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?