Microsoft Monthly Patch Summary:
Microsoft does such a cryptic job of informing the public about security issues. This web site security.efsnm.com has paraphrased the updates for just the most important information. You can click the link on this site to the cryptic MS security info for a funny read.
Thursday, December 16, 2004
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
Memories of past Languages
I am interested in others feedback as to what they are doing and using. I am interested in your experiences, good, bad, ugly and indifferent. Knowing the results of an experience is very valuable.
Thomas Edition was once asked by a reporter how it felt to be such a failure. He replied I beg your pardon? The reporter stated, Mr. Edition you have tested a 1,000 things and none have worked, so how does it feel to be a failure? Mr. Edition responded, Sir, that was a 1,000 things that we did not know that would not work. My good man he said, that is not failure; that is success. Mr. Edition tested 3,000 things before he finally discovered the right elements to use to create a light bulb.
My first programming language was basic on the Apple IIE networked with a micro mainframe. We it took 15 minutes to logon. We booted, used the rest room, got coffee and stacks and prepared for long nights in the computer lab. My second language was COBOL. I got an A+ in the class, but I hated that language more that anything. Pulling out your fingernails was better than coding in that language. Next was Fortan, PASCAL, and C that was the end of my formula training. I had enough understanding that most all computers languages are the same just different syntax. I went on to self teach myself C++, Assembler, Visual Basic, SQL, Access, VBA, VScript, Jscript, HTML, ADO, ASP, ODBC, PERL, AWAK, WSCRIPT, XML, DHTML, and a bunch of other obscure languages. I was on the beta test teams for ASP.NET long before it was called DOT NET. I was working on DOT in 1999 and 2000 when it was called NEXTGEN. All these languages had their own headache and issues. A lot of languages were not forward nor backward compatible.
Microsoft would have you to believe that you need Visual Studio to be a productive rapid application developer. Well having been on campus in Redmond working with the people who invented the dang stuff, they do most of their work at the command line console or in notepad. Notepad is the universal editor.
Now I mostly write in Access and WScript for desktop and server automation. I have rewritten the same utilities in the same language and others some many times I am just burned out on writing code for a living. Since the dot com bomb days, the big projects are much harder to come by. I enjoy writing utilities and scripts that get used over and over. I enjoy the tech support as the life of a coder is never ending as there is always one more line of code that needs to be written or rewritten.
Thomas Edition was once asked by a reporter how it felt to be such a failure. He replied I beg your pardon? The reporter stated, Mr. Edition you have tested a 1,000 things and none have worked, so how does it feel to be a failure? Mr. Edition responded, Sir, that was a 1,000 things that we did not know that would not work. My good man he said, that is not failure; that is success. Mr. Edition tested 3,000 things before he finally discovered the right elements to use to create a light bulb.
My first programming language was basic on the Apple IIE networked with a micro mainframe. We it took 15 minutes to logon. We booted, used the rest room, got coffee and stacks and prepared for long nights in the computer lab. My second language was COBOL. I got an A+ in the class, but I hated that language more that anything. Pulling out your fingernails was better than coding in that language. Next was Fortan, PASCAL, and C that was the end of my formula training. I had enough understanding that most all computers languages are the same just different syntax. I went on to self teach myself C++, Assembler, Visual Basic, SQL, Access, VBA, VScript, Jscript, HTML, ADO, ASP, ODBC, PERL, AWAK, WSCRIPT, XML, DHTML, and a bunch of other obscure languages. I was on the beta test teams for ASP.NET long before it was called DOT NET. I was working on DOT in 1999 and 2000 when it was called NEXTGEN. All these languages had their own headache and issues. A lot of languages were not forward nor backward compatible.
Microsoft would have you to believe that you need Visual Studio to be a productive rapid application developer. Well having been on campus in Redmond working with the people who invented the dang stuff, they do most of their work at the command line console or in notepad. Notepad is the universal editor.
Now I mostly write in Access and WScript for desktop and server automation. I have rewritten the same utilities in the same language and others some many times I am just burned out on writing code for a living. Since the dot com bomb days, the big projects are much harder to come by. I enjoy writing utilities and scripts that get used over and over. I enjoy the tech support as the life of a coder is never ending as there is always one more line of code that needs to be written or rewritten.
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
Fighting Spyware
Ad-aware is good, recently Sypbot has become the preferred anti-spyware software as Ad-aware no longer will detect certain versions of known spyware like Gator and Hotbar to name a few. These spyware companies put legal pressure on Ad-aware and other anti-spyware software to have their software removed form their detection lists.
Also before you download anti-spyware check it on Spyware Wwarrior’s web site to ensure that the anti-spyware that you are downloading is not Rouge anti-spyware. There are several hundred rogue anti-spyware programs being free/sold that even show up in Google Ads that are actual the very thing that they claim to get rid of “SPYWARE”
Jen you should be fine with Ad-aware, but I recommend that you add Spybot too.
Links an Article on Rouge Anti-Spyware
Spybot
Spyware Warrior Newsgroup:
http://www.Spywarewarrior.com
Also before you download anti-spyware check it on Spyware Wwarrior’s web site to ensure that the anti-spyware that you are downloading is not Rouge anti-spyware. There are several hundred rogue anti-spyware programs being free/sold that even show up in Google Ads that are actual the very thing that they claim to get rid of “SPYWARE”
Jen you should be fine with Ad-aware, but I recommend that you add Spybot too.
Links an Article on Rouge Anti-Spyware
Spybot
Spyware Warrior Newsgroup:
http://www.Spywarewarrior.com
Inside Microsoft's IT
Here is an interesting look at Microsoft’s IT department with Ron Markezich, the software maker's chief information officer.
Monday, December 13, 2004
Office Automation and Group Collaboration
Group Collaboration
A collection of software applications and devices used in a computer networked environment are called groupware. The is no specific set of application that make up this groupware, it is software that allows a large group of people to collaborate locally over a LAN and over vast distances over some type of WAN.
The most common type of collaboration is done via electronic messages called email. This email can be either standard SMTP and POP3 email or Newsgroup email like at the University of Phoenix.
The Newsgroups are used to collaborate ideas. The collaboration occurs when a newsreader client connects to a newsreader server and than exchange messages. The people post their messages and download the messages posts of others. The newsreader application that most people are using is Outlook Express. Outlook Express can use both newsgroups and regular email.
