Office 2013 - Impressions

Happy Family Day!

So I've got my new HP ENVY dv6 laptop (Intel Core-i7 2.4GHz Octo-core processor, 16GB DDR3 1600MHz memory, 2GB Nvidia GeForce GT 630M graphics) set up with Linux Mint 14, and now I'm working on setting up a Windows 7 Pro virtual environment with Office 2013 (for the up and coming bring your own device - or BYOD - initiative). Here are my first impressions:

• Plain, yet clunky, interface.
• Constant proxy server requests out of the box (easily fixed, but still!)
• Nice templates in Word, Excel and PowerPoint (my three main apps)
• Outlook calendar is nice and clean, but I'm not a fan of the inbox.
• Too much white! Yes, I know they have grey and dark grey, but come on.
• I do like the new reading and presentation modes in Word and PowerPoint.

Keep in mind, these are my first impressions. Once I have some time to play with the apps, maybe I'll find that there is a better development environment for VBA. At first glance, though, I'd rather stick with Office 2010. Luckily I'm stubborn and love to play with the newest toys, so I will stick with 2013 for now.

I know that Microsoft has become a big fan of the cloud for storage, but the default save location is SkyDrive. I personally don't use SkyDrive, and I'm sure a lot of MS Office users don't use it either. I prefer to save locally, and then I host my files from home with my own personal "cloud". It's a minor detail, and easily changed by clicking "Computer" in the save screen, and then click "Browse" to find a folder in which to save the file.

Now, to stop Office from constantly trying to connect to the Internet, do the following:

• Click File --> Options
• Click Trust Center
• Click the Trust Center Settings button
• Click Privacy Options
• Uncheck Allow Office to connect to the Internet
• Click OK

Well, in the amount of time it has taken me to write this post, the interface is looking better... but I still need to play with it quite a bit before it will feel better than Office 2010. I won't give up!

Until next time...
-SB

My New Toy + Adobe Flash = Sad face.

Good morning,

I know that these days Adobe's Flash Player is under fire, so it comes as no surprise to me that once I upgraded my tablet to the latest Android operating system, I lost Adobe Flash support.
Here I am, browsing along, when BAM! I'm hit with a "Click here to get Flash" link on a Web site that I really needed to see. It was more of an annoyance than anything, but nothing really detrimental to my every day life. Still, if I experience it, everyone with an Android device will be experiencing it.
So here I am, spreading the news (that has actually been pretty well spread already), about how to install Flash on your Android device. It actually goes deeper than Flash. Some folks are constrained by the Google Play store (or any device that touts an app store), so they do not know how to get apps that may reside outside of these repositories.

NOTE: There is a high risk of compromising your device if you download and install apps willy-nilly, so ensure you know what you are doing before you download anything!

Now that I have scared you, here is how I installed Adobe Flash from APK.

1. Download the APK here. Keep in mind, when you decide to look for an app online, feel free to use Google with terms such as "Adobe Flash .apk"
2. Select the file, once it is downloaded.
3. Your tablet may tell you that you need to change your settings to permit installation of packages from unknown sources. Click the settings button. IF you miss that opportunity, you can access your settings by selecting the applications list, then Settings, then security
4. Under Device Administration, Check the box beside Unknown Sources (Allow installation of apps from unknown sources)
5. Then you can click on the APK file either in the download list (if not cleared), or in your file manager, in the Downloads folder.
6. Now you should be able to install the package with no issues.

You should now be able to use Flash in your browser!

Don't forget, if you have any questions or concerns, you can feel free to ask via email or posting to this blog!

Until next time...

Steve.

