Category Archives: Computers

Auckland City Council’s Carparking Machines were hacked not skimmed

Posted on by Brad Heap

Breaking news seems to be coming form the Twitterverse this morning.

It appears that the Auckland City Council’s parking machines were storing the credit card numbers of all cards entered into the machines and the database storing this data has been hacked.

There is a discussion going on here at Public Address: http://publicaddress.net/system/topic,2226,hard-news-a-bigger-breach.sm

There is no reason why after the transaction was processed for the council to store the credit card numbers unless they were using them as a form of tracking of people using the carpark, if this is the case they still should have never stored the credit card numbers, at a minimum a hash sum of the number would have worked. There appears to be much more to come on this story.

Update:

This just in from Mr A. Source:

Auckland City’s PCI certification is under serious review which will compromise their ability to carry out any credit card transactions. This will also potentially impact the new Auckland Council. Basically, internal systems at Auckland City have been compromised.

http://publicaddress.net/system/topic,2226,hard-news-a-bigger-breach.sm?p=142117#post142117

Opinion reporting vs factual reporting.

Posted on by Brad Heap

I was stunned to read the following opinion piece in Computerworld this afternoon, it is full of inaccuracies and Microsoft loving:

Opinion: Why Chrome OS will fail — big time

Fatal flaw No. 1: The Linux foundation
First, there’s the core architecture. A derivative of Linux, the Chrome OS builds on Linus Torvald’s popular open source foundation to create a lightweight, web-oriented desktop environment. However, it also inherits that platform’s many warts, including spotty hardware compatibility.

From power management to display support, Linux has long been a minefield of buggy code and half-baked device driver implementations. Google recognises this fact and, in a page out of the Apple Macintosh playbook, has taken the draconian measure of allowing the Chrome OS to be distributed exclusively on a series of as-yet-undisclosed netbook-like devices.

It’s a move born of desperation. Google knows it can’t possibly establish a viable hardware ecosystem and still meet its self-imposed release deadline of “mid-2010″. So rather than do the hard work of courting device vendors and building certification processes, Google is taking the easy way out by micromanaging which systems will be allowed to ship with the Chrome OS and then dumping responsibility for the rest of the ecosystem onto the open source community.

This first point is complete and utter nonsense. Linux hardly has any so called warts, it is more stable than windows and is much more secure too. When was the last time you heard of a virus on Linux? How does that compare to windows?

Spotty hardware compatibility? Again hardly. In the past linux had issues with device driver support however this is more as a result of hardware manufacturers not providing information about the hardware to build the drivers, it is not a fault of the linux programmers themselves.

Google is also not allowing the OS to be distributed exclusively on a series of as-yet-undisclosed netbook-like devices. The code is open source anyone can compile and run it for any device. However in order to keep the OS small Google have said they will only be officially supporting a small number of devices. This is the same as windows not running on an ARM CPU. The difference here is with Chrome being open source people can build support into branches of it.

Google can establish a viable hardware ecosystem by mid 2010 it is easy use the existing linux device drivers. The difference is they don’t want to because they want to keep things simple and small, who can blame them for that? They are trying to be the opposite of Microsoft.

Fatal flaw No. 2: The web user interface
Then there’s the user interface. Google looks at the world through the prism of a web page. So it comes as no surprise that the primary interface to the Chrome OS is … Chrome, as in the Google browser.

Unlike a traditional OS, there’s no desktop. The “applications” running under the Chrome OS are really just interactive web pages, with the Chrome browser’s tabs serving to separate and organise them visually on the screen. Basic configuration tasks, like defining wi-fi settings, are handled via Chrome OS-hosted pop-up windows, while a simple status bar-like strip at the top of the display informs you about battery life, connectivity status, and so on.

Sadly, none of the above UI constructs is particularly original or compelling. The tabbed interface and “dockable” favourites are clearly derivative of Mac OS X and/or Windows (depending on whom you ask), as are the status icons and pull-down applications menu.

