Windows 10 has been in the news lately because of fears that it transmits a lot of personal information from the computers, tablets and phones it runs on.

That’s concern enough, but the deeper problem is a lot more like power windows and door locks. In an effort to be ‘convenient,’ even helpful, modern computing devices bring along a lot of baggage and risks that consumers really don’t understand. Windows is just one of the latest, but 10 takes it to a new level.

While Microsoft and others really do want to data mine your activity to make money, there is a more fundamental shift. They are trying to improve the computing experience, to make it more integrated, and to be more helpful to the consumer. It isn’t necessarily malicious, but there are implications way beyond privacy.

Windows 10 is fundamentally different from earlier technology products in several ways

• it tracks your activity and personal information (if you let it)
• it is designed to be ‘live linked’ to online resources
• it constantly tries to modify itself to stay ‘current’
• it tries to anticipate your needs and do things automatically to be helpful
• it ‘assumes’ that you want all of this as a default

Windows and other computing platforms used to connect to online services as needed. As a consumer, you were generally aware that you were accessing remote resources. 10 changes all that. It integrates online resources into its basic operations. Its default settings include options to track your behavior, suggest content, target advertising and provide answers predicted by your behavior. It also continually updates itself at regular intervals.

The platform connects you to available open hot spots, and it shares resources with computers identified by your contacts list. It allows ‘friends’ devices to share your network access when they visit your home. It even goes so far as to have program updates get shared by other computers in your local network.

All this gets done without any effort on your part. That may all sound wonderful, but it has drawbacks. With all the activity you may find that 10 is taxing your network. According to The Hacker News, even with all the privacy options enabled, 10 will contact external servers 5,500 times per day! Add three computers to your home LAN; they all start chattering; and, you suddenly have a lot of network traffic.

With all this ‘activity’ 10 will

• use a lot of network bandwidth with endless communication
• potentially disrupt your work or apps with automatic updates
• create a greater opportunity to be hacked with all the communication
• expose your device(s) by connecting to open hot spots
• risk your device(s) by allowing other computers to use your network
• obscure when you are connecting to outside resources
• transport your personal information around putting it at risk
• freely update guest computers with your network via peer to peer distribution

Perhaps worst of all, the platform does all this automatically. Some of the options can be turned off, but a basic installation turns these features on by default. If hackers break into the inter-system communications, any corruption or malware would be spread like wildfire.

Assuming that no one would or will hack into this infrastructure seems foolhardy. Forcing this risk on consumers without their understanding is unfair and irresponsible.

For more understanding check out:

PCWorld: How to reclaim your privacy in Windows 10, piece by piece

The Hacker News: Windows 10 Sends Your Data 5500 Times Every Day After Tweaking Settings

ars technica: Even when told not to, Windows 10 just can’t stop talking to Microsoft

Slate: Broken Windows Theory

isleaked.com: fix windows 10 (see settings screens)

As Always, Happy Computing!

The constant challenge is to learn (and remember) all the individual tools you need to develop solutions for each platform. At ICAL we use a product called XOJO to do a lot of our cross platform development. It is one of the few truly cross-platform tool sets.

Toward the end of January we were invited to discuss XOJO with the people who produce it. ICAL, Tom and Arthur (not to be confused with Tom and Ray) spoke with XOJO Inc’s Paul Lefebvre about enterprise solutions using XOJO.

We’re not radio jocks, but it is an interesting topic for technology consumers/developers. The rest of you non-techies with sleep disorders may also find it helpful.

Check it out: XojoTalk 21 (Enterprise Consulting)

We have always approached our clients. Rarely have people approached us, so we treated our web site like an online brochure. The old site covered the basics of who we are and how we work. The technology we use changes constantly, but those basics don’t.

For some companies, changing their web site is like changing outfits for the evening. To a fault, we are not that flippant. We struggle with the content, the context and the presentation. As we approached the new year, we began the lengthy and painful process of re-design.

Philosophically, we are not big fans of dynamic web designs. Those of us who grew up with The Elements of Style and consistent layouts, struggle with shape shifting of purely dynamic pages.

Philosophy aside, we had to give the nod to the 21st Century. Our new site steps down dynamically with different sized view ports, and we now have images that exceed 10k bytes. Alas poor Yorick, I remember him well.

Jesters aside, the site was showing its age, and it didn’t represent us well, especially on large screens. The new site steps through different view port sizes rather than morphing infinitely. It maintains layouts rather than center tagging all content. It just had to; we’re still old school layout. We still believe in form and function.

Let us know what you think.

Happy Computing!

Tom & Arthur

It even allowed us to leave the office on holidays and enjoy a festive green screen at home. (you are old too if you got that one) That was fine, but it was complicated and not a tool that went much beyond programmers and system administrators.

Remote access used to mean connecting and working on one computer, probably with a slow terminal session. Today, high speed communications allow file sharing, remote system control, remote printing, shared sessions, virtual meetings, and a host of other services.

