So … do you feel you have a job, a career, or a calling? There is no wrong answer and the answer is yours and personal.  This post  came  after reading an email from Brian Johnson of en*theos that said, and I quote direct from that email below:

“If you can find a way to use your signature strengths at work often, and also see your work as contributing to the greater good, you have a calling.” ~ Martin Seligman from Authentic Happiness

Seligman talks about the “three kinds of ‘work orientation’: a job, a career, and a calling.” As he points out, you go to a job strictly for the paycheck. Punch the clock, get paid. Done.

You have a career to enjoy the benefits of advancement and mastery of a given domain.

A calling (or vocation), on the other hand, “is a passionate commitment to work for its own sake.”

So, here’s what’s cool: “any job can become a calling, and any calling can become a job. “A physician who views the work as a Job and is simply interested in making”

—

Life goes through phases where we move in and around these positions. For me, what I do is a career and somewhat of a calling. The reward of doing things differently and making a difference in what I do vs. just doing it to make a $$$ brings me the most satisfaction.

One aspect of my career became a job and was not advancing, motivating nor contributing to a greater good. My goal is playing a role that will transform how clients manage their business and help them to grow and succeed in ways they never thought possible and in that endeavor I am getting away from roles that become a ‘job’.

The underlying goal of my ‘career’ with my businesses is to generate enough income so I financially can support a new calling. That calling is to help those less fortunate and become an active player in shaping our community in Surrey. I also want to locate and partner with a community in central America/Caribbean to help those in need there and create a bridge to connect that community and Surrey to share ideas, opportunities, and educate each other. I am only at step 1 of that process but it is starting.

I have not yet selected a community down south but over the next 4-5 years will be traveling and exploring communities and regions to see where there is a fit and opportunity. By the time an area is selected my businesses here in  Surrey will be closer in line with that path to support an outreach program, and allow me to spend time there as well as here throughout the year.

So what’s in your vision or calling? We do not have to follow the rest of the world nor do what others tell us what we ‘should’ do. We can change the world and our community for the better only if we change our own perception of what is possible and know that we ‘CAN DO IT’ if we follow our hearts and minds and stay true to our calling.

Stay well, stay focused, stay true.

Brad

How to raise the awareness of Social responsibility in Surrey business community without SBOT coming off as preaching? I see 2 hurdles to overcome.

First hurdle is ignorance. Business owners may not be aware of what is needed by them to help transform Surrey into the best place to live and work. Business owners may not realize how little effort is needed by one individual to make a difference if everyone gets a little bit involved. Business owners may not realize the potential (or risk) of their action (or inaction) in how they operate within the community. A healthy community promotes a healthy workspace and a healthy business environment. Reducing the cost of social issues increases the opportuntiy for businesses to grow. Less crime, lower insurance rates, higher morale, lower taxes, better workforce pool and so on. Business owners need to hear success stories and see firsthand the value of being involved and taking responsibility for their impact on the local and global community as demonstrated by their peers and other members in SBOT and in the city of Surrey.

Through awareness and education, Business owners can learn of social challenges that impact our local economy and at the least start talking about those needs and keep their ears and eyes open to what is going on around them. Social innovation after all is all about people and connecting within the community. Business owners and managers are people who can share and influence others, employees, vendors, customers, and so on by their actions and words. Business owners have a responsibility to be good community partners. Talk may be cheap but we at least have to start the conversation on social innovation and change in the Surrey business community before actions will begin taking shape and expectations are raised.

On that note I am putting out links to two wonderful organizations making a difference in Surrey. http://keyssolutions.org   and http://www.surreyfoodbank.org   Please check them out and if you have things to donate please consider these folks first before Craigs list as it goes to a very worthy ‘local community’ cause.

Second hurdle is fear. Businesses are afraid to take on social partnerships for the fear that it takes them away from their business, costs them time and money, and they are uncertain it will provide them any direct value. While not an implied unwillingness to help, the reality is many small business owners are focused on paying the bills and feeding their families and paying staff such that they are not yet able (in their mind) to devote time to or consider how they can partner with or assist in causes outside of their own.

I was that business owner for many years. Now I realize the struggles of being an owner never go away yet setting aside as little as 8 hours a month to assist in community services does not harm anyone or any business. In fact that opens the door to new connections, new ideas, and a greater sense of place in the community. That in turn translates to a more balanced life which reduces stress and clears the mind to be more effective in work. A new perspective is a great thing for the entrepreneur.

Most SBOT members appear to be independent small business entrepreneurs who in themselves are more immersed ‘in’ their businesses than managers and owners of larger corporations who have teams working ‘on’ thier business thus freeing up resources to explore external opportunities and social causes. The way to an entrepreneur heart and mind is showing an interest in helping them to succeed. Mentor them, help them and they will be more willing to listen and follow when asked to help in return. VanCity has demonstrated that very well in the way they integrate social directives into the very fabric of their business which also create a positive return on their bottom line. A win-win.

How does that translate to a means for SBOT to play a role in driving social innovation in Surrey? I do not have the answers but I do know SBOT is doing a great job even now of creating opportunities for businesses and community groups to connect and share and learn. SBOT is the mentor and the advocate for local business and is a conduit for feedback and ideas from the business community and the local community organizations.

SBOT members are a huge resource and bit by bit as more become active in the community SBOT can continue to support their efforts by opening doors to hold meetings, and sharing the results of business involvement in the Surrey community. By acting as an information conduit and opening the door to dialog on key social issues, SBOT is doing their part to make Surrey a better place to work and live. Keep up that great work and continue to motivate and get members to become more involved, one member at a time SBOT.

A business mentor friend of mine explained to me how it takes 21 days of consistent repetitive tasks to break a bad habit (or create a new good habit) and that repetition is no different here. Continue to be a resource, be supportive, be available, and in time people come around and habits and ideas change for the positive. I love Surrey and all the potential it has for the future.   Indeed the future lives here.