In fact, nothing about the Chrome OS UI jumps out as innovative. Rather, it simply replaces one set of metaphors (Start menu, taskbar/Dock, system tray) with a bunch of webified equivalents. And though I can certainly appreciate the advantages of doing away with those heavy legacy OS windowing layers — web content is lighterweight and easier to isolate from a security standpoint — it also serves to limit the environment’s overall utility.

The world won’t buy an inflexible OS
And that’s where I believe the Chrome OS ultimately fails. In its effort to pare the traditional OS model down to the bone, Google has thrown out the one characteristic that made Windows and, to a lesser extent, Mac OS X and full-blown Linux successful: flexibility.

Simply put, the Chrome OS is too narrow. It assumes that the world is ready to give up the traditional personal computing paradigm and live full time in the cloud. In reality, most users prefer a hybrid existence, with some of their data and applications stored locally, and others — typically the freebies, like Gmail — hosted online.

Perhaps the easiest way to put the Chrome OS into context is by comparing it to the OS it’s designed to supplant: Microsoft Windows. Like the Chrome OS, Windows lets you boot your system, surf the web, and manage your data. Unlike the Chrome OS, Windows also lets you run rich, local applications and services — and do so on the hardware of your choosing.

Don’t forget that Google’s plans for acceptable hardware to run the Chrome OS is very limiting. No hard drives or even DVD drives; only solid state drives. That may reduce power usage and speed up boot time (as if that was really an issue), but it also means you can’t run your own apps, or store and access data, when you don’t have a live internet connection. Plus, the supported laptops are only netbook-size laptops, with low-power CPUs that won’t be all that capable. Sure, Google says you can use a PC or Mac for that stuff, and Google is right: You will. Why you would want a web-only appliance as well is not so easy to answer.

Again this is all nonsense. The current build of Chrome only stores everything on the cloud. Future builds will include the ability to store content from gmail and other apps offline on the SSD – just look in the Google apps labs for these features, they are just not finished yet. Secondly, why support HDD? HDD is old technology storage is going the way of SSD and if Chrome the OS of the future then they need to support the future, not the past.

The bottom line is that while there is virtually nothing that you’ll be able to do with the Chrome OS that you won’t be able to do equally well with Windows, there are literally millions of things that you can do with Windows today that you’ll likely never be able to do with the Chrome OS.

So don’t be surprised when you start hearing about early Chrome OS adopters trying to reformat their systems with Windows 7 Starter Edition. After all, people are easily distracted, and the Chrome OS already bores me to death.

Of course you can do the same things in Windows as you can do with Chrome. That is why there is a Chrome Browser for Windows. However the key difference is the focus of the operating systems. Windows is designed to be big heavy and bulky. Chrome is designed to focus on the cloud. And of course there will be things you can do on windows that you can’t do on chrome. Google have made this clear already, Chrome is not meant to replace Windows it is designed as an alternative to Windows. And I doubt many people buying a chrome netbook would reformat to Windows. If you were going to do that you would buy a Windows netbook.

Hello World from Google Chrome OS – First Thoughts

Posted on by Brad Heap

Hello World!

I am now running Google Chrome OS off a 4GB flash drive in my laptop.

So far it is not as spectacular as first thought, and it is very clear that this is a development build however I can see much potential in Chrome OS in the future.

Some brief thoughts:

  • Boot times. From a cold start 26 seconds to login screen. From post BIOS to login screen 13 seconds. Not the 7 seconds advertised but still quick.
  • WIFI does not work on my laptop. This had me hunting for a network cable to get online. WIFI has always been an issue under linux so this could be a major roadblock for Google in making Chrome OS widespread.
  • Typing is slow and delayed. There seems to be some major problem with lag when typing.
  • System stability. So far I have had weird lock ups on my laptop after a few minutes of use. In particular I can still move the mouse but cannot click or type and have to press the power button to shut off the system. However, this may be a bug in the latest linux kernel as Ubuntu does the same thing on my laptop. I will test on my desktop and report back.
  • Android is much more of a complete OS.

