Aron Smetana: August 2013

Thursday, August 29, 2013

Five free Dropbox tools you're not using (but should be)

Geek TechFive free Dropbox tools you're not using (but should be)

Dropbox is handy, but you can make it even easier to use with a wide range of products and services that work hand in hand with the cloud-based storage, syncing, and sharing service. Check out these five favorites for getting even more bang for your Dropbox buck.

DropItToMe

Dropbox lets you easily share files for other people to download, but it's harder for people to upload files to your account—unless you have the free service DropItToMe.

To use DropItToMe, you simply allow the service access to your Dropbox, and it creates a DropItToMe folder in your account. You then claim a username, which becomes part of the link that DropItToMe creates for you. I scored "Liane" as a username; with this link, anyone can send me files, which then appear in my DropItToMe folder in Dropbox.

DropItToMe's interface is easy to understand, but also slick and attractive.

I appreciate that DropItToMe provides an easy-to-remember URL rather than a random link. You also get to create a password, which is required for uploading content to your Dropbox account and provides a measure of security. (As with any password, share it carefully.)

DropItToMe also provides a convenient way to upload files to your own Dropbox account. You could use Dropbox's Web app when you're on a computer without Dropbox installed, but DropItToMe's upload link makes things simpler.

DropItToMe requires a password before a person can upload content to your account, which is a nice security feature.

Compared with Dropbox, DropItToMe lets you upload files with fewer clicks. It allows you to place them only in the DropItToMe folder that it has already created, though, and it limits you to files that are 75MB or smaller. But it offers a free, simple way to allow other people to share content with you without their having to sign up for Dropbox.

BoxCryptor

Dropbox's security pitfalls make some users hesitant to store any files there, especially sensitive documents such as tax returns or bank statements. Free service BoxCryptor automatically encrypts your files before they're uploaded to your Dropbox account. It also supports Box.net, Google Drive, and Microsoft SkyDrive.

Once you download and install the Windows client, BoxCryptor automatically adds a virtual drive to your computer. It finds your installed cloud-storage services and pulls those into the BoxCryptor folder. BoxCryptor uses AES-256 bit encryption to secure your files.

You can view all of your content in your BoxCryptor folder, but you can still use your original Dropbox folder, too. To encrypt a folder, you right-click it and select the Encrypt option. If you look at the file through Dropbox, it becomes unreadable. Through BoxCryptor, however, you get the original, unencrypted file.

To encrypt a file, simply right-click it.

You can choose to encrypt individual files or entire folders. Once a folder is encrypted, any new content is encrypted as it syncs to Dropbox. Using the BoxCryptor view, you can identify files and folders that are encrypted by their green labels. In the Dropbox view, you'll see a .bc extension added to the name of encrypted files.

BoxCryptor bills itself as "zero-knowledge" software, meaning it does not have access to any of your data. All the encryption happens on your computer, not on BoxCryptor's servers. This hands-off approach also means that the company does not have access to your password, so if you forget it, you can forget accessing your encrypted data, too. Make your password memorable.

Files and folders that have been encrypted are marked with green text.

BoxCryptor is free for personal use, which covers one cloud-storage service and includes access to the mobile (iOS and Android) apps. The $48-per-year Unlimited Personal account adds file-name encryption and access to unlimited cloud services. The $96-per-year Unlimited Business account adds the ability to create groups for sharing files and folders.

BoxCryptor strikes a nice balance between safety and convenience when it comes to securing Dropbox. It adds an extra level of security without the hassle of switching to an entirely different cloud-based service.

DropTunes

Dropbox is a great place for storing your digital music collection, but its music playback features are limited, to say the least. Sure, you can use Dropbox to access the song files stored on the service, but if you want to listen to the tunes, you need to download them to your device—defeating the purpose of storing them in the cloud in the first place.

Free Web app DropTunes serves as a streaming music player for the audio files in your Dropbox account. (A $1 iOS app takes its features mobile, too, but no Android version exists at the moment.) Simply point your browser to droptun.es, and give the Web app permission to access your Dropbox account. It automatically finds any audio files stored there and allows you to play them back without downloading them.

The $1 DropTunes iOS app is basic, but effective for streaming music.

DropTunes displays your Dropbox folders in a column on the left side of the screen. Click a folder there, and any audio files it contains will appear in the main window at the center of the Web app. DropTunes lacks advanced features (such as creating playlists, or scrambling the order of the songs you're listening to) but it works for basic music streaming.

The interface is simple, and the Web app lacks truly advanced features, but DropTunes makes streaming music easy.

IFTTT

Saving data to your Dropbox isn't difficult, but you can make almost anything you do on the Web even easier with the help of IFTTT, a handy free tool that creates links between Web services. IFTTT stands for "If This Then That," and the phrase perfectly describes what IFTTT does: When one thing happens on a service you use, IFTTT triggers an automatic reaction.

