13. April 2010 by admin.

Yachts, if you can’t have automatic updates on all of the time - due to Internet bandwidth / cost constraints, then at least get the updates when you are in dock somewhere and can go on a less bandwith restricted or costly Internet connection. Apple Computer users don’t feel left out, and definately don’t feel bullet-proof. Apple Computer users make sure you are getting your updates as well. Mac OS X, according to comments on the same article quote below, has 88 vulnerabilities of recent vintage. Don’t kill the messenger here. I’m just repeating what has been said in the comments on this article. And someone provided a link to prove it.

– Alan Spicer

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/193871/batten_down_the_hatches_for_microsoft_and_adobe_patches.html?tk=nl_bax_h_cbintro

April 08, 2010 8:33 PM
Batten Down the Hatches for Microsoft and Adobe Patches

By Tony Bradley

Next Tuesday is both Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday for April, and Adobe’s quarterly patch release. Combined, there are a total of 27 vulnerabilities being patched in Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office, Adobe Acrobat, and the Acrobat Reader application. It will be a busy day for IT administrators and information security professionals to analyze and prioritize the deluge of updates.
It seems a little odd to have a Patch Tuesday so far into the month, but when the first of the month falls on a Thursday it takes longer to get to the second Tuesday of the month. Things also seem a little out of whack in terms of timing due to the out-of-band update Microsoft issued for Internet Explorer on March 30.

Nevertheless, Patch Tuesday is coming. Amol Sarwate, manager of Qualys’ Vulnerability Research Lab, e-mailed to provide some expert insight on what Microsoft has in store. “There are 11 security bulletins that affect a range of Windows operating system components as well as Microsoft Office and Microsoft Exchange. This is a fairly large update and will keep system administrators busy on Patch Tuesday.”

Sarwate explained “Out of the 11 security bulletins, five are rated Critical and affect components in Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 2003, 2008 and Windows 7. If left un-patched, an attacker could execute code or programs on the victim’s machine and therefore all are categorized as remote code execution.”

(more at the link above…)

—
Alan Spicer

DBA Alan Spicer Telcom / Alan Spicer Marine Telecom
Computer Services, Wired/Wireless Networking,
Cell/Sat/Landline Communications, General Consulting…
Marine, Business, Small Office and Home Office (SOHO)

* Cost Savings and Integration of Multiple Internet Technologies
on board Sail and Motor Yachts * Documentation, Operating
Instructions, and Support after the Sale *

* http://www.marinetelecom.net/
* http://www.internetforyachts.net/
* http://www.wifiyacht.net/
* 954-683-3426

Mobile Internet! Step up to the HSPA 3G Fast Internet!

Ericsson W35 released in the USA. This you’ve gotta SEE!!
Better looking presentation than W25 (you might not want to
hide this one in the Doghouse!) + High Speed Upload which
the W25 did not have.
http://www.marinetelecom.net/Ericsson_W35/

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1. April 2010 by admin.

I’ve noticed here lately that two of my Windows 7 installations have had the operating system *reboot* without my consent. For me this can be bad because I might be running important software that requires a proper shutdown in the background. Just because I didn’t pay attention to Windows 7 for a little while it *should not* be rebooting and killing every software that I am running. On boats this could be bad as well because you might be running a navigation software or something else important, say a mail server software that has to be always up.

I noticed this for the 2nd time in a Virtual Box test installation of Windows 7 - used as a Sand Box / Safe environment to test stuff on Windows 7. My virtual box virtual machine somehow got a mis-configuration that made the hard drive not one of the default boot devices … anyway it brought to light the question … Why the heck did Windows 7 go down and reboot anyway.

So I went on to find out, in Control Panel, where they hid the Windows Update settings. I set it to notify me before downloading and installing Windows updates. This still causes it to *check* for updates - but not download them, and not reboot my computer with important stuff up and running. You might want to do this on your boat as well - because depending on your Internet Connection you may not want Windows 7 to download large Windows Updates over an expensive connection. You might wish to wait until you can switch to a less expensive Internet Connection.

