Category Archives: Microsoft

The winner of Instant Messaging?

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ICQInstant messaging has been fighting a war for some time but I realized lately there are new fronts and new opponents in this war.

Instant messaging has been popular since the late 90s, probably most notably around the time ICQ and Dialup Internet was mainstream. ICQ ended up being bought up by AOL and integrated into AIM. ICQ and AIM lost their war as AOL failed to prevent spam issues on their platform.

Windows Live Messenger, sometimes called MSN Messenger, has also been popular for some time. But Microsoft have probably lost their war also to Skype who enabled P2P calls and NAT punch through technologies. Skype is relatively new to the market however appear to be losing already for some of the same reasons as Microsoft.

I was using both Windows Live Messenger and Skype until recently because the clients are simply too bloated – it runs quite slow on an Intel Core2Quad 2.66GHz Q6600 with 8GB DDR3 of memory – which seems like poor form on Microsoft and Skype’s part. It highlights that with Microsoft’s code, while they do produce some really good products (like Windows and Office) that not all their products are good and in fact some are terrible. Skype is also making the mistake of focusing too much on interfacing to the PSTN (public switched telephone network) when the real stronghold of their product is simply computer based instant messaging. Both Microsoft and Skype are making the mistake of bloating their clients up with advertising and focusing on integration with social media like Facebook. If I want social media I have a web browser, I’d like to know who actually uses their social media through an instant messaging client?

So who is the winner right now in instant messaging?

Its probably Google Talk followed by Apple iChat. Apple iChat simply loses due to the lack of compatibility across platforms however is in fact superior to Google Talk as video calls are supported by iChat but not by Talk. My experience however tells me that most people rarely use video calls.

Both Talk and iChat however are winners as they both lack advertising, both have very low resource clients that are simple to use, and they both have a focus on use on smart phones which could potentially see instant messaging technology replace SMS. Google Talk takes the cake because it furthers this by its web integration making Talk available on Gmail, Google+ and other Google sites, and the vast array of platforms (including smart phones) that you can run Google Talk.

So as of today I no longer use Windows Live Messenger or Skype and just use Google Talk.

9 essential tools that are sometimes open source for Windows admins

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I read this article today which is titled “15 essential open source tools for Windows admins”. Seemed interesting as I’m always looking for new ideas.

Wireshark is already a tool I use, although rarely. So I skipped the first one.

AMANDA looks like a good app. I’m interested in how it stacks up against Bacula so I will try it out later.

MailArchiva looks interesting. Essentially its to archive e-mails for at least 7 years to comply with e-mail retention laws in various countries. Although its not exactly open source as MailArchiva’s primary focus is their commercial edition.

Then the article went off into Microsoft Exchange land. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. What kind of retard pays thousands of dollars for a software license for an e-mail server that is inherit with limitations, when there is free software that’ll do a better job?

OCS Inventory also looks good, I know about it already, but I’m yet to tinker with it.

UltraDefrag looked like a really good app. It supposedly can defrag locked files which I presently solve by booting a CD bootable XP. If done in userland that seems like a better solution.

nmap is already an app I use and I’m advanced enough to not require zenmap.

PowerGUI doesn’t interest me at all cause I’m a command-line type guy and have been since 1992.

ClamWin? Really? I’ve tried ClamAV and outside an e-mail server it appears to be useless. Avast AntiVirus Free Edition may not be open source, but it is good.

VirtualRouter is an app to turn any Windows machine into a WiFi hotspot. I wonder though – why wouldn’t you just get a low-cost WiFi hotspot which likely does the job a million times better and more reliably?

VirtualBox I’ve used quite a few times for emulation on Windows desktops. Thanks Jason M for suggesting this to me several years ago.

So not really surprised at all that a list of 15 essential items ends up getting cut down to 9, and some of these I already use. Mostly this is because Microsoft Exchange some how made it to a list of essential open source software?

Logging in to Windows XP or greater with the Administrator account

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I get asked this from time to time, or come across a machine that has a damaged profile and the only other existing profile is the Administrator account.

So how do you login as the Administrator since its missing from the logon screen?

Press Ctrl + Alt + Del at the logon screen. The administrator account will either appear, or you’ll be taken to the form based logon where you can enter Administrator as the username.

Samsung Galaxy Gio S5660

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Samsung Galaxy Gio S5660Its my birthday in just a few days and a few weeks ago I dropped my phone in the toilet. I wasn’t actually reaching for my phone at all, just a tissue, and out popped my phone. It was a Nokia 6220 Classic which these days is quite outdated.

My partner got me a new phone, a Samsung Galaxy Gio S5660 from the Optus online store. In Optus retail stores it was selling for $229 but online it was $206.10 – and ended up being even cheaper as Optus are doing a 10% discount. Shipping was really fast – arrived the very next day. As its sold as a prepaid handset it is locked to the Optus network but I’m fine with this as Optus is the only carrier I’ve ever used.

Ordered a screen protector and silicone  cover from eBay to keep it nice and scratch free. Two covers and 6 screen protectors wasn’t even $10 although I do have to wait a couple weeks as they’re coming from Hong Kong. I also need to obtain a 32GB microSD card as the Optus supplied 2GB card probably isn’t enough and the phone only has 150MB of memory.

