoB Lite Modem/Router

jack@jackcola.org (Jack Cola) — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 00:40:14 +0000

First off, if you are not sure what a BoB Lite is by iiNet, I strongly suggest that you first read my post What Does iiNet’s BoB1, BoB Lite, BoB2 and Wireless Bridge Actually Do, And Why Would You Want One, and my review of BoB2.

Meet BoB Lite

BoB Lite is iiNet’s second BoB modem/router and first router built in iiNet Labs. Currently, the iiNet BoB family consists of BoB1, BoB Lite, and BoB2, with the BoB Lite currently being the (somewhat neglected) middle child. For $69 on an iinet 24-month contract, or $129 without a contract, BoB Lite is a pretty decent all in one modem, router and VOIP system. In addition, if you’re lucky, you can get it free if you re-sign up on a 24-month contract after yours has expired. BoB Lite is essentially the same as BoB2 in regards to look and useability, but lacks the DECT handsets, the answering machine, and a few other tiny features you probably won’t use. So if you can live without those few things, save some money, and simply purchase a BoB Lite if you need a new modem and router, instead of a BoB2.

If you’re into the “tech specs”, iiNet has a pretty good comparison between the BoB2 and BoB Lite that you can see the full list here. As you can see, they’re pretty much the exact same.

Setting Up BoB Lite

The setting up of BoB Lite was easy. Simply attach the stand, and plug in your cables (exactly the same experience with setting up BoB2, but easier). However, I had the same issue that I had configuring BoB2, and that is that the configuration page didn’t like my username and password on setup, so I had to manually log into the router at http://10.0.0.1 and enter my iiNet username and password and VOIP details.

Wireless on BoB Lite

One thing to note out is that BoB Lite wireless settings, by default, it is open to the world, unlike BoB2 that has a pre-set SSID and WPA key on the back label. So this is one of the downsides for BoB Lite for the not-so-savvy tech users. However, it’s good to see that iiNet as solved that problem with BoB2. I also have done a comparison of the wireless range for BoB1, BoB Lite, and BoB2, and when I publish it, I will post it here.

The GUI User Interface

I won’t go into much details here about the administration interface, as it’s pretty much the exact same as BoB2, so check out the article for a review of the administration interface. There are a few minor changes in the VOIP and Wireless settings pages, but they would be hardly noticeable - i'm just being picky.

So, what’s wrong with BoB Lite?

In my personal opinion, there is nothing wrong with BoB Lite generally. It’s a good little (affordable) box that get’s you connected to the internet, just like any modem and router. However, here is a list of problems I found with it, although I would not use these as a reason not to get a BoB Lite.

BoB Lite does not have a “Set Up My Wireless” button like BoB2 does – that means you have to manually configure BoB Lite Wireless Settings, and by default, your Wireless connection is open to the public
Therefore, BoB Lite does not encourage users to change their Wireless Settings and, setup security their security. It’s also a bit difficult as you have to first, change the wireless Name, save it, then go back to change your security settings. Having it all under one save button would be nice
You only have one VOIP account, there’s no DECT Cordless Phones, Phone Mapping option, or Answering Machine. However, you can still plug an answering machine and cordless base station in to get that functionality, and BoB Lite also shows your call history too
The On/Off switch feels like you are detonating a bomb – it’s a weird feeling I’ve never encountered before turning a tech gadget on
When I clicked on “Enable ‘Allow Wireless Access Point’” and clicked saved, it just went to a blank page
When I went to try and delete a WAN configuration, I couldn’t work out how to – note, no one would probably need to use this configuration anyway

So, there you go, you’ve met BoB Lite

Overall, as I have said before, BoB Lite is a pretty decent modem, almost exactly the same as BoB2, only cheaper. If you want the added features such as the answering machine, and inbuilt DECT handsets, go for a BoB2 - but if you want an affordable router, that does pretty much the same thing apart from the answering machine, and DECT handsets, go for a BoB Lite. If cordless handsets are a requirement for you, there is nothing stopping you for attaching your own DECT Base stations and your own handsets to the phone output port - and if it includes an inbuilt answering machine, you're BoB Lite is a BoB2!

I would sum up BoB Lite as a router that gives the job done, it works, it's easy, and once set up, you don't have to touch it ever again, (mostly).

Update: Since receiving BoB Lite, I have been using it with another ISP for quite some time, and have only had one problem, which a simple reboot fixed it.