This last point is interesting. Android is designed for smart phones which typically have less powerful components than a netbook or laptop. However, Android allows the user to add apps and other software and has much more of an OS feel to it. Chrome OS consisting of only a web browser turns the end device into nothing more than a very dumb dumb terminal. Surely there needs to be a middle ground. I would not use Chrome OS if I wanted to download images off a digital camera for instance as there is nowhere local to save and edit them.

Overall Chrome OS has potential has a very fast way to boot into a web browser if that is all you want to do. However, as it currently is, systems in the future with Chrome OS running will also need to provide a second much larger and more complete OS for those more complex but equally common tasks.

Adventures in the land of building Google Chrome OS

Posted on by Brad Heap

Okay I have now been working through the process of building Google Chrome OS for a little more than 12 hours. My main desktop computer has been on all night trying to sort out the development build environment so the code can be compiled. It does not help that we went over our data cap a few weeks back and are stuck on 64k internet until mid next week this makes downloading the required files ultra slow.

The build instructions provided by Google so far are quite clear and straightforward to follow. However, they are not very detailed. There are no timings for each step of the process or information about what each step does. So far I have downloaded the full source code (270mb) at uni so I would not have the dial up speed internet problem. However in order to compile the code it is required a strict development be provided. As such the compiling script creates a debootstrap environment virtualizing a minimal Debian OS. While this is a cool feature designed to ensure every build remains consistent it is a pain that this is not explained before the start of the process because the amount of data required to set this up is a lot more than the entire source code for the operating system.

Because the process of building from scratch is so long there has been a build snapshot uploaded onto The Pirate Bay. This is a good idea and I have seen on a few blogs comments that Google should be releasing a nightly build snapshot of the compiled OS. While this takes away the fun of building from scratch it does make testing the OS a lot more accessible. It is something I hope Google implement soon.

Hopefully my next blog on the OS will be a little more positive and lot more further down the building track.

Google Chrome OS goes open source available now

Posted on by Brad Heap

I have something to play with over the weekend.

Around two hours ago Google released the source code to their new operating system.

I am going to download it later today and will set about compiling and organising the installation of it.

For more info: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/releasing-chromium-os-open-source.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FMKuf+%28Official+Google+Blog%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Word 2007 crashing on Windows 7 or won’t open documents

Posted on by Brad Heap

For the last few days my Word 2007 installation on my Windows 7 box has been playing up.

In particular it will not let me use the mouse to edit documents, as in clicking within the Word application does nothing.

If I open a document through Windows explorer or any means other than from the open dialog within the program they will not open.

And when I close Word is crashes and restarts.

The good news is out of frustration this morning I found the solution to the problem.

And it is all the fault of Microsoft and Automatic Updates.

This Microsoft KB article will explain how to fix the problem.

This is the outline of the problem as given by Microsoft

You install an automatic update for Microsoft Office Word 2007 on a Windows Vista-based computer and then restart the computer. If Word 2007 was running when the computer was restarted, you experience one or more of the following symptoms:

  • The mouse does not work when you use Word.
  • You cannot open a Word document from the Search window in Windows Vista.
  • You cannot open a Word document from Windows Desktop Search.
  • Word crashes when you try to start or exit Word.
  • Word crashes when you open the Open dialog box.
  • Word crashes when you save a document.
  • Word crashes when you close a document.

The first thing to note is that this problem applies to Windows 7 now as well as Vista. However, the automatic fix it script that you can download to fix the problem will not work on Windows 7 so you have to fix the problem manually (I will get to this soon).

The second thing to note is that the problem was caused by restarting Windows to install updates while Word was still running. There are only two ways this could happen. a) you didn’t close all the programs running on the system before you restarted. or b) Windows Update automatically restarted the system while these applications were running. What happened to me is b) and that is what really annoys me. Sure you can disable automatic installation of Windows Update files. However, I have the feature turned on for the sake of simplicity. If there are critical updates I want them installed. What I do not apprieciate is Windows corrupting itself in the process of installing updates. Furthermore I do not expect a problem with an Automatic Update to still be a problem more than two years after the problem was discovered (this blog on this exact problem is posted September 2007: http://www.edbott.com/weblog/?p=1771)

The fix is simple, but it does involve editing the registery. Something that you are never advised to do unless you have a serious problem with your computer. Hence my anger at Microsoft for stuffing up their own program through an update.

