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Super saver software deals over Thanksgiving weekend
As today is Black Friday, we thought we'd get in on the act at V3.co.uk and alert you to some extra special deals lined up for you on our new and improved Software Store.
From now until Monday 30 November, you can purchase Kaspersky Internet Security 2010 1-PC, 1-Year for the low cost of £16.49, 60 per cent off the normal price.
Also from today until Monday, you can get your hands on NitroPDF Professional 6 at a massive discount of 50 per cent off the list price - so £48.27 instead of £96.37.
Nitro PDF Professional is designed to offer a complete Adobe Acrobat alternative, with a whole range of tools to create, convert, edit, combine, secure and annotate PDFs.
PCmover Professional will also be available over the latter half of the weekend for £19.95, instead of the list price of £49.92.
Finally we'll be offering AVG AntiVirus 9, the 3-PC, 1-Year version, for the low price of £14.99 over the weekend, a huge discount on the retail price of £46.99. You'll also be able to purchase AVG Internet Security 9, 3-PC, 1-Year, at 60 per cent off the list price at £19.99 instead of £54.99.
These promotions will run for 24 hours at a time, between Friday and Monday, so keeping checking the store for the current promotional discount.
Battle of the dongles - home alone without broadband
What do home workers do for internet access when their fixed line broadband connection has been terminated prior or subsequent to a house move? Having been plunged into this situation several times over the past year or so, I decided to find out what the options are.
If a BT line is not already installed in the property, as was the case with me, it could take in excess of a month to get broadband fully up and running, and with many broadband providers - not just BT - requiring the line before they can supply a service, it's a not insignificant problem.
It also emerged recently that Virgin have had their own problems coping with the mountain of requests from disaffected BT users. Late shipment of wireless routers and a general inability to cope with demand on their part mean you could be in for a wait to be connected whatever option you decide to go with.
So, here's the long and short of it: unless you want to risk jumping on an unsecured network nearby you'll need to invest in a 3G dongle. Anecdotally I've heard the quality of these has improved significantly since they first burst onto the market, with all the major mobile network operators selling an extensive array of dongles, depending on how much data you're planning to transfer.
Now this is by no means an exhaustive test, merely my own experience, so yours may be a lot different. I tried one from Vodafone and one from O2. First up was Vodafone.
Extremely simple to set up, the stylish white and red dongle glows when in use, and provides a simple read out to check coverage. It's also got a control panel allowing detailed management of the device. Sadly, this was all a moot point because there was no coverage in my flat in central-ish London. I didn't imagine second floor flat of three in a residential street in SE1 would have coverage problems but there you go.
O2 fared better; easy to set up, manage and get running, with coverage adequate. Trying to remove and uninstall the O2 connection manager client once I'd done this little test, however, was another matter. It took a lot of head scratching and tinkering to achieve, but nice that O2 was so keen to stay on my laptop - marks for enthusiasm. The speed however was inconsistent, ranging from good to not much better than dial-up , and this was just sitting in my flat with 'excellent' or 'very good' signal strength
I'd say that mobile broadband is still something to use in tandem with fixed broadband, not as a replacement. Interestingly, as I was writing this up a new report from Broadband-expert.co.uk revealed download speeds are only 24 per cent of those advertised - 1.1Mbit/s compared with a pledged maximum of 4.5Mbit/s.
It's not great, but I'm sure it will get better. In the meantime, take a deep breath, and prepare to wait.
Xerox's print tool helps roaming workers
Xerox's Mobile Express Driver is a free download that helps laptop users connect and print to a variety of printers without having to install specific drivers.
If you are a travelling executive, or anyone who has taken a laptop on a business trip, the chances are that at sometime you've wanted to print a document but been unable to because you didn't have network access rights, or the correct drivers.
I tried out the Mobile Express Driver on both a Windows Vista laptop and on a Windows XP desktop, neither of which were joined to the corporate Windows domain in IT Week's offices.
Once installed, the tool looks like any other print driver on your computer, and you simply select it as you would any standard printer when sending a document for output from an application.
The Mobile Express Driver then scans the network subnet your PC is connected to, and lists any printers it finds. If it does not find any, you can instead specify an IP address range to search through.
In my tests, the Mobile Express Driver quickly found about a dozen printers, allowing me to select one that I knew was close by and hit 'print'.
There are some limitations users should be aware of; the Mobile Express Driver only works with printers that support PostScript, although this should include pretty much any network or departmental printer that ships these days.
If you are using a laptop and have jumped on the Wi-Fi guest access at a site you are visiting, then the chances are that you won't find any printers. Guest access often provides users with a connection only to the internet, for obvious security reasons.
However, if you can find a live Ethernet port and plug into it, the chances are that you will be able to find a printer and use it, making the Mobile Express Driver a handy tool to have if you want to print out and leave some documents with a customer, for example.
The Xerox Mobile Express Driver can be downloaded here. The full version is about 48MB in size.