My New Toy Part 2: Working with my ASUS Transformer Pad Tablet

Good evening,

I've been doing a lot of work with my tablet lately (I guess it's not so much of a toy after all!), and I figured I would share some of my experiences in productivity with the ASUS Transformer Pad.
First, I would like to highlight how difficult it is to get a case for the Transformer Pad!
I live in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and around here there are stores that sell iPad accessories, and stores that sell iPad accessories. It's not like it was too hard to find something online, but I like to be able to touch the merchandise before I buy. Either way, I went to many a store and looked at the nice iPad cases, and then I went home and bought a sweet brown leather case that has a detachable section for the keyboard that came with the tablet. You can find the brown one here (while quantities last, I'm sure), but you can also find a black version. By now you may have asked yourself what a sweet leather case has to do with productivity, but let's get serious here; the clothes make the man (or tablet).

For productivity apps, I use PolarisOffice and Google Drive (formerly known as Google Docs) to perform my day-to-day office duties. I use Google Drive mainly for documents that I have to share with my peers, or documents that I need to whip up when I'm on a system where I can't save to the hard drive, or when I'm on the bus writing on my phone. Google Drive can be installed as an app, or accessed via https://drive.google.com with your Google account. If you don't have a Google account, you can sign in with your non-Google email address and it will work just fine.
PolarisOffice is easily downloaded using the Google Play Store. I have it on my phone, so it was added to my tablet once I signed in with my Google account. PolarisOffice is a regular, run of the mill office suite, but it has a nice interface, and has a handy view-only mode, which enables you to view documents really quickly on a touch-screen interface without accidentally modifying the document. I won't lie, it seemed like an impediment at first, but after always using edit mode and making a few mistakes, I became a fan of read-only mode.

The next question is: What do I do with these apps?
Well, I manage my finances through a spreadsheet that I created a few years ago (with no loss in functionality - there is some Microsoft-specific scripting that still works in PolarisOffice), I write documents for work, chapters of my book, and material for a college class I teach. I also use the presentation software (similar to PowerPoint) to create lecture slides for my class, and presentations for business use.
I also use GMail and the Samsung Email and Calendar applications to manage my time and business communications. I have actually just purchased an app (for a whopping $19!) called TouchDown (available here) to handle email communications within my current consulting engagement. $19 is expensive for an app, but it does a great job of managing my work email and calendar via the corporate email server.
Oh, and one other thing: my blog! I am currently sitting on my rocking chair, with my feet up and my tablet laying across my legs. The ASUS Transformer Pad keyboard dock has a USB port, so I've connected my wireless keyboard and mouse transceiver to that port, and I am laid back writing this article for your viewing pleasure. In fact, I use the tablet for all of my social networking: LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. The apps make dealing with these sites much easier.
Overall, I would say that you can do pretty much anything on this device that you could do on a PC, from a productivity standpoint. I also really like the Android platform, due to its great selection of apps for office and productivity. Some folks feel overwhelmed when faced with several choices for a specific task, but that's why geeks like myself exist! If you would like any advice on which apps to use for a specific task, you can a) subscribe to my blog or, b) drop me a line at steve[at]openminds-solutions[dot]com

Until next time!

My New Toy: ASUS Transformer Pad Tablet

Good evening.

This July I started working as an independent contractor/consultant, and so I thought I would buy myself a new toy as a reward. I have had my eye on the ASUS Transformer tablet for a while, and so I finally bit the bullet and spent the money on a tablet. I must say, I was never really sure what I would do with a tablet, but now that I have one... well, it's like my security blanket. I rarely let it out of my sight.

Here is what I use my tablet for, on a regular basis:

• Word processing - I am currently writing a book
• Spreadsheets - I am very vigilant about my personal and business finances
• Web Development Environment - Top secret mobile app development underway
• Web server - Oh, yes, I have a server running on my tablet
• Remote administration tools - for my home Web server
• E-Reader - I can read my favourite books on my tablet
• Netflix - Portable movie time wherever I have an Internet connection
• Skype - front-facing webcam to let me video chat with my family and friends abroad
• Internet activities - Browsing, Email, Chat, Banking
• Social Networking - LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+, Blogger...
• And the odd game of Sudoku

