Vista and XP Downgrades, Pt. 2: SATA RAID

The deluge has begun. We are seeing people walking into the store with new PC's and a retail box of XP in their hands and it can only mean one thing.

We have come upon some interesting kinks in the upgrade process. Yesterday's treat: Some of the new HP Presario machines with Intel chipsets are shipping with single SATA disks but with the RAID mode turned on. This causes all kinds of problems for the XP installer which does not have drivers for these new Intel Matrix storage chipsets.

We fought with it a lot. Of course most new PC's do not have floppy disks, so the traditional process of downloading the XP drivers to a floppy and pressing F6 during the XP installation start-up is immensely complicated.

Our solution which has worked so far: Go into the PC BIOS, and set the default SATA operations mode from RAID to IDE. This will emulate a traditional single-IDE disk drive and the XP installer will run.

Vista Upgrade Diary, Pt. 1

Well, I've decided to take the plunge and put Vista on my laptop and work with it every day. John, the owner has been running it on his PC for about four months and he hasn't taken a sledgehammer to it yet, so I'll see.

I will say this, it is now six months on into Vista's launch and I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of PC's on which we've worked on Vista. I'm not sure if that is relative to Vista's stability or to the lack of consumer uptake.

On to the nuts and bolts.

Part 1: Prepare Your System
Make sure you have a good backup of your currently running system. This means doing one of two things:

1. Using a disk imaging tool such as Acronis True Image to make a complete image of your current operating system, files and documents such that you can, if neccessary, just restore your entire pre-Vista operating system in place.


2. Doing a manual backup of your files to an external drive in case something happens during the upgrade.

I doing method two in combination with installing Vista clean onto a new hard drive. The down-side is that I will have to reinstall all my applications again. The upside is that I will have a clean disk and a clean Vista OS (as opposed to upgrading XP). Plus, if I end up hating Vista, I can just swap out disks and go back to the status quo ante.

I've taken the opportunity to upgrade the stock Matsushita 80GB 5200 RPM SATA drive in my HP nx9420 laptop to a new Seagate 100GB 7200RPM HD. I'm hoping the faster spindle speed on the Seagate drive will improve Vista's performance as I don't have a dedicated video card.

Backups done, I'm about to do the switch. More later. For your amusement, I have attached a humorous Vista Upgrade Decision Tree flowchart. Mildly offensive language. Click to enlarge.

iPhone: How Big Will It Be?

We don't deal much in Apple products at ENLLC. But we do deal in cell phones. We are a proud, U. S. Cellular dealer. And we are technology watchers and this blog is dedicated to distributing our technology wisdom to our customers and the rest of the world. So...

The introduction of the iPhone has been the most-hyped product introduction since... well since the Mac really. But does it live up to the hype? Early reports say, mostly yes. Does it have some quirks and shortcomings that all first generation products have? Certainly. The non-user replaceable battery is a biggie. But on the whole reviewers seem to agree that it is just as cool and paradigm-changing as the marketing hype makes it look. And quite frankly, if the thing does 80% of what is looks like it will do in the ads, as easily, it will going to do some major paradigm shifting. It is "a breakthrough," in the words of WSJ tech commentator, Walt Mossberg.

The iPhone's true measure will probably be more greatly felt a few years down the road, when the exclusive deal with AT&T expires and when the second (third?) generation iPhone starts to really move into the masses, when and if the iPhone installed base starts to push into say, the tens of millions.

How major an innovation is the iPhone? Well, let's look at a recent New York Magazine profile of Steve Jobs.

With the iPhone, in particular, he is hurling Apple into foreign waters. His motivations for doing so aren’t difficult to discern. Somewhere in the neighborhood of a billion cell phones are sold worldwide every year; in terms of scale, ubiquity, and relevance, it’s the mother of all consumer-electronics markets. The chance to upend this sprawling industry, bend it to his will, is one that Jobs, being Jobs, finds irresistible.

Apple’s competitors, by contrast, find the prospect of the iPhone terrifying. “The entire [expletive] Western world hopes that it’s a case of imperial overstretch,” says the CEO of one of the planet’s largest communications companies. “But everybody is quietly saying, er, what if people want to buy a $500 phone? What if, er, people have been waiting for a device that does all these things? What if this thing works as advertised? I mean, my God, what then?”

Indeed. What then? What if Apple starts moving iPhones in numbers comparable to the iPod, at 16 million a month.

What then is that the mobile computing industry -- and increasingly, that is what cellphones are morphing into; Apple has merely finished the job that was started by the Blackberry and the Treo -- is going to have to get really serious. Serious about innovation, serious about quality, serious about customer service and serious about interface design and function.