NIC failure scuppers 'Anywhere Access'
Personal file backup can be a pain – so much so that some people can’t be bothered - “It’ll be alright – that disk is brand spanking new,” is an oft heard phrase. It’s precisely in these situations that the disk somehow 'knows' that it’s the only storage that lays between you and a big argument with the rest of the family.
Having bought a ‘Western Digital (WD) Anywhere Access’ hard disk with the proceeds of a pub quiz win, I set it up attached to a switch next to my works PC. The Anywhere Access disk allows users to access the disk remotely as if it were a local device using a remote access package from Mionet, who WD has partnered with. I backed up a fair amount of important work data, but then decided that it would be better attached to my home PC. After many attempts to do this – and failing – I decided to attach it to the Labs network. At this point, the network interface card (NIC) failed.
What to do – take it back? It did have a lot of important data on it - so - better to try and recycle the disk inside - a Western Digital Caviar 500GB model. Eventually I decided to mount it in one of Netgear’s Storage Central Devices. It was easy to slot in - fire up the Netgear software, carve the disk up into chunks and then start backing up all those important work and personal files.
It was easy to mirror data to the device, and then password-protect it the whole shebang. Transferring files to it, using either LogMeIn Pro or RealVNC’s remote access software was also easy.
10GBASE-T – becalmed on a painted ocean?
While the new Power over Ethernet standard, 802.3at and the 802.11n standard are still locked in the filing cabinet labeled ‘not yet ratified’, another little known standard that also seems to be becalmed, is that defining the 10GBASE-T PHY – i.e. the electronics and power needed at port level to drive 10 gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) over copper.
However, 10GbE switch hardware vendor Solarflare and others are probably putting a fair amount of overtime to sort this out.
In a world which is seeking to reduce power utilization across all hardware, releasing new kit which increases the leccy bill – well, in the words of that well known Harry Enfield character, Mr You-Don't-Wanna-Do-It-Like-That, “I do not believe you want to do that.”
Talking to Force10 Network’s Steve Garrison about the situation, his view was, “The truth is that the industry is still in quandary over this – we're still in the same boat – we can't give our customers the right mix of price and density until the IEEE comes back with a much lower power consumption standard.”
For a technical discussion of the factors involved in the move to 10 GbE over copper, check out Solarflare CTO Steven Pope’s in-depth analysis of the current state of play.
I’ll leave the final word to Garrison, “At this time it's still a wait-and-see situation and the customers are saying ‘at that price I'd just as soon move to fibre.’”
Watts it all about – Cisco? – It's all about Watts.
So Cisco has decided not to wait for ratification of the IEEE 802.3at standard, also known as PoE-Plus, for supplying network kit with more power than can be provided using the older 802.3af standard. They're launching, what they're called enhanced PoE (ePoE) on their switch platforms, because their Aironet 1250 802.11n wireless access point needs just too much oomph from those 802.3af switch ports.
Having a quick natter on the phone with their CTO for Cisco's access networking and services group, Pat Calhoun, he spelt out how they're going to proceed with ePoE. Basically they’re not going to change how power is supplied over the cables, which is something the IEEE standards group is considering for 802.3at. Cisco will use the Cisco Discovery Protocol to negotiate with network devices requiring more than that deliverable by 802.3af. This means that legacy 802.3af-compliant devices will still work, but if the Aironet 1250 AP is not connected with Cisco’s ePoE system, you’ll have to turn one of the radios off. This can’t be done dynamically either, due to how the 802.11 wireless standard works.
So, are there vendors out there whose 802.11n APs can operate at full clip and still conform to 802.3af power requirements? Well, there are some who say they can, but I suppose until you try them out, you’ll never know how it performs in practice. Remember the 802.11n and 802.3at standards still haven’t been ratified yet, making the whole combination look like a bit of dog’s breakfast at the minute.
Does copper sweat?
In answer to the question does copper sweat – yes, BT will be sweating the UK’s copper network infrastructure for all it’s worth – the 21CN project will see to that. However, BT’s local access network business, Openreach, has announced further details of the fibre rollout at Ebbsfleet Valley in Kent. Just south of the Thames near Gravesend. The area is larger than the City of London central area and has Ebbsfleet International station close by.
From August 2008 optical fibre will be used to connect residences on Land Securities 1,000 acre new build project. Around 10,000 homes will be built in the Ebsfleet Valley and it looks like they’ll all be getting 100Mbit/s.
Why the government hasn’t said that all new homes must have fibre is a great example of short term thinking to my mind. Short term normally translates to “it’s too expensive”, in these debates, but if you’re building new houses I would’ve thought, a tiny bit extra on the mortgage wouldn’t make that much difference. Also, if the house gets sold, having an optical fibre connection looks like a great selling point to me.
Until then I suppose having a house next door to a BT exchange looks like the next best thing, since even when 24Mbit/s is eventually rolled out across the country, there’ll not be many having those headline speeds.