With today’s communication technology, remote access is now a practical, even necessary, tool for most people and organizations. It has become so pervasive or invasive that we have radically changed the way we work, play and do business. It’s not just for techies any more.

In our business we now work with more people remotely than we do in person. We have completed entire projects without meeting people face to face. We have met other customers, but we may not see them again in person, literally for years.

Just in our firm alone, we regularly use the following technologies to work with non-technical customers: (Cisco VPN, GotoAssist, GotoMeeting, OpenVPN, Remote Desktop, Skype, VNC, Zoom and VOIP phones)

That is a large mix of tools, but we are a technology company that deals with a lot of companies with specific requirements. Most companies can still benefit from a smaller mix of services. Using even a limited set of remote work tools allows companies to

• provide flex time for employees (work when needed)
• reduce real estate costs (people work off site)
• reach customers beyond their immediate area
• leverage technology provided by other firms
• connect remote locations like one group
• provide remote customer support

Adopting the correct tool set can be daunting, but it doesn’t have to be expensive. There are viable options for any sized organization even with a modest budget.

Employing simple services like GotoMeeting, GotoMyPC, and a VOIP phone solution can even make a small company a lot more effective.

A larger organization with more staff may find it cheaper and want to use a VPN instead. We have employed OpenVPN, which has a very reasonable price, with great success.

Some organizations may find that tailored remote/cloud based tools enhance their business. These may not replace a current mix of business solutions, but they may help to eliminate manual processes in spreadsheets. With remote access to tailored ‘helper’ applications, a company can be more consistent, and even offsite staff can be granted access to consistent tools.

Spend some time considering your business process. Remote capabilities may give you some of the tools to expand your business and reduce the cost of running it.

At ICAL, we not only produce environments and solutions that leverage remote technologies, we run our business on them. We couldn’t exist without them.

If you decide that your business might benefit from the addition of remote work capabilities, we can help. call us.

Happy Computing!

With the Dot Com bubble burst in 2000, we started approaching brick and mortar companies that could use web technology to enhance their business.

ICAL developed its first customer web application in 2001. That year we developed a document image retrieval system for First American Title Insurance. This system began a series of projects that let agents get their own information and order policies directly, online. Previously, company staff had to send document copies via courier or fax to their attorney agents.

This led to 12 years of service and improvements to the company’s agency business systems. It was transferred to another portion of the company in 2012 and re-written, but the basic system design and functionality continues to this day.

2004 marked the first time that ICAL hosted applications for customers in our data center. We began hosting an accounting solution for a Central American customer. We built a series of servers in our data center to host a Platinum Accounting system for renewable energy developers operating in Guatemala and Costa Rica.

That same year, we developed a web application for CHI Energy, another energy client. This was a web based production reporting system. It tracked energy production and outages for renewable plants in the United States and Canada.

CHI Energy was later purchased by Enel Energy. We continued to support and maintain this application for the next 11 years until it was retired in 2015.

ICAL has gone on to develop and host many ‘cloudy web applications’ since then. Today, we regularly develop web applications and hybrid desktop programs that rely on web services both in our data center and elsewhere.

If you have a need for a distributed, web, desktop or hybrid application contact us today.

Happy Computing!

The fix for most of us is to simply upgrade or change browsers. Many people or organizations that operate Microsoft Windows based computers have them configured to automatically update. For them this won’t be a problem. These computers are likely already updated to a later browser version.

Unfortunately, many companies maintain older web applications that only work correctly on older versions of Internet Explorer. If you find yourself or your company in this situation, you need to be aware.

In order to protect the integrity of your company’s network you need to consider doing one of the following:

• Limit Workstation Access to other areas on the web
• Re-configure your workstations to sandbox the browser
• Update your application to use a later browser version
• Enforce a policy of only using the outdated browser for your dependent application

Ultimately, only updating or re-writing your application will fix the problem. The other solutions will extend the usability of your current solution, but as you purchase new equipment it won’t have access to the older browser versions.

Check here for a list of Microsoft Internet Explorer life cycles on distinct operating platforms.

This can be very disruptive to business, but it can be managed so that the impact is minimized.

If you need help that is what ICAL does. We can help. Contact Us

As always, Happy Computing!

We developed a set of tools that listen for those signals just like a doctor might listen to your heart.

The ‘Heartbeat Monitor’ can be configured to take several different actions when a monitored program fails to signal or signal correctly. Specifically, the monitor can:

• log an event
• allow several failures before acting
• notify ICAL staff by text or email
• restart a program that has failed
• do nothing

There are both commercial and open source tools that do similar things, but they are more focused on data center management, not application monitoring. Most provide a lot of abilities we don’t need, and each lacked a few features that make it easier to watch our monitored applications.