One of my favorite business bloggers, Barry Ritholtz of The Big Picture, posts the big lessons and hard questions that are going to be asked not only of cellphone companies, but of all of us who run businesses in the wake of this.

1. 1. Committees Suck: The old joke is that a Camel is a Horse designed by a committee. As we have seen all too often, what comes out of large corporations are bland-to-ugly items that (while functional and reliable) do not excite consumers.
   
   When a company decides to break the committee mindset and give a great designer the reins, you get terrific products that sell well. The Chrysler 300 does not looks like it was designed by a corporate committee. Think of Chris Bangle's vision for BMW -- and its huge sales spike -- and you can see what the upside is in having a visionary in charge of design.


Better pick a damned good one, though . . .


2. 2. Present Interfaces Stink: How bad is the present Human Interface of most consumer items? Leaving the improving, but still too hard to use Windows aside for a moment, let's consider the mobile phone market: It was so kludgy and ugly that the entire 100 million unit, multi-billion dollar industry now finds itself at risk of being completely bypassed, all because some geek from California wanted a cooler and easier to use phone.


What other industries may be at risk?


3. 3. Industrial Design Matters: We have entered a period where industrial design is a significant element in consumer items. From the VW Bug to the iPod, good design can take a ho-hum ordinary product and turn it into a sales winner.



4. 4. R&D is Paramount: While most of corporate America is slashing R&D budgets (and buying back stock), the handful of companies who have plowed cash back into R&D are the clear market leaders this cycle: Think Apple, Google (Maps, Search), Toyota (Hybrid), Nintendo (Wii). A well designed, innovative product can create -- or upend -- an entire market. Even Microsoft did it with the X-box;


What other companies have the ability to disrupt an entire market?


5. 5. Disdain for the Consumer can be Fatal: As we have seen with Dell, Home Depot, The Gap, Sears, etc., the consumer experience is more important than most corporate management seem to realize. Ignore the public at your peril.

Vista and XP downgrades.

In the last week I have had one customer order a new PC with Vista preinstalled and one case of personally ordering one with Vista preinstalled instead of the XP option. Short of boxing the thing up and returning it to the store/distributor and getting one with XP -- if that is even available, getting harder to do -- what is one to do?

This is a topic that Microsoft has been rather weaselly on. But it is a hot topic. What exactly is one permitted to do?

One is permitted to downgrade Vista to XP subject to the following constraints:

• One must supply one's own XP installation media -- XP install CD's
  
  

  
  Per the EULA and OEM DTOS Agreement, the end user customer is responsible for supplying media for the OEM or customer to create the downgrade product image on the customer system. Neither Microsoft, the OEMs, nor the system builders are responsible for supplying this media.
  

  
  


• One must have a legitimate and UNACTIVATED Vista key. On a new PC this will usually be on a sticker on the CD case or on the bottom of a notebook.

Windows XP will not install on top of Vista. It will refuse to do so. Therefore the only option available to the user is to use the Windows XP installation program to reformat the hard drive (destroying all information thereon) then installing XP cleanly. Third party device drivers not included or supported on the version of the XP media one is using are the users' problem.

Once the activation screen appears for Windows XP the user must then use the telephone option (ONLY) to contact MS, inform them that they are preforming a downgrade from an OEM version of Vista. The user will then give the MS rep the Vista key on the sticker and the MS rep will give the user the activation code.

This is a one-time-only operation. If the user wished to go back to Vista later (s)he will have to purchase a retail Vista package. Microsoft's policy with new OEM operating systems; one OS one machine, forever.

Office 2003 end-of-the-road June 30 for OEMs.

Microsoft has announced that June 30, 2007 will be the end date for OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers, e.g. Dell, HP, Sony, etc.) to bundle Office 2003 with new PC's. After that it will be Office 2007 only. This comes only 5 months after the new office productivity suite's release.

I've been using it for about three or four months now. Be prepared for a shock. It's different, a lot different. One thing to be particularly aware of is that the native format for saving Office 2007 documents is the new (and open) Open Document format which is based on the widely-supported XML scheme. The bad news is that this is not compatible with older versions of the Office Suite. Fortunately, the Save As menu offers a helpful and easy-to-access Save As Word (or Excel of Power Point) 97-2003 feature.

That said, the Microsoft Open License program offers business users the opportunity to buy licenses with the rights to operate and install two generations back of the Office Suite. One license allows the enterprise to install either Office 2007, 2003 or XP. Yet another reason to eschew the OEM Office license.

Elements of E-Mail Style

I had some quality windshield time coming back into the office from a client this afternoon and caught a very interesting interview on NPR's Talk of the Nation. Authors David Shipley and Will Schwalbe of "Send" a book about surviving e-mail disasters (Reply to All) and getting the most out of e-mail to strangers (use a proper salutation and sign-off).

