Anybody who’s programmed in Fortran will acknowledge a debt to John Backus, developer of ‘formula translation’, aka Fortran, who died a couple of weeks ago. Fortran allowed programmers to kick the method of 'hand' assembling code into touch and let them write in something, which whilst not English, led to a vast improvement in programmer's productivity.

My first experience of the Backus programming environment, was Fortran 77 at Birkbeck College on a VT100 terminal connected to one of DEC's esteemed 11/750 VAX systems. For some reason, Fortran was always pigeon-holed as the scientist's programming language, whereas Cobol was always touted as for businesses. Windows 2.0 was just about to be released, as was Mathematica the next year. If you weren't yet that good at programming, or didn't even want to be, you hassled somebody who was or, had a program that did what you wanted to do. If you couldn't find such a beast (person or program), it was time to get out a standard Fortran textbook and start to ascend the staircase to enlightenment.

Funnily enough, I've just installed the latest version of Mathematica (5.2) and I'm about to install the latest version (2007a) The Mathworks core software package. Both are programming environments designed to tempt those without god-like coding skills to short-circuit the time needed to sort out knotty scientific problems.

Mathematica installed quickly and it's fairly easy to knock together a few statements that can do a lot of data processing and graphical output. I'm about to install the Matlab package, but I did notice on an earlier install attempt that they use the FlexLM license manager. I've had a few run-ins with this license manager before, one of which was trying to get the computational fluid dynamics package Fluent up and running. Hopefully, it won't be another 'Death or Glory' mission.

Posted by Dave Bailey on March 29, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

IT Week currently has a mini group test of thin clients in the pipeline, and we settled on high-end models running Windows XP Embedded (XPE) in order to narrow the field down a bit.

XPE is a modular version of XP, designed so that device makers can pick and choose the functionality they want in their operating system build, while leaving out applications and other components that aren't necessary. The upshot is that thin clients based on XPE can run the same code as a standard Windows PC, although applications that need a lot of disk space are not practical.

During testing, I uncovered an unusual bug in one of the terminals, which caused Internet Explorer to crash and shut down. Thinking this might be a glitch in the build provided by the vendor, I notified the company concerned, and they sent me a replacement model. This exhibited the same issue, but by then the bug had also shown up in other models I was looking at. A screenshot of the error message is shown here.

I then reported the bug to Microsoft, to see if they could shed any light on the matter. It seemed likely that a bug occurring in devices from several different vendors might indicate a flaw in XPE itself, rather than an oversight of the vendors. However, despite several requests, there has been no response from the company whatsoever.

The bug occurs when browsing web pages, in particular those that carry animated content, such as IT Week's own pages. This could mean the bug has something to do with Flash-based content, but I'm only guessing. However, I have been unable to duplicate the error in desktop PCs with Internet Explorer 6.0.

This appears to be only a relatively minor issue as bugs go, but it can be annoying if it happens while you are looking for information on the Web. It is also annoying to be completely ignored when reporting a bug, but then there are plenty of security researchers out there who know that feeling.

Posted by Daniel Robinson on March 28, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1)

The LogMeIn service is an incredibly useful tool for anyone needing to remotely access files or applications on their PC from elsewhere. I can speak from experience, having used the service to retrieve documents from my office computer when transport problems forced me to work from home.

While LogMeIn can easily be accessed through a web browser, the company has now released a software client for the service. Called LogMeIn Ignition, the application can be downloaded and installed onto a removable storage device such as a USB Flash drive.

The advantage of this arrangement is that users such as IT managers may have remote access to a long list of Windows PCs, and Ignition enables passwords to be stored on the drive to make connecting easier. The application can also be installed directly to your Windows desktop to give speedy access to remote systems for IT helpdesk staff, for example.

For test purposes, LogMeIn kindly supplied me with Ignition ready installed on a USB Flash drive. The software is designed to autorun when you plug the drive into a PC USB slot, or can be manually launched. I tried Ignition on both a Windows PC and a thin client running Windows XP Embedded, and it worked perfectly on both systems. It even downloaded an update to the Ignition application from LogMeIn's web site.