To be quite honest, that's probably not the whole list. Whenever I have a task to complete, my tablet is there to help. Now, I've given you a list of what I do on a regular basis, now I'll tell you how.
First of all, I primarily use Polaris Office or Google Docs (now called Google Drive) for my word processing and spreadsheet tasks. I am a huge fan of Google Drive for creating documents that I will be sharing with others on a regular basis. If a document is for my eyes only, I stick with Polaris Office, which shares my documents locally.
For my Web development environment, I use DroidEdit Free. If you are a developer, or just a regular user who uses an app such as Notepad++ on their PC, you will enjoy DroidEdit. The only downside is the ads. They are small, however, and if you root (unlock administrator access for) your Android tablet, you can use AdFree Android to remove those ads. In order to test my code, I installed kWS - Kamran's Web Server. I use it simply to test my HTML and JavaScript code, nothing too fancy - I leave that for my home server.
To ensure that I can manage my home server from my tablet wherever I take it, I use ConnectBot - a secure shell (SSH) client. An SSH client doesn't need to be fancy, and this one does the trick. Being able to tinker with my server(s) whenever I need helps me stay productive, even on the road! (insert winning smile here).
I am an avid reader, and I have many an e-book. To manage my e-book collection, I use the app that came with my tablet: ASUS MyLibrary. This is a smooth, fast e-book reader that permits me to read without the light on at night, while the missus is sound asleep.
I have become addicted to the show Numb3rs, and since there are several seasons on NetFlix, I can watch the show wherever I am, as long as I have cellular signal (more on that later).
My 2.75 year-old nephew lives 2.5 hours away, and in order to maintain a presence in his life, I have Skype and a front-facing camera on my tablet. It also helps me keep in touch with the majority of my friends who have moved to other cities or overseas. And those who have been roaming the high seas for the past two years.

Overall, I would highly recommend a tablet PC to anyone who lives a highly connected or productive life. If you don't get to see your loved ones often, you can take your tablet with you and video chat on a regular basis. You can keep a journal either on a blog site or locally on the tablet with the various office suites available. You can pile hundreds of books on a tablet so you never have to fill up your suitcase with books (which has happened to me once or twice). And you can update your professional - and social - profiles using apps from sites such as LinkedIn or Facebook. It is really quite amazing. Now, I suppose you could do this on your phone as well, but a 10.1" screen is a revelation after attempting the same feats on a 4.5" screen. It is a hefty investment, at around $600 CDN, but I'm confident that my tablet has worked off that debt twice over in only two months. Food for thought...
Until next time, Steve.

The Wonderful World of Automobile Technology.

Good evening,

A couple of weeks ago I had an interesting encounter that I would deem share-worthy. This was, as the title suggests, an interesting issue with my car. I drive a 2007 VW City Golf, and the Air Conditioner died on July 23, 2011 (may it rest in peace). I took it to my parents' place because my dad has a tonne of tools and automotive know-how. We determined that it was a power issue, as our tester could not detect any current running from the battery to the compressor. Fair enough, let's check some fuses.First of all, the fuse panel/manual combination is very confusing. The owner's manual says nothing about fuses except to refer to the fuse panel if you want to see which fuse does what. Okay, that's fine. Then there are some fuses that (from my understanding) refer you to the manual. I'm assuming they mean the repair manual, not the owner's manual. That's still okay, I'm obviously going to fiddle with them anyhow. So I did.
After removing a few fuses and replacing them, the check engine light (or the dummy light, as my dad says) was on. That's fine, they just do that to scare you, right?
I take off from my parents' place, and I find my car is a bit sluggish. Once I get to the highway I find that it's revving at 3500RPM when I'm doing 80km/h. Right, it's not shifting out of 3rd gear (it's a 4-speed automatic). I drive back to my folks' place, and leave my car there. The car gets towed to Hunt Club VW in Ottawa. They simply reset the computer and all is fine. Great, story over, right? Nope! That was just the preamble.