I've been using e-mail long enough to have been both victimized by and the recipient of many of their examples of e-mail disasters, faux pas, and cringe-worthy grammar. I can say that anyone who uses e-mail for any sort of professional correspondence should give this a listen or read the excerpt.

DRM House of Sand Begins to Fall

I'm in Cedar Rapids taking care of mom. But do check out the coverage of record label EMI's decision to drop digital rights management (aka DRM, aka "copy protection," aka crippleware) from all songs it sells through the iTunes Music Store.

This comes after Apple CEO, Steve Jobs' open letter to the music industry urging them to drop DRM because it does little or nothing to hinder piracy but does a lot to alienate customers.

This story follows the typical technoculture shift cycle of: enabling technology -> market disintermediation -> erosion of traditional business models. The kicker is that since the introduction of the enabling technologies (digital music, compression, broadband Internet) the traditional companies have been fighting their disintermediation tooth and nail, trying to use legislation to turn back the clock. Hence the Digital Millennium Copyright Act which makes it illegal to attempt to copy or to even try to figure out how the company goes about preventing copying of music (or videos, or ebooks) that you have paid for.

It has been obvious to everyone except the recording, TV and movie industries that these courses of action were unsustainable. Now, at last we have the first crack in what has heretofore been a solid wall in the entertainment industry with EMI being the first major to cave in. The others will stand on the sidelines and wait and see. But I think that their line will not be able to hold and we will be able to mark this as the beginning of the end of the old entertainment industry. What will replace it will be a new kind of market where customers are trusted and ala carte content becomes a commodity.

Vista: Priced to Move?

One reasonably cool thing about Vista is that all the code for all the versions are on one disk. Anytime one wants to upgrade one can do so with a purchased key. That's what's behind the Anytime Upgrade.

This week Microsoft announced some additional price deals that reduce the list price of a Vista upgrade. Ars Technica goes through the typically convoluted details. At the time discounts amount to about 10% off the Home Premium editions.

Is Microsoft already discounting to drive sales? That's hard to say and we have yet to see any sales data. Certainly Mister Softee is not waving the first month's sales data around, so we can surmise that sales haven't rocked the world.

Manufacturers are offering Vista more and more as the only option in their off-the-shelf computers. So, over time we will see a pretty strong Vista ecosystem in the home user base. But we have seen absolutely no rush to adopt Vista in business environments. We continue to advise our clients to wait for time to tell whether Vista makes sense.

The Hard Drive as Eye Candy

We use external hard drives for all sorts of utilitarian purposes, backing up client computers, moving large data sets from place to place, storing computer images, and increasingly frequently as a substitute for magnetic tape media in business backup solutions.

Until now, the external hard drive case has been uniformly gray or aluminum possibly pimped out with an LED or two. No more. today's New York Times has an article about the next generation of high-concept and high mobility hard drives.

LaCie has a new drive, the d2, with an aluminum alloy case designed by Neil Poulton, a Scotsman who has also created a line of Artemide lamps. Seagate will be selling Dave, a sleek 20-gigabyte drive that connects wirelessly to cellphones for carrying photos, music and video. It is no larger than a small cellphone itself.

Strong demand for external hard drives was one of the highlights in consumer electronics last year. Americans spent $600 million on external hard drives in 2006, an increase of 53 percent over 2005, according to NPD, a market research firm. Put another way, consumers bought 739.7 million gigabytes of hard-drive storage space last year, more than 11 times as much as they did in 2003.

The need to back up all the songs, photos, videos and movies Americans hold is, of course, driving the demand. The inevitable falling prices of the hard drive compels the manufacturers to gussy up the drives in order to command a premium price, much as Apple does with its PCs or iPods.

Daylight Savings Time - Neccesary Updates

It may not be Y2K all over again, but having daylight savings time start on March 11 this year could definetely goof some things up. Therefore you should take it seriously and spend an hour or two this week prepping your system(s) for... Black Sunday.

We kid, but here is the skinny.

For Home Users or Small Businesses:
You should have Microsoft Automatic Updates enabled. Ensure that this runs this week or run it manually by going to: http://update.microsoft.com.

If you are on a slow connection you can manually download the just the DST file you need for Windows XP here.

If you are not running Windows XP or are totally confused by all of the above, go here, for an interactive, step-by-step widget that will help you get everything you need.

To see if you already have the update you need, look in Add-Remove Programs in the Control Panel for Update KB931836. The best tool for checking the status of all installed windows patches is to use a third party utility. We recommend Belarc Advisor. It is free and safe. We use this tool all the time with complete confidence to build profiles of servers and other corporate installations.