Disclaimer: iiNet gave me a BoB Lite to review and one to giveaway. These views are my own.

What Does iiNet’s BoB1, BoB Lite, BoB2 and Wireless Bridge Actually Do, And Why Would You Want One?

jack@jackcola.org (Jack Cola) — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 22:00:00 +0000

WIN! Find out how you can win a BoB2 or a Wireless Bridge from iiNet in December

One of the most common questions I have been getting from readers after writing my BoB2 review is “What is BoB2? Why do I need a BoB2? What does BoB2 do?” Being IT Savvy, I know what it does, but I was amazed that many people don’t actually know what it is. I think iiNet’s marketing department needs to answer this question in their future promotions. So let's look at what these devices are and how they will help you.

So what actually is BoB2?

Basically, BoB2 is a modem, router and phone (VOIP) system all in one shiny (not so minty) device – unless iiNet gives you a packet of Minties. If you don’t know what these terms are, a modem is the device that you plug into your phone line and into your computer to be able to access the internet.

With most homes now having multiple computers and internet-enabled devices such as TV’s, you tend to want to share your internet connection to these devices. To allow all these devices to share one internet connection, you use a (wireless) router to connect to your modem. This enables multiple computers to be connected to each other to share files and printers and to access the internet all at the same time. VOIP stands for Voice Over Internet Protocol (IP) which allows you to call other phones (usually at a cheaper cost) using your internet connection, rather than a PSTN line (Public Switched Telephone Network) – your normal telephone line. VOIP sends your data using packets, while your normal telephone uses circuit switching.

A typical network setup connecting multiple computers to the internet using a modem and router (excludes phone that would be connected between the modem and the internet)

What BoB2 allows you do to is to have all these things (the Modem, Router and phone system) all in one device.

A typical network setup with iiNet’s BoB2 Modem/Router all in one

So, do I need a BoB2?

This really depends on your current setup, what you already have, what you want in the future, and who your current ISP is; so I can’t tell you if you should get one or not. (If you tell me those three points in the comments below, I can advise you).

Since BoB2 isn’t locked with iiNet, you can use it with all ISP’s and VOIP providers. If you currently got old hardware and you think it is time to update, you don’t want something too complicated, and you want an answering machine; then yeah, BoB2 would be great. If you have just purchased a brand new router and/or modem, than why waste your money on a new device…

If you want to save money making VOIP calls instead of using your PSTN line and (usually) paying Telstra large amounts of money, and your router/modem doesn’t support VOIP, then yes, getting BoB2 will help. For cheap standalone VOIP plans, I recommend MyNetFone or iiNet if you decide you want to get Naked DSL and sacrifice your landline, or pay extra and move your broadband service to iiNet and get NetPhone1)

So what actually is BoB Lite?

BoB Lite is a slimmed down version of BoB2 – actually pretty much the same but doesn’t include the DECT Phone and Answering Machine. I will be posting a review up of BoB Lite soon.

So, do I need a BoB Lite?

My response is the same as BoB2 – although you don’t get the cordless phones and answering machine. If you need a new router/modem with a bonus ability to plug a phone into (or another cordless phone system), then yeah, get a BoB Lite. The good thing as well with BoB Lite, you can also use – you can use VOIP as well as well as your traditional landline.

BoB Lite will be most useful if you are with another ISP or need or would like a new router/modem at an affordable price. BoB Lite is good for as a simple modem/router device.

What about BoB1?

BoB1 was iiNet's first modem/router built by Belkin and not iiNet like the BoB2, BoB Lite and Wireless Bridges are. You can think of BoB1 as a mix between the BoB2 and BoB Lite. For more information about the BoB1, you can read my post: "Review of iiNet's BoB1 Modem/Router". Also note, that you can no longer buy BoB1 from iiNet.

So what actually is a Wireless Bridge?

I think iiNet’s Wireless PDF will help explain it a bit better:

If you are still not sure, let me explain a problem many people have and how the Wireless Bridge will help.