Cheers – Brad

While installing Windows 8 got this error. “Windows cannot be installed to this disk. This computer’s hardware may not support booting to this disk. Ensure the disk’s controller is enabled in the computer’s BIOS menu” I found on other situations where the error came up “windows cannot be installed on this disk. The selected disk is of the GPT partition style”

Everything was brand new except the hard drive which was previously used. I tried several other disks that I had sitting around that had seen life as USB backup disks or spares from various tests. 500gb, 1TB disks that were 1-2 years old so no reason they should not work. None did. I wondered if I needed to update the disk controller driver from the ASUS motherboard DVD. Tried that and no luck. I did recall having this issue 3 years ago when I upgraded my computer on Windows 7 so I dug around and found the exact same issue in Windows 7 as I had in Windows 8 when doing a new install on a pre-existing disk. The solution ? …

1. Boot up to installation DVD/CD.
2. Click install but don’t follow through.
3. Press SHIFT-F10 to bring up console.
4. Type “diskpart”
5. Once inside diskpart type:
-> list disk (find the one you want to convert)
-> select disk 0 (select the one you want from the list)
-> convert mbr (should take a second or two)
-> quit
6. Continue with install

Worked like a CHARM! Why?

Windows formatted my USB and secondary disks in GPT format by default so when I took that disk to a new computer to install windows 7 or 8 it all seemed to go fine, detected the disk, even got as far as allowing install to delete and create new partitions but at the point of installing files failed with this error above.

Had I bought a brand new unformatted clean disk this would not be a problem. Go figure.

Now you Know. Hope this helps.

Cheers – Brad

Barely into 2013 and already dealing with a larger than usual wave of viruses and spam concerns. The two seem to go hand in hand.  Seems each time a new wave of viruses and viral email botnets come out, then for days and even weeks after we are inundated with fresh floods of spam and viral emails. We are always striving to keep our anti-virus and anti-spam up to date but it is a never ending, ever evolving cat and mouse game.

What’s a person to do, especially when you are not sure what to do or do not understand computers and how they communicate over email and the internet?

• Find someone techie who knows this stuff and pay them help every time there is a problem with your email and computer?
• Pay more on a monthly recurring basis for a fully managed solution with support staff proactively taking care of all of this for you?
• Ditch email and computers and return to verbal communication and smoke signals. Nobody can infect those right? 

Ok kidding aside. the best scenario is one that works within your budget is realistic for the size and type of business you operate.  You want to partner with vendors who know their stuff, not just slightly better than you, but fully and completely understand what is important and how to best manage and protect you and your computer data. You want Computer IT and software vendors to have your best interests in mind and treat you with respect. They should strive to educate you instead of telling you what to do and how much more money you need to spend. If you feel your current ‘experts’ cannot seem to solve issues without throwing more and more money at it then read this. The trouble with experts.

OK, back to the main point. It pays to know a bit about the inner workings of your email, even just enough to understand where Spam email comes from, and how to differentiate between all the terms like malware, viruses, Trojans, worms, bots, and spyware. If you have no idea then you may want to read this Cisco article.

Computer Viruses spread much like the living organism jumping from computer to computer by any means possible. Computer viruses generally behave in predictable patterns or behaviors which allow anti-virus programs to detect or prevent them from infecting your computer. New viruses emerge constantly so the protection against them needs to remain current to protect you.

Prevention is the best cure. Avoid hanging out where viruses like to live.  Even so we all can stumble into the wrong website on a search or mis-typed address. If so just close and get out quickly and remain alert to see if anything pops up or funny stuff starts happening. If you have a funny feeling that something untoward happened by visiting a site, say if your screen flickers or computer freezes for a few seconds or you cannot close a popup, you need to immediately stop what you are doing, close all your programs and do a  full scan of your computer to see if anything got in. Don’t restart the computer until after you scan it.

Beware the Root Kit Virus! If a virus already got in and the computer has been restarted there is the risk of a root kit virus installing itself.  As it implies, a root virus puts itself at the very root of your computer, loading itself when you turn on the power, before windows or any systems load up.  Logging into windows and trying to find and remove this virus is not possible because the virus is buried far deeper than your windows operating system. At this point your computer is hi-jacked until you get professional help to clean it.  In extreme cases the best course of action is to completely wipe the computer clean and re-install everything from scratch to truly remove all traces of the root virus.

Phishing and spam !!! The term Phishing is a common way that malware and viruses trick people into getting infected. The classic example is you are surfing the web when suddenly a popup says your computer is infected and you MUST click on the message to fix it now. You follow the steps to supposedly fix the concern only to find out the message you clicked on and followed ‘WAS’ the virus.

Email Phishing is especially prevalent. PayPal, online banking, Facebook, Linked In, Twitter, CBC or ABC, your Aunt Ruth’s secret recipe, whatever.  Whatever it may be that you are interested in, there is a phishing email circulating out there asking you to click a link to go check it out or open the attached file to verify your receipt or share some picture, whatever the malware of the week is. DON’T DO IT until you verify the email is legit. Phishing links take you to websites designed to install malware on your computer. Attached files contain malware or may install a Trojan or backdoor or password grabber or a root kit onto your computer.

Managing your email safely is also about behavior and how you do not get tricked into opening things with viruses and malware. Remember if it is too good to be true it is. If you were not expecting an email then you probably do not want it or need it. Most important. DO NOT BE IN A RUSH. When we are in a hurry we do not pay close attention and things happen without us realizing.

We live in a busy world trying to do more in less time but if we fail to temper how we work on our computers eventually we pay the price when things go wrong.

Viruses and email go hand in hand. When you get a virus more often than not the first thing it does is install an email gateway and starts to send masses of emails out to spread itself to new computers. Your computer is sick and sneezing its germ emails all over the internet. You will not see the emails popping up on your screen nor will they show in your outbox of your email program.  It all happens behind the scenes. It is usually only when your actual email stops working that you start to suspect you have a problem.  You may get bounce messages or alerts saying your email cannot be sent due to bad reputation, or worse, people you know contact you to say they are getting virus emails from you.  By this point the damage is done and it may take a few days after your computer is fixed before things get back to normal with your real email.