New users will have to set up an account before they can use LogMeIn, for which they get a 30-day free trial. Existing users can type their existing email and password to get access to PCs they have previously configured with the LogMeIn host software.

Once logged in, the Ignition client displays your online computers and lets you click a single button to launch a remote control or file transfer session.

The LogMeIn service is much improved since I first started using it, and now offers a view of the remote computer's desktop that resizes to fit into the browser or viewer window, saving on the constant scrolling and panning that you previously had to get used to. You can still switch to full-screen mode, where there is little to give away the fact that you are using a remote computer.

Another big improvement is bi-directional clipboard synchronisation, which enables you to copy text from a document on the remote PC and paste it into a document you are editing on the local one, and vice versa.

Posted by Daniel Robinson on March 22, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Several weeks ago a company called MyWebAlert said they would monitor your website free of charge. All you had to do was sign up. Well I have and am expecting the first reports on how IT Week's website has performed soon. Meanwhile, a couple of weeks ago a company called Spiceworks launched version 1.5 of their network management package which is also free. Of course 'free' does not necessarily mean 'good', so I've installed in IT Week's Labs and I'm currently in the process of 'kicking the tyres'. The program is 'ads sponsored' which means 15 percent of the screen, on the right hand side, is basically a billboard for targeted adverts aimed primarily at IT staff.

Install is easy and the program has a quality feel to it. The Spiceworks Community is quite active with nearly 600 feature requests already logged. Looking through some of the posts, there's quite a few network admins 'kicking the tyres' as well. A fair few of the posts are informative, as well as highly amusing. One person appears to have accidentally let the program loose on a production system and ended up being grilled by the execs after the program started turning systems on that had been shut down. There but for the grace of God …

Spiceworks say there's no restrictions on usage except that they've specifically targeted SMEs with networks with up to 250 devices. Probably the main new feature in release 1.5 is the ability to set up an employee help desk using the system, but this would need real thought and testing before letting loose on a production system. I suppose the main question IT managers need to think about before deciding on a full blown rollout after initial trials, is the long term viability of Spiceworks' 'ads sponsored' software model. Google don't seem to be doing too badly with their model though.

Posted by Dave Bailey on March 20, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Verbatim has kindly sent me one of its new pocket hard drives for evaluation. The Hi-Speed Store 'n' Go USB 2.0 HD is a tiny device that stores up to 12GB of data on a 1in hard drive, and also includes a portable environment that enables entire applications to be stored and run by connecting the drive up to any Windows PC. The drive costs £100.

The photo of the Store 'n' Go drive perhaps doesn't give a sense of scale. The thing really is tiny – it looks like it would fit comfortably inside a matchbox. Its hinged USB connector is stowed neatly in a recess in the top of the drive when not in use, and folds out when you want to plug it into a PC.

I tested out the drive by copying some multi-gigabyte VMware virtual PC images from one Windows XP computer to another, and its performance seemed ample for this task.

However, Verbatim also includes with the Store 'n' Go a piece of software called Ceedo, from a firm called Ceedo Technologies. This can be launched when you plug the drive into a computer's USB port, and it displays a kind of replica of the Windows Start menu, complete with links to any applications that are stored on the drive.

Ceedo's web page provides a selection of applications, such as photo editors, security tools, office applications, archiving tools, and others, all of which can be downloaded freely to the Verbatim drive. The applications can be run from here, but leave no trace behind when you have finished and remove the Store 'n' Go drive.

I selected a few, such as the AbiWord word processor and FastStone Image Viewer, and watched as they installed. The Ceedo software seems to intercept the standard Windows installation routine, and ensures that the application is diverted to a Program Files folder on the Store 'n' Go drive instead of the computer's hard drive.

Ceedo also has available separate a tool called Argo Application Installer, which can apparently install any Windows application to the Store 'n' Go. This costs $29.95 (£15.40) to download.