Let’s say purchased one of those brand new, fancy, internet ready Smart TV’s (or you have an Xbox and you want to connect it to the internet. So how do you plug your TV or Xbox into your router (or a BoB Lite / BoB2) when your TV/Xbox isn’t wireless and your modem/router isn’t near your TV because you don’t have another phone socket to plug into. Your options are:

Run a cable along the floor or around the walls or under carpet which will be untidy or a safety hazard
Spend money to get a network cable professionally installed in your house which is very expensive
Buy one of those power point network cable thingymabobs and use your power cabling as your network cable which may be suitable
Somehow send a Wireless Single to a device near your TV and plug your TV/xBox into it

Point 4 is what the Wireless Bridge does. It sends a wireless signal from your modem/router to your device that’s closer to your TV to connect to it. These means, no clutter and no high installation costs. From my initial testing from download off the internet, I got the exact same speeds as I would using the Wireless Bridge then having a cable connected to my computer. Therefore it’s a great Ethernet cable replacement.

Are you clear now?

I hope this post has answered your questions about what is a BoB2, BoB Lite, and a Wireless Bridge. If you are still not sure, or have a question about one of these, let me know in the comments.

Further Reading: Make sure you check out my other iiNet reviews

Review of the original BoB modem/router
Review of BoB2
What is a BoB1, BoB2, BoB Lite and Wireless Bridge? (This article)
Review of BoB Lite (coming soon)
A comparison of BoB1, BoB Lite and BoB2 (coming soon)
BoB2, BoB Lite, and Wireless Bridge giveaway (Tournament updates here, play your hand now)

A Brief Comparison Between Unix and Windows For A System And Network Administrator

jack@jackcola.org (Jack Cola) — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 06:08:00 +0000

As a System and Network Administrator, there are two Operating Systems that you would likely deal with. They are Microsoft Windows and Unix/Linux.

This post will briefly outline the differences between the two operating systems, and the advantages and disadvantages of them.

How Is UNIX Different From Windows

Free Vs Paid

The UNIX Operating System is Open Source which means everyone can use it, edit it, and pretty much do what ever you want with it. Adopt new ideas; create hacks and a whole heap more. UNIX is basically community orientated. Without the community backing it, it would probably not be nearly as popular as it is today.

Because UNIX is community oriented, there are many different flavours of UNIX. This basically means that users take the base of the UNIX kernel and adapt it to their own needs. Mac OS X is even a flavour of UNIX. Some other flavours include:

FreeBSD
Novell
HP/UX
Solaris
Linux
- Red Hat
- Debian
- Ubuntu
- SuSE

On the other hand, Windows is not, it was coded and created by Microsoft. People are not able to edit it, or change the code in any way.

GUI / Command Line

The main difference that many people will find is that Windows is purely GUI-based where as UNIX is mostly know for its text-based GUI, however it does have a GUI like windows. Many System and Network Administrators prefer to use the command-line in UNIX rather than the Graphical User Interface as the command-line providers more functionality.

Files and File Structure

In Windows, there is a registry which contains system configuration information; files and folders. In UNIX, everything is a file and folders are called directories. Since everything is a file, disks and partitions are mounted as directories, devices appears as files in /dev and so are running processors which appear in /proc.

In Windows, the main folders are C:/Windows, C:/Program Files, C:/Users (for Windows Vista, 7 or C:/Document and Settings for Windows XP). In Unix, the file system layout is very different.

/boot – Where the boot image files are stored
/mnt – The mount points for the partitions
/dev – Files of all the connected devices (USB, Printers)
/proc – Dynamic process information
/sys – Dynamic system configuration information
/var – Log files and system subdirectories
/tmp & /spool – Temporary files
/home – User accounts home directories
/usr & /user/local – A replicate tree for users and contains administrative tools
/bin & /sbin – Essential system executable files
/etc – System configuration files
/share – Common read only files
/lib & /include – Shared library files and system development

Comparisons

Here are a list of some other comparisons between UNIX and Windows

Scrips Vs .BAT files
Shells Vs DOS Command Windows
/etc config files Vs System Registry
Shared library’s Vs DLL’s – Dynamic Link Libraries
Kill Vs Task Manager
Mkfs / newfs Vs Format and label

Source: MyBestRatedWebHosting

So that is a very short comparison between Windows and UNIX. Just remember, with UNIX, take things slowly, because unlike Windows, you will not be prompted “Are you sure you want to do this”

Introduction Image Source: Hexablogs

The OSI Network Management Model

jack@jackcola.org (Jack Cola) — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 05:31:00 +0000

The OSI Network Management model is a model for Network and System Administrators to understand the major functions of network management systems. In this model, there are 5 areas’ of functions which is also known as FCAPS.