If your computer remains infected long enough then you can become blocked by the company that provides your internet or email, or you may be added to a blacklist which will alert people not to accept email from your location.  Even after you fix the virus and any blacklisting is removed you most often will see a large spike in spam and viral related emails being sent to you. Those are the result of the virus reaching out to other computers with your email or computer location in its radar.

If you get infected you better change your passwords to anything you use on that computer. A virus first focus after taking over a computer is infecting other computers and spreading itself but underneath that the virus has a deeper motive such as stealing passwords and login details which are collected and stored somewhere else for someone controlling the virus to later compile and use for fraudulent means.  Some viruses are able to directly locate and steal passwords from unpatched or unsecure programs and in other cases they in stall key loggers that capture everything you type in the hopes it will also trap any interesting login details as you use your computer.  Changing your passwords after a virus infection is safe practice that even if something got out, it will be useless if someone tries to use it against you in future.

Can a virus on my computer really take down my website?  Yes it can and by several means. One way is you get a virus that captures your login details to your website, either wordpress or Drupal or other login, or worse, the FTP login to load files direct to your website. In these cases the viral process can login and upload a copy of itself into your website pages thus potentially spreading itself out to your website visitors. Changing your website access and passwords is the only way to prevent this but if you do not eliminate the virus, it will continue to reset and recode itself into your website. The other more insidious way a virus can take down your website  is via a BotNet.

What is a BotNet and why should you care? Viruses often are linked to malicious BotNets. Bot as in robot which in this case is a compromised computer that is under the ‘remote’ control of a malicious program/Trojan, and Net as in network of computers linked together for a focused purpose or task. A BotNet usually targets a specific company or website or  email service either to hack in and gather confidential data, or merely flood those sites with so much activity that they fail to function, otherwise known as a directed denial of service (DDOS) attack.  When that happens people get an error message trying to view your website.

The sequence of events can be like below (Picture above and list below credit to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botnet)

• A botnet operator sends out viruses or worms, infecting ordinary users’ computers, whose payload is a malicious application—the bot.
• The bot on the infected PC logs into a particular server where the botnet operator connects.
• A 3rd party (spammer or rogue organization or individual) purchases the services of the botnet from the operator.
• The 3rd party provides the spam message, or the address of a server or website to attack, to the bot Operator who instructs the compromised machines via the control panel on the web server, causing them to follow his instructions. The emails will start to flow or website will fall under attack.

It is this controlled behavior where the actions can happen days or even weeks, months, anytime after a computer is infected. Some cleverly programmed Root kit Trojans can hide very deeply and  the computer will seem to operate normally and nothing will show or alert you as being amiss … BUT the BOT can be in hiding waiting to execute commands at some future date and time. It is this reason that sometimes viral activity shows up when you least expect it. How could my computer get a virus when I was on vacation and not using it for 2 weeks? Answer: It was infected before you went on vacation !!!

In conclusion:

• Stay safe and alert
• Change your passwords periodically
• Always change passwords after a virus infection.
• Viruses have many consequences and lasting effects
• Viruses can impact your website
• Viruses create Spam
• Trojans can lay in hiding waiting for the right opportunity to do their damage.
• Viruses cost business and our economy billions every year.
  (http://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0512/10-of-the-most-costly-computer-viruses-of-all-time.aspx)
• Individual businesses often are faced with costs averaging several hundred dollars per infected computer to fix, not including the cost of lost productivity or negative PR if the virus breaches or permanently damages confidential data.

If you as a business owner become infected you will need to call an expert to ensure your data is safe and help you ride out the storm . That ride may take days but the storm will end soon if you put the effort in to remediate the problem quickly and completely. There is no half fixing a viral infection. It has to be 100%.

All the best – Brad

Expert Consulting Services?

I watched an intriguing documentary the other night titled “The Trouble With Experts” that painted a rather contrary image of our society’s obsession with experts and the consulting industry. They examined the trend to make our business focus razor thin and go out and find experts, coaches, and niche specialists for the rest. We are trained, motivated, and advised to position ourselves as experts at what we do and to set ourselves apart from the pack by every means available to us.

The documentary went on to explain the growth of jargon and rhetoric as tools to influence and reinforce one’s expertise. They pointed out the explosive growth of coaching and business development courses teaching people how to talk-the-talk, walk-the-walk, how to dress for success, and how to communicate with influence to get what we want.  Nothing new, but certainly with Internet and modern media we have more opportunities to see and learn from others than any other time in the history of civilization.

So you are a business owner. You work hard, you have a valuable product or service, years of experience and training, and you really care about the work you do. You want to be competitive but the marketplace is constantly growing and changing. How do you keep up? There are many ‘coaching’ and ‘marketing’ systems out there to better run and grow your business. There are Human Resource kits and packages to help you hire and retain and manage your staff. There are endless computer programs to organize, file, account, and report on your every business move.  With every system, every package, or program, there are experts that are ready to save you time and effort by guiding you down the path to success.

Who do you choose if everyone is positioned as the ‘expert’ and all have claims of greatness and being better than the rest? You check websites and they all have glowing testimonials and systems and formulas to calculate their effectiveness far and above the next person. Their brochures are colorful and well designed and insightful.  Their sales reps are well versed and approachable and claim to know so much more than you do about the latest tools and technology and business strategies. They can’t all be right. Who do you trust? Who is the best fit for your business and for you?

Here are  a few observations to put this expert obsession in perspective.  I am merely observing and sharing my insights and experiences.

1. Real experts are not perfect. We are all human and to err is human.  If someone tells you they do not make mistakes or they offer 100% solutions with narrow perspective or one way point of view you are not working with the right person. Someone who is successful at learning from mistakes and turning failure into a win situation is better positioned to deal with the unexpected that comes up in the future. Someone who does not want to talk about exceptions or possibilities is closing the door on opportunities and leaving you vulnerable to the unexpected.