For Corporate and Windows Server-Based Environments
Windows Servers will list all installed patches in the Add-Remove Programs window. Or just use Belarc to be sure.

There are a number of patches depending upon which network operating system you are running (Windows 2000 or 2003 Server) and what servcies and versions are running on them (Exchange, SQL, SharePoint). The main microsoft page on what updates are needed is here.

Generally the process goes like this:

1. Update server OS.


2. Update workstations' OS.


3. Update server programs and services

None of the server updates require a restart. We are updating most of our clients remotely this week and next.

For many users, one of the most important updates will be the Time Zone Data Update for Outlook. The client updater for Outlook is will download from this link.

Anyone running SUS or WUSUS just needs to approve the updates.

Not terribly complicated. An hour or two reading the documentation and downloading and installing patches is all you need in order to be able to fully enjoy that extra hour of bar time next week.

Security Warnings: Take With A Grain of Salt.

Several people have alerted us today to this CNN story:

A disgruntled hacker with a personal grudge against Symantec, which provides anti-virus software to leading Fortune 500 companies, could be behind a new, crippling computer virus that's already hit a division of at least one big U.S. corporation on Thursday.

If it spreads, technology experts warn the latest strains of the insidious RINBOT computer virus could hijack network systems of businesses worldwide.
New strains

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant with Boston-based IT security firm Sophos, said his company has been aware of "a number" of new versions of the RINBOT or DELBOT virus produced since Feb. 15.

"We believe this latest strain is the 7th version of RINBOT which first emerged in March 2005," Cluley said.

According to Cluley, this version is designed to exploit security vulnerabilities embedded in anti-virus software.

"Traditionally hackers always went after Microsoft's anti-virus programs. But now they're increasingly targeting other commonly used programs such as Symantec programs and others," he said.

Cluley said this strain appears to be hitting MS SQL servers. It looks for networks that run the Microsoft (Charts) Windows operating system, including Windows 2000, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT and Windows XP. It then spreads through the network by manipulating "weak" spots such as simple passwords.

However, a quick review of the major security websites doesn't show any unusual alerts. Trend Micro's alert board shows all low threat malware. Sophos, quoted in the CNN story does not show either RINBOT or DELBOT on its threat board.

Lesson One here is take media reports of security threats with a grain of salt and learn to check the major security websites before freaking out.
Lesson Two: Is that good security is a way of life. Your network (home or business) is either designed to be secure or it isn't.

If you have given some time and attenton to security; installing security software, ensuring that it self-updates, installing and locking down a hardware firewall, then you can pretty much put your mind at ease in these sorts of situations. Only people who have not spent that minimum amount of time and expense need to worry.

That said, all it takes is one person to open that interesting e-mail with the Viagra deal... and all your good work can come crashing down. Fun, eh?

Email Scam: Hit Man

We just received this from Iowa Telecom's network operation's center and has been confirmed by the FBI:

A new scam cropping up in e-mail boxes across the country is preying not on recipients’ greed or good intentions, but on their fears. The scam e-mail, which first appeared in December, threatens to kill recipients if they do not pay thousands of dollars to the sender, who purports to be a hired assassin.

About 115 complaints have been filed with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) since the scam emerged, according to special agent John Hambrick, who heads IC3. He said the extortion scam does not appear to target anyone specifically and that IC3 has not received any reports of money loss or threats carried out.

“This is a hoax, so do yourself a favor and don’t respond,” Hambrick said.

Replying to the e-mails just sends a signal to senders that they’ve reached a live account. It also escalates the intimidation, Hambrick said.

In one case, a recipient responded that he wanted to be left alone and threatened to call authorities. The scammer, who was demanding an advance payment of $20,000, e-mailed back and reiterated the threat, this time with some personal details about the recipient—his work address, marital status, and daughter’s full name. Then an ultimatum:

“TELL ME NOW ARE YOU READY TO DO WHAT I SAID OR DO YOU WANT ME TO PROCEED WITH MY JOB? ANSWER YES/NO AND DON’T ASK ANY QUESTIONS!!!”

Bill Shore, a special agent who supervises the computer crime squad in the FBI’s Pittsburgh field office, said recipients should not be overly spooked when scammers incorporate their intended victims’ personal details in their schemes.

“Personal information is widely available,” he said. “Even if a person does not use the Internet or own a computer, they could still be the victim of a computer crime such as identity theft.”

The extortion scam is a less subtle variation of some other e-mail scams designed to trick recipients into turning over money or personal information. Nigerian Letter schemes, in which recipients are offered the "opportunity" to share in a percentage of millions of dollars if they would first front some of their own money, are among the most prolific, along with phishing scams where recipients are asked in unsolicited e-mails to “update” their personal information.