THE BAD GUYS NEVER STOP

Google has just purged its index of thousands of malware sites that were being displayed in results lists for hundreds of innocuous search phrases. It's a quick end to a huge attack that could have caused a global uproar.

The criminals registered tens of thousands of domain names and set up servers, almost all within the last few days. The web sites were seeded with innocuous text so they would appear legitimate to a crawling indexer from Google, and the bad guys used various technical tricks to move them to the top of search results for phrases like "Christmas gifts" and "hospice."

If you clicked through to one of the malware sites, various bad things would happen to your computer if your computer did not have all its security patches. Even if you were patched up to date, one variation would prompt you to install a "video codec" or "ActiveX object" supposedly required to view something on the page - a lie, of course. Remember, all your security precautions are for naught if you click okay and install something evil voluntarily! You can see screen shots of how the Google results appeared and what you might see at one of the malware sites here at Sunbelt Software, one of the firms that uncovered the attack.

There's speculation that this was the handiwork of the "Russian Business Network," highly-organized, very bad people suspected of being behind a fair amount of the worst high-tech things going on - spam, child pornography, malware, phishing, cybercrime, and denial of service attacks.

When Google removed the sites from its index, it apparently foiled the attack, described by one security researcher as "fairly epic."

Here's an article with some background about the attack and Google's response.

Labels: Internet, search, security

posted by bruceb at 11/30/2007 01:32:00 AM | permalink

PLUGIN POSTSCRIPT

As if to emphasize my paranoia about plugins, yesterday I got a call from a client who has successfully used the YouSendIt Outlook plugin for months. It stopped working for no particular reason; when she pushed "Send" on a message with an oversized attachment, YouSendIt's dialog box would pop up and the message would be moved to YouSendIt's special Outbox folder, where it would sit, immobile, doing nothing. YouSendIt's progress bar showed that nothing was happening. A couple of times it taunted her by showing that 0.3% of the file had been uploaded before it went back to sleep.

I got on and did the usual troubleshooting: restart the computer; remove the plugin and reinstall it; run Outlook offline, then back online; remove the pending messages and start a new message; remove the plugin, upgrade to Outlook 2007, and reinstall the plugin; move slowly to be sure the hosted Exchange server was finished syncing at all times; light candles at the corners of a pentagram chalked around the computer and invoke the Elder Gods; use colorful language and interesting expletives; etc. Nothing made any difference. The attachments just wouldn't go to YouSendIt.

Nothing had changed on her computer. The YouSendIt plugin had worked the day before, and probably works today for thousands of satisfied users. It wouldn't surprise me if it starts working again for my client, again for no particular reason. This shouldn't dissuade you from trying it if it meets your needs. Instead, it's just one more cautionary tale that sometimes things just won't work.

Labels: file_sharing, Outlook, software, web_services

posted by bruceb at 11/29/2007 12:02:00 PM | permalink

UNPLUGGING PLUGINS

We've become familiar with the slowdowns and crashes associated with programs and services that start up automatically when a computer is turned on. Now I'm running into problems caused by the links between programs - the "add-ins" or "add-ons" or "plugins" designed to make programs work together.

• Skype is a quirky but useful program for online phone calls. It installs a couple of add-ins into Internet Explorer - one, for example, identifies phone numbers on a web page and highlights them so a Skype call can be started with a single click. It took me a while to identify it as the reason that Internet Explorer suddenly started opening slowly and occasionally freezing; IE went back to normal when I disabled the Skype add-ins.
• Timeslips installs an Outlook add-in, regardless of whether you intend to exchange information between the two programs. It has caused odd behavior on a number of systems until it was disabled.
• Google finally announced its plan for online file storage; one of its features will be an add-in for Windows to make the Google storage appear in Windows Explorer as an integrated hard drive.
• Microsoft promotes dozens of Internet Explorer add-ons and there are many more powering the current wave of web services. Similarly, there's a huge market for software that enhances Outlook, mostly by installing add-ins to present integrated toolbars and menus.