2. Real experts understand the need for flexibility. One size does NOT fit all and the application of a solution will vary from business to business. If the consultant only offers one way or the highway it may be best to show them the directions to that highway and right out the door.

3. Real Experts are genuine and forward thinking.  They start with the end in mind with a clear goal and a clear roadmap how you will get to that goal. They pull fom their years of experience in similar situations to offer you options. If they cannot clearly explain the plan or they have no plan then you have to question their ability to be of genuine help.

4. Real experts do not hide behind jargon and rhetoric. One expert tells you 2+4 =5 and the other says 2+4=7 so who do you believe? It makes little sense to review competing offers and select one if none of them make sense to you or none of them are valid for your business. If you do not understand or see the vision of what is being offered to you then you need to move on and continue the search.

5. A real expert can solve the problem faster and better than you or your staff trying to do it yourself. After all, that is why you called on them right? They are trained and experienced in that ‘stuff’ and know it off the back of their hand and do it in their sleep and without batting an eyelash.

6. A real expert understands the cost/benefit model and should have your best interests in mind. When the cost outweighs the benefit they should advise accordingly before proceeding. Why agree to pay someone $3000 to fix something that only costs you $250 a year to leave as is and has no other negative impact on your clients or your business.

Listen, listen, listen

7. Real experts want to learn about you before they can offer solutions for you.

An expert who offers you a solution before understanding the problem is just in it for the money. If you have a consultant that only wants to talk about dollars and how much you have to spend today, or says the more you spend the more you will be successful, you should back away quickly. You need to establish a working trust relationship with someone before the financial gates open wide.

PS – Also just because someone you trust refers someone they trust to you and has high praises for them does not give you licence to throw caution to the wind. Always pursue due diligence in qualifying your ‘expert’ on your own terms.  While a qualified referral is far better than a cold referral …
remember trust is earned, not assumed.

Salut – Brad

When you type in the To: Cc: or Bcc: boxes Outlook will auto fill in the names or email as you type. That saves time trying to locate people or typing the whole address every time. This is referred to as the Outlook Nicknames list and is part of the auto complete feature in Outlook. The challenge is this nickname list is not tied to your contacts in any way. When we first install Outlook this is blank and has nothing in it. Each time you send an email, Outlook captures the names and email addresses of people you are sending to and stores them for next time so you do not have to retype names.

Arrrggghh!

The real bugbear is when you change a contact email address or contact list Outlook does not go into this Nickname list and update it. You have to manually remove invalid emails or outdated lists from your nickname file. Never is this more frustrating than when dealing with mailing lists. Even in Outlook 2010 if you update a mailing list in your contacts, when you go to email them using the auto-fill feature it still uses your remembered emails you have sent in the past because it was pulling it from your nickname list, not your updated mailing contact list.

The way to fix  is:

1. Open a new email message.
2. Type the first few characters of the entry that you want to remove from the cache.
3. When te entry appears in the “suggested names” list, move your mouse pointer over the name until it becomes highlighted. (But do not click the name)
4. When the “X” icon appears next to the highlighted name, click X to remove the name from the list.

This means when you update a contact you should also delete it from your nickname cache as well. Because Outlook does not limit you to emailing only people in your contact list ,this nickname list still remains independent of your contact list.  

It would be ‘really nice’ if outlook (Actually any email program for that matter) were smart enough to figure this out. Other email programs like Thunderbird may have the same feature and the same issues. In this post I am talking about Outlook 2010 specifically although the issue and topic is pretty well the same for Outlook 2003 and 2007.

For those of you having email problems or people not getting your email messages or they bounce back. Please check your auto-complete/nickname list in Outlook.

Thanks and safe emailing folks. – Brad

I continue to encounter situations where persons in a technical field, computer service, software development,  or website customer service, have demonstrated complete lack of communication skills, and even arrogant and rude behaviour.  Often the person is technically inclined and very knowledgeable on the topic at hand but things are lost in translation when they open their mouth.

My problem? I take it for granted that people who work in the IT and software industry also treat their job same as someone working front line in a customer service industry. We all need to communicate with people and provide quality customer service, especially in IT and software services. Is that unrealistic of me to believe? I’ll try not to date myself here but several decades ago programming and IT tech was the domain of the computer guru and the knowledge was exclusive and limited to the special few. There was an assumed truth that techie people were … well … difficult… and that is just the way it was. They simply knew it all and we knew nothing.

I recall the Friday before Easter long weekend in 1996 when a service technician blew up the server that was running my store POS system. A minute before the mishap I calmly asked the technician, who had the case open on the server and was about to poke in there with a long metal screwdriver … “Just a comment. Does that need to be unplugged from the wall before you do that?”  A simple and honest question that got the reply … “Look. You don’t worry about my job and continue doing what you are doing there OK?”   Not what I would have said and when I heard the pop and saw the flash that signalled the permanent death of my POS server he calmly said. “Well the mainboard is toast and I’ll have to order another one in which should be 2 weeks.” and he proceeded to pack up his stuff to leave. I argued that it was he who killed the mainboard and that server was needed to run my store over the busy long weekend and what was HE going to do about it?  He said to call his head office and they take care of the details and ran out. He assumed I was stupid but hey, he was getting paid $200/hr to do this so maybe I was the stupid one. At least I know when to admit I made a mistake and know how to listen to people and make a point of empathizing with and understand what people express to me. I know the customer is the one you serve.

Here we are today, decades after Windows and Apple were introduced,  and where DOS is a black screen that only techie people remember. We are well embedded and engrossed in the mobile marketplace and we are an active, social, linked in, tweeting, app hungry, facebooking, YouTube, touch media saavy, Googling bunch.  There is a little techie in all of us but that the old stereotype of a computer technician or programmer still persists in the industry.