Posted by Daniel Robinson on March 15, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Anybody who's had a chance to do a bit of 'telepresencing' or 'teleconferencing' using some of the more expensive systems, like HP Halo for instance, might have noticed that the audio part of the technology, for some reason seems not to be as crystal clear as maybe they were expecting. OK, perhaps an alternative explanation could be found in all those Iron Maiden concerts they've been attending since the 80s. Having said that, remember that people going into these telepresence rooms usually have nothing to do with a make-up artist beforehand, so it seems to me the visual half of teleconferencing, also leaves something to be desired. In fact participants end up looking like an extra from one of those classic Hammer vampire films, drained of their vital juices - and I'm talking blood here.

I've sat through two telepresence calls so far, one on the aforementioned HP Halo system, the other in one of Cisco's TelePresence suites. The Cisco Telepresence system I used was located in London's financial district and when I was there for an earlier briefing a couple of months ago it wasn't working, and so became, as Cisco's solutions marketing VP Rick Moran put it, a £140,000 telephone.

There are three screens with two seats per screen, so six people can natter to each other over a dedicated link. This time with Moran presenting an update on their unified comms systems from Florida, it was up and running, although we were barred from taking drinks into the room. Maybe they thought we'd start getting rowdy and throw bottles of lager at Moran if they didn't give us any pricing for the new systems. Moran said the bandwidth needed for the video stream was around 2Mbit/s per screen and that anybody who decided to get up and start doing a really vigorous Riverdance impersonation, would trigger a doubling of the normal bandwidth required. This immediately set me wondering whether the bandwidth requirements would halve if we all started nodding off through the PowerPoint presentation. If you've got a spare quarter of a mill and a bill bigger than that for exec travel, maybe your firm should deploy the system, then all those executive trips to Hawaii could be given the bullet on the back of an exaggerated concern for Gaia and deep vein thrombosis.

Posted by Dave Bailey on March 12, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1)

While everyone at this year's 3GSM was getting excited about HTC's Advantage high-end mobile device, the company launched other equally interesting Microsoft-based models, including some running the new Windows Mobile 6.

The S710, for example, is similar in size and weight (about 120g) to a standard phone handset, yet boasts a good-sized colour display and a slide-out qwerty keyboard – excellent for composing emails. When you slide the phone open, the screen also changes to a landscape orientation to match the keyboard.

My early tests soon showed up a few faults, however. The device is often sluggish, sometimes taking a second or two to re-orient its display when opened up. Is this because the handset's 201MHz Omap processor is not up to the job, or because Windows Mobile is inefficient?

Another galling flaw came when I was configuring the phone to access the Internet via GPRS. While entering the IP address of the network's Access Point, the phone seemed to detect a numeric input field and lock the keyboard's 'Fn' key on. This made it easy to key in numbers, but also impossible to type the dots that interspace the IP address.

These bugs are a shame, because the S710 is almost perfect for users looking for a lightweight handset that is also good for email. When closed up, the device looks unobtrusive and could be just a standard phone. Opened up, the keyboard allows for quite a reasonable input speed when composing emails and text messages,

The S710 is a quad-band phone with GPRS (and EDGE) capability, but does not support 3G networks. However, it does have Wi-Fi capability for browsing the Internet when in range of an access point.

A full review of the HTC S710 will appear in a future issue of IT Week.

Posted by Daniel Robinson on March 8, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

In 1977 I picked up my first copy of Cycle, a US motorcycle magazine, which usually gave first looks and news of the latest and greatest for two-wheeled fiends. In it, there was a brilliant off-road motorcycle column written by Ed Hertfelder, called 'The Duct Tapes' which over the next few years, was the first page I read after buying a copy. On one occasion, he wrote a column, starting off with "Did you ever?" and then proceeded to catalogue the trials and tribulations of off-roading, with some rictus-inducing one-liners. OK, it's sacrilege to even attempt it, but here's the IT version.