IFTTT lets you create "recipes" using channels, which consist of the Web services that are the building blocks of all that IFTTT can do. Channels include Facebook, Evernote, Email—and, of course, Dropbox. As of this writing, 68 channels are available on IFTTT. To create a recipe, you select the first channel and then the trigger (the "If This" part). Once you've chosen a channel, IFTTT displays applicable triggers. The trigger is the action that must occur for the result to happen. In the case of Dropbox, a trigger could be a file or photo arriving in your Dropbox.

Not sure what you can do with IFTTT? The service offers community 'recipes' that you can adapt for yourself.

After selecting the trigger, you choose the channel and the action (the "Then That" part)—what IFTTT will do when the trigger occurs. You can use IFTTT to automate much of the work you do in Dropbox, or ask it to notify you when actions occur. You could, for example, ask to receive a text message anytime a photo is saved in your Dropbox. Or you could automatically save all Gmail attachments to Dropbox, or save all of your Instagram snapshots to Dropbox.

The list goes on and on, but the end result is the same: You save time while getting things done. IFTTT is a complex but extremely powerful service that can make Dropbox a lot more flexible and useful. It does take some time to understand, though, and I recommend browsing the wide selection of public recipes that the service shares. They're very helpful for demonstrating just what IFTTT can do, and you can use any of them on your own account.

IFTTT can, for example, save any Instagram photos directly to your Dropbox.

Send to Dropbox

IFTTT offers plenty of options for adding content to your Dropbox automatically—enough options to overwhelm. If you're seeking a simpler way to send content directly to Dropbox, Send to Dropbox has you covered. This free service generates an email address, and any attachments sent to that address automatically get saved to Dropbox.

The free version of Send to Dropbox doesn't allow you to create a custom address.

Getting started with Send to Dropbox is a breeze: Just connect it to your Dropbox account, and it instantly generates an email address for you. Remembering it may be a challenge, though: My address contained a short, but random, string of numbers and letters.

Upgrading to the $29-per-year Pro account lets you customize your email address, which is a nice feature for business users—especially for sharing the address with colleagues. The Pro account also provides for multiple addresses and an email whitelist, so you can control who can send files to your Dropbox.

By default, Send to Dropbox saves your files to a new folder it creates in your Dropbox called "Apps/Attachments." You can change this name and add subfolders that contain the name of the sender and the subject line, if you prefer. However, you can't share this folder with other Dropbox users, as it is a special type of folder for Dropbox applications.

By default, Send to Dropbox saves files to a folder it creates, but you can create subfolders in there, if you'd like.

In my tests, all of the attachments sent to my Send to Dropbox address appeared in Dropbox almost instantly and were organized in the folders I'd selected. If you're looking for a quick way to send files to Dropbox, Send to Dropbox can't be beat.

Adding up to a better Dropbox

Dropbox doesn't need much help. After all, it's already simple to use and incredibly convenient. But whether you're looking to access more files, add security, automate your tasks, or listen to music, there's a Dropbox app to make your life a little easier. And chances are, it's free.

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Office 2010 Activation Fails with Error 0x80070190

This was odd, I just installed a volume licensed copy of Office 2010 Standard on a fresh Windows 7 x64 workstation and after opening Word or Excel the activation message comes up. I tried activating over the Internet and continued to get failures with the Error code 0x80070190. I then opened Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14\ and right clicked on Excel and chose 'Run as Administrator'. The activation window came up and I executed it and it activated fine. Weird, but there you go.

Reference: full fart i norge: Office 2010 SP2 activation fails with error 0x80070190

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

This Week's Reading - 20130826

Rim Fire Perspectives Map & Satellite Images | Esri Disaster Map

How to Build a Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V Test Lab - Petri

Monday, August 19, 2013

This Week's Reading - 20130819

Saving documents to your Mac rather than iCloud | Macworld

Sync Office 365 with AD: Directory Synchronization - Petri

How to move files between accounts in OS X | MacFixIt - CNET Reviews

I Can't create system image - shadow size error - Windows 7 Help Forums

Broken Google Earth version 7 and up on Mac? Delete it, install GE 6.2.x and Update Uninstaller.

Google Earth 7.0.1 on Mac OSX 10.8.2 crashes on any search - Google Groups

Introducing New Company Page Analytics

Sync Office 365 with AD: Install Directory Synchronization - Petri

Switch to Mac: How to find your favorite Windows features in OS X | Macworld

Two free and easy ways to share big files | Macworld

Will Windows Server 2012 R2 Features Affect BYOD Adoption? - Petri

Top Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V Virtualization Features - Petri

Understanding default permissions in OS X | MacFixIt - CNET Reviews

How to migrate Time Machine backups to a new drive | MacFixIt - CNET Reviews

Sunday, August 18, 2013

Why can’t email be secure? | Silent Circle Blog [feedly]

Shared via feedly // published on Silent Circle Blog // visit site

Coming on the heels of our announcement that we had shut down our Silent Mail service, we received a comment about securing email communications.