Many of these are valuable additions to your computing experience, when considered singly. But I'll guarantee that we'll all be wrestling with odd problems as we accumulate more and more of these add-ins and they begin to fight with each other in unexpected ways. YouSendIt's plug-in for Outlook looks great but the chances for problems increase if five other programs are also checking outgoing Outlook messages for various things.

I'm adding these locations to my housekeeping stops, in addition to the various places to look for startup programs.

• Internet Explorer: click on Tools / Manage Add-Ons / Enable Or Disable Add-Ons.
• Outlook 2003: click on Tools / Options / Other / Advanced Options / COM Add-Ins.
• Outlook 2007: click on Tools / Trust Center / Add-Ins.

As with startup programs, don't be too quick to disable items - some of them will be unfamiliar and potentially important. But if you see something clearly unnecessary - references to programs that are uninstalled or wholly unused, for example - turn off the add-ins. You'll have fewer problems in the long run.

Labels: IE, Outlook, software, Vista, web_services, WinXP

posted by bruceb at 11/28/2007 12:27:00 AM | permalink

YOUSENDIT OUTLOOK PLUGIN

YouSendIt is one of the best-known services for moving large files from place to place - a persistent problem. I just learned about a way to set up Outlook to transmit large files through the YouSendIt service almost invisibly.

I've tried various things to dissuade people from attaching huge files to outgoing e-mail messages - coaching, gentle persistence, scolding, acts of violence, property destruction, mocking, cash payments, you name it. Nothing works. For all too many people, it's not enough for a web service to be easy - it simply can't require any change in habits at all.

YouSendIt has an Outlook plugin that comes close. Once installed, it intercepts an outgoing message with an oversized attachment after the "Send" button is pushed. The plugin moves the message to a special outbox, where the attachment is automatically uploaded to YouSendIt's servers. The message is then sent with a link to where the attachment can be downloaded. The recipient can download the file with a single click. Here's an FAQ with more details.

I love the idea. I've spoken to a couple of people who use it daily with no problems. (Secondhand anecdotes - your mileage may vary.) Theoretically it works with YouSendIt's free service but if you're considering it, you're probably going to use it enough to justify the cost of a "Pro" account ($9.99/month) to get enough bandwidth and storage space. A serious business user can pay $29.99/month for a "Business Plus" account that removes all advertisements from both ends of the process and lets the company logo appear on the YouSendIt pages seen by the recipient. Here's more info about the various levels of service from YouSendIt.

This might work well for busy lawyers and businesspeople who are dealing with huge PDFs and have no appetite for learning new tricks, as well as obviously being appealing for photographers and multimedia professionals. Good stuff!

Labels: file_sharing, Outlook, web_services

posted by bruceb at 11/27/2007 12:13:00 AM | permalink

COMPUTER SHOPPING 2007

Thinking about a new computer - home, home office, small business? Let me give you some generalizations that will help you get started. (As always, gamers will be looking for faster processors and hard drives, more memory, and - particularly important - choosing from an array of high-end video cards. Notebook computers also require consideration of size and weight, which will trump some of the considerations below.)