Most businesses today use email as a form of collaboration between vendors and customers as well as other employees. A commonly user email collaboration server software is called Microsoft Exchange. Exchange allows users to collaborate email, calendars, contacts, tasks and basic project information via a dashboard. The Exchange server can also be used as newsgroup servers. Newsgroup servers have an advantage over regular email as everyone that is subscribed to a newsgroup gets to read all the messages posted in that group. It aids in keeping everyone in sync with electronic communications. Standard email is one to many or one to one, and sometimes people can be left out of the loop when information is requested or disseminated.
There are other forms of groupware applications such as Microsoft Share Point Service. It allows the posting, collections and better organizing information and documents than what a newsgroup can do. Share Point is getting better, but it is very hard to setup and maintain. It is not backwards compatible and the environment is easily corrupted.
My favorite groupware collaboration software is a web-based groupware application called Intranets.com. Intranets.com allows anyone with little to no experience to built web based relational databases in real-time on the fly, ready to use after building. It is by far the most impressive company I have ever worked with. It allows rapid prototyping, rapid application development and production usage in minute’s verses days, weeks and months. We have converted all our traditional client server based databases all to web-based database group collaboration software at Intranets.com.
There are many other software applications that are effective tools for groupware collaborations such as WebEx for web based meetings, information and desktop sharing like doing product demos.
Simple instant messaging can be used for example MSN Instance Messenger. Our team uses instant messenger to hold meetings for team assignments. It provides a written record of who said what. It is like a permanent meeting minute’s tracker.
The reading text talks about workflow management groupware applications. I have work with several large companies that have attempted to use these applications and they have not worked out for many reasons. They have been very difficult to use, time consuming to use and very expensive to purchase, deploy and maintain.
The advantage of using groupware applications are the rapid, accurate, in-sync reception and dissemination of information.
The disadvantage is the lack of personal interaction with others in a face to face environment. While video conferencing allows for face to face collaboration, it is not the same as in person interaction and communication of information. Other disadvantages are the additional costs and customization that might be required for a particular business group.
Office Automation
Groupware software applications are often augmented with documents, publications, presentations, spreadsheets, CAD drawings, voice mail, faxes, scanned images, art work, video and other forms of audio within the groupware application. These files are created with other applications such as a word processor, spreadsheet program, power point applications, image editor, video editor, scanning software, etc. The use of this software is referred to as office automation as the software is used replaces the manual method previously used.
Office Automation is the integration of several applications to produce a single output. An example would be a program called HotDocs. It also the fast creations of large documents like legal and commercial real estate contracts. It allows someone with little to no experience to answer a few questions and it will generate all the necessary clauses, language, personal pronouns, sentence structure and pull existing database to populate word documents.
The advantages of Office Automation are an increase in work production, work flow and more accurate information. It is often miss-referred to as a reduction in labor costs. The actual fact is one is still working the same amount of time, but now you are doing more work. The production of work increases, but the labor costs for 8 hours is still 8 hours.
The disadvantage of office automation is the complexity in which office automation can become over a short period of time. It takes more user knowledge to deploy, use and maintain the integration of the various applications and additional user training maybe required. Lastly about every four years all software and hardware used in the office automation efforts will need to be replaced.
A collection of software applications and devices used in a computer networked environment are called groupware. The is no specific set of application that make up this groupware, it is software that allows a large group of people to collaborate locally over a LAN and over vast distances over some type of WAN.
The most common type of collaboration is done via electronic messages called email. This email can be either standard SMTP and POP3 email or Newsgroup email like at the University of Phoenix.
The Newsgroups are used to collaborate ideas. The collaboration occurs when a newsreader client connects to a newsreader server and than exchange messages. The people post their messages and download the messages posts of others. The newsreader application that most people are using is Outlook Express. Outlook Express can use both newsgroups and regular email.
Most businesses today use email as a form of collaboration between vendors and customers as well as other employees. A commonly user email collaboration server software is called Microsoft Exchange. Exchange allows users to collaborate email, calendars, contacts, tasks and basic project information via a dashboard. The Exchange server can also be used as newsgroup servers. Newsgroup servers have an advantage over regular email as everyone that is subscribed to a newsgroup gets to read all the messages posted in that group. It aids in keeping everyone in sync with electronic communications. Standard email is one to many or one to one, and sometimes people can be left out of the loop when information is requested or disseminated.
There are other forms of groupware applications such as Microsoft Share Point Service. It allows the posting, collections and better organizing information and documents than what a newsgroup can do. Share Point is getting better, but it is very hard to setup and maintain. It is not backwards compatible and the environment is easily corrupted.
My favorite groupware collaboration software is a web-based groupware application called Intranets.com. Intranets.com allows anyone with little to no experience to built web based relational databases in real-time on the fly, ready to use after building. It is by far the most impressive company I have ever worked with. It allows rapid prototyping, rapid application development and production usage in minute’s verses days, weeks and months. We have converted all our traditional client server based databases all to web-based database group collaboration software at Intranets.com.
There are many other software applications that are effective tools for groupware collaborations such as WebEx for web based meetings, information and desktop sharing like doing product demos.
Simple instant messaging can be used for example MSN Instance Messenger. Our team uses instant messenger to hold meetings for team assignments. It provides a written record of who said what. It is like a permanent meeting minute’s tracker.
The reading text talks about workflow management groupware applications. I have work with several large companies that have attempted to use these applications and they have not worked out for many reasons. They have been very difficult to use, time consuming to use and very expensive to purchase, deploy and maintain.
The advantage of using groupware applications are the rapid, accurate, in-sync reception and dissemination of information.
The disadvantage is the lack of personal interaction with others in a face to face environment. While video conferencing allows for face to face collaboration, it is not the same as in person interaction and communication of information. Other disadvantages are the additional costs and customization that might be required for a particular business group.
Office Automation
Groupware software applications are often augmented with documents, publications, presentations, spreadsheets, CAD drawings, voice mail, faxes, scanned images, art work, video and other forms of audio within the groupware application. These files are created with other applications such as a word processor, spreadsheet program, power point applications, image editor, video editor, scanning software, etc. The use of this software is referred to as office automation as the software is used replaces the manual method previously used.
Office Automation is the integration of several applications to produce a single output. An example would be a program called HotDocs. It also the fast creations of large documents like legal and commercial real estate contracts. It allows someone with little to no experience to answer a few questions and it will generate all the necessary clauses, language, personal pronouns, sentence structure and pull existing database to populate word documents.