In a recent press release, your company stated it was impossible to secure email communication 'as we know it'. To me, it would seem to be a very easily solvable problem. Simply write a plug in for popular email applications that automatically applies asymmetric key cryptography to any emails being exchanged between people who both possess the plugin. Granted this would not work until the keys were exchanged but the plugin would make that trivial.

If the goal is simply to encrypt the body of the message there are services and products that accomplish this. You could use traditional PGP/SMIME to encrypt the body of the message. If you were to do this, you would still have to manage the keys yourself. You could go a step further and have a server that manages keys/users for you, or a collection of federated servers. Such a beast might look very much like the PGP Universal server. For an individual, a server, or collection of them probably isn't practical. For a company, it could make sense.

One would encrypt the body of the message if it contains information that is more important than the meta data of who is communicating, and how often. For example, a company could want to protect intellectual property this way. An individual could want to send tax documents to their accountant. In both cases, who is communicating with whom is less important than what is said in the body of the message.

If your goal is to not have metadata leakage in your otherwise secure communications, you may wish to avoid email altogether. Email leaks the information about who is communicating, and how often. This information may be just as damaging as the content of the email. For example, a freedom fighter working in an oppressive country, trying to get the word out.

In the above scenario, you suggest a plugin that would exchange information, such as keys (required to perform public key cryptography). Lets assume for a moment that nobody uses webmail, and everybody uses an email client that can accept this plugin. Email works by finding the domain for a given user and sending mail to the server claiming responsibility for the address. The user is not required to be online.

If you put a plugin in your email client that needs to exchange keys with another party, you would require that the other party be online at the time you wish to send your message. That's awkward when you wish to email somebody half-way around the world from where I am. This plugin would have to communicate over a defined port. Communication over this port could imply you are trying to send an encrypted message to somebody. Its unlikely you could use a well known port (such as tcp/443), because most ISPs block that kind of traffic inbound.

Additionally, email provides no means to secure the headers (routing information, and the envelope). The routing information, which is visible by looking at the headers of any email message, by design, is all unencrypted. Any server in the path between sender and recipient, can view any portion of the headers, as they are stored as plain text in the beginning of the message.

The following is a sample set of received headers that has been sanitized.

Received: from host.local (some.corp.domain.tld [192.168.0.58])  (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits))  (No client certificate requested)  (Authenticated sender: user@my.domain.tld)  by my.domain.tld (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id C4C328BF  for ; Mon, 29 Jul 2013 14:15:22 -0700 (PDT)  Received: by host.local (Postfix, from userid 501)  Subject: Pricing info for blasting caps

The above sample is a simple case, which is a simple case of one server connecting to another server and sending a message to a user on that server. You can see the name of the host that connected, the IP of the machine that connected, the recipient of the message, whether or not encryption was used, and if so, what kind of cipher and key size). None of this can be encrypted if you want to be compatible with current email protocols. The time and timezone can be equally valuable. You can also pull the subject, sender metadata (To, From, MUA, etc) which is also stored and transmitted in the clear. So a PGP-encrypted message with the subject line "Pricing info for blasting caps" may be sort of ridiculous. You can also learn a lot from frequency and who is associating with whom but that's a separate post about traffic analysis probably. MUA tells what kind of platform someone is using, sometimes even versions. You could probably have a lot of fun talking about that.

The above sample uses TLS to secure the communication between the client and host mailserver. In order to prevent a 3rd party from being able to view the message as it moves from server to server, all links would need to support, and use, TLS. Steve Gibson (GRC) recently did a survey of 4 major mail providers in the US. Hotmail, AOL, Yahoo, and GMail. The only one to even offer TLS was GMail. While they offer a secure communication between the client and their own mail server, email that gets sent to another provider is all sent in the clear.

As you can see, email security has become more complex than it used to be. In the past, securing the body of the message was sufficient. The tools and techniques used for snooping were not on a large enough scale to allow the metadata to be useful. With the tapping of backbone internet providers, interested parties can now see all traffic on the internet. The days where it was possible for two people to have a truly private conversation over email, if they ever existed, are long over.

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Friday, August 16, 2013

Buying Guide: Best business printer: 10 top printers for your office

TechRadar: All latest feeds Buying Guide: Best business printer: 10 top printers for your office

The sheer range of printers is bewildering and with the many manufacturers in the market after your money, making the right decision can be tough. It's doubly tough when you realise why there's so much competition; the real money is made on the many consumables your business will be purchasing to maintain that new printer purchase. What might initially seem modest costs can soon add up over time.