I cannot complain as I get quite a bit of new business clients who previosly were at a loss trying to work with their previous IT technician or website or software consultant. On  the flip side it pisses me off because I am an IT technician and a programmer for almost 25 years and I am faced with dispelling the stereotype and confusion and mis-trust that still surrounds my industry. I meet many gifted IT techs and programmers, even offering to mentor and help some with their business and skills. It confounds me that some do not want to me mentored nor want to concede to the concept that someone else may have a different idea.  Probably the most frustrating thing is lack of self awareness and lack of acceptance of responsibility for their actions. They have knowledge but no communication or interpersonal skills.

There are excellent, knowledgeable technicians and programmers out there who also possess excellent interpersonal skills and are customer service focused but it seems they are still the exception than the rule. I am pleased to see organizations like ToastMasters and BNI and even the local colleges focusing on helping technical trades (everyone) to become better at listening and to communicate more effectively. The issue is not limited to technical trades and is not a generational thing.

Take note! If you want to do business with me please take the time to understand my needs and my business needs and I assure you I will do the same for you. If you want to work with me be up front and honest and clear. B.S. smells from a great distance and there is no such thing as a white lie or false truth. Be mentorable (that should be a real word) and open to ideas but at the same time have a strong opinion. I hate ‘yes’ people as much as people who refuse to try new things and learn from others.  

I am blessed to be working currently with a great team of staff at HOSS Solutions. Everyone works very hard for our customers and they believe in the importance in serving our clients first and learning from any misgivings. We are all here to help our clients succeed and grow because only when our clients succeed do we succeed.

Cheers  – Brad

So … is the Internet really full? Are you tired of hearing IT people continually threatening that it is full or will soon be and the world as we know it is going to change dramatically. OK, not exactly the Apocalypse or Y2K and in fact probably not even much to talk about unless you are an IT person.

TCP-IP, using Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) is the current means for devices, computers, switches, phones, cars, fridges, to communicate with each other globally and locally. It operates much like phone numbers allow us to dial a number and connect one telephone to another anywhere in the world. Country code, area code, local prefix, phone number, all go from large area to specific location as you work your way down the number from left to right in a phone number. TCP-IP is similar.

So before we can say whether the Internet is indeed full, lets find out how big it is. For any of you who took statistics and algebra in school you may recall learning about permutations and combinations.
http://www.mathsisfun.com/combinatorics/combinations-permutations.html
and how many possible combinations of numbers or addresses can be had within a specific range or size of number. IPv4 is much the same as a phone number with 4 sets of numbers (called octets) that represent 8 bits or 256 possible values, although in most cases 0 and 255 are reserved. When you factor this out IPv4 by design has a maximum pool of 4 billion possible addresses.

At first glance, 4 billion would seem like a sizeable amount but just like a certain successful hamburger chain used to tout 4 billion served in the late 70’s, here today, that number represents how many hamburgers are served in a few months, maybe even a single month. Likewise, our IPv4 addresses seemed endless when the concept was rolled out in 1981. Indeed at the rate addresses were being handed out for devices in the early 80‘s we surely had a lifetime or more before we would run out.

Then the Personal computer and the World Wide Web arrived and the demand for addresses increased exponentially. By the end of the 90’s something had to be done as experts realized the end was coming in terms of assignable IP addresses. Consider phone numbers started out as 3 or 4 digit numbers in very local areas in the beginning. Now we have transitioned to 10 digit dialing in all major urban centers in North America. Now we are facing an unimaginable demand for IP addresses with the surge in mobile phones, gaming consoles, portable devices and everything under the sun including cars, TV’s and even our kitchen appliances. Factor in a growing global demand with countries like China and India getting connected at an alarming rate and it is surprising we have not exhausted IPv4 already.

Enter IPv6. http://www.global-ipv6.org/documents/terms_of_reference.pdf
which came about officially in 2004 although it had been in the works prior to 1995.

Whatever happened with IPv5? http://www.oreillynet.com/onlamp/blog/2003/06/what_ever_happened_to_ipv5.html
That is a discussion for the archives.

IPv6 takes us from 4 billion possible addresses up to 5×10^28 addresses for every person currently on planet earth. Lets just say there is a lot of zeros after that number. I read someone saying it is the equivalent of every blade of grass on the planet having an IP address. It’s not that we need that many addresses nor is this overkill. By design a portion of the IP address is used for routing information so it is an address and much more.

Lets dissect IPv6 in simple visual terms. What will it look like for example. In IPv4 the address is like xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx. The address is decimal notated like 192.168.100.212. Anyone who is not a computer ‘inclined’ may recall having a support person ask for your computer or internet IP address and subnet mask and gateway and so on when tracing some connection issue.  An IPv6 address is like xxxx.xxxx.xxxx.xxxx.xxxx.xxxx.xxxx.xxxx. IPv6 addresses are hexadecimal notated like FE80:4563:EEA4:1020:51D7: A100:1F0C:44DA so be prepared to spend a bit more time reciting all of those off to your tech person when they need your computer address information.

Regarding hexadecimal format. Decimal (Deci) means 10 or base 10 numbering so when we count the numbers go from 0 to 9 for each position. When you get to the 11 you increment the position on the left by one so 10 to 19, 20 to 29, 100 to 109, 110 to 119 and so on. Hexadecimal is base 16 numbering so it has 6 more values represented by letters A to F. A=10 through F=16. When you get to 17 the process repeats by incrementing the position to the left by one so 0 to F, 10 to 1F, 20 to 2F, F0 to FF, 100 to 10f, 110 to 11f,  and so on.

You pack a lot more into a hex number than decimal but for most of us with our decimal trained brains the hex numbers may as well be trying to interpret those green rainlike images of numbers falling down on the computers in the Matrix.