At the minute, fibre isn’t being pulled in Ebbsfleet, but come August it looks like I may be having a wander down there to see how things are going.
I did have a chat on the phone with Land Securities head of project management Andy Freeman about what’s happening. The first properties are being built now and will be available late August and September, all things going to plan. The fibre will be pulled through a standard BT duct and Openreach will make it available to comms providers, including BT retail, who’ll be providing the services to users, although on day one you won’t have the full range of providers you’ll have on copper.
Freeman said that where the houses are being built, it’s been a chalk quarry for the past 100 years, so the first decision Land Securities made was not to put legacy infrastructure in. Freeman pointed out that it didn’t make any sense over a 25-30 year development to put anything other than optical fibre in and added that if nobody had stepped up to the mark like BT did, they would have brought in the expertise themselves. However, BT would not have stepped up if “we hadn’t pushed them for four years to do it,” commented Freeman.
“There’s probably a snowball at the top of the hill now and this will be a quantum leap above what’s obtainable on copper and you’ll be able to turn up the speed as and when there’s a demand,” Freeman added.
HSUPA by USB stick
Should you care that Vodafone launched a High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA) service in the UK in early December? Well unless you're a mobile road warrior, probably not. HSUPA, should, according to Vodafone, give you around 5Mbit/s when downloading and around 1.5Mbit/s when uploading content.
I’ve been giving one of Vodafone’s new HSUPA devices a roll, and at the minute I’ve seen a maximum of 2Mbit/s when downloading data in central London (postcode W1A). However, I haven’t had a full strength connection yet, so there’s probably a bit more gas in the tank.
The modem comes in a neat USB stick form factor though (see picture), and also has a usage tracker as well, which makes keeping to that 3GB ‘fair usage’ limit a lot easier. Vodafone say they won’t charge if you go over the ‘fair use’ limit, but will ask you to ‘temper your usage’, if you keep breaking the limit.
Data transfer speed is one thing, but what about latency - which is just as important. Well, if you ping Google’s web site through your work connection, you should see times in the 15 millisecond region and around 25 milliseconds on your home broadband connection. I remember Orange’s HSDPA service, the 3G service before HSUPA, giving ping times around 170 milliseconds. The ping times Vodafone’s service has given have been as low as 105 milliseconds - all the better for drawing web pages that bit quicker.
The device costs £49 on an 18-month contract with a flat rate price per month is £25 and you can also use SMS on Vodafone’s USB modem. We'll be putting out a full review in a few weeks time.
You can run but you can't hide
Is the demise of the polar bear a shoe-in? If the arctic totally melts, will these fearsome beasts be only clocked in Zoos? What is this to do with network technology? Why all the rhetorical questions?
Well, it seems that SeeMore Wildlife Systems has a tie-up with RealVNC to use their software to monitor the bears in the Hudson Bay area of Canada. The cameras used to track the bears are attached to a Tundra Buggy and backhauled via microwave links to the town of Churchill and then via the internet to the control centre in Alaska. Sounds like a neat use of technology, but if the arctic does melt, it may be that the bear’s main food - seals, which they catch when the seals pop up for a breather through holes in the ice, might be less bothered.
I’ll be reviewing the latest version of RealVNC later this month, but I wonder if the bears are intelligent enough to realise that a much more abundant food source is available further west – checking on their movements over the web.
Is Yoko Ono a network administrator?
IT Week is always on the look out for nifty network management tools that can save you time or have a different way of doing things. So I was punted the name of a firm offering a free suite of network management tools called PacketTrap Networks. After downloading the near 7MB executable and installing it, if you want to run it you have to create a PacketTrap account – standard stuff, your name, email address, company name etc.
On the site itself are testimonials from people who have used PacketTrap’s pt360 Tool Suite – but one from Yoko Ono (see piccy)? Has Yoko Ono become a network admin? Well she has wrestled with some of mankind’s most intractable problems – world peace – for instance. Does network management qualify as one of the world's most intractable problems? Depends whose network I suppose. A nice spoof – and there are also testimonials from Jean-Paul Sartre and one PFC Gump.
PacketTrap will be releasing a Pro version in Q1 2008 with extra functionality, like Cisco configuration management, better application and server monitoring, more open source and third party integration, better network discovery and syslog server capabilities.
Firing up the PacketTrap's free pt360 suite after you've got your activation code reveals a fairly simple and clean interface, with a collection of 13 tools. Three types of 'pinging' tools – standard ping scan, enhanced ping, and graphical ping. After these there's a DNS Audit and Whois tools, before the scanning tools for port, MAC, simple network management protocol (SNMP) and Windows management instrumentation (WMI). You can also use the Wake-on-LAN tool to boot up a device and monitor it and there's also a Traceroute tool and a TFTP server. Finally the Traffic Jam tool lets you generate network traffic to a device on a selected port with a specific protocol. All in all, a nifty set of tools – even Yoko rates them.