So where do you need to start? Even the most modest of offices will likely be networked and sharing a resource as useful as a printer is an essential. So you should only be looking at printers that are capable of networked use. Wired offers speed and robust function for a fixed office. Wireless is flexible, cheap to deploy but not as fast in use.

Multi-function features can be found across the board and at all cost scales. Basic features start with USB Key and card readers for PC-free printing, moving to scanner and copier functions. At the higher end automatic document feeders (ADF) can manage 50 copies in a single go and produce booklets including duplex printing, stapling and folding. Often the basic ADF features will accommodate most medium-sized offices.

In the past there has been a marked difference in Cost Per Page (CPP) between lasers and inkjets but in recent years inkjets have managed to drop their prices to compete. Either way it's important you carefully assess the CPP of each device. Manufacturers measure the toner or cartridge yields with an industry standard ISO rating. So you can safely assess the total price of replacing all the cartridges or toners divided by the print yield across all the potential models.

The total volume of prints you're going to make also needs to be taken into account. Devices often quote a "duty cycle" monthly maximum and recommended figures. These are the total number of prints it's designed to handle per month. If possible assess the number of prints per employee for the office and ensure the device is capable of meeting your current and future demands.

Finally in the past colour especially for laser printers has demanded a premium, that's not so much the case these days. However these models are still more expensive due to the additional materials required for the toners and printer manufacture. There's still a big enough differential that if you don't need regular colour you should opt for a mono model, perhaps using a cheaper inkjet or even out-of-house printing for occasional colour requirements.

Here in no particular order, are the top ten printers for businesses large and small, from a basic monochrome lasers suitable for a small business and a home office through to a small departmental multifunction printer.

Samsung ML-2165W

1/ Samsung ML-2165W

From £50 ex VAT

The notion of the large, expensive laser printer should have long been dispelled and if nothing else can do that then the Samsung ML-2165W will. This small-footprint mono printer costs less than many inkjets but has the capability to provide basic wireless-based print services to a home office or smaller office.

With a rating for up to 10,000 pages per month and an A4 print speed of up to 20 pages per minute its small size shouldn't hide the fact that this could be a little workhorse. Its biggest main limiting factor is the single 150-sheet paper tray.

The single consumable is the drum and toner cartridge that comes with a 1,500 page yield.

With an equivalent 1200 dpi printer output it makes a good job of producing clear, crisp text in no time. The single consumable is the printer toner that comes in 1500 page yield capacity. These are well priced and easily replaced. Beyond these basics the Samsung ML-2165W has little to offer, which does limit its appeal even for home office users never mind a smaller sized office.

HP LaserJet Pro M1217nfw

2/ HP LaserJet Pro M1217nfw

From £113 ex VAT

The HP LaserJet Pro M1217nfw isn't going to win any design awards but what it lacks in aesthetics it really does make up for in functionality. This entry-level office multi-function mono laser printer offers all the standard print, copy, scan and fax features you'd want to see in an office workhorse. Add to that wired Ethernet networking alongside wireless networking and it has all the connectivity too.

Suited to the home and smaller small office, it has a conveniently compact footprint, until you open its paper trays to print. A top speed of 18ppm is good for this class of printer, particularly since the machine gets close to that speed under test. Its basic, 150-sheet paper tray has no dust cover, though, and the output tray sticks out in a fairly easy-to-knock way.

Making up for this is the inclusion of a 35-sheet automatic document feeder, its ability to multitask with print and copy jobs and the low running costs. Print quality is also excellent in terms of both its text and greyscale images. Oddly for HP the built-in controls are somewhat lacking, with just a two-line LCD display.

Epson WorkForce Pro WP-4535DWF

3/ Epson WorkForce Pro WP-4535DWF Inkjet Multifunction

From £150 ex VAT

One of Epson's range of small business inkjet multifunctions, this machine really can out-perform an equivalent colour laser in several important ways. Whether you look at feature set, speed or running costs, there aren't many lasers at this price that come close.

This machine gives a genuine 13ppm on long documents and, what is more impressive, 8.5 sides per minute when printing duplex, over double the duplex speed of most sub-£200 colour lasers. Paper handling comprises both a 250-sheet main tray and an 80-sheet rear tray, suitable for envelopes or photo paper. The Automatic Document Feed is also duplex, so it can copy double-sided in a single pass.

Three different yields of ink cartridge are available and the highest yield gives a print cost of 1.8p for black and 5.0p for colour. These are cost levels well below those of colour lasers and the printer has the further advantage of being able to print on glossy photo paper.