—

Alan Spicer - KA4UDX (http://www.qrz.com/db/ka4udx)

Alan Spicer Telecom / Marine Telecom

http://www.marinetelecom.net - http://www.wifiyacht.net

communications (at) marinetelecom.net

+1 954 683 3426

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25. March 2010 by admin.

Microsoft removes “hardware virtualization” requirement for XP Mode in: Professional, Ultimate, and Enterprise editions of Windows 7

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/191938/windows_7_xp_mode_loses_hardware_requirement.html

http://windowsteamblog.com/

A new functionality that came with certain versions of Windows 7 (not all of them?) includes an “XP Mode” which comes with a full rendition of Windows XP. This was great for those that still like Windows XP or have a real reason to run XP because of Legacy Applications (Programs) that won’t run in Windows Vista or Windows 7.

Now grant it there are some persons, like myself, Alan Spicer, that require Operating Systems Virtualization not for legacy applications purposes, but for being able to “run” many different OS’s for educational and support (of my customers) purposes.

Anyway this XP Mode of Windows 7 only worked on hardware that could perform the “hardware assisted virtualization” which lots of PC Hardware (computers, laptops, desktops) does not have. I’m not even sure how you would shop for that. I don’t think it’s one of the “features” on a lot of the web sites or price / features sheets in stores. You’d almost have to be a geek (not that there’s anything wrong with that) to recognize that you would need that and know how to ask for it while computer shopping. Here’s a link that explains what this is all about.

http://www.desktop-virtualization.com/2008/05/14/what-hardware-virtualization-really-means/

Anyway, I for one, wanted to try the XP Mode out in Windows 7 - but I didn’t have hardware VT in any of my CPU’s in any of my computers. I was happy for a few seconds when I read the above linked post that the hardware requirement would be gone… only to be saddened a few seconds later when I realized that it was only for a few versions of Windows 7 … and definately not for Windows Home Premium, which I run on my main Windows 7 Desktop machine.

Now grant I have another machine around here (somewhere) that I think is running Windows 7 Professional 64-bit, I’d sure like to be able to do this on my main PC that’s hooked up to the big screen all of the time. I could get another Windows 7 Pro 64-bit at a discount … but I ‘ve already done upgrade on this machine from Windows Vista 64-bit to Windows 7 64-bit (it was a free upgrade) and going to Pro wasn’t supported in that free upgrade. Well at least I’m in the 64-bit class which lets me test 64-bit and 32-bit “stuff” on this class and see how well things work. And in general it has been working out *rather well* - thank you.

Soooo I’d like to see Microsoft bring this XP mode, with hardware VT requirement removed, brought down one more level to Windows 7 Home Premium. So we can all get a taste of it. Maybe the XP Mode wasn’t even in this version at all anyway? So maybe we’re asking for more than Microsoft is willing to give? But hey, we’re singing your song … we’re praising your Windows 7 OS release, how about throwing us a bone? ehhh?

* What’s all the fuss over XP Mode?

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=896 

—

Alan Spicer (Radio Amateur KA4UDX)

Alan Spicer Telecom / Alan Spicer Marine Telecom

http://www.marinetelecom.net - http://www.wifiyacht.net

+1 954 683 3426

communications (at) marinetelecom.net

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6. March 2010 by admin.

Here is part one of the video I just made on the Livewire Access Controller FB-10 line of products. I will post the other part as soon as I have uploaded it to Youtube. And as always you can click on the video to go through to my Youtube profile and see all of my other videos on there. This video as of this time is still being processed on youtube.com, so the audio seems to be out of sync … hopefully that will correct when the processing is done on there. The audio was in sync just fine when I recorded it.




This is Part 1 (part 2 will be coming soon…)

—

Alan Spicer Marine Telecom

http://www.marinetelecom.net - http://www.wifiyacht.net

http://www.youtube.com/user/alanspicertelecom

+1 954-683-3426 - communications (at) marinetelecom.net

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21. February 2010 by admin.

Alan Spicer Marine Telecom works on Communications, Internet Access Systems, and Computers for Sail and Motor Yachts, and other Marine Customers.