The advantages of Office Automation are an increase in work production, work flow and more accurate information. It is often miss-referred to as a reduction in labor costs. The actual fact is one is still working the same amount of time, but now you are doing more work. The production of work increases, but the labor costs for 8 hours is still 8 hours.
The disadvantage of office automation is the complexity in which office automation can become over a short period of time. It takes more user knowledge to deploy, use and maintain the integration of the various applications and additional user training maybe required. Lastly about every four years all software and hardware used in the office automation efforts will need to be replaced.
Relational Databases
Q. What is a relational database? How is it structured? Indicate commercial database that are sold to the public that are relational in nature. What are the advantages and disadvantages?
What is a relational database?
The concept of a relation database can be thought of as a collection of tables that are connected together by Primary and Foreign keys. A table is like an Excel spreadsheet that is a file based system with cells as fields and rows as records. A table is contained in a DBMS. The purpose of related tables are to reduce the amount of redundant information. One table could contain contact information, another table could contain product information, and another table could contain inventory information and so on.
How is it structured?
The data is contained within table and the tables are connected together with primary and foreign keys.
Indicate commercial database that are sold to the public that are relational in nature.
There are two kinds of database products. One is the product that a database application is developed in such as Microsoft SQL http://www.microsoft.com/sql and another is an actually application that uses a database that is pre-structured such as MOLDTRAX at http://www.moldtrax.com . This commercial relational database uses an Access database. It has seventeen tables with seventeen primary and foreign key relationships. It has sixty custom queries that use one to many relationships to define a view for a form or report.
What are the advantages and disadvantages?
Advantage:
The biggest advantage is the over reduction in redundant information. Another advantage is the ability to relate information and produce queries results that would not otherwise be possible in a single table.
Disadvantage:
The biggest disadvantage is the complexity in knowledge required for an administrator or developer to build, deploy and maintain such a system. Therefore is can be more expensive to use.
In most companies there are measure in place to deal with data contained in a single location such as:
What is a relational database?
The concept of a relation database can be thought of as a collection of tables that are connected together by Primary and Foreign keys. A table is like an Excel spreadsheet that is a file based system with cells as fields and rows as records. A table is contained in a DBMS. The purpose of related tables are to reduce the amount of redundant information. One table could contain contact information, another table could contain product information, and another table could contain inventory information and so on.
How is it structured?
The data is contained within table and the tables are connected together with primary and foreign keys.
Indicate commercial database that are sold to the public that are relational in nature.
There are two kinds of database products. One is the product that a database application is developed in such as Microsoft SQL http://www.microsoft.com/sql and another is an actually application that uses a database that is pre-structured such as MOLDTRAX at http://www.moldtrax.com . This commercial relational database uses an Access database. It has seventeen tables with seventeen primary and foreign key relationships. It has sixty custom queries that use one to many relationships to define a view for a form or report.
What are the advantages and disadvantages?
Advantage:
The biggest advantage is the over reduction in redundant information. Another advantage is the ability to relate information and produce queries results that would not otherwise be possible in a single table.
Disadvantage:
The biggest disadvantage is the complexity in knowledge required for an administrator or developer to build, deploy and maintain such a system. Therefore is can be more expensive to use.
In most companies there are measure in place to deal with data contained in a single location such as:
- Data replication to another server
- RAID 5 hard drives in which the data is contained on several hard drives at the same time live
- Cluster Servers in which the same data runs on several servers at the same time in a RAID 5 environment
- There are two kinds of Backup Agents on real time data backup and the other is night agent backups.
- The database systems also contain the ability for them to be backed up or dump their data to a text file manually or on a schedule.
Sunday, December 12, 2004
Phishing, Spoofing and Evil oh My
If you manually enter the website address in your browser it will ensure that you are going to the desired website. Otherwise according to recent security issues that were discovered you will have no idea.
It is recommended that the site that you are intending to perform commerce with that you start your connection with a newly opened browser and manually enter the website address.
Never click on links inside an email or suspicious web site that leads to a commerce site. Never fill out a web form inside and email, and never fill out a web form that you did not request.
It is recommended that the site that you are intending to perform commerce with that you start your connection with a newly opened browser and manually enter the website address.
Never click on links inside an email or suspicious web site that leads to a commerce site. Never fill out a web form inside and email, and never fill out a web form that you did not request.
Saturday, December 11, 2004
Which Computer Vendor?
The reality is most computer companies are bad, mostly in the support in the support and warranty area. When it comes to home user support I give all the computers companies a failing grade. They have shipped all the support centers overseas where you get Fred the tech guy who can not speak English very well and is reading from a script, placing you on hold, having to try things that are completely unrelated to the issue. It is very frustrating to everyone.
On the business side with server support, those jobs are still in the US and I receive excellent support from most all the major vendors.
Here is my Picks on Vendors Home and Desktop support ratings.
On the business side with server support, those jobs are still in the US and I receive excellent support from most all the major vendors.
Here is my Picks on Vendors Home and Desktop support ratings.
- Dell (but they have been on the decline for that last 6 months and their support is getting worse)
- HP/Compaq (good support, can be difficult to get to, hold times are long) I am not a big fan of their priority none up gradable hardware, but it is quality.
- Gateway (Support can be very frustrating and an unwilling to replace failed hardware without speaking to a supervisor)
- Off brand or other vendors: I don’t not have any customers that have other one off brand systems. Dell has been the defacto standard and their warranty program and onsite support is better than the rest. If others wish to comment about their vendor I would love to hear about your experiences.
- SONY: I have a Sony Viao. I love my Viao, but Sony is by far the worst company I have every dealt with on tech support. Not only would I give them a failing grade on support, but I would expel them from the tech support industry. They have the crappest warranty program which basically covers nothing. Their repair turn around time is about 6 weeks on the minimum 3 months has been the worst case. They over charge for part to the turn of about 50%. You never get to speak to the hard support people, only a customer rep who knows nothing, and they will not let you speak to a supervisor of any sort. Their customer support is in FL and the hardware repair center is in CA. I will never buy another Sony computer product ever, not will I ever recommend them to anyone for anything. If you have or buy a Sony computer product, expect to go to tech support Hell. It angers me as we are a Sony house with Video, camera, Tivo and other gadgets. Not any more as my Sony Video camera just died and it too has a support Hell of its own, so we are looking at a Canon Video camera. Ok I am done with my RANT. I feel better now!
- Built it yourself: I only recommend building it yourself if you want the best of the best. My desktop is a custom built PC, but my wife’s PC, my primary Server, and my office PC’s are Dell builds. I bought 3 Dell Desktop 2.8 gig 256 meg for $350 ea w/o monitors. I could not build them for that price. You really can not save money building it yourself when you include your own labor.