Full fax functionality is built in, with 60 quick dials, and the machine offers wireless, Ethernet and USB connections. The front-panel USB socket will output scans, but can't be used to print from, one of this machine's few missed tricks.

Canon i-SENSYS MF4890dw

4/ Canon i-SENSYS MF4890dw Mono Laser Multifunction

From £188 ex VAT

Canon doesn't sell as many laser printers and multifunctions as HP, but it does, of course, make their print engines. Pretty much the same gear is used in the company's equivalent models and they're often slightly cheaper, too.

Canon's i-SENSYS MF4890dw is aimed at the small business market and includes a couple of unusual extras for a printer in this price bracket. For a start, it has a duplex scanner, as well as a duplex print engine, so it can produce two-sided copies in a single job.

A 250-sheet paper tray is supplemented by a single-sheet special media slot and the feed tray has a cover, to protect against spillages. The printer offers USB and Ethernet connections, but also supports wireless, with WPS setup for quick connection. Canon provides a print App for iOS and Android phones, too, giving easy print from a variety of mobile devices.

The printer is rated at 25ppm and we saw over 21ppm under test, a good speed for this class of multifunction. The 50-sheet ADF gave fast scan speeds too, including when copying duplex. Print quality is good for text, but only fair on greyscales, where some darker shades have a tendency to black out.

Lexmark T560n Mono Laser Printer

5/ Lexmark T650n Mono Laser Printer

From £205 ex VAT

Sometimes compromise won't do and the Lexmark T650n is a no compromise type of mono laser printer.

Suitable for any workgroup sized installation everything about the Lexmark T650n is robust. It has a maximum monthly duty cycle of 200,000 pages with a recommended number of 20,000 pages. It has a main paper tray of 250-sheets, with a supplementary 100-sheet multi-purpose tray, which folds down from the front of the machine. There are a number of optional paper handling extras, building to a maximum capacity of a fairly staggering 4,000 sheets.

Other options include a complete scanner unit, converting the printer into an MFP. If you need duplex print, you can pay extra for the T650dn and if you need the extra paper capacity from the start, the T650tdn provides this.

This model lacks a duplexer but that's found on the Lexmark T650dn, while the T650dtn offers the extended paper trays as default.

These models all offer the same 45 page per minute print speeds, which isn't the fastest printer we've seen, but it certainly delivers enough throughput to remain impressively fast. If you do want more speed the Lexmark T654 has a more powerful print engine.

With good graphics and text output alongside it's low running costs this mono laser will happily keep any office running smoothly, while it retains a very low cost of ownership.

Brother MFC-J4510DW

6/ Brother MFC-J4510DW Inkjet Multifunction

From £217 ex VAT

Earlier this year Brother brought out a range of small footprint multifunction inkjets which could print occasional A3 as well as A4 pages. The company achieved this by a bit of lateral thinking, and printed A4 pages in landscape mode, in strips from top to bottom.

This increases the print speed slightly; Brother claims 12ppm and we saw over 11ppm on test. It also makes the printer quite noisy, though, particularly when feeding paper. There's a basic 150-sheet paper tray, plus a single-sheet rear feed.

The MFC-J4510DW includes an ADF in its completely flat top and can print duplex, though only copy single-sided, unless you duplex manually.

Print can be a little fuzzy, but is generally good enough for SOHO use. A3 pages have to be fed through the small guides at the back of the printer which is fiddly, but OK occasionally.

The ink cartridges give page costs of around 3p and 7p for black and colour pages, which are good compared to colour lasers but can be bettered on inkjet machines, like the Epson WorkForce Pro. If space is at a premium and you have a use for occasional A3 print, this machine will be an economical fit in your office.

Samsung CLP-620ND

7/ Samsung CLP-620ND Colour Laser Printer

From £235 ex VAT

This is a colour laser printer, plain and simple. It's a tall machine, due to the arrangement of its four drum and toner cartridges inside, but this also means a relatively small footprint on the desk.

The printer is fitted with a 250-sheet main paper tray and a 50-sheet multi-purpose tray which folds down from the front. A further 500-sheet tray is an option. Controls are adequate, with a two-line LCD display and a ring of buttons for basic menu navigation, but most control comes through USB or Ethernet connections.

The printer is aimed at office or small workgroup and has a high-rated colour speed of 20ppm. We saw 16ppm under test, in both colour and black print. Unusually for a colour laser, duplex print is standard on the CLP-620ND and we achieved 8 sides per minute. All of these are fair speeds, though not up to departmental standards.

Print quality is very good, with crisp black print and more than adequate colour. Even photos print reasonably well, usually a hard task for a colour laser. Page costs come out at 3p and 10.5p, so black print is low cost, while colour is comparatively pricey. This is a good colour workhorse for everyday print, where colour isn't a major part of the mix.