This is a video taken in 2009 when I was preparing 2 new Acer Small Form Factor Computers for a Motor Yacht customer in Seattle, Washington State. I prepared the two computers with a memory boost/upgrade, hard drive resizing / re-partitioning (Acer had put a Recovery Partion on the Hard Drive taking up 1/2 the hard disk drive), among other preparations to make the two computers ready for Nav1 and Nav2 - Nobeltec Navigation Software service.


---
Alan Spicer Marine Telecom
http://www.marinetelecom.net - http://www.wifiyacht.net
communications (at) marinetelecom.net
+1 954 683 3426

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14. February 2010 by admin.

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/189233/microsoft_says_malware_causing_blue_screen_crashes.html?tk=nl_dnx_h_crawl

By Robert McMillan, IDG News Service

A hard-to-detect rootkit may be causing Windows XP systems to crash following Microsoft’s latest security updates.

Windows users began flooding Windows support forums this week, saying that their computers had been rendered unusable with a blue-screen-of-death (BSOD) error after installing Microsoft’s February security updates, released Tuesday. On Thursday, Microsoft stopped shipping the MS10-015 update, which had been linked to the issue, and said it was investigating.

On Friday, Microsoft offered a preliminary conclusion, saying that malicious software may be to blame. “Malware on the system can cause the behavior,” wrote Microsoft spokesman Jerry Bryant on a company blog. “We are not yet ruling out other potential causes at this time and are still investigating.”

“We have confirmed cases where removing malware allows the system to boot,” Bryant said in a Twitter message.

Windows XP user Patrick Barnes said he’d traced the issue to a malicious rootkit program known as TDSS that he found on one of his systems.

(More at the link above)

Alan’s Note: To my boating and yachting friends and customers - If you have this problem let me know. My consulting and support agreement customers have support for such issues. But I’d like to hear in marine having this problem. Perhaps we can track down the How-To to get rid of the malware or whatever and be able to solve it for others.

—
Alan Spicer

DBA Alan Spicer Telcom / Alan Spicer Marine Telecom
Computer Services, Wired/Wireless Networking,
Cell/Sat/Landline Communications, General Consulting…
Marine, Business, Small Office and Home Office (SOHO)

* Cost Savings and Integration of Multiple Internet Technologies
on board Sail and Motor Yachts * Documentation, Operating
Instructions, and Support after the Sale *

* http://www.marinetelecom.net/
* http://www.internetforyachts.net/
* http://www.wifiyacht.net/
* 954-683-3426

Mobile Internet! Step up to the HSPA 3G Fast Internet!

Ericsson W35 released in the USA. This you’ve gotta SEE!!
Better looking presentation than W25 (you might not want to
hide this one in the Doghouse!) + High Speed Upload which
the W25 did not have.
http://www.marinetelecom.net/Ericsson_W35/

Posted in General Computer onboard Sail and Motor Yachts | No Comments »

6. January 2010 by admin.

Netbooks are popping up everywhere … even onboard yachts. Well believe it or not most things that pop up elsewhere in the world do pop up on yachts.

Netbooks can be slightly lesser powered than their more expensive full laptop counterparts, so my recomendation is to try them out HARD. Run what you really want to run, or simulate it as much as possible, before you take the plunge. Many of them run Intel Atom or similar CPU’s, and Intel Atom even has Dual-Core versions out. But be careful because I have seen some of them perform rather slowly… You might check this out:

http://analytics.informationweek.com/abstract/18/1433/Mobile-Wireless/informed-cio-netbooks.html

Informed CIO: Netbooks
 
Download
The New Option: Netbooks
Challenge Notebooks’ Dominance

We’ve seen laptop alternatives before—bricks, iPAQs, smart pads and “ultra portables” that were never quite cheap or convenient enough to take a real bite out of the market. What’s different about netbooks? Simple: They’re really, really inexpensive and provide better functionality than any smartphone. We’re not surprised that consumers and business users alike are snapping these babies up like Twitter stock options.