Friday, December 10, 2004
Browser Security Issues
A new security alert has been posted at our security web site about a new browser security issue that attempts to obtain your banking information. It affects ALL Browsers and ALL Operating Systems.
To read more about it please go to the security.efsnm.com site:
http://security.efsnm.com/index.php
To read more about it please go to the security.efsnm.com site:
http://security.efsnm.com/index.php
Thursday, December 09, 2004
Databases Defined
Q: What are all the databases associated with the contents of your wallet? (i.e. your credit cards, library card, driver's license, frequent flyer card, etc.) How secure is the information therein? How much of the information is the same but managed by different companies?
: What are all the databases associated with the contents of your wallet?
Well I must say this is a very vague question. It is impossible to know what “ALL” the databases are. The only thing one can do is conceptualize the question. To be specific there is no way to know what exactly the database(s) that are being used by a company. Any particular company could be using DB2, Oracle, SQL, Access, Text file, MySQL or a proprietary database.
A database is a software application that contains certain types of data. That data is contained inside tables. The review or output of that data is formed by queries. Because the output comes from a query it could come from multiple tables with the database called a schema. With XML it could come from multiple different companies at the same time. The output presentation of the data is a farce designed by the developer(s). Because the data could be coming from different sources at the same time from completely different databases systems and different companies the output of the data is a user concept of what they are looking at and not really an actual singular point in space and time.
Here are real examples of database applications: Oracle or SQL
The term database is often misused. For example my contact database should be said to be my contact data set. The database is an application. The information within the database organized into tables is called a “data set”.
To conceptualize the question in proper terms as data sets not database(s):
: What are all the databases associated with the contents of your wallet?
Well I must say this is a very vague question. It is impossible to know what “ALL” the databases are. The only thing one can do is conceptualize the question. To be specific there is no way to know what exactly the database(s) that are being used by a company. Any particular company could be using DB2, Oracle, SQL, Access, Text file, MySQL or a proprietary database.
A database is a software application that contains certain types of data. That data is contained inside tables. The review or output of that data is formed by queries. Because the output comes from a query it could come from multiple tables with the database called a schema. With XML it could come from multiple different companies at the same time. The output presentation of the data is a farce designed by the developer(s). Because the data could be coming from different sources at the same time from completely different databases systems and different companies the output of the data is a user concept of what they are looking at and not really an actual singular point in space and time.
Here are real examples of database applications: Oracle or SQL
The term database is often misused. For example my contact database should be said to be my contact data set. The database is an application. The information within the database organized into tables is called a “data set”.
To conceptualize the question in proper terms as data sets not database(s):
- Credit Cards: these are commerce data sets.
- Library cards: these are personal and inventory data sets.
- Drivers Licenses: these are legal, personal and certification data sets.
- Frequent Flyer Cards: these are personal and commerce data sets.
: How secure is the information therein?
This too is vague. We do not work for the companies; therefore we can only hope the data is secure as it supposed to be limited to the individual user that holds the correct user name and password. When using these systems across the internet an SSL certificate is used to encrypt the data via your browser at a minimum of 128bits. You can tell by looking in your status bar of your browser for the lock icon.
Here is a link on the basics of SSL. We use it everyday and most people don’t even know they are using it. Verisign
: How much of the information is the same but managed by different companies?
This is yet another vague question that can not be answered with accuracy. The truth of the matter is we really do not know, unless you are the system administrator or system designer. As the admin/developer I can make the appearance of data be whatever I want. The output presentation is smoke and mirrors to make huge dataset understandable to the user. The data sets listed, I would hope that none of these systems shared the same information connections. All these systems contain similar data sets such as contact, address and certain personal information.
Killing Evil on the Desktop
I have given up on the desktop software that detect evil email, as it was often incorrect, would get corrupted and fail to reinstall even after a registry scrub. For an evil counter measures I have fallen back to the gateway of the internet where it enters a business, usually a single point for a small business. I have installed with most of my customers gateway security software that checks email from evil and spam.
I have tested about 12 different gateway security software programs. Most of them sux and are worthless. I have settled on GFI’s Mail Security and Essential software. It is not perfect but it is the best that I have tested. My customers love it and speak highly of it. The mail security will detect virus some Phishing. I had some customers that were getting 150 virus emails a day. At the desktop they use Symantec Corporate Edition Anti-virus. However the users get frustrated with the anti-virus popping up every few minutes killing evil email. So we kill evil at the gate and the users do not have to deal with see it.
Here is the Security Software:
http://www.gfi.com/mailsecurity/
Here is the SPAM software:
http://www.gfi.com/mes/
It works like this:
Internet
:
Firewall
:
Gateway Server
:
Mail Security Check
:
Mail Spam Check
:
Mail Server
:
Users Outlook
I do not have any desktop security or anti-spam software that I can honestly recommend. I will revisit the desktop for home users at a many the end of 1st Qrt in 2005 after the vendors have released their 2nd Gen apps.
I have tested about 12 different gateway security software programs. Most of them sux and are worthless. I have settled on GFI’s Mail Security and Essential software. It is not perfect but it is the best that I have tested. My customers love it and speak highly of it. The mail security will detect virus some Phishing. I had some customers that were getting 150 virus emails a day. At the desktop they use Symantec Corporate Edition Anti-virus. However the users get frustrated with the anti-virus popping up every few minutes killing evil email. So we kill evil at the gate and the users do not have to deal with see it.
Here is the Security Software:
http://www.gfi.com/mailsecurity/
Here is the SPAM software:
http://www.gfi.com/mes/
It works like this:
Internet
:
Firewall
:
Gateway Server
:
Mail Security Check
:
Mail Spam Check
:
Mail Server
:
Users Outlook
I do not have any desktop security or anti-spam software that I can honestly recommend. I will revisit the desktop for home users at a many the end of 1st Qrt in 2005 after the vendors have released their 2nd Gen apps.
Wednesday, December 08, 2004
Phishing for You
For those who do not know what Phishing is you can checkout this security site as their is an article about it with real world examples.
http://security.efsnm.com/index.php/weblog/phishing_scams/
http://security.efsnm.com/index.php/weblog/phishing_scams/
Tuesday, December 07, 2004
SATA, Firewire and Disk Space
Video editing eats away a ton of disk space. The SATA option will address both your storage and backup issues. I have found that trying to do video editing from a desktop to a server is too slow across a network.