The aim of the model is for Network and System Administrators to understand a number of issues and aspects. These include:

Fault management and recovery
Configuration and change management
Accounting User Management
Performance Management
Security Management
Application support
Integration and Migration
Planning for growth and acquisitions

Source: Cisco

Fault Management

In Fault Management, the aim is to recognise, isolate and correct, and log faults on the network. As System and Network Administrator, it is your duty to put in place monitoring tools so you are alerted to when faults exist. For example, you want to be alerted when a critical service goes down on the network. If there is a fault, you have to test, fix, update, and repair any faults that occur on the network.

Configuration Management

On of the main issues which causes a system to fault is someone changes a configuration setting. Configuration management facilitates the control of any system configuration both on the hardware and software side. It is important that you record all configuration changes such as what has been changed, why and who did the change; and document system configuration standards. If a fault does arise (it may not be instantly, but a couple of months later), you can track who completed the configuration change.

Accounting Management

Accounting Management is concerned with aspects of the system users. It mainly focuses on charging and billing users for services, and regulating service use.

For example, some organisations charge its users or departments on:

Printing
Internet/Bandwidth
Disk space
CPU
Application and Software use

Therefore, it is important to implement ways to properly charge use of IT facilities.

Performance Management

Performance Management involves analysing your network and gather information so that you can prepare it for the future. The performance of a network varies all the time. Most organisations find that the internet is very slow during lunch as many of the staff is browsing the internet, yet in the morning, it will be super quick.

Not only this; but the performance of the network must meet the users and organisations desires. The network and systems services must be available, the speed must be efficient, their must not be bottlenecks and the network should never be used to its maximum capacity for prolonged period of times.

System and Network Administrators must actively monitor the network performance to ensure problems do not occur.

Security Management

Security management is important as you control user access to network resources. Without it, your network will be exposed, as well as all the information and document it contains. As a Network and System Administrator, you are to address network authentication and security auditing to detect and prevent network sabotage, abuse and to prevent unauthorised access.

Administrators are required to:

Record logs
Have a Firewall setup
Control Spam
Prevent Viruses, Trojans, Spyware
Upgrade software, install OS patches
Implement authorisation techniques and password control (which is linked to accounting and configuration management)

Source: Grandlord

You are now aware of the 5 categories of the Network Management Model which is also known as FCAPS. It is a fundamental requirement that all IT infrastructures facilitate this model to protect its environment. Without it, many system downtimes would occur and the organisation may suffer a large financial loss.

An Introduction To Network & System Administration

jack@jackcola.org (Jack Cola) — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 05:00:00 +0000

Being a System or Network Administrator of a large computer network can be a difficult, and time consuming task. It is not as simple as people might think. Yes, once it is all running well, the life of a Network Administrator may seem easy, but when things go wrong, it can be a living hell. Network Administration is more than just simply connecting a whole bunch of computers together; it is a full time role to ensure that those critical servers and applications remain up almost 100%.

The Main Role Of A Network and System Administrator

As a Network Administrator, your role is to essentially build (integrate existing services), maintain, and upgrade a network of computers, devices, and servers.

If you (or the previous System and Network Administrators) get the build phase right, maintaining and upgrading the network in the future will become much easier. You have to carefully plan your requirements and plan for future growth. In doing so, you have to keep in mind a number of things:

How many users will be using the system?
What are the network capacity demands?
What will the network capacity demands reach in the future?
What is the geological spread of the network?
What access controls do you users require?
What sort of devices and hardware do you require?
- Desktops
- Laptops
- Servers (Web, File, Print, DNS, Backup)
Do you need remote administration?
How are you going to support your users?

Source: Wikimeda Common

If the above are planned well, future growth, maintaining and upgrading the network will be much easier. Just remember to analyse your requirements; design and plan the network; implement policies and constraints; and construct and install your network with suitable hardware. Remember to always think of the future. Once it’s all implemented and built, you can administer your network.