Still, some CIOs wonder whether netbooks are ultimately a consumer play. The answer is unquestionably no. In our recent InformationWeek Analytics Windows 7 survey of 1,414 business technology professionals, 36% of respondents said they already have some level of netbook use in their organizations today. This saturation is expected to grow to 72% of companies over the next 24 months, with 19% planning extensive deployments.

While you can’t ignore the category, CIOs do need to educate themselves on what netbooks are capable of today and how the landscape of competitors, hardware options and OS choices will dramatically change over the coming two years. In this report, we’ll outline 10 key questions you need to review to see where netbooks fit within your organization.

Table of Contents
3 Author’s Bio
4 Little Device, Big Impact
4 Figure 1: Current and Future Netbook Use
6 Figure 2: Typical Device Configurations
7 Figure 3: 2009 Consumer Reports Usability Scores For Laptops and Notebooks
9 Figure 4: Impact of Vista and XP Use on System Policies
12 Figure 5: VDC: Netbook Unit Shipments Through 2013

10 Questions to Ask:
5 1 | Does everyone understand what a netbook is—and is not?
7 2 | Have we mapped our employees’ computing behavior?
8 3 | Can they play a role in our cloud and virtualization strategy?
8 4 | What’s our current plan for mobile phones?
9 5 | How are we going to manage them?
10 6 | How is our green policy shaping up this year?
11 7 | How open are you to Microsoft alternatives?
12 8 | How open are we to Intel alternatives?
13 9 | How will our organization account for these devices?
14 10 | Are netbooks just a fluke?

* Now you probably don’t need all of the information in there, but it might be an interesting one to browse. If you’re on a yacht and need information *like* this contact me and I’ll hook you up.

—

Alan Spicer Marine Telecom

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27. December 2009 by admin.

I had a problem sending emails last night. I had to get one sent that was kind of important. I use Outlook Express because, well, I’ve always used Outlook Express. It’s simple to use and does One Thing Good (a Unix ideal: Make programs small and do One Thing Good, and allow them to “connect” with other programs in case you want to do More Things Good.) that is send and receive Emails. Anyway the problem resulted in emails getting an ERROR, a Blank Error to make things more confusing, upon sending messages. The message would get stuck in the Outbox. Recipients would tell me that they not only “got the message” but “got 20 copies of it”. So the email messages were getting sent, but OE was not registering that fact correctly. So off I went to find the un-technology or aged-old-technology that causes this phenomena. Here is the transcript of an email that I wrote to a friend and customer about my trouble-with-tribbles troubles with Microsoft Outlook Express:

> Hi Alan!  No Trouble Here!! John

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Anyway I guess it’s a good time to “clean house” a bit - I had sent emails going back to the year 2005.

I’ve heard of that issue in PST mailbox files for Outlook, but not Outlook Express. But I’m sure it’s the same type of thing. And I’ve probably had this problem before … although it might be that Windows XP itself or a hard drive suffers a glitch or crash before OE gets to that point. I say that because I remember backing up OE files (and thus email) in the past … and re-importing them into a fresh Windows XP install.

Anyway, reference: http://help.wugnet.com/windows2/Blank-Error-Message-Emails-ftopict493707.html

There used to be hard drive size limitations, and no doubt file size limits in 16 bit FAT/FAT32 and NTFS as well. But I know these days I have much larger FILES such as DVD movies on NTFS in 4, 8, 54 (Blue Ray?) Gb Sizes without any problems.

See also: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/903095

I guess it’s a matter of “bandwidth” somewhere. Extra Class Ham Operators get more Bandwidth on HF. Newer compression technologies and communications transmission methods give more bandwidth for Television and Internet bandwidth situations. 64-bit IP Addressing Methods (e.g. IPv6 vs IPv4) give more bandwidth in IP Address “Space” and in Computer Operating Systems (e.g. 32-bit Windows vs 64-bit Windows.) In fact I’m running Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit on a computer with 6 Gb or RAM memory and it can actually use it all. In a 32-bit Operating System it can not. 64-bit Operating Systems are starting to take over. It’s at the “Tipping Point” where you won’t be able to buy a new computer with a 32-bit OS, it will come out-of-the-box with a 64-bit OS.