I have had to use Firewire to Firewire network which is built into XP. To move video files from server to PC. I have found that doing all editing on separate hard drives on a local fast PC is best for both rendering and managing video.
I would invest your money into a couple of high end desktops (over a high end server) and a ton of SATA hot swap removable hard drives. That way you can easily store your raw footage, edited footage, rendered DVDs and ISO’s that you may have on really fast high capacity drives.
Two 80Gig hard drive should cover all your music needs to include any mixes that you may be doing. One hard drive can be your master drive and the other drive can be a backup of your cloned music files.
I have had to use Firewire to Firewire network which is built into XP. To move video files from server to PC. I have found that doing all editing on separate hard drives on a local fast PC is best for both rendering and managing video.
I would invest your money into a couple of high end desktops (over a high end server) and a ton of SATA hot swap removable hard drives. That way you can easily store your raw footage, edited footage, rendered DVDs and ISO’s that you may have on really fast high capacity drives.
Two 80Gig hard drive should cover all your music needs to include any mixes that you may be doing. One hard drive can be your master drive and the other drive can be a backup of your cloned music files.
SATA, ISO and Graphics Cards
When buying a new computer you might consider two SATA Drives, one for the OS and the other for your apps and data. Also putting the Windows Swap file on the other hard drive for a bit of an additional performance boost.
I have dual DVD CDRW drives, but I never use them as I had envisioned. Instead I burn my CD’s to a single ISO file to an external Firewire drive. When I need to copy a CD or make several copies the burn times with the ISO are really fast burning from an ISO. I create ISO files for backup only so I do not have to carry so many CD’s.
For gaming you need to look at the video card review from TechTV. The newer games with all the intense eye candy (shadows, reflections, frame rates) are too much for the built in card on the motherboard. I would look at Robert Heron’s Video roundup. I trust him for video card reviews.
I am not a PC gamer (surprisingly). G4TechTv is devoted to gaming and have the better reviews on these matters. Tech support is my game. It is embarrassing when my thirteen old son whip my butt on the Game Cube.
I have dual DVD CDRW drives, but I never use them as I had envisioned. Instead I burn my CD’s to a single ISO file to an external Firewire drive. When I need to copy a CD or make several copies the burn times with the ISO are really fast burning from an ISO. I create ISO files for backup only so I do not have to carry so many CD’s.
For gaming you need to look at the video card review from TechTV. The newer games with all the intense eye candy (shadows, reflections, frame rates) are too much for the built in card on the motherboard. I would look at Robert Heron’s Video roundup. I trust him for video card reviews.
I am not a PC gamer (surprisingly). G4TechTv is devoted to gaming and have the better reviews on these matters. Tech support is my game. It is embarrassing when my thirteen old son whip my butt on the Game Cube.
Monday, December 06, 2004
Hardware Concepts
Accuracy of data input is important. What method of data input would be best for each of the following situations and explain why: (Printed questionnaires, Telephone survey, Bank checks, Retail tags, Long documents).
The some reading text would have you believe that a keyboard is the important input device for the listed items. A keyboard is best for long documents as input. For printed questionnaires a scanner as input to scan a specific type of printed survey such as the SAT tests. Voice recognition would be ok for a telephone survey, but still prove to be very inaccurate as input. Telephone surveys are best using the telephones keypad. A specialize bar code scanner for Bank Checks is best as input. A regular bar code scanner found in most shopping centers provides the greatest degree of accuracy as input.
Convenience and quality of output are important. Explain what method of output would be best for each of the following situations and explain why: (Hand held computer, Color photograph, Resume, Memorandum, Statistical report, Company annual report).
This question does not state the purpose of the output. The purpose of the output is changing each day as technology advances. Old ways are morphed into new methods and better management of the data that is outputted. The reading text would lead you to believe that a printer or monitor is best for these items as output.
For a handheld computer the most common method output is a small LCD screen either monochrome or color as output.
A photograph is dependant upon the output intent. Is the photograph for a web site, a database, a printed magazine or for a holographic image? If it is for a picture frame, then a high resolution printer is best to print a photograph that is an electronic high resolution as output.
In the past a standard laser printer would have been best for output of a resume. Today with online databases systems prefer a particular input format of the data from the resume so it maybe disseminated to a large number of potential employers. Tomorrow resumes will be in an XML format to allow seamless integrations with any online job hunting service. For today and tomorrow a monitor either a CRT or LCD is best for a resume as output.
Today many companies have abandoned the old paper memorandums for well formatted emails. Some companies require electronic signatures and encryptions for memorandums. An LCD or CRT is best to view today’s memorandums as output.
Statistical report output is dependant upon who the audience is. A scientist, stock broker or accountant would prefer an LCD or CRT as output. Where as a CEO, board member or the general population that might not have access to a computer would prefer printed stats on paper as output.
Today most company’s annual reports are available online on their websites. However there are a great many that still spend $1,000’s of dollars on glossy paper annual reports for the board members and investors. For the website and LCD or CRT is best for output. For printed reports a commercial based printer is best for output.
Explain the difference between primary storage and secondary storage.
Some text states: “Primary storage is temporary storage, and anything stored in it is lost when someone turns off the power to the computer. Secondary storage, however, is permanent storage; anything stored in secondary storage remains there until the computer changes it, even if someone turns off the power.”
To better understand RAM (Random Access Memory) it is the fastest place to store and retrieve data. On page 13 of the Course Notes it implies that RAM is the primary storage area for the computer. It is the preferred and most common method. It is not the primary area for storage as there are many devices that have RAM such as video cards, network cards, fax cards, the CPU has memory called cache, hard drives have cache and hard drive controllers like a RAID 5 card have cache. These devices also contain firmware that are flash updatable. Your hard drive is the preferred area for permanent storage of data, but not exclusive. RAM is only useful while the computer is turn on. Once the computer is turn off all data being kept in RAM is lost. During the boot process data is read from the hard drive and loaded into RAM most commonly called "memory". The data is kept there for fast access and processing. When things in "memory" get really corrupted, rebooting is the only way to clean out the RAM of the bad data. A cold reboot is preferred. A cold reboot is powering off the computer, wait one minute and power it back on. A warm reboot is just a simply restart. That is fine for the OS but some hardware issues require and cold boot. While the author of reading text calls “memory” primary storage, this is incorrect.
Different types of storage devices are optimal for different situations. Explain what situations are appropriate for the following devices and explain why: (Hard disk, Floppy disk, RAM, CD ROM, Tape).