Simply put, whether it is IPv4 or IPv6, it represents an address, a number, and everybody and everything needs one. The challenge now is when are we going to start this thing called IVv6 officially and get past IPv4. Good question. It is a big task to change over all the switching equipment in the world and upgrade all the equipment to support IPv6. A monumental task actually. Good news is this has been happening for almost a decade and almost all equipment sold today supports IPv6. The big communication and Internet companies are already switching over. What we need to do now is start testing and using IPv6. For end users and the general public all of this is behind the scenes and fairly transparent to day to day things. Only the IT people will really have to work at this and step up to learn and implement IPv6. Communication companies and IT people who are reluctant to educate themselves, upgrade their equipment, and transition to IPv6 will be left behind as the world moves forward with our without them.

What’s next? The following news comes from the IPv6 online Journal. http://www.ipv6tf.org/

World IPv6 Day – June 8, 2011

Facebook, Google and Yahoo, websites with more than one billion combined visits each day, are joining major content delivery networks Akamai and Limelight Networks, and the Internet Society, for the first global-scale trial of the new Internet Protocol, IPv6.  On June 8, 2011, dubbed “World IPv6 Day,” participants will enable IPv6 on their main services for 24 hours.  This is a major milestone toward formally pushing IPv6 forward to the mainstream. SO if you have issues on this day, ask yourself this.  Is my IPv6 working ??!? Seriously, what does World IPv6 day mean to all the common folks out there other then media hype on the day. Will it work. How will we know if it is not working?  I cannot wait until June 8th for all the excitement and drama. Cynicism aside this is at least a visible step in the right direction.

Address Allocation Kicks Off IPv4 Endgame

The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority has assigned two large blocks of IPv4 addresses to the Asia-Pacific Network Information Centre, activating a rule under which the agency will give out the last of its IPv4 addresses.

The rule states that when only five large blocks of IP addresses remain, one will be handed out to each of the world’s five regional Internet registries. With the latest allocation to APNIC, the number of remaining IP address blocks is down to five.

I have not discussed the format of how the IPv6 address is used to route information as it is quite different than IPv4 in that regard. That routing is a technical issue and for the most of us all we care is when we connect our computer to the Internet that it works J For those engineer or technical types who like to dissect and understand things at a deeper level there are many links to RFC and specs online like:

http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2732.html

http://www.juniper.net/techpubs/software/erx/erx50x/swconfig-routing-vol1/html/ipv6-config5.html

http://www.tcpipguide.com/free/t_IPv6DatagramMainHeaderFormat.htm

Your computer slows down, gets old so you replace it with a new one and wow … it is so much faster. What about your network switch if you have a home or business network? If you find your computer is fast but copying files to other computers or surfing the web is slow then it may be your network. If you use a server and find programs timing out, give you errors, or plain and simple are just not working properly, perhaps check your local area network as it may be your bottleneck.

If your network switch is more than 6-7 years old then chances are it does not support newer switching technologies or all that dust that has built up in it over the years has overheated it to the point of being almost burned out. If you are unsure if your network is the issue or you suspect you may have a bad cable or connection you can try a local area network test to see what your actual data transmission speeds are. Download Lan Speed Test to see for yourself. http://download.cnet.com/LAN-Speed-Test/3000-2085_4-10908738.html

I was having issues with Outlook doing odd stuff connecting to our exchange server. When I opened Access databases on our server sometimes they would seem to freeze up but after a minute they would finally open up … very slowly. We had a 10Mbps extreme Internet connection yet the fastest we could get on downloads was barely 512kb. When I connected my laptop direct to a neighbors cheap internet I got the same download speed and all tests showed our Internet was fine. Even printing to our lan printers took a quite a while to queue up. The other thing that got me was the task manager network utilization never crept over 1% on the server or any of the PC’s even when copying large files that would claim to take hours and hours, the network utilization was non-existing. I had a serious bottleneck somewhere.

I ran the Lan speed test and it showed local speeds of barely .9 to 1.5Mbps speeds. LOCAL speed I am talking here on a 100Mbps switch no less and with no traffic on the lan ??!?! I swapped out our 7 year old DLINK 16 port switch with another DLINk 24 port 10/100 Mbps switch that we pulled from a client office. (They upgraded to POE1000Mbps network fyi) I re-ran my tests and this time it came back a dismal .45 to .81Mbps on the lan. So this used switch was even worse than my own switch. What the heck?

I connected my computer to the server direct through our 3 year old 4 port Firewall router and got speeds of 4 to 12Mbps. That was better but still nowhere near what I expected for a 100Mbps lan with no traffic on it beside my lone computer late in the evening after hours.

I checked the drivers on my local computers. I am running Windows 7 and verified my NIC drivers and lan and connection settings were good. They were. I tried different computers, Windows XP Pro, Wndows 2008 server, Windows 2003 server. All shared the same results and the same patterns when tested on the two switches and the Router. I broke down and bought a brand new 100/1000Mbit 24 port + 2 GB port network switch from TrendNet and installed it.

I ran the same tests on the 100Mbit ports and got speeds of 81-93Mbit. I tested through the two gigabit ports and got speeds in the 512-790mbit speeds. It blew me away. I could copy a 2GB file in less than a minute that the day before would take half the night. My errors opening programs ceased immediately. My internet surfing speed quadrupled at least.

I tossed the two old switches out so they are never used as they are defective now after these many years of use. Consider the new 24 port switch cost only $100. It is time for me to assess the switches at client offices and make sure that they too are replaced in 2011 so they keep up with the new servers and workstations we are updating at the same time. We have replaced a few switches but now I need to review all my clients and see what they are using. This is especially critical of offices complaining of slow networks or software errors. The switch may be the cheapest and easiest thing to replace and certainly with a new switch you can rule it out as a problem and then focus on network wiring or true software or computer issues.

Keep in mind this is a purely un-scientific or methodical approach to solving this issue but I find my gut often is right when I suspect a problem. I also find ths approach more commonly used because most people do not posess $3000 fluke network testing equipment or have a deep knowledge of ethernet protocols and benchmark testing. Work with what you have and what you know and go from there.