Did you ever decide that from today you'd have a really secure password, and then have to phone the helpdesk after the next reboot? Did you ever brag that you'd never spilled coffee on a keyboard and then five minutes later? Did you ever forget that you were head to foot with nylon clothing when inserting that expensive 1GB DIMM? Did you ever download a driver update from Microsoft's Windows Update site and trash the entire OS? Did you ever backup your entire system onto a tape that you couldn't find when the whole system died 30 minutes later? Did you ever format a Compact Flash card and find that the person you'd lent it to could still see all the data on it? Did you ever try to force a LAN cable into a FireWire port - and succeed? Did you ever go to CeBIT and walk further in one day than you had on a two week walking holiday in the Peak District? Did you ever spend hours fiddling with the volume control on a cheap cassette player trying to load a game on a ZX Spectrum? Did you ever plug the wrong power adaptor into a flat panel and blow the screen? Did you ever say to your young daughter that your laptop needed a quick reboot and then see her swiftly give it a kick? Did you ever fall asleep during a PowerPoint presentation and wake up with nobody in the room? Did you ever plug a wireless access point into the company LAN and forget that the DHCP server was enabled? Did you ever spend hours trying to configure a wireless connection on a laptop with 802.11b built-in and forget the hard on/off switch hidden away on the side?

I hasten to add that the (vast) majority of these weren't me, but I suspect there are people out there who could easily top these for hilarity, desperation, and downright idiocy - are you one of them?

Posted by Dave Bailey on March 6, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

As I started to 'kick the tyres' on anti-virus vendor Panda Software's new online-based AV scanning system - Malware Radar - the other week, it seemed that Spanish companies were taking over my very existence. My bank was taken over by a Spanish one several years ago, and my ISP Be, was gobbled up by O2 last year after they themselves succumbed to a bigger fish in the shape of Telefónica.

Malware Radar uses an 18MB client that runs on your system and then produces a report which you can view online. It didn't find anything on the laptop or desktop test system I was using because they were already running Webroot's SpySweeper software. Webroot have a newish version out now, SpySweeper with Anti-Virus (SSAV) 5.3, and are now using the Sophos anti-virus engine for extra security. The SpySweeper software always did have one of the cleanest and easiest GUIs to use and it's still an object lesson in how to design a graphics interface.

I mention this because the other week a friend brought round her laptop and said she couldn't use it, and that there was something wrong with the keyboard. There was indeed something wrong since it took ages to boot up. In fact it felt like the system had some sort of malware problem. A quick look at the installed programs and which processes were 'soaking' the CPU brought the answer. There were two anti-virus clients installed and running. Removing one brought a measure of usability to the system. But the second AV package wouldn't allow an un-install because the service had expired. So a quick check to see which processes it was using and then stopping them manually from starting, up brought the laptop back to being usable again.

Situations like this are not rare, because people using older, less powerful systems to run anti-malware systems can have problems distinguishing 'having a virus' from running misconfigured anti-virus software. Trying to update an expired anti-virus subscription from some vendors can also be a nightmare of the worst sort.

Of course the current trend for desktops and laptops moving to dual and quad core architectures means that these systems should have enough horsepower under the bonnet to run even mis-configured anti-malware packages – shouldn't they?

Posted by Dave Bailey on March 5, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

A senior AMD executive this week complained that he was 'sick and tired' of unfair performance comparisons between AMD and Intel processors based on outdated benchmarks. But Intel is perhaps being cute about other things besides chip speed.

The voltage ratings for Intel chips for example, marketed as a crucial indicator for any organisation trying to assess the impact of energy costs in large scale server deployments, always seem to put AMD in the shade as well. Intel's highest performance dual core chips have performance per watt (PPW) ratings of 80W, with its mid range processors 65W and low end boards 40W, for example.

Bear in mind that the less watts the chips use, the cheaper they are supposed to be to run. So AMD's 95W rating for its mid range processors (equivalent top of the range dual core chips from AMD are not yet available) and 68W for its low end processors make them look like gas guzzling off-roaders in comparison.

But of course, that is not the whole picture. Experts say that whereas AMD systems are usually coupled with double data rate (DDR2) SDRAM, Intel is using fully buffered DIMM modules that provide an extra security layer on top, but which also use more power.

So in fact when it comes to overall server power consumption, any advantage that the Intel CPU PPW delivers is actually negated because the chip addresses more power hungry memory.

AMD appears to have genuine cause for complaint, though a bit of focussed marketing and the odd choreographed public outburst might help redress the balance.

Posted by Martin Courtney on March 2, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (3)