Floppies, CD-ROMs and Tapes are old school portable media that are quickly being replaced by portable hard dives, and Jump Drives. Most computers today do not have floppy drives or CD-ROMs any more when you go to make a purchase. They are replaced by DVD-/+RW ROMs and Firewire and USB 2.0 devices.
The hard drive is the primary area that the operation system is installed. Most data used by the user is stored on the hard drive. It is the fastest permanent storage media with the highest capacity.
RAM (Random Access Memory) is where information is temporary stored for fast access. It is faster than a hard drive, but it is costly and has less capacity for storage. It has no ability to permanently store data without the aid of battery backup or a secondary power source to keep data alive while the computer is turned off or suspended.
Tape is still commonly used for backup systems, but is quickly falling out of favor for that usage as portable hard dives decline in cost and increase in speed and capacity. Tape Drives have not been able to keep up with removable hard drives in these areas.
Explain the role of each of the following in determining the speed of a computer: (RAM, Clock speed, Data on hard disk, Data on CD ROM, Data on floppy disk).
In today’s computers there are many things that can affect performance or the speed of the computer. These are called bottlenecks.
RAM can be a bottleneck if the bus speeds are faster that the speed of the memory. In the old day’s memory used to be measured in nanoseconds such as 80, 70, and 60ns memory. Today they are measured in clock speeds of PC100, PC133, etc. There are also many difference types of RAM that the reading text has not bothered to talk about that are contained on other devices like the video card and the CPU called cache.
Clock speed is typically referred to as the speed of the CPU. Today other devices have clock speeds such as the video card. The clock speed of the CPU used to be an indicator of how fast the CPU was as compared to other CPU’s. That is no longer the case. The type of CPU is more important to know now rather than the clock speed. For example a Pentium M 1Gig processor is faster than a Pentium 4 1.8Gig processor. So clock speed doesn’t count any more. You have to use a comparison or benchmark chart to figure out which processor is faster.
The “Data” on a floppy or CD-ROM has no bearing on the speed of the computer. The speed of the floppy drive or the speed of the CD-ROM has an affect on the speed of loading/reading data from the media. A floppy drive is by far the slowest device of reading and writing data.
The some reading text would have you believe that a keyboard is the important input device for the listed items. A keyboard is best for long documents as input. For printed questionnaires a scanner as input to scan a specific type of printed survey such as the SAT tests. Voice recognition would be ok for a telephone survey, but still prove to be very inaccurate as input. Telephone surveys are best using the telephones keypad. A specialize bar code scanner for Bank Checks is best as input. A regular bar code scanner found in most shopping centers provides the greatest degree of accuracy as input.
Convenience and quality of output are important. Explain what method of output would be best for each of the following situations and explain why: (Hand held computer, Color photograph, Resume, Memorandum, Statistical report, Company annual report).
This question does not state the purpose of the output. The purpose of the output is changing each day as technology advances. Old ways are morphed into new methods and better management of the data that is outputted. The reading text would lead you to believe that a printer or monitor is best for these items as output.
For a handheld computer the most common method output is a small LCD screen either monochrome or color as output.
A photograph is dependant upon the output intent. Is the photograph for a web site, a database, a printed magazine or for a holographic image? If it is for a picture frame, then a high resolution printer is best to print a photograph that is an electronic high resolution as output.
In the past a standard laser printer would have been best for output of a resume. Today with online databases systems prefer a particular input format of the data from the resume so it maybe disseminated to a large number of potential employers. Tomorrow resumes will be in an XML format to allow seamless integrations with any online job hunting service. For today and tomorrow a monitor either a CRT or LCD is best for a resume as output.
Today many companies have abandoned the old paper memorandums for well formatted emails. Some companies require electronic signatures and encryptions for memorandums. An LCD or CRT is best to view today’s memorandums as output.
Statistical report output is dependant upon who the audience is. A scientist, stock broker or accountant would prefer an LCD or CRT as output. Where as a CEO, board member or the general population that might not have access to a computer would prefer printed stats on paper as output.
Today most company’s annual reports are available online on their websites. However there are a great many that still spend $1,000’s of dollars on glossy paper annual reports for the board members and investors. For the website and LCD or CRT is best for output. For printed reports a commercial based printer is best for output.
Explain the difference between primary storage and secondary storage.
Some text states: “Primary storage is temporary storage, and anything stored in it is lost when someone turns off the power to the computer. Secondary storage, however, is permanent storage; anything stored in secondary storage remains there until the computer changes it, even if someone turns off the power.”
To better understand RAM (Random Access Memory) it is the fastest place to store and retrieve data. On page 13 of the Course Notes it implies that RAM is the primary storage area for the computer. It is the preferred and most common method. It is not the primary area for storage as there are many devices that have RAM such as video cards, network cards, fax cards, the CPU has memory called cache, hard drives have cache and hard drive controllers like a RAID 5 card have cache. These devices also contain firmware that are flash updatable. Your hard drive is the preferred area for permanent storage of data, but not exclusive. RAM is only useful while the computer is turn on. Once the computer is turn off all data being kept in RAM is lost. During the boot process data is read from the hard drive and loaded into RAM most commonly called "memory". The data is kept there for fast access and processing. When things in "memory" get really corrupted, rebooting is the only way to clean out the RAM of the bad data. A cold reboot is preferred. A cold reboot is powering off the computer, wait one minute and power it back on. A warm reboot is just a simply restart. That is fine for the OS but some hardware issues require and cold boot. While the author of reading text calls “memory” primary storage, this is incorrect.
Different types of storage devices are optimal for different situations. Explain what situations are appropriate for the following devices and explain why: (Hard disk, Floppy disk, RAM, CD ROM, Tape).
Floppies, CD-ROMs and Tapes are old school portable media that are quickly being replaced by portable hard dives, and Jump Drives. Most computers today do not have floppy drives or CD-ROMs any more when you go to make a purchase. They are replaced by DVD-/+RW ROMs and Firewire and USB 2.0 devices.
The hard drive is the primary area that the operation system is installed. Most data used by the user is stored on the hard drive. It is the fastest permanent storage media with the highest capacity.
RAM (Random Access Memory) is where information is temporary stored for fast access. It is faster than a hard drive, but it is costly and has less capacity for storage. It has no ability to permanently store data without the aid of battery backup or a secondary power source to keep data alive while the computer is turned off or suspended.