I’ve spent the last few days toying with apps from the Android market. So far I’ve loaded 3CX Phone, Australia TV Time, ConnectBot, Dropbox, Endomondo, Facebook for Android, Flashlight, GPS Status, KeePassDroid, Skype, St George Banking App, Trapster & Weatherzone.

My partner ended up getting herself the same phone so I’ve been toying with Mumble for Android Beta and Mangler as a push to talk application as it’d be handy for communications with my partner. Unfortunately Mumble seems to exit all the time. Mangler I’m yet to test out fully.

Using VoIP over WiFi is extremely handy. At my home we don’t get enough mobile signal to make calls so by using 3CX we can at least make outbound calls and the mobiles double up as cordless phones for any inbound calls on the VoIP numbers.

Sadly with Android sync’ing to Microsoft Outlook is extremely poor. Google supply a calendar sync’ing app but there is nothing for contacts. Samsung Kies does however support sync’ing but only through a USB cable. But this is ok because the phone will charge from a USB connection so I use my PC to charge my phone instead. This feature is a plus for anyone wishing to have an Android phone and sync with Outlook – make sure you buy a Samsung.

Overall, I’m extremely impressed with Android and Samsung and would highly recommend my handset to anyone.

IEAK 9 Released

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As an update to my blog about Internet Explorer 9 being released, the Internet Explorer Administration Kit 9 has been released as production ready and is no longer a release candidate.

Yesterday I built up my own bundle for IE 9 with branding for my business.

Today I will experiment with integrating IE 9 in my Auto Installer NSIS script so that I don’t have to install it manually. There is a “Configuration Only” option that allows me to patch machines that already have IE 9 so they have my branding, so I will have to script up a few checks to see what version of Windows is being used and check if IE 9 is already installed, and then run the appropriate file.

I found that unlike Internet Explorer 8, version 9 is very easy to run as an unattended installer with the /Q flag. However this makes the machine automatically reboot so I will have to try again later today with the /NOREBOOT attribute.

Microsoft shuts down Rustock botnet, Forbes lists Microsoft as ethical company

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Microsoft and federal agents in the United States have conducted raids on hosting providers at 6 locations targetting “command and control” machines for the Rustock botnet in an effort to decapitate the botnet which is believed to have 1 million drone machines.

Employees of Microsoft’s digital crimes unit accompanied US Marshalls in the raids seizing computers and hard drives and is building a lawsuit against 11 unknown individuals believed to be responsible for the botnet.

"We think this has been 100% effective," said Richard Boscovich, senior attorney in Microsoft’s digital crimes unit.

Microsoft has conducted these raids because the spam generated by the Rustock botnet taxes resources on their Hotmail servers and impacts the Internet experience of users of Microsoft’s Office and Windows products. Its also likely Microsoft have conducted these raids for financial compensation.

Several days earlier Microsoft were added to Forbes World’s Most Ethical Companies list which is published yearly, although Forbes do not specify their reasoning in listing a company. It is however interesting that the likes of Apple, Intel or AMD are not on the list. I was surprised that Westpac and ANZ banks retained listing despite my experiences of bad customer service from ANZ and Westpac’s history of closing down branches in favour of ATMs.

Internet Explorer 9 Released

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Internet_Explorer_9Microsoft have released Windows Internet Explorer 9 today. It will be available via Windows Updates shortly, however for now it must be downloaded from the Microsoft website. IE9 has been released for Vista, 7 and 2008 Server machines. XP and earlier editions cannot run IE 9.

The IEAK is still in Release Candidate phase, I do believe it will be a production release as IE9 is released on Windows Updates.

I’m yet to benchmark IE9, however so far there are a string of reviews that don’t give a clear picture of how IE9 performs – as some say its faster, and some say its slower.

The most significant change has been the interface – the menu, address & navigation bars are now much smaller. Additionally there is now a “do not track” option which reportedly makes it easy for users to keep their browsing habits private from advertising networks.

In other news Adobe has advised of a vulnerability in Flash that affects Reader & Acrobat as well. The vulnerability could cause a crash and potentially allow the attacker to take control of the affected system. Adobe plans on releasing a fix next week. Great work on revealing a vulnerability with no fix, guys.

Cracking Windows 7 Service Pack 1

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Well I finally got my Windows 7 Ultimate machine cracked. I ran into some trouble because I had previously used RemoveWAT and Chew-WGA and the WGA files had been modified. But it was easy to fix these, it was actually harder to track down how to fix these.

  • I installed Service Pack 1
  • I ran WGA Fix. This rebooted my computer after running for 5 minutes or so.
  • I installed Windows Loader 1.9.7 by Daz with the ASUS SLIC, ASUS Certificate, ASUS Serial & Ignore SLIC option set. I used all the ASUS options as I have an ASUS mainboard. Daz tends to recommend to use the default Acer SLIC, Certificate & Serial. Windows Loader rebooted my computer after less than a minute.
  • I validated my computer on the Microsoft website in Internet Explorer. It passed.
  • I right clicked on the desktop, selected personalize, and picked out the Windows 7 Aero Theme to repair the theme damage caused by the not genuine notices