HP LaserJet Pro 300

8/ HP LaserJet Pro 300 colour MFP M375nw Colour Laser Multifunction

From £360 ex VAT

This is a heavyweight colour laser multifunction intended for small business or workgroup use. Its slabby black and white design is functional and includes a large touchscreen for control, though the printer is only rated at a typical 1,500 pages per month, which is quite low for its class.

It includes a 50-sheet automatic document feeder, which is bulky, given it doesn't handle duplex scans. There's no duplex print on the machine, either, which is a little surprising in a machine at this price.

It's rated at 18ppm for both black and colour print, though we only saw about 14ppm when we tested it. This is a still a fair turn of speed, and copies come through quickly, too. It can handle input from USB, Ethernet or via wireless link, with support for iOS and Android mobiles. A front panel USB offers scanning to and printing from USB drives.

The four toner cartridges give calculated running costs of around 3p for black pages and about 12p for colour. Again, the colour cost is a bit high, compared with some other lasers and a lot of inkjets.

Print quality is good, particularly on black text and colour graphics and photo images are above average too.

Dell C3765dnf

9/ Dell C3765dnf Colour Laser Printer

From £500 ex VAT

The Dell C3765dnf simply does so much, so well that it's hard not to heartedly recommend. That's not to say it's going to suit every office perfectly but then that's why we have nine other choices.

To start this is a workgroup-class fast multi-function colour laser with a suitably-high duty cycle of 80,000 pages and an optional extra-high capacity black toner with a 11,000 page print yield. It's these types of features that help this service a large busy office without breaking into a sweat.

Digging a little deeper for a colour laser Dell gets you pile more functionality, this Gigabit Ethernet network printer offers a 550-sheet and 150-sheet input tray with an optional second 550-sheet tray for a maximum 1250 sheets.

It's no slouch in use rated at up to 35 pages per minute for both colour and mono documents. It has full-auto duplex printing too that only drops the speed to 23 page per minute. For full compatibility it offers the standard PCL6 and Postscript 3 driver support alongside XPS. In general use the print quality of the Dell is sound with its graphics if anything being slightly ahead of its text. What's also impressive is that print costs are low for such a class of colour laser printer.

Additionally the Dell comes with Nuance's PaperPort Pro 14 to help manage your businesses work flow, and includes security features such as LDAP, Kerberos authentication and the ability to add 10-digit passwords to documents for printing.

OKI C822

10/ OKI C822 A3 Colour LED Printer

From £606 ex VAT

Paying a premium for A3 printing is expected, but at least the OKI C822 A3 colour laser manages to take most of the sting out of that premium.

It's a wired Ethernet networked printer and with a monthly duty cycle of 50,000 pages and recommended usage of 5,000 per month making it suitable for a medium-sized office. This is backed up by its decent 23 page per minute throughput and its base 400-sheet input and the option to expand this to a solid 930-sheets.

It has the usual bland OKI office styling, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Running costs for an A3 printer are actually excellent with A4 mono and colour costs as good as most smaller lasers.

The main disappointment for the OKI is its colour output that's somewhat washed out, text however is excellent, making it useful for producing presentations and in-house drafts. This model does lack duplex printing but that is available on the more expensive OKI C822dn model.

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Tuesday, August 13, 2013

This Week's Reading - 20130812

Enable Secure LDAP on Server 2008/2012 DCs: Configuration - Petri

Turn a photo mistake into a great shot | TechHive

How to fill an uneditable PDF form in OS X | MacFixIt - CNET Reviews

Setting up a networked printer | News | TechRadar

10 best practices for SMB Web sites - TechRepublic

Enable Disk Quotas in Windows Server 2012 - Petri

How to pipe command output to the clipboard in OS X | MacFixIt - CNET Reviews

10 virtualization tips every administrator should consider - TechRepublic

Four excellent Dropbox alternatives for your small-business storage needs | PCWorld

How non-Dropbox users can send files to your Dropbox account | PCWorld

Plex Media Server Part 1 | Technology - Todd Olthoff Blog

Active Directory Integration with Office 365: Directory Sync - Petri

7 Reasons Office 365 Will Succeed - Petri

Thursday, August 8, 2013

10 things you shouldn't virtualize

10 Things 10 things you shouldn't virtualize

Virtualization delivers a host of benefits -- but that doesn't mean that everything is a good fit for a virtual environment. Here are 10 things that should probably stay physical.

Virtualization provides a solid core of benefits -- cost savings, system consolidation, better use of resources, and improved administrative capabilities -- but it's important to remember that supporting the goals of the business are the reason IT departments exist in the first place. Virtualizing everything as far as the eye can see without analyzing the consequences is like what comedian Chris Rock said about driving a car with your feet: You can do it, but that doesn't make it a good idea.