—
Alan Spicer

Alan Spicer Telecom / Alan Spicer Marine Telecom

http://www.marinetelecom.net and http://www.wifiyacht.net

+1 954-683-3426

communications (at) marinetelecom.net

Posted in General Computer onboard Sail and Motor Yachts | No Comments »

4. December 2009 by admin.

*I’m* an APP for that…

I’ve been working on a newer PC for a yacht. I’ve also been working on educating myself up-to-date with Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit) - and I already have had Vista for quite some time. And I also now have Vista 64-bit. 64-bit operating systems are starting to already appear on new PC’s in stores. Some people may be getting them and not even realizing they just got a 64-bit computer instead of a 32-bit one. 64-bit is, as Howard Hughes said (in the movie “Aviator”), The way of the future… The way of the future… Ask google.com why 64-bit is better. Check out: http://www.gadgetted.com/?p=2394 as well.

So why do you care? Well I wanted this particular yacht to have the capability to run the new Windows 7 because it’s very nice. In install tests on newer hardware that baby is finding 97% or better of the hardware out-of-the-box. Which means I’m installing it and I have to do very little - if any - chasing down of hardware driver software. I’m also finding that it runs a lot of things, that you wouldn’t think it would run.

But I’m on a yacht, you say… I’ve got to run certain stuff that will only run on Windows XP. Well, like I said … I’m an APP for that. That’s the whole point of this article. NOW I would NOT recommend that you do this with your Navigation PC. But for other entertainment and backup Nobeltec PC (or laptop) and such this is definately a viable option.

What’s that? Yes, you can run “dual boot” which means you get a choice of Windows XP or Windows 7 and boot time. One of them is the default and after the clock of around 30 seconds runs out, that one will boot anyway. On the PC I’m doing for a yacht I switched the default so that Windows XP normally boots by default. But there is that nice little choice of being able to boot into Windows 7 as well. Newer software, and even some older software will knock right into Windows 7 and run just fine.

So if anyone needs this kind of service… this kind of magic… on a yacht - then give me a call. I can also get very good pricing on Windows XP Pro, Vista, and Windows 7. I know not too many people are going to be fighting to get Windows Vista. But you really ought to have a look at the new Windows 7!!!!

Thanks!

—

Alan Spicer

Alan Spicer Marine Telecom

http://www.marinetelecom.net

communications (at) marinetelecom.net

+1 954-683-3426

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30. April 2009 by admin.

By now you may have read some of my articles on my blog and perhaps on my web site marinetelecom.net. In my articles, like my work, I try to go the extra mile … to get the background behind something. With my products I support them fully and try to remain knowledgeable at the “expert” or consultant level on them. That way you don’t just get a product or a service (in the cases of consulting and consulting + installation) but a value-added heads up on the industry or market behind that product. How it works, when and why it doesn’t work, and how to use it to your advantage to save money.

I try to not only sell and or install stuff … but to educate myself and my customers in the process. Someone said that an educated consumer is our best customer. If you’re not educated on something that I think you need to be educated on, I’ll get you there.

One of the most rewarding things in my business is to see a customers eyes light up … to see that “Ahah” moment when they “get” something. It’s important to not only sell products and services (to consult) but also to enhance peoples lives by delivering something that they may often not normally get - and understanding of the “how” and “why” of a thing or a particular equipment and why that product or technology can save them money or otherwise enhance their work and personal lives.

I enjoy making complex technology subjects more understandable for everyday people … who no doubt have enough complications in their lives already.

So, having said that, if I can be of help to anyone please let me know.

—

Alan Spicer Marine Telecom

+1 954 683 3426

http://www.marinetelecom.net

http://www.wifiyacht.net

http://blog.marinetelecom.net

http://internetforyachts.net

… and don’t forget to stop by http://riveroffers.com/?cogid=aspicer … Get what you need from business communications to consumer electronics and more. We’ve got your needs covered! Make sure you visit us real soon.

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