To resolve this problem, delete the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Word\Data registry subkey. To do this, follow these steps:

  1. Exit all Office programs.
  2. Click Start type regedit in the Start Search box, and then press ENTER. If you are prompted for an administrator password or for a confirmation, type the password, or click Continue.
  3. Locate and then click the following registry subkey:
    HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Word\Data
  4. On the Edit menu, click Delete, and then click Yes.
  5. Exit Registry Editor.
  6. Restart Word.

I haz Forza 3 – First Impressions

Posted on by Brad Heap

I am very happy tonight because the copy of Forza 3 that I ordered off Fishpond on Thursday night arrived at my house this morning, when I was not expecting delivery until Tuesday because of the long weekend.

Forza 3 has been hyped as one of the best games of the year, so far in my first two hours of playing it has not lived up entirely to this hype.

My first moan is that for a simulator it has far too much of an arcade feel to it. I saw a comment on a forum that stated the cars feel like they are floating, and that is exactly the problem, it feels like you are driving a hovercraft simulator not a car simulator.

Second to this is the graphics, they again have a very arcade feel and look to them and do not compete with the likes of Dirt 2 or Race Pro as far as track detail goes.

The lack of a free race mode is disappointing oversight. In New Zealand the game is heavily marketed upon the inclusion of the Australian V8 Supercars. However being forced to wade your way through the career mode until you unlock them is an incredible pain. Update: I found free race mode, you just had to be able to start career mode, and then back out of it.

Tracks. Or lack of them. No Australian tracks. And too many fictional tracks. Fictional tracks suck because they try to make them ultra cool but in the end they are nothing like any real track would be and therefore just adds to the arcade feel of the game.

Next is the music, or lack of it. Forza 2 had a good soundtrack on menus and loading screens, however, while racing you had no music on the pure sound of a race car. However, Forza 3 reverses this and on the menus you had electronic background music, and any real music is played quietly in the background of races, it is slightly off putting and again adds to the arcade feel of the game.

Finally the annoying track intros. Why can’t the race just start with 3, 2, 1 rather than some silly view that rotates 3 different views of the car?

So what is good about the game?

AI. The computer drivers in the game are aggressive and hard to beat.

Damage. You cannot just ram up the backside of another driver and expect to get away with it. You will damage you vehicle and this affects your performance.

Going off the race line affects performance. Also dirt and grass dramatically slow you down. This is what a racing game should do.

My Difficulty Set up: Autobrake Off, Anti-lock brakes on, stability control off, traction control on, shifting automatic, suggested line braking only, AI hard.

Note: I have tried to race with Anti-lock brakes and traction control disabled but it just causes you to spin no matter what you do to prevent it.

Sorting out Adobe CS4 License Key Issues

Posted on by Brad Heap

Okay this is one of those blog posts that tell you something they really should have included in the instruction manual.

When you install Adobe CS4 Web Standard Academic Edition make sure you enter the license key during install.

If you do not do this make sure you switch the language from US English to International otherwise when you try to insert the license key after installation the program will not accept it and the only remedy is to uninstall and reinstall.

Adobe Install Fail.

Android Blog Reader Application – Honours Assignment

Posted on by Brad Heap

One of my papers this semester is focused on Google Android Mobile Operating System.

The brief for my final assignment is:

Your task is to write any application you like. The are no restrictions on what your application can do but it should show of the capabilities of the platform and be well written.

Marks will be awarded for interesting applications that make good use of the Android platform.

Make sure your application works on the emulator but I will also test it on a real device.