• PROCESSOR  Intel's Core 2 Duo processors are significantly better than the other Intel and AMD processors. Within the Core 2 Duo line, at some point there's a step up to a 4Mb L2 cache, another bit of technical wizardry that's worth a hundred dollars or so. That being said, all of the processors on the market will serve you well - processor speed is no longer the defining point of a computer.
• MEMORY  2Gb of RAM is mandatory for a new computer - it's required for a satisfying experience, and it's sufficient for most people.
• VIDEO  It is essential to look for a video card with 256Mb of RAM! There are many more differences between video cards than that but you'll get what you need if you just focus on that single number. If your new computer doesn't have a 256Mb video card, you'll be disappointed in ways large and small - perhaps you might just not be able to turn on Vista's eye candy, but at worst the computer's entire performance will be compromised.
• HARD DRIVE  You'll get lots of storage space with any new computer, but the speed of the hard drive is a new and important consideration. The speed is measured in RPM; you want a speed of 7200RPM or above. If you see 5400RPM, avoid it - the whole system will be slow regardless of the other specs. (You'll run into this problem more often on notebooks.)
• OPERATING SYSTEM  Vista Business is the best choice for most people; get Vista Home Premium if you're interested in one of its specific features, but be aware of what you're missing. Vista Ultimate is a safe choice because it includes all features.
• The general answer to your question about Vista is: Yes, it will ________. (Fill in the blank: work; run your programs; network with your other computers; work with your printer/scanner/camera; etc.)
• I'm buying exactly the same hardware to run Windows XP, if you decide to be a wimp conservative.
• OPTICAL DRIVE  Make sure you get a drive that can read DVDs - software is being distributed on DVDs now.
• SOFTWARE  If you're ordering from Dell, you can get Microsoft Office preinstalled at an attractive price. Other manufacturers almost never include MS Office. Make sure your budget is ready for the $150 Student Edition of Office if the computer will be used at home, or $300 and up for the standard versions.
• SECURITY  Your first job with a new computer is removing unnecessary software installed by the computer maker - and the most important products to remove will be any preinstalled software from Norton or McAfee. Windows Vista has a very capable firewall and adware/spyware protection, so you're safe while you decide what to install instead. I continue to recommend Windows Live OneCare for comprehensive protection.

Happy shopping!

Labels: computers, hardware, Office, security, Vista

posted by bruceb at 11/26/2007 12:51:00 AM | permalink

VISTA FEATURE: DREAMSCENE & DESKSCAPES

Vista Ultimate includes "Dreamscene" as an optional extra installed through the Windows Update system. It's a completely frivolous bit of eye candy that animates your desktop - instead of a pretty picture of a waterfall, your desktop can display a pretty moving picture of a waterfall. Yeah, it's trivial, but I like eye candy. It looks cool and people make nice sounds when they see it.

The scenes are actually short movies; theoretically any movie could be played on your desktop but the effect gets distracting in a hurry and it can be jarring when the movie shudders to a stop and loops back to the beginning. Microsoft supplies a few Dreamscenes that are subtle and designed to loop seamlessly, making for a lovely effect.

This video displays some of the animated desktops but appears jerky because of poor screen capture software - the actual effect is smooth on a computer with 2Gb of memory and a 256Mb video card.

The technology for Dreamscenes was developed by Stardock, which has its own free program to complement Dreamscenes. Deskscapes creates exactly the same effect but uses a proprietary format that encourages third parties to jump in and create scenes.

A few days ago, Stardock announced that the next version of Deskscapes, due in February, will still be free - and it will be able to run on Vista Home Premium and Vista Business, in addition to Vista Ultimate. That's great! It's a modest but nice thing for your computer to be able to do.

The interesting thing is that Deskscapes 2.0 will remove one of the only reasons for most people to even consider buying or upgrading to Vista Ultimate. If that team doesn't step up with some new features quickly, Vista Ultimate is pretty well doomed to be a planning and marketing debacle, a missed opportunity for Microsoft to look like a leader and showcase new technology.

Labels: Microsoft, Vista

posted by bruceb at 11/23/2007 11:50:00 AM | permalink

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Happy Thanksgiving from all of us at bruceb consulting! All my best wishes for a happy holiday filled with family, food, and computers that stay running long enough to show off the latest photos!

Labels: bruceb

posted by bruceb at 11/22/2007 01:32:00 AM | permalink

PAYPAL FOR NON-PAYPAL SITES
PayPal has a new service for making payments through its system on websites that don't take PayPal directly.

When you set up a free PayPal account (a login name and password), it's linked to one of your bank accounts. When you pay through your PayPal account on a web site, PayPal withdraws the money from your bank account and takes responsibility for getting it to the merchant securely. PayPal was purchased by eBay to facilitate auction purchases but it is growing by leaps and bounds for purchases all over the web - tens of thousands of merchants accept PayPal payments.