In the process of testing my switches I also discovered that I had one bad network cable in the wall and when it was used it had a 90% packet loss. It worked, but was extremely slow. So I covered that plug up and will use the other outlets. Maybe that is a topic for some other post like “Why do good cables go bad ?”

Cheers and safe surfing over the holidays.

I suppose it is not with total surprise that I came to find that my new Blackberry Torch cannot synch with a 64 bit version of Microsoft Outlook, but in researching a solution it did become apparent that this 64 bit version of Outlook is not quite ready because it is not able to synch with anything, including the built in Windows Mobile Synch Center. Further adding to this frustration is the fact that I had to not only uninstall Outlook and Office 2010, but ALL 64 bit programs on my computer. Appears once you go down a path of using even one 64 bit Microsoft program you are committed and cannot mix 32 and 64 bit programs. Microsoft Project, Visio, Office, Sharepoint and other programs all fall under this umbrella.

After nearly an hour of uniunstalling all these programs and re-installing their 32 bit equivalent I am fine and my Blackberry and other devices now synch properly. I did need to install the newest Blackberry Desktop manager to synch on Windows 7 but that is assumed that you always want to run the latest software whenever possible. The newest Blackberry install CD even takes you to their website to download the software instead of installing direct from CD. Good call as that ensures customers are always getting the latest version from the start.

So consider yourself warned if you decide to pursue 64 bit version of Microsoft software. You will not be able to synch or collaborate data with other 32 bit applications and will need to wait for proper 64 bit versions of those applications which at this time may still be another 6 months off according to RIM and other manufacturers. Why Microsoft does not yet have a 64 bit functioning version of Mobile commuinication center is beyond me but in a company that big it is apparent not all software divisions are on the same page, even after a year fo Windows 7 being available in 64 bit edition.

From my use of both the 32 and 64 bit versions of the programs I cannot say I found any difference at all. Loading large Access databases or Word documents took the same amount of time, and I might say that Access 2010 64 bit was actually slower than the 32 bit version when it came to large Access databases. That could simply be my hardware configuration but I am running true 64 bit hardware with a Quad core Intel CPU and Windows 7 64 bit edition.

With the 32 bit versions of Office and other software installed I am not having any issues and my Blackberry synch’s up like a dream. We are not quite to true 64 bit systems and I know we are still facing an uphill challenge to get software and hardware developers to port everything over to 64 bit versions. Remember the switch from Windows 3 to Windows 95? It took us nearly 10 years until well into Windows XP life cycle before we finally were free of all those slow and unstable 16 bit applications

Happy Blackberry’ing y’all Brad

http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/Home/News.asp?id=59307

DROC – Domain registry of Canada. How many of you have recieved a letter in the mail that looks like this?

Copy of renewal letter sent by mail each year to website owners urging them to renew.

I get a few dozen every year as the technical or admin contact for close to 70 domain names. Waste of paper and postage if you ask me but it obviously works to drive sufficient business to DROC each year.
…

Lets look at what DROC is doing that has led to this lawsuit. The term “domain slammer” was coined from “phone slamming,” the illegal practice conducted by long distance companies to scam consumers into switching their long distance services. It is nothing new and not unique to DROC or the Internet or phone industry. Network Solutions (Verisign) has been sued in the past for doing this exact same thing. According to CIRA the issue is the poor reputation of DROC in the industry as a result of unethical marketing practices that mislead consumers.

From day one CIRA and our Canadian domain .CA regulatory body has been confusing at best and opened the door to DROC’s ability to exploit such confusion in the marketplace. Imagine if every person who bought a .COM or .NET or .ORG name got separate emails from Internic as well as the registrar with login and account details. Consumers are confused who they should deal with in the first place. DROC send out official looking letters with Canadian flag and an official looking form close to renewal time and people feel they must take action out of fear that they do not want to lose ownership of their name.

Many say this is due to the misleading intent of the letter shown above and while the letter is stating it is a transfer request and it is a solicitation for services, people can and do misinterpret it and do not understand the implications of transferring their domain name to DROC. People are in a hurry and may fail to read or interpret the wording on the letter. They see something that resembles an invoice so they pay it. It is interesting how people and companies pay bills without even reading them or verifying what they are for.

It is all very clever and deceptive. The form being mailed in and of itself is not illegal and uses publicly available information to generate their mailing list. The fine and even not so fine print states this is an offer to transfer your domain name. Is the intent of the letter to get people to switch registrars regardless of the implications of doing so and regardless of the risks and costs of doing so. YOU BET!

I hope that CIRA has done it’s homework and they are basing their decision on clearly documented consumer complaints. If it is documented that DROC has been successfully gaining business by tricking people into switching domain providers and those people have lodged formal complaints to CIRA and the consumer and competitive bureau of Canada, AND it has been proven that these complaints continue to come in year after year in spite of past warnings, then yes, DROC should lose their right to be an official registrar. To simply state that DROC is not playing ethically does not hold water at all which is why DROC is suing.

If DROC has a record of poor reputation in the industry that is backed up with actual and ongoing consumer and legitimate business complaints then go ahead and deal with them as you would with any company with poor consumer reputation. CIRA is within it’s rights to deny a reseller who is creating problems within the .CA domain registry. DROC is within it’s rights to sue and obviously is exercising that right. We do NOT want this to become a lawsuit focused on what the letter says or should say. It is about deceptive marketing techniques.

This lawsuit will be precedent setting no matter which side wins. The one thing I urge consumers and the Canadian public to beware in the weeks and months ahead is how we would approach legislation aimed at sales and marketing letters. There is a lot of change happening in the US with laws governing what we can say on websites, what we can write in marketing letters, and say in emails. I applaud anything that can put a dent in crime and scamming but it is a fine line we tread between legislation and censorship. Once we go down a path to regulate what we can say we cannot go back.