For this assignment I decided to create a Blog Reader that reads the RSS XML feeds off blogs to display them in a Android Application.
I have spent around three days coding this assignment. I will not release the code until after the assignment has been marked, however here are some screen shots of the work

My Application Sitting in the Android Application Menu on my phone

My Application Sitting in the Android Application Menu on my phone

The application's home screen

The applications home screen

Adding a new blog feed into the application

Adding a new blog feed into the application

Viewing a list of blogs

Viewing a list of blogs

Removing a blog feed

Removing a blog feed

Viewing a list of blog posts

Viewing a list of blog posts

Viewing list of blog posts

Viewing list of blog posts

Viewing single post

Viewing single post

Welcome to the Future – Windows 7 Professional x64 RTM

Posted on by Brad Heap

Yesterday I managed to get my hands on a copy of Windows 7 Professional through the MSDN Academic Alliance Progamme at Uni.

To avoid messing around with my current Vista install I decided to remove my old 160GB IDE Hard Disk from my old computer and install it into my new system (which isn’t that new anymore), being just out of warrenty I was safe to open the box and put in the hard disk.

First problem, whoever designed the motherboard and case layout in my new system never designed it for people to add stuff into. The IDE socket on the motherboard was located directly below the hard disk install location in the case, so the cable had to twist super tightly to get out from under the hard disk and then plug on a 90 degree angle into it. The second problem was the heat sync on my processor is so large I couldn’t get the drive into the drive bay without having to losen it a little and then reset it. The third problem was cables, the system had all the cables nicely cable tied down, however they had been placed into position so well that you couldn’t get to the spare power cables, once I had cut away some of the cable ties the mess of cables the required a number of unpluggings and rewirings so I could get enough slack on all the cables to get everything plugged in. Because of all this a ten minute job turned into a hour and a half of frustration.

Once this was completed I booted back into Vista and partitioned the newly installed 160GB drive into a 120GB partition for Windows 7 and a 40GB partition for installing Ubuntu 9.10 later this month. Once this was set in went the Windows 7 DVD. The installation of Windows 7 took less than 30 minutes and was incredabily straight forward. Easily the simplest installation of Windows I have ever done.

On a whole Windows 7 can be summed up in one word. Smooth. It is what Vista should have been. There are only minor differences in UI between the two operating systems, but those differents make a big difference in user experience. Gone is the quick launch bar, instead you can have programs always in the task bar, even if they are not running. The names of programs have vanished replaced with large icons. The sidebar is gone, you can now put gadgets anywhere on your screen. Windows Media Centre also has support for Freeview, which is great, no messing about with codecs and Media Portal. Windows Aero and animations are incredabily fast and crisp. So far I am very impressed.

The chart below shows my system rating on Windows 7. The values have increased slighty from Vista. (Vista scores in brackets).

Component Details Subscore Base score
Processor AMD Phenom(tm) 9600 Quad-Core Processor 6.9 (5.9)
3.5
Determined by lowest subscore
Memory (RAM) 4.00 GB 5.9 (5.9)
Graphics ATI Radeon HD 3400 Series 3.5 (3.5)
Gaming graphics 1919 MB Total available graphics memory 5.1 (3.9)
Primary hard disk 87GB Free (112GB Total) 5.3 (5.9)
Windows 7 Professional

The key things to note regarding the different scores are:

Processor – Vista is only 32 bit, Windows 7 is 64

Memory – Vista is only 32 bit therefore only has access to 3GB of RAM, Windows 7 has access to the full 4GB

Graphics – Aero doesn’t seem to take advantage of crossfire, so my system is always limited here. It is not a big feature anyway so I typically ignore this.

Gaming Graphics – This is the score that matters much more. For some reason on Windows 7 the score is a lot higher than Vista. The first reason for this is Windows 7 is giving crossfire 512mb more memory than Vista. I can only guess the second reason is newer graphic card drivers in Windows 7.

Primary hard disk – The decrease in score here is caused by using a older IDE drive compared to my primary Vista hard disk being SATA.