PayPal's new service will generate a one-time-only unique MasterCard number whenever you get to a secured checkout page that does not otherwise take PayPal. Software on your computer will make the checkout process take just a couple of extra clicks. The transaction appears to the merchant as a normal MasterCard payment. Here's an article about the new service.

The PayPal system is safe and secure, and this new payment system has reportedly been extensively tested over the last year. There's obvious appeal in being able to shop online without spreading your credit card number around. This is worth looking into!

Labels: business, security, web_services

posted by bruceb at 11/20/2007 12:05:00 AM | permalink

FOLDERSHARE OUTAGE
Foldershare is an invaluable free service from Microsoft for sharing files and folders among several computers, keeping the folders in sync with each other automatically. Although the concept is simple, it's a bit confusing to get started; once you get it, it becomes an invaluable tool. Here's some background and my best effort at explaining what Foldershare can do.

The service has been completely down or working slowly at best since early this week and the outages are ongoing - not everyone is affected but many people are unable to connect to the service or use it to transfer files. My Foldershare icon has shown "Logging in . . ." since Wednesday.

Microsoft acquired Foldershare a couple of years ago and it has basically been left unchanged since then, for better or for worse. Since the acquisition, the responsible team has mostly been silent about Microsoft's commitment to the service. This outage has Foldershare users rattled.

A Microsoft rep posted a comment on the Foldershare support forum today that sounds reassuring but is remarkably vague about details. Here's his statement in its entirety.

Dear FolderShare Community

On behalf of all of the folks at Microsoft who work on FolderShare, we want to apologize for the problems many of you have been facing with the service over the past several days. I can’t live without the service, myself -- and understand how difficult it can be when things don’t work properly. In the spirit of being open with the community, we want to fill you in one what’s going on with FolderShare.

First, I want to stress that we care about FolderShare and Microsoft is committed to supporting FolderShare, fixing the current problems, and making significant improvements in the months ahead.

We’re hard at work on improvements to the service, including some great new UI enhancements you can expect to see in the coming months that we think you’re going to love.

In the meantime, however, we’ve been facing some challenges as we begin to transition the platform behind the service from the original code FolderShare ran on when we first acquired it to a more robust offering. And unfortunately many of you have been feeling some of these pains first hand.

Specifically, some recent hardware failures caused a chain of events that have caused connection issues for many over the last week or so. We are working hard to address these problems and expect things to be functioning properly again in the coming days. And longer term, you can rest assured that we are also making significant investments in our architecture and platform to fix these issues for the long term and to prepare the service for the future.

In the weeks ahead, it is possible that there may be a few additional bumps on the road as we get to a more stable situation. I can personally assure you that we are taking this very seriously and will be in communication throughout to help prepare you for any issues before they happen whenever possible.

Again, we apologize for the recent problems and appreciate your patience as we fix these and get the service ready for great things ahead. Please bear with us. We believe it will be worth your while.

Thank-you

Mohammed and the FolderShare Team

UPDATE 11/19: The FolderShare team says the service was fully up and running late Sunday night after a migration to big new servers. There's hints that there will be a major upgrade to the service before too long, but no details about what to expect.

Labels: file_sharing, Microsoft, web_services

posted by bruceb at 11/16/2007 12:22:00 AM | permalink

WINDOWS LIVE ONECARE 2.0

At some point next week, computers running Windows Live OneCare will automatically be upgraded to OneCare 2.0. Apparently the intent is to make the update automatic and invisible; it's free to existing subscribers.

New features are integrated into the familiar OneCare layout, so little will change for many of you. The most significant new feature permits creation of a "circle" of computers running OneCare on the same home or office network, allowing some OneCare features to be centralized. A single computer can monitor the health of all the computers in the circle, and backups can be centrally configured and monitored. OneCare also takes over printer sharing, making sure any computer in the circle can print to any printer.