Tape is still commonly used for backup systems, but is quickly falling out of favor for that usage as portable hard dives decline in cost and increase in speed and capacity. Tape Drives have not been able to keep up with removable hard drives in these areas.
Explain the role of each of the following in determining the speed of a computer: (RAM, Clock speed, Data on hard disk, Data on CD ROM, Data on floppy disk).
In today’s computers there are many things that can affect performance or the speed of the computer. These are called bottlenecks.
RAM can be a bottleneck if the bus speeds are faster that the speed of the memory. In the old day’s memory used to be measured in nanoseconds such as 80, 70, and 60ns memory. Today they are measured in clock speeds of PC100, PC133, etc. There are also many difference types of RAM that the reading text has not bothered to talk about that are contained on other devices like the video card and the CPU called cache.
Clock speed is typically referred to as the speed of the CPU. Today other devices have clock speeds such as the video card. The clock speed of the CPU used to be an indicator of how fast the CPU was as compared to other CPU’s. That is no longer the case. The type of CPU is more important to know now rather than the clock speed. For example a Pentium M 1Gig processor is faster than a Pentium 4 1.8Gig processor. So clock speed doesn’t count any more. You have to use a comparison or benchmark chart to figure out which processor is faster.
The “Data” on a floppy or CD-ROM has no bearing on the speed of the computer. The speed of the floppy drive or the speed of the CD-ROM has an affect on the speed of loading/reading data from the media. A floppy drive is by far the slowest device of reading and writing data.
Saturday, December 04, 2004
Getting Started in IT
I was a freshman in high school when I used a similar system. My first program I wrote was a game that I saved, retrieved and played on an ordinary household cassette player. I cut my teeth on the Tandy TRS-80 Model III as that was the computer that changed my life. We had no hard drives back then. Booted the OS from one floppy and use the apps from another floppy. I have a ton of stories about that.
I wrote my first database application as a junior in high school. It was a student schedule database to track where the students were during the day. I pirated a word processor app from a near by school lab and had the first word processor with spell check. As a result my school was so happy they took one of the two computers we had and put it in the front office. I was not happy about that, but it was nice to see my work being used. I latter trained my physics, math and other teachers how to create their tests on the other computer and securely store them on floppies. That was in 1983.
Most of the people I have grown up with in the industry to include my industry hero’s have not completed their degree nor do they have the desire. My degree completion was always a goal of mine. However life and the computer industry was paying me more than would I could make with a degree in Electrical Engineering. I also saw that the universities could not adapt and were way behind on the up take in the tech industry.
I wrote my first database application as a junior in high school. It was a student schedule database to track where the students were during the day. I pirated a word processor app from a near by school lab and had the first word processor with spell check. As a result my school was so happy they took one of the two computers we had and put it in the front office. I was not happy about that, but it was nice to see my work being used. I latter trained my physics, math and other teachers how to create their tests on the other computer and securely store them on floppies. That was in 1983.
Most of the people I have grown up with in the industry to include my industry hero’s have not completed their degree nor do they have the desire. My degree completion was always a goal of mine. However life and the computer industry was paying me more than would I could make with a degree in Electrical Engineering. I also saw that the universities could not adapt and were way behind on the up take in the tech industry.
Friday, December 03, 2004
Backup Solution Evolution - SATA
Today tape backups are still dominate for both big and small business. It has been the cheapest way to do backup since its invention. Optical archiving and backing up in the mid and late 90’s was an excellent alternative, but it proved to be more costly and computer speed out paced them.
However in the last year Moore’s Law has broken down as many of my customers adapting new technologies have been doubling and tripling the amount of hard disk space that they are consuming with data, photos, and scanned documents. On the commercial real estate side of the business an average contract with high-resolution photos is about 150Meg. For a small business of 10 people they have burned through 80 gigs of RAID 5 SCSI disk space in less than 1.5 years. That kind of server setup is expensive.
As a result the current industry standard 40/80 gig tape backups can not keep up with the demand for more disk space. Since on the small business side we do full backups every night, it “is” taking 12 hours to do backups. We do not do incremental backup do to a history of issues that is too much to go into here. Another problem is the DTL and DAT drives running 12 hours a day shortens their life and they die within 18 months.
We conducted a series of lab tests to determine that most economical way to do backups. I will not cover all the details here, but I will tell you what our final result was. We settled on removable hot swap SATA Hard Drives. Our worst case customer was taking 20 hours to do a 50gig backup with verification. With the SATA Hard Drives it took 2.0 hours to backup and another 1 hour for verification. We were clocking in about 1gig per 2.5mins. Plus since the SATA drive is 160gig that gives us two FULL backups per drive.
The overall hardware verse hardware costs are SATA Hard Drives backup solution is 50% cheaper, 4 times the backup capacity, in 75% less time in a production environment. In our lab we were getting even better speeds and times than this, but those tests were in ideal conditions.
Here are links to the hard and vendors that we chose:
SATA Hot Swap Enclosure - MRK-200ST-BK
http://www.vantecusa.com/product-storage.html
PCI Card - Serial ATA (SATA)
http://www.vantecusa.com/home.html
Serial ATA Hard Drive
http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=57
Veritas Backup Exec Software
http://www.veritas.com/Products/www?c=product&refId=296
I predicate within two years all my customers will no longer be using tape backups as hard drive prices will have killed them. I know; I have seven different tape backup drives that I have had to migrate my archived data from before the drive died and was no longer supported. In my personal opinion tape drives are doomed and good riddance.
However in the last year Moore’s Law has broken down as many of my customers adapting new technologies have been doubling and tripling the amount of hard disk space that they are consuming with data, photos, and scanned documents. On the commercial real estate side of the business an average contract with high-resolution photos is about 150Meg. For a small business of 10 people they have burned through 80 gigs of RAID 5 SCSI disk space in less than 1.5 years. That kind of server setup is expensive.
As a result the current industry standard 40/80 gig tape backups can not keep up with the demand for more disk space. Since on the small business side we do full backups every night, it “is” taking 12 hours to do backups. We do not do incremental backup do to a history of issues that is too much to go into here. Another problem is the DTL and DAT drives running 12 hours a day shortens their life and they die within 18 months.
We conducted a series of lab tests to determine that most economical way to do backups. I will not cover all the details here, but I will tell you what our final result was. We settled on removable hot swap SATA Hard Drives. Our worst case customer was taking 20 hours to do a 50gig backup with verification. With the SATA Hard Drives it took 2.0 hours to backup and another 1 hour for verification. We were clocking in about 1gig per 2.5mins. Plus since the SATA drive is 160gig that gives us two FULL backups per drive.