For the rest of us all I can say is read the fine print, make sure you know what you are paying for, and make a point of knowing who you currently do business with. To the existing registrars, ISP’s, website designers and so on who reserve domain names. Be sure you educate your clients so it is explicitly clear what they need to know regarding their website domain names. My clients know to contact me for any questions they have on domain letters or issues. If you have a client who loses their domain to DROC from one you reserved for them then it is your own fault for not educating that client.

You can blame as much as you want but if we all pay attention to what really matters and ignore the foolishness, the fools eventually will go away on their own

I setup firefox latest build 3.6.9 on a new computer today and as I was testing it I noticed new tabs would open immediately next to my current tab instead of at the far right. When I am searching for something on eBay or Craigs list or researching I will pull up each possible item in a new tab and close the ones I am not interested in and leave the prospective items open. As I continue searching I want the new items to open in tab on the far right so I know the tabs closest to the left are ones I have already short listed. OK so I have my own way of doing things … but it works for me and I wanted Firefox to work for me as well.

I scoured the Firefox options and saw nothing of the sort in there. This was obviously a change in the new version of Firefox and I knew there was a way to fix this but I was not sure where. I have used Firefox a lot in the past few years but I never spent time learning how to customize it … until now.

Enter about:config

Putting about:config in your address bar in firefox will allow you to customize virtually everything about Firefox properties and behaviors. It is a very powerful tool, somewhat overwhelming at first when you are not sure what you are looking for but powerful nonetheless. I looked through the long list of items looking for anything that had tab in the name. I found many items with tab but only one that had the words tab and insert in the name.

browser.tabs.insertRelatedAfterCurrent = True is the default setting and causes tabs to show immediately to the right of the current tab. When I changed this to browser.tabs.insertRelatedAfterCurrent = False (clicking on the item in the list toggles the value) my problem was solved.

Anyone who wants to dabble in changing Firefox settings in the about:config file is duly warned that you risk screwing Firfox up if you make bad choices. Hey, you can edit the windows registry files with Regedit too if you like, but be forewarned that you can royally mess up your computer if you edit the registry without a clue what you are changing. Same here with about:config but at least in Firefox if things go bad you can uninstall and re-install Firefox to fix it

Nicknames are the emails that show in the To box automatically as you type in email addresses or names on your messages.

Nicknames are not related to email contacts in any way but rather, they build up as you send email messages out to people. Over time this list builds and makes it easier to send emails to people you commonly contact.

What happens when you move to a new computer or need to create a new login profile on your computer and lose these nicknames? In older versions of outlook 2000-2007 you could locate the NK2 file under your user profile> local settings> Application Data> Microsoft> Outlook folder on the old computer or profile and copy it over to the new computer or new profile folder.

In outlook 2010 this no longer works because nicknames are no longer referencing this NK2 file. You need to import the NK2 file but there is a trick to making it work and so the old process of copying the NK2 from the old location is still required.

To import .nk2 files into Outlook 2010, follow these steps:

1. Make sure that the .nk2 file is in the following folder: %appdata%\Microsoft\Outlook

Note The .nk2 file must have the same name as your current Outlook 2010 profile. By default, the profile name is “Outlook.” To check the profile name, follow these steps:
a. Click Start, and then click Control Panel.
b. Double-click Mail.
c. In the Mail Setup dialog box, click Show Profiles.

2. Click Start, and then click Run.

3. In the Open box, type outlook.exe /importnk2, and then click OK. This should import the .nk2 file into the Outlook 2010 profile.

Note After you import the .nk2 file, the contents of the file are merged into the existing nickname cache that is currently stored in your mailbox.
Note The .nk2 file is renamed with a .old file name extension on the first start of Outlook 2010. Therefore, if you try to re-import the .nk2 file, remove the .old file name extension.

Windows 7 has launched finally displacing Vista much like Windows ME was eliminated with the launch of Windows 2000. Say what you may about Microsoft, the latest Windows system is quite a nice improvement albeit with a few snags.

Windows email anyone? If you use Outlook Express or Windows Mail (Vista mail) then you are out of luck. Microsoft has discontinued the native email client in Windows 7. Although there is a hack to re-activate Windows Mail *aka Vista Mail* it is not recommended nor supported by Microsoft as a long term solution. Microsoft is pushing Office Live and Office 2007 (2010) outlook as email client.  For those on Outlook express why not try Thunderbird? If you are currently using Vista and windows Mail you may want to consider Outlook or Thunderbird.

Upgrade issues from Windows XP. Better to start fresh folks. If your computer is more than a few years old save the hassle and get a new computer with Windows 7 pre-installed. Computers are now as little as $500 and worth every penny compared to the frustration of trying to make your old PC do new tricks.

If you do opt to put Windows 7 on your old PC, backup all your files first, and I mean everything, desktop, documents, application data and profile settings.  Be prepared to work a bit to get Windows 7 to recognize all your computer items, particulartely your sound and video setup. If you are not technically inclined to fix problems on your computer I highly advise going back to option ‘A’, get a new PC, and save yourself the stress

Finally, if your existing computer is relatively new or is working perfectly fine and to your satisfaction and you are not the type to want/need the latest offerings why upgrade. Wait until you get a new PC in future to do that upgrade.

Overall my experience with moving to Windows 7 has been positive. I was able to get all my computer periperals and devices working with only some minor tweaking. All my software works perfectly with the exception of one handheld computer software package which is being re-written  for W7 as I write this note. The speed is faster than Vista, and the stability for a first generation release of a new version of Windows is amazingly stable. I have only had one sysatem crash in my first 3 weeks and it was due to a bad soundcard driver which I fixed.

I have finally made the step to initiate a blog with WordPress and I am surprised why I have not done this sooner.  For many, this tool can allow easy updates and fresh content on their website without the need for HTML or web programming skills. Being able to host WordPress sites is yet another way that HOSS Solutions can help our clients cost effecively reach out to their customers and prospective customers.