"StartupCleaner" is a nicely designed display of the computer's startup programs and processes. OneCare will watch the computer's operation for a week or so, then begin to offer advice on which startup programs might not be necessary. That's a big part of the housekeeping I do regularly for friends and clients, and I'm glad to have some help with it.

OneCare will offer to check the security on your wireless network, and Microsoft is planning to integrate an online backup service for photos (at extra cost).

It's hard to predict whether the rollout of the new version will go smoothly. OneCare has gotten periodic minor updates in the last year without causing too much fuss. Cross your fingers and be prepared to restart your computer at some point during the next week or two!

Labels: backup, network, OneCare, security

posted by bruceb at 11/15/2007 12:05:00 AM | permalink

VISTA FEATURE: READYBOOST
Here's another Vista feature worth knowing about.

To perform well, Vista requires 2Gb of system memory. That's partially because Vista is more demanding than Windows XP but it's also because we're all running more programs simultaneously as the years go by. 2Gb of RAM is enough memory for solid performance for almost everyone. (Except gamers. They're still in a separate category.)

Adding more memory can boost performance but frequently the difference is not spectacular. Vista has one more trick up its sleeve for extra performance, though, and it can be done cheaply and on the fly.

When you connect a USB drive to Vista, it asks if you want to use its empty space for "ReadyBoost."



With permission it uses the unused space on the drive as a cache to speed up hard drive operations. New USB drives transfer data much more quickly than older ones. Vista tests the memory stick and uses it to speed up the computer if it passes the test.

Instead of acting like RAM, the USB drive acts like a very fast hard drive cache. If you keep a lot of programs running, you'll likely notice a pretty dramatic difference as you move from one program to another or start operations that would normally require a lot of hard drive thrashing. There's a copy of all cached data on the hard drive, so the USB drive can be removed without notice and nothing will be lost.



Here's some information from Microsoft about ReadyBoost, and here's a blog entry from the Vista team last year with more details.

I got a 4Gb Sandisk Cruzer at Costco for $49 and the difference was immediately noticeable. Programs are snapping into place very satisfyingly. I'll probably leave the USB drive in place most of the time.

Labels: computers, hardware, Vista

posted by bruceb at 11/14/2007 12:05:00 AM | permalink

VISTA FEATURE: SNIPPING TOOL
Vista has a built-in utility for taking screenshots of all or part of the screen on the fly. The "Snipping Tool" is so compact and well-designed that some of you will feel it's enough of a reason by itself to buy Vista on your next computer.

If you have a Vista computer, click on the Start button and type in "Snipping" - the tool will turn up right away. The first time it's run, it will ask if you want it added to the Quick Launch bar.



You can choose between drawing a rectangle or getting an entire window with a single click. The screen dims slightly until you get your snip.



Once you get a snip, there are similarly simple choices - it can be saved as a .JPG, .GIF, or .PNG file, or the image can be inserted into a new e-mail message with a single click. There are simple tools for highlighting or erasing parts of the snip. Best of all, the snip is automatically placed on the clipboard, ready to be pasted into another program.

There's no shortage of screenshot utilities for Windows XP. SnagIt, for example, has been around for years. Like so much computer software, some are free and others cost money, some have more features and some have less, some are supported by companies with plausible finances and others are written by high school kids. There's nothing wrong with any of the ones that work, although part of the problem is how to tell that ahead of time.

Vista's Snipping Tool just feels right, with exactly the right design to make it usable without complexity.

Labels: software, Vista

posted by bruceb at 11/13/2007 12:05:00 AM | permalink

BLOGLINES MOBILE
Some of you may have another reason to consider setting up Bloglines to organize your list of the websites that you read daily: it's immediately useful on a mobile device with an Internet browser. (Here's my short introduction to blogs and Bloglines.)

More and more people are paying expensive monthly fees to Verizon and Sprint for unlimited data plans so their cell phone/PDAs can check for e-mail regularly. Windows Mobile devices, for example, can sync online with an office running Small Business Server and make it easy to read and respond to the mail in your Outlook folders.