The first step in any virtualization strategy should involve envisioning disaster recovery if you put all your eggs in the proverbial basket. Picture how you would need to proceed if your entire environment were down -- network devices, Active Directory domain controllers, email servers, etc. What if you've set up circular dependencies that will lock you out of your own systems? For instance, if you configure VMware's vCenter management server to depend on Active Directory for authentication, it will work fine so long as you have a domain controller available. But if your virtualized domain controller is powered off, that could be a problem. Of course, you can set up a local logon account for vCenter or split your domain controllers between virtual and physical systems, but the above situation represents a good example of how it might be possible to paint yourself into a corner.

In my experience, some things just aren't a good fit for a virtual environment. Here is my list of 10 things that should remain physical entities.

1: Anything with a dongle/required physical hardware

This one is a no-brainer, and it's been repeated countless times elsewhere, but -- like fire safety tips -- just because it may be a well-known mantra doesn't make it less significant. Believe it or not, some programs out there still require an attached piece of hardware (such as a dongle) to work. This piece of hardware is required by licensing for the program to work properly (to prevent piracy, for instance).

Case in point: An HVAC system for a client of mine ran on a creaking old desktop. The heating-and-cooling program required the use of a serial-attached dongle to administer the temperature, fans, etc. We tried valiantly to virtualize this system in a VMware ESXi 4.0 environment, using serial port pass through and even a USB adapter, but no luck. (I have heard this function may work in ESXi 5.) Ironically, this would have worked better using VMware workstation instead of the ESX environment, which did allow the pass-through functionality. But there was little point in hosting a VM on a PC, so we rebuilt the physical system and moved on.

This rule also applies to network devices like firewalls that use ASICs (application-specific integrated circuits) and switches that use GBICs (Gigabit interface converters). I have not found relevant information as to how these can be converted to a virtual environment. Even if you think you might cobble something together to get it to work, is it really worth the risk of downtime and administrative headaches, having a one-off setup like that?

2: Systems that require extreme performance

A computer or application that gobbles up RAM usage, disk I/Os, and CPU utilization (or requires multiple CPUs) may not be a good candidate for virtualization. Examples include video streaming, backup, database, and transaction processing systems. These are all physical boxes at my day job for this reason. Because a virtual program or machine runs in a "layer" on its host system, there will always be some level of performance sacrifice to the overhead involved, and the sacrifice likely tips the balance in favor of keeping it physical.

You might mitigate the issue by using a dedicated host with just the one program or server, but that detracts from the advantage of virtualization, which allows you to run many images on a dedicated physical server.

3: Applications/operating systems with license/support agreements that don't permit virtualization

This one is fairly self-explanatory. Check the license and support contract for anything before you virtualize it. You may find that you can't do that per the agreement, or if you proceed you'll be out of luck when it comes time to call support.

If it's a minor program that just prints out cubicle nameplates and the support agreement doesn't cover (or mention) virtualized versions, you might weigh the risk and proceed. If it's something mission critical, however, pay heed and leave it physical.

Which brings me to my next item…

4: Anything mission critical that hasn't been tested

You probably wouldn't be likely to take your mortgage payment to Las Vegas, put it down on at the roulette table, and then bet on black. For that matter, you definitely wouldn't gamble it all on number 7. The same goes for systems or services your company needs to stay afloat that you haven't tested on a virtual platform. Test first even if it takes time. Get a copy of the source (use Symantec Ghost or Acronis True Image to clone it if you can). Then, develop a testing plan and ensure that all aspects of the program or server work as expected. Do this during off-hours if needed. Believe me, finding problems at 11 PM on a Wednesday night is far preferable to 9 AM Thursday. Always leave the original source as is (merely shut it off, but don't disconnect/remove/uninstall) until you're sure the new destination works as you and your company anticipates. There's never a hurry when it comes to tying up loose ends.

5: Anything on which your physical environment depends

There are two points of failure for any virtual machine -- itself and its host. If you have software running on a VM that unlocks your office door when employees swipe their badges against a reader, that's going to allow them in only if both the VM and its parent system are healthy.

Picture arriving to work at 8 AM Monday to find a cluster of people outside the office door. "The badge reader isn't accepting our IDs!" they tell you. You deduce a system somewhere in the chain is down. Now what? Hope your master key isn't stored in a lockbox inside the data center or you'll have to call your security software vendor. Meanwhile, as employees depart for Dunkin' Donuts to let you sort out the mess, that lost labor will quickly pile up.

It may not just be security software and devices at stake here. I have a client with a highly evolved VMware environment utilizing clustering and SAN storage. And yet if they clone four virtual machines simultaneously, their virtualized Exchange 2010 Client Access Server will start jittering, even though it runs on another server with a separate disk (datastore). That server is being converted to a physical system to heal the issue. Yes, there is probably further tweaking and analysis that could be done to fix this, but in my client's view, solid Exchange connectivity is too valuable for them to experiment behind the scenes and hope for the best.