When administrating a network, you have to ensure critical services have as close to 100% uptime, because if they are down, your users are going to hassle you all the time – and that can be quite annoying with some users. When maintaining a network, you also have a number of other tasks to perform every day. These include:

User management
- Adding, removing and apply security to user accounts and groups
Hardware
- Upgrading hardware
- Replacing faulting hardware
Software
- Providing support for applications and operating systems
- Ensuring critical data is being backed up
Monitoring
- Monitor the system
- Checking logs
- Conducting security audits
Support
- Attending to users help requests
- Writing documentation

One of the hardest challenges in administrating a network is application support. You can very rarely just add a major application or a network service without any issues. Your network will need to support it. For example, you cannot host a website if you only have dialup internet. Other factors that are needed to be taken into consideration are:

Does it need to be secured? – Both physically and virtually; internally and externally
Can the application be supported – Are their people who know how to use the application?
What risks will it introduce? Viruses, Hackers, privacy?
Is there enough network capacity to support it? Can you network handle the bandwidth requirements?
Does data need to be migrated across to the new system from the old system?
Who should be able to access the new application

Depending on how large your organisation is, these tasks can be broken down in to departments or groups.

As you probably have already found out, you are faced with a number of challenges as it is more than just installing computers and networks. You have to make sure your network:

Is designed efficiently,
Is capable of mass management – updating multiple machines at once
Is secured from threats, and internal and external hackers
Meets all of your users requirements and needs

And not only for your network, you to have to also:

Understand the users and organisations needs and wants
Be able to troubleshoot and fix problems and errors quickly
Be up to date with the latest technical knowledge and computer news
Be able to write documentation and instructions

Troubleshooting Problems

Every System and Network Administrator will tell you that they have faced issues that they do not know how to solve, or even know what the actual problem is when they are faced with an issue. That is why they need to have good problem solving skills... and Google!

The basics steps for solving a computer related problem are:

Detect the fault of problem
Isolate the problem
Troubleshoot on how to fix the problem
- (Make sure you document your steps or make a backup before you do anything)
Carry out tests and use tools to diagnose the problem
Solve the problem and document a fix

If your network is critical, you cannot just simply reboot a machine, or click a few random buttons to see if you can fix the problem. You have plan how you will fix the problem in the quickest amount of time without causing more disruption to your users, or break it even more.

First of all – be systematic. Try the simple things first. If a computer won’t start, make sure the power is turned on.
Read logs – Logs provide a lot of information on when things go wrong. So make sure you read and understand what the logs are telling you
Pay attention to all the facts
Read the documentation – yes, it does help and it’s not always there to take up space in the packaging
Talk to others – get on the internet, forums, blogs because other people would likely have faced your issue or know how to help, and ask your colleagues
Use test environments – see if you can cause the issue again, and then test the ways on how you can fix it. In a test environment, you know you can’t break the production server any more
Know your tools – you usually need something to work out how to fix the problem, or even to find out what the problem actually is. You might not know you have a virus if you don’t conduct a scan
Work out the root cause of the problem – hardware failure, user interaction, external event?
Have a backup in place – make sure that you can restore the system to what it was like before the problem
Do it quickly – Users are being affected and can have a large financial loss to the organisation if the system is down. Fix it first, and then discuss the politics

Source: FutureOfRealEstateTechnology

Change Management

One tip I would like to bring up in System and Network Administration is Change Management. Change Management is very crucial to follow correctly, especially in large organisations. Although it may seem like a waste of time, it is very important step to do. Change Management essential records every change you do (and plan to do), allows you to get permission from bosses (in case something goes wrong) which than allows you to implement a change.

The steps in Change Management are:

Note the change – what are you actually going to do?
What are the repercussion – what effect will this Change have, who is going to be affected and when?
Note the back out plan – if something goes wrong, can the Change be reverted back to the original configuration?
Revise the policy – are you actually allowed to implement the Change – does your organisation support it?
Inform impacted users – make sure that all users who will be affected are aware of this change so they don’t call you up saying their system is down
Make the change/Do the work – disable (take down) services if required
Inform users that change it is done

A while ago, Virgin Mobile was updating their CRM system which entailed a weekend outage that would affect a number of users and its services. Customers were aware of the change, and were encouraged to plan for this change. One of the services to be affected was mobile phone and SIM card activations. I purchased a phone during the upgrade weekend for my mum, which meant I couldn’t activate the phone. In the mean time, she wasn’t able to use her mobile phone. To make it even worse, Virgin Mobile had problems with the system upgrade, and the system was down for a further 1.5 days. A lot of customers, including myself where unhappy as the change took longer than it should have, and were impacted. Reports on forums, a lot of customers left Virgin Mobile due to it.