But there's almost no web page that displays anything useful on a 2 1/2 inch screen. There are some web sites with pages optimized for mobile devices but not many; there are some services intended to reformat pages for mobile devices on the fly but they're quirky and unsatisfying.

Apple's iPhone is a big step forward - it shrinks a full page so it visually resembles the original, and the iPhone finger spread/pinch thing zooms in and out. It looks great, as you can see in the picture on the right, but it's less useful than it looks. Most of that text just isn't readable - even some of the smaller headlines - so there's a lot of zooming and flicking around to get to interesting content.



When you browse to Bloglines on a mobile device, you're automatically connected to Bloglines Mobile, displaying a simplified view of your subscribed blogs. A click on each one shows all the unread posts on that page in the RSS format - which by definition has a simple consistent interface focused on text and simple image layouts.

I barely used the Internet browser on my Motorola Q until this turned up; now it's an invaluable way to pass a few minutes reading comfortably.

Labels: Internet, mobile, web_services

posted by bruceb at 11/12/2007 12:11:00 AM | permalink

HP MEDIASMART SERVER
Here's a review worth reading of HP's MediaSmart Server, built on Windows Home Server. It's got a nice summary of Windows Home Server features and the added features supplied by HP to both simplify and extend it.

Labels: hardware, Home_Server

posted by bruceb at 11/09/2007 12:05:00 AM | permalink

WINDOWS HOME SERVER DEBUTS

Microsoft's Windows Home Server just arrived on the market - and it's what you want for Xmas.

I'll give you a short overview and some links for you to click on, but let's do some superlatives first. Windows Home Server is the coolest technology to arrive in years! It's innovative, it's beautifully designed, it does a lot of exceptionally useful things in elegant ways, and it's open for third parties to extend it in the future. This is seriously good stuff.

Let's get oriented. Microsoft has created software named "Windows Home Server," but you won't buy the software separately. You'll buy a device made by HP or Iomega or Intel or a host of others that runs the Windows Home Server software.

Look at that image above and shrink it in your mind. The device you pull out of the box will look more like an oversized toaster than a computer. The HP MediaSmart in the picture is less than ten inches tall.

And that's all there is. No keyboard. No mouse. No monitor. You'll attach it to your router with a network cable and plug it into electricity. You're done setting up the hardware!

You'll install some software on your computer that will take care of the actual setup. In a series of easy-to-understand screens, you'll make a few choices that get the Windows Home Server started. Sooner than you realize, it will be doing its tricks.

What does it do? A lot, more than I can convey in a few words. The categories are backup, file storage, computer monitoring, and remote access.

BACKUP

Every computer on the network is backed up automatically, every night.

The backups can be used to restore individual files or to restore an entire computer after a hard drive fails. There's technical magic to make the backups take an amazingly small amount of storage space, and there's design magic to make this easy to use.

FILE STORAGE

Your computers will have easy access to folders on the Windows Home Server for documents, photos and video. You'll be able to get to those folders as easily as you get to your My Documents folder now - no complicated trips through Network Neighborhood.

Most Windows Home Server devices will have two or more hard drives. You won't know anything about that - you'll just see a single place to store things without having to look for an F: or a G: drive. Windows Home Server will be using technical magic to store duplicate copies of your stuff - if a hard drive fails on the Windows Home Server, your files will still be there.

If you plug in more drives (internally or by plugging in external USB drives), Windows Home Server will absorb them and you'll have more storage space. If you unplug them, you'll have less storage space. Your files won't change either way.

COMPUTER MONITORING

Windows Home Server will be checking all the computers in the house to see if they have security issues, if their hard drives are running out of space, if there are any backup problems. You can have a single icon by the clock on your computer to give you feedback - if it's green, all the computers are in good shape; if it's yellow or red, something needs attention. If your computers are running Windows Live OneCare, it will be integrated soon so the single icon will alert you to any computer in the house that is dealing with viruses or spyware or needs updates installed.