The monitor program and the tools that were needed for each program to talk to it were developed over a year. We began of defining a simple protocol in 2014. In June of 2015, we started testing the process on some of our existing hosted applications.

For ICAL, this means we can can maintain more applications with less resources. For customers, we can keep our costs lower while providing better service. We don’t have to pay people to check things 24 hours a day. We do have programs that can.

If you have business application needs Contact Us.

Happy Computing!

It was both interesting and fun. We were also duly impressed by the caliber of the people attending. The group shared projects that we never imagined being built with this tool set. Based on their experiences, Xojo has demonstrated itself as a versatile platform for building most software solutions that a company may need.

Part of the discussion focused on how Xojo could be used as key component within an enterprise. It had been used by the group as sort of a Swiss Army Knife for data conversion and presentation.

As techies, we sometimes get caught in our own little world. We forget that getting together once in a while helps us to be better and more successful at what we do.

Thank you ALL for making this successful. In particular, thank you Paul Lefebvre for taking the time to get down here and share some very helpful insights into Xojo and its future direction.

We look forward to hearing from all of you and getting together again. Please contact us with your ideas for what you might like to do in the future. We look to seeing you all again

Tom & Arthur

Web site operators purposely try to keep you on their sites longer to get more advertising revenue. Conversely, the web can be so haphazard that you tend to stumble onto places that you really hadn’t planned on visiting. The problem gets compounded by the fear that you might not be able to find something again.

This often leads to mixing work and play. There is nothing wrong with playing on the web, but often you have to get something done. There are a few things that can help.

• Go online with intent to play or work.
• Indulge your curiosity
• Develop ‘goto’ sources
• Watch the clock

Go online with intent
Pick a mindset and to try not to violate it. It is very easy to get distracted when you are searching for something. You may start looking for something work related when, suddenly, an incredible article on sailing pops up. Oh, look, a great new concept snow machine.

Surprisingly, this even reverses itself. You can be searching for something fun to watch on TV that evening when a link to some new work tool pops up in a search. Suddenly, an hour has passed because you read everything there is to know about the new theory on non-relational database structures. You just earned yourself a cool evening at home.

When this happens save the link to bookmarks or a text file so that you can go back to it later.

Indulge your curiosity
Make time to go back and look at all the interesting things you bookmarked. These little indulgences often lead to new ideas for work and play. This also makes it easier to avoid the temptation to read the next terribly interesting thing you find. You haven’t lost the opportunity; you just deferred it.

Develop goto resources
Many items on the web are questionable. Often you have to double check anything you plan to rely on as truth. Over time, you find reliable sources for different topics.

You may rely on wikipedia.org for science and history; trust imdb.com for entertainment; and snopes.com to identify urban myths. Keep a list of these resources, mentally, digitally or on paper. This will reduce the time you need to vet the resources you find

Watch the clock
Time seems to evaporate when you work online. Between the distractions and seemingly endless resources, hours pass very quickly. Plan to finish your tasks within a time frame. Go home for supper when you are supposed to! If you are attentive, and if you are lucky, you might just keep your real world friends and family.

overview  –  what is the web  –  search criteria  –  protecting yourself  –  plan your time

The Connected Lifestyle

The age old things you were taught in the non-digital world still apply here. If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. If something doesn’t seem logical or correct, it probably isn’t. Think about everything you might do, before you do it!

Things no one should fall for

• Microsoft is really contacting you for your credit card number
• The Foreign Minister of Ghana knows you, a plumber in New Jersey
• Mark Zuckerberg wants to give you a billion dollars in Facebook shares
• The IRS even sent you an email. Never mind that it came from Russia.
• A 19 year old hottie is dying to meet you, a fat, 50 year old programmer in Boston

If your mom would tell you, “don’t be stupid,” maybe you shouldn’t do that. Just like anything else in life, if it sounds incredulous it probably is.

Conversely, there are real threats that you can avoid with a little diligence. Always be suspicious. If something doesn’t feel right, check it out. Look for things that don’t seem right.

Real considerations

• Avoid purchases that do NOT use a secured site (look for https addresses)
• Don’t answer website inquiries or emails that want financial information.
• Don’t offer any personal information to anyone that shouldn’t need it
• Use two factor checking. Verify by phone as well the web or email
• Search to see if anyone else has had a problem with a site, vendor or product
• Close your browser or turn off the computer when any link tries to force you to click on it
• Consider paying for online purchases through PayPal to add another level of protection
• Open a separate bank account to link with online payment services like Paypal.
• Never install any software on your computer without checking it out.
• Avoid using debit cards online
• Always keep current, anti-virus software on your computer
• Unless you know what you are doing, if your computer is compromised, shut it down and get help.

There is no guarantee that you won’t be compromised, but a little forethought will save you 99% of the time.

overview  –  what is the web  –  search criteria  –  protecting yourself  –  plan your time

The Connected Lifestyle