The Skills Required for System and Network Administrators

Not everybody has the required skills to be a System and Network Administrator. For example, a person who designs website layouts may not particularly know how to setup a web server. So what are some of the skills that a System and Network Administrator should know?

UNIX – how to use, install, configure and run
Scripting – shell, bash, C++, Java
Network – TCP/IP, Hardware, Communication, Network Standards
Infrastructure – DNS, DHCP
Storage – SAN, NAS, NFS, CIFS
Directory Services – LDAP, WINS, NIS
User Services – Databases, e-Mail, Office Tools, Web Tools
System Implementation
System Troubleshooting
Security Concepts
Communication

So that is a brief introduction into the life of a System and Network Administrator. It can be a very difficult task, especially when things go wrong.

Network And System Administration: Table of Contents

jack@jackcola.org (Jack Cola) — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 02:34:00 +0000

In the next few months, I will be looking into “Network and System Administration”. I will be writing about a number of topics providing information, definitions, and techniques all related about administrating systems and networks.

This page will act as a table of contents for each post.

An Introduction To Network And System Administration – The main role of a network and system administrator, troubleshooting problems, change management, the skills required for system and network administrator
- This article focuses on what it is like to be a system and network administrator, some of the tasks involved, and why it is crucial to have 100% uptime (or close to it) on critical services
The OSI Network Management Model – fault management, configuration management, accounting management, performance management, security management
- The OSI Network Management model is a model of the major functions of network management systems. This post outlines the importance of each section, also known as FCAPS
A Brief Comparison Between UNIX and Windows for a System and Network Administrator – How is UNIX different from Windows
- This article outlines a number of reasons why UNIX is different to the Microsoft Windows Operating System

The Importance of Network Security And The Types Of Security Attacks

jack@jackcola.org (Jack Cola) — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 03:30:00 +0000

In today’s era, almost every single organisation uses a computer and has a computer network to send, receive and store information. Whether it’s sending emails, storing documents, or serving information through a web server, it is very important to focus on security, especially if your network contains sensitive, confidential and personal information.

The Importance of Network Security

Network security affects many organisations, whether they are large, small, or government organisations. If network security is breached an intruder can do all sorts of harm. That is why people need to be aware of and to be educated about network security and how to secure their computer and network. Systems are required to be updated regularly as new security flaws are discovered. Without being up to date, it makes it easy for a hacker to gain unauthorized access to the system.

Security Focus

If you are in charge of network security in your organisation, there are a few areas of focus:

Deter – To educate people and discourage people to break into systems for illegal and malicious reasons
Prevent – To put in place measures to prevent unauthorised access. This can be authorising uses with special access, encrypting communication, and updating security systems
Detect – To become aware of a security breaches. This could be setting up logs to record who has accessed items or used the system
Correct – To implement a fix to the flaw discovered in a system. If someone has breached the security of the system, implement measures to prevent it from happening again

Security Attacks

Not only do you have to focus on security, you also have to be aware of the types of security attacks that can happen on your computer network. Before we go on to discuss about the types of security attacks, an attacker may aim to do one of the following:

Interruption – Interruption is an attack on availability such as a denial of service attack (or DOS). An interruption attacks’ aim is to make resources unavailable. Not to long ago, Wordpress.com, a popular Blog Hosting Site was faced with a DOS attack taking down the servers so the service was unavailable to its users
Interception – Interception is an attack to gain unauthorised access to a system. It can be simple eavesdropping on communication such as packet sniffing or just copying of information
Modification – Modification is an attack that tampers with a resource. Its aim is to modify information that is being communicated with two or more parties. An example of a modification attack could be sending information that was meant to go to one party but directing it to another.
Fabrication – A Fabrication attack is also known as counterfeiting. It bypasses authenticity checks, and essential is mimicking or impersonating information. This sort of attack usually inserts new information, or records extra information on a file. It is mainly used to gain access to data or a service.

Keeping the above in mind, there are two main types of attacks whose aim is to compromise the security of a network – passive attack and an active attack.

Passive Attack

A passive attack can be split into two types. The first type of passive attack is to simply monitor the transmission between two parties and to capture information that is sent and received. The attacker does not intend to interrupt the service, or cause an effect, but to only read the information.The second type of attack is a traffic analysis. If information is encrypted, it will be more difficult to read the information being sent and received, but the attacker simply observers the information, and tries to make sense out of it; or to simply determine the identity and location of the two communicating parties.