REMOTE ACCESS

You'll be able to access your Windows Home Server from anywhere, using a web browser and a name that you choose during setup (e.g., "http://bruceb.HomeServer.com/Home"). You'll be able to download files, display photos, and do searches. You'll also be able to send links to other people to photo galleries and folders on the Windows Home Server - no need to upload photos to an online service. You might need help configuring the router, but other parts of remote access are as easy to set up and use as everything else.

If you have a computer running Windows XP Pro or Vista Business, you'll also be able to access it remotely through the Windows Home Server web page, controlling it with Remote Desktop from anywhere.

It's worth reiterating that the design for all these controls is gorgeous and intuitive. Here's the remote access portal, for example:



Go read about Windows Home Server!

Start with Microsoft's web site for Windows Home Server - click the links, read the hype, watch the cheesy demo.

Go through Paul Thurrott's review, or Gizmodo's review and screen shots.

HP worked hard to add cool features to the HP MediaSmart Server, which has a much better demo. HP's Reviewer's Guide is one of the best introductions to Windows Home Server features, as well as highlighting the work done by HP to enhance its photo sharing and other features. Here are screen shots of some HP features. Amazon is taking pre-orders for the HP MediaSmart servers, which will be shipping within a week or two.

There's a flood of hardware and software heading for the market built around Windows Home Server. (Here's a blog that's keeping track of it all.) But avert your eyes - most of you will never add anything to what comes out of the box, and I don't want you to get the impression this is complicated.

Despite the name, I fully expect this to be an essential tool for small businesses. It even has the community of Small Business Server consultants buzzing - although it duplicates some of the functions of SBS, Windows Home Server also offers such dazzling technology for file storage and workstation backups that it may have a role in networks based on SBS.

You trust me, right? Trust me. This is fun, it does things with technology that you couldn't do before, and you'll be able to make people say, "Ooohhhhh." You want one of these!

Labels: backup, computers, hardware, Home_Server, Microsoft, network, photos, remote

posted by bruceb at 11/08/2007 12:05:00 AM | permalink

MICROSOFT SEARCH SERVER 2008 EXPRESS
Microsoft is finalizing Microsoft Search Server 2008 Express, a free product for searching files on network servers. It has the potential to fill a need for many small businesses, especially law firms drowning in documents.

Microsoft Search Server 2008 Express was released today in nearly final form, to be followed by the official release early next year. It is available for free but it requires a dedicated server running Windows Server 2003; businesses running Small Business Server will apparently need a second server to run the search software.

The search software apparently indexes files on other network servers plus Sharepoint databases, online resources, and more. A search page is presented in Internet Explorer and search results appear in the same format as search results from Google or Windows Live Search. The screen shots don't show a preview pane, just a list of search results listed by title with a portion of a single line from the document, which is far less useful than the search results from Windows Desktop Search or the search tools in Vista.

Although those search products for Windows XP and Vista have helped, there continues to be a need for a good search tool for small businesses. Windows Desktop Search and Windows Vista can be set to index network shares but each computer has to be configured individually and each computer crawls the files individually to create its own index. That leads to increased network traffic and increases the possibility of error. Appliances from Google and other software choices for enterprise searches are expensive or difficult to maintain for a small business without full-time IT support.

Even small businesses are drowning in files, tens of thousands of historical documents and spreadsheets that are increasingly difficult to manage. A second server may be a small price to pay if it makes that information accessible again.

Labels: Microsoft, search

posted by bruceb at 11/06/2007 10:03:00 AM | permalink

VISTA FEATURE: BREADCRUMBS
Let's highlight a few Vista features that improve life in small but meaningful ways.

My personal favorite is a feature for moving through folders known as "breadcrumbs." Almost immediately, it feels so natural that it's hard to recall that it's new.