The overall hardware verse hardware costs are SATA Hard Drives backup solution is 50% cheaper, 4 times the backup capacity, in 75% less time in a production environment. In our lab we were getting even better speeds and times than this, but those tests were in ideal conditions.
Here are links to the hard and vendors that we chose:
SATA Hot Swap Enclosure - MRK-200ST-BK
http://www.vantecusa.com/product-storage.html
PCI Card - Serial ATA (SATA)
http://www.vantecusa.com/home.html
Serial ATA Hard Drive
http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=57
Veritas Backup Exec Software
http://www.veritas.com/Products/www?c=product&refId=296
I predicate within two years all my customers will no longer be using tape backups as hard drive prices will have killed them. I know; I have seven different tape backup drives that I have had to migrate my archived data from before the drive died and was no longer supported. In my personal opinion tape drives are doomed and good riddance.
Thursday, December 02, 2004
Rapid Application Development Explained
I really hate being the negative one here about RAD (Rapid Application Development) and JAD (Joint Application Development), but these are MBA buzz words and “In a perfect world” concepts. Having been a software developer for 22 years I can tell you that you will not see the JAD methods widely used as described in the text.
First of all RAD is a concept to speed up software development. RAD is accomplished by using other software tools to quickly produce an end product. Visual Basic is a software tool that will aid in RAD. RAD as described in the text do not facilitate speedy development. What is being described are simple shorten phases of the development cycle. You can shorten the phases as much as you want, but if the software developer doesn’t have a tool to make the development go faster then the RAD as describe in the text doesn’t work.
- Development of a product to sell (Vendor i.e. Microsoft http://www.microsoft.com )
- Custom software development for a customer (Consultant to Customer i.e. my company)
- Business Need Development Internally (MIS for a specific Department Development i.e. HR)
- Open Source Development (Community to Users i.e. http://sourceforge.net/index.php )
- An Excellent Developer Resource: http://msdn.microsoft.com/
These are just a few, as there are hundreds of variations on a theme. The JAD method is ideal for internal business need development as the company can afford to a lot such human resources.
Typically the company is unwilling to a lot that much human resources as all the development teams have more work than they can handle. It is terrible expensive to employ JAD as described in the text and you will find modified versions that are really scaled back. Scaled back JAD is also true with custom development as TIME is money therefore the costs would be greater than what the customer would be willing to pay.
If you do a Google search on JAD at Microsoft, Apple or Sun you will not find a single reference to this concept and these guys are world leaders in software application development.
- Sun – No reference
- Microsoft – No reference
- Apple – No reference
Also in the JAD method there is no mention of Scope CREEP. That occurs as the project is expanded to accommodate additional features and functionality. That leads to a whole different set of issues we can discuss later.
Wednesday, December 01, 2004
Virtual Offices
Q: What are the advantages and disadvantages of virtual offices, including telecommuting?
Virtual Offices and Telecommuting are older terms used in the late 90’s that are marketing buzz words that have no physical association to a thing, device or software. They are mental concepts that could be a collection of a whole host of devices, software, connections and configurations. Once these collections are assembled they form an area in which people from the same company can share and manage information that aids in running the company. This information is not usually accessed by people that do not belong to the company.
The information is accessible outside the office by various means such as VPN (virtual private networks), dial-up, or dedicated connections such as old school ISDN connections. These connections are also encrypted. The latest industry trend is to out source the services to a third part company called an ASP (application service provider).
My company uses both concepts. Our internal servers manage our internal systems. A company called http://intranets.com at (to view the demo) hosts our virtual office. The term virtual office is being replaced by the following terms which have a more exacts meaning: “intranets”; VPN; work from home; and road warrior.
The advantages are remote access to all your information, any place and any time. The disadvantages are remote access to all your information, any place and any time. Having this unprecedented access to that much information allows people who work at the office to work at home and on the road, and people who like their work tend to work even more, putting in a lot of hours. Family and social life can be affected.
I have remote access ability from just about anywhere in the United States, except rural areas without telephone or cell phone service. Outside the U.S. remote access is much more difficult and very expensive. I await the cheap satellite data phone access and that problem will be resolved.
The studies you to believe that the local communities that the business is in would be affected by virtual offices and that is a disadvantage. That is pure nonsense. I am not sure where that came from but it is definitely wrong. It has a positive impact as it aids in reducing travel and fighting traffic.
If there is any contribution made by a person that consumes resources in the area of the business office, that consumption is simply transferred to the local community where that employee is working.
For example, if I eat lunch at several places near my office, working from home I will be eating from the restaurants in my community. I would prefer to support my community over a place that has a tax break for a business office building.
Virtual Offices and Telecommuting are older terms used in the late 90’s that are marketing buzz words that have no physical association to a thing, device or software. They are mental concepts that could be a collection of a whole host of devices, software, connections and configurations. Once these collections are assembled they form an area in which people from the same company can share and manage information that aids in running the company. This information is not usually accessed by people that do not belong to the company.
The information is accessible outside the office by various means such as VPN (virtual private networks), dial-up, or dedicated connections such as old school ISDN connections. These connections are also encrypted. The latest industry trend is to out source the services to a third part company called an ASP (application service provider).
My company uses both concepts. Our internal servers manage our internal systems. A company called http://intranets.com at (to view the demo) hosts our virtual office. The term virtual office is being replaced by the following terms which have a more exacts meaning: “intranets”; VPN; work from home; and road warrior.
The advantages are remote access to all your information, any place and any time. The disadvantages are remote access to all your information, any place and any time. Having this unprecedented access to that much information allows people who work at the office to work at home and on the road, and people who like their work tend to work even more, putting in a lot of hours. Family and social life can be affected.
I have remote access ability from just about anywhere in the United States, except rural areas without telephone or cell phone service. Outside the U.S. remote access is much more difficult and very expensive. I await the cheap satellite data phone access and that problem will be resolved.
The studies you to believe that the local communities that the business is in would be affected by virtual offices and that is a disadvantage. That is pure nonsense. I am not sure where that came from but it is definitely wrong. It has a positive impact as it aids in reducing travel and fighting traffic.
If there is any contribution made by a person that consumes resources in the area of the business office, that consumption is simply transferred to the local community where that employee is working.
For example, if I eat lunch at several places near my office, working from home I will be eating from the restaurants in my community. I would prefer to support my community over a place that has a tax break for a business office building.
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