6: Anything on which your virtual environment depends

As I mentioned in the introduction, a circular dependency (such as a virtual domain controller being required to log into the virtual environment) puts you at a great risk once the inevitable downtime arrives -- and yes, even in clustered, redundant environments that day will come. Power is the big wildcard here, and if you live in the Northeast like me, I bet you've seen your share of power outages spike up just over the past five years.

I grouped this separately from the previous item because it requires a different way of thinking. Whereas you need to figure out the layout of your physical environment to keep the video cameras up and running, you need to map out your virtual environment, including the host systems, virtual images, authentication, network, storage, and even electrical connectivity. Take each item out of the mix and then figure out what the impact will be. Set up physically redundant systems (another domain controller, for instance) to cover your bases.

7: Anything that must be secured

This is a slightly different from rule #5. Any system containing secure information that you do not want other staff to access may be a security risk if virtualized. You can set up permissions on virtual machines to restrict others from being able to control them, but if those staff members have the ability to control the host systems your controls might be circumvented. They might still be able to copy the VMware files elsewhere, shut down the server, etc.

The point of this is not to say you should be suspicious of your IT staff, but there may be compliance guidelines or regulations that prohibit anyone other than your group from maintaining control of the programs/data/operating system involved.

8: Anything on which time sync is critical

Time synchronization works in a virtual environment -- for instance, VMware can sync time on a virtual machine with the host ESX server via the VMware tools application, and of course the operating systems themselves can be configured for time sync. But what if the operating systems forget or the host ESX server time is wrong? I observed this latter issue just a few weeks back. A set of virtual images had to have GMT for their processing software to work, but the ESX host time was incorrect, leading to a frustrating ordeal trying to figure out why the time on the virtual systems wouldn't stick properly.

This problem can be reined in by ensuring all physical hosts use NTP to standardize their clocks, but mistakes can still occur and settings can be lost or forgotten upon reboot. I've noticed this happening on several other occasions in the VMware ESX realm, such as after patching. If the system absolutely has to have to correct time, it may be better to keep it off the virtual stage.

9: Desktops that are running just fine

In the push for VDI (virtualized desktop infrastructure), some companies may get a bit overzealous in defining "what should be virtualized" as "anything that CAN be virtualized." If you've got a fleet of PCs two or three years old, don't waste time converting them into VDI systems and replacing them with thin clients. There's no benefit or cost savings to that plan, and in fact it's a misuse of the benefits of virtualization.

It's a different story with older PCs that are sputtering along, or systems that are maxed out and need more juice under the hood. But otherwise, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

10: Anything that is already a mess… or something sentimental

On more than one occasion I've seen a physical box transformed into a virtual machine so it can then be duplicated and preserved. In some situations, this has been helpful; but in others it has actually led to keeping an old cluttered operating system around far longer than it should have been. For example, a Windows XP machine already several years old was turned into a virtual image. As is, it had gone through numerous software updates, removals, readditions, etc. Fast forward a few more years (and MORE OS changes) and it's no surprise that now this XP system is experiencing strange issues with CPU overload and horrible response time. A new one is being built from scratch to replace it entirely. The better bet here would have been to create a brand new image from the start and install the necessary software in an orderly fashion, rather than bringing that banged-up OS online as a virtual system with all of its warts and blemishes.

The same goes for what I call "sentimental" systems. That label printing software that sits on an NT server and has been in your company for 15 years? Put it on an ice floe and wave good-bye. Don't be tempted to turn it into a virtual machine to keep it around just in case (I've found "just in case" can be the three most helpful and most detrimental words in IT) unless there is absolutely 0% chance of replacing it. However, if this is the case, don't forget to check rule #3!

Bonus: The physical machines hosting the virtual systems

I added this one in tongue-in-cheek, fashion, of course. It's intended to serve as a reminder that you must still plan to buy physical hardware and know your server specs, performance and storage needs, network connectivity, and other details to keep the servers -- and subsequently the virtual systems -- in tiptop shape. Make sure you're aware of the ramifications and differences between what the hosts need and what the images need, and keep researching and reviewing the latest updates from your virtualization providers.

Conclusion

As times change, these rules might change as well. Good documentation, training, and an in-depth understanding of your environment are crucial to planning the best balance of physical and virtual computing. Virtualization is a thing of beauty. But if a physical host goes down, the impact can be harsh -- and might even make you long for the days of "one physical server per function." As is always the case with any shiny new technology (cloud computing, for instance), figure out what makes sense for your company and its users and decide how you can best approach problems that can and will crop up.