You're familiar with moving through your folders by clicking on folder names, then choosing a subfolder, then another. Eventually you wind up at a destination that looks like this:



Windows Vista visually displays the path to the file so that each location along the way can be clicked for an instant return to that level. In this display, each level can be clicked:



A single click causes the display to go back and forth between the traditional display and the breadcrumb display.

The name of each level has an arrow that displays all the subfolders, so you can move to a subfolder at any level with a single click:



You've probably already gotten seen this method of navigation - an increasing number of web sites put breadcrumb trails at the top of each page to make it easier for you to find your way around the site:



There are other things built into the breadcrumb display to make it easier to move around.

There's always a button at the far left that displays the highest levels - Computer, Network, your folders, Control Panel, etc.

If there's not enough room to list the entire trail, there's an arrow that displays the other levels in a drop-down menu.

You can always type a folder name manually; the address bar will automatically offer to complete folder names as you type.

Breadcrumbs make it so easy to navigate through your folders that you'll give up using the vertical folder list on the left side of the window.

Labels: Vista

posted by bruceb at 11/05/2007 12:05:00 AM | permalink

BLOG AGGREGATORS
If you're interested in technology, one of the first sites to check in the morning is TechMeme, a wildly popular service that checks thousands of blogs and news sites and presents a constantly updated overview of the day's hot topics in an organized way. It's all done with algorithms that decide what stories are related and how many sources are discussing the same topics, then arranges them on the TechMeme page in order of popularity.

Today the New York Times introduced a similar service, Blogrunner. Here's the New York Times press release, and here's an article about the NY Times service. The blogosphere will be humming for the next few weeks watching both sites and arguing about which one is more popular, more accurate, more interesting, more controversial, more inclusive.

If technology doesn't grab you, try TechMeme's sister site Memeorandum for a digest of blogs and news sites devoted to politics.

Labels: Internet, web_services

posted by bruceb at 11/02/2007 12:05:00 AM | permalink

KEEPING UP WITH BLOGS
Let's talk about blogs and RSS feeds. It might have more relevance than you think.

If you're like most people, most of your web surfing time is spent visiting the same few web sites every day. That might start with news pages and weather, then a few pages that are updated frequently with items that interest you. Many of you have started looking at blogs - typically pages with relatively short items arranged chronologically. (Why - this page is a blog! Who knew?)

If a page is updated regularly, it almost certainly has an RSS feed. You can set up software that will automatically read the feed and let you focus on the new items from that site. All of your favorite "feeds" are presented in a single place with a consistent look, more streamlined than the original pages.

Start looking at the upper right corner of Internet Explorer 7. When the RSS icon lights up, you're on a page with an RSS feed and you can subscribe to the feed with a couple of clicks.



Click on the icon and you'll get the same page presented as an RSS feed, typically focused on the text and pictures in the articles without the fancy graphics and advertisements. Try it on this page! Then click the link at the top to subscribe to the feed.

Internet Explorer 7 has a built-in reader that will display all your subscribed pages in a single place. It's the "Feeds" button you've never pushed next to Favorites.



If a page has been updated, its name will be in boldface. When you click it, you'll only see the new items. That sounds simple, but this can seriously change your web surfing experience.

There are many programs designed to improve on that simple reader in Internet Explorer - here's a sample. The built-in IE7 reader is perfect for getting started, but after a while you may find something appealing in the layout and additional features of another piece of software.

Even if you're just getting started, though, take a close look at Bloglines. It's entirely web-based - no software to install, just a free login name and password to bring up an online application for your feeds. It's smooth and easy to get started and has a nice presentation onscreen - and it has the extra advantage that you can go to the Bloglines website and access your list of feeds from any computer. Here's a description of the service, and here's a CNet review. If you want a quick look, here's my Bloglines list.

Now go back to that PC Magazine list of 100 blogs and take a look with a fresh eye - you can assemble a list of interesting sites and easily see what's new each day with a lot less clicking and a lot fewer advertisements.

Labels: IE, Internet, web_services

posted by bruceb at 11/01/2007 12:05:00 AM | permalink