A passive attack is usually harder to detect as there is little impact to the information communicated.

Active Attack

On the other hand, an active attack aim is to cause disruption, and it is usually easily recognised. Unlike a passive attack, an active attack modifies information or interrupts a service. There are four types of an active attack:

Masquerade – To pretend to be someone else. This could be logging in with a different user account to gain extra privileges. For example, a user of a system steals the System Administrators username and password to be able to pretend that they are them
Reply – To capture information to send it, or a copy it elsewhere
Modification – To alter the information being sent or received
Denial of service – To cause a disruption to the network

Even though a passive attack doesn’t sound harmful, it is just as bad as an activate attack, if not worse.

Security Services

Security services is a service that provides a system with a specific kind of protection. The X.800 OSI Security Architecture defines 6 major security service categories, that once a system satisfies these 6 categories, the system is X.800 compliant.

Confidentiality – Protects data from being read or accessed by unauthorised personnel
Authentication – Ensures that no one can impersonate someone to be legitimately authorised to access a services they should not access.
Integrity – Ensures data cannot be alternated and messages that are sent and received have not been read, duplicated, modified or replayed to another party.
Non-repudiation – Prevents the sender or receiver from denying the transmission of a sent or received message. The sender and receiver are to be able prove that they sent or did not send or received a message
Access control – Limits and control access to certain system applications to certain users
Availability – Ensures the service is only available to legitimated users and not available to users who do not have access to the application

Security Mechanism

Security mechanisms are ways to detect, prevent, or recover from a security attack. It is important for systems to have implemented as many security mechanisms as possible as required for their system.

Specific Security Mechanisms

Encipherment – Encrypting and decrypting communication
Digital signatures – An electronic signature to assure the genuineness of a digital document
Access controls – To only allows people with permission to access something
Data integrity – Ensure data is in full and unchanged
Authentication exchange – The exchange of communication that takes place when authorising someone
Traffic padding – Determining what is legitimate data and what is false data
Routing Control – Sending information through a specific line or path
Notarisation – Official documentation of procedures

Pervasive Security Mechanisms

Trusted functionality – How well you trust the information
Security labels – Label information with a particular security attribute
Event detection – Logging events that take place
Security audit trails – Checking security to ensure that measures are being followed and intrusions have not occurred
Security recovering – Recovering from a security issue

Network Security Model

The network security model is a model that determines how the information is sent securely over a communication line.
The components the model contains are:

Sender – who sends the information
Receiver – who receives the information
Communication line – the line in which the communication is sent over
Encryption / Decryption – to encrypt and decrypt the communication over the information channel
Trusted Third Party – who distributes the secrete key and information between the two parties to be able to communicate securely

The tasks that network security model performs is to be able to have the two parties communicate with each other without any other parties being able to read and understand the information being sent. To do this, the model needs to:

Have a suitable algorithm to encrypt the messages (Secure Socket Layer – SSL)
Generate a secrete key to be used by the algorithm (SSL Provider)
Develop methods to distribute and share the secrete key (SSL Provider)
Specify a protocol to be able to transmit the information (https)

Security Management

The OSI Security Architecture defines three main areas of security management. These activities are to be preformed System Administrators.

System security management – The management the entire computing environment focusing on the security aspects
Security service management – The management of particular security services
Security mechanism management – The management of particular security mechanisms

Conclusion

Information and network security is an important and critical issue that all computer systems need to have implemented some sort of security control. Without having security, sensitive information can be easily gained, so it is important that we deter, prevent, detect, and correct security issues.

There are a number of security attacks that can take place, and system administrators need to implement measures to ensure security breaches do not occur.

The next article in this series will look at encryption techniques to ensuring communicates are encrypted so they cannot be read my other parties.

Image Credit: Barcoding.com

Information and Network Security: Table of Contents

jack@jackcola.org (Jack Cola) — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 01:07:39 +0000

Over the next few months, I will be looking into "Information and Network Security". I will be writing about a number of topics providing information, definition, and techniques to secure systems.

This page will act as a table of contents for each weeks posts.

The Importance of Network Security And The Types Of Security Attacks - Security Focus, Security Attacks, security services, security mechanisms, security management.
- This article focuses on the introduction to security and they types of security attacks to look out for and ways to prevent security attacks.