So I get my car back, and the CD player isn't working. Which I find out after leaving the lot and hitting the gas station.A few hours later, after I have dropped my mom's Rendez-vous off (my girlfriend drove my car to my parents' house, so I still  had music!), I decided maybe I would spin through the manual a bit to see if I could find something to cure what was ailing me.

I went through roughly three references to different pages in the manual, but finally found that there is a separate sound system manual. Luckily, one was included with my car! So the problem I was having stemmed from anti-theft security! There is a sticker in the VW Sound System manual with four digits on it. Those digits are your security code. If your CD player gets out of sync with your car's computer, it goes into "SAFE" mode. When you start up the CD player it displays "SAFE" on the LCD, and then gives you the number 1000. You can change these numbers by pressing the program numbers 1 to 4. Each button controls a different digit. Once you have your code typed in, you just need to press and hold the "Next Track" button for two seconds. Your CD player will beep, then you will see the beloved "VOLKSWAGEN" marquee on the LCD, then your CD player will be back to normal! So, to re-iterate in better laid-out instructions:

1. Open your VW manual to the Sound System section - this will be a separate booklet
2. Look for a sticker with a serial number and four digits on it
3. When your stereo reads 1000 on the LCD, use the radio programming buttons 1 to 4 to select the number that is in your manual. Each time you press one of the buttons, the corresponding number will increment.
4. Once you have the correct number entered, submit it by pressing and holding the Track Select > (next track) button for two seconds. You will hear a beep and your CD player should be back to normal.

Now I just need to get my A/C fixed...

Something to watch out for... VLCSetup.exe

Good evening,

There are a lot of articles these days warning the masses about malware, but I figured I would unleash one on my reader anyway. Note: the example ad in this article is not new by any means, but it still provides a great example of a ruse to infect your PC.

I was recently just browsing the Web, minding my own business, when I saw a video (clearly an ad) that had a little message bar above it. The message bar looked deceptively like a message from the Firefox Web browser, but I use Google Chrome. Strike one. Also, it was clearly a Flash video, but it gave me the error "you are missing the plugin VLC to play videos". Another clear giveaway was the fact that a browser will not specifically require the VLC plugin (nor the plugin VLC - another error), it will merely ask you if you would like to search for or add the plugin. A picture of the ad is below:

Okay, I know that above I said "clearly" a few times when maybe things weren't that clear. I work in the security field, so I am quite familiar with hoaxes like the one pictured above. If it were all crystal clear, nobody would get infected, right? Here are a few other signs that an ad asking you to download a plugin may not be legitimate:

• Right-clicking on the "video" produced no menu. Generally you will see a menu. Lack of menu means that it has been intentionally hidden.
• The little "x" beside "upgrade" was not clickable. Usually you will be able to remove that message bar with a click of the magic "x".
• I clicked all of the buttons (Pause, Stop, Forward, Backward, Mute) and tried to move the volume slider. Each time I was asked to download VLCSetup.exe. That ain't right.

So, on a test machine, I downloaded the executable file (DO NOT DO THIS AT HOME!). I did not run the file, even though I am using a Linux operating system (this is a test system, not a production or mission critical system) that does not have the ability to run any Windows applications anyway. Why bother downloading the file if I'm not going to run it, you say? Well. There is a Web site called Virus Total (http://www.virustotal.com) where a user can upload an executable file, and the Web site will create a checksum (a unique identifier for the file) and verify it against anti-virus vendor databases. In this case, 28/43 vendors recognized this file as a browser toolbar that contains a Trojan Horse.

If you are unfamiliar with the concept of a Trojan Horse in the computer world, it is quite similar to that of Homer's Illiad. The toolbar looks pretty safe, but hiding within are the metaphorical Myrmidons waiting to infect your PC. You install the toolbar, it slows down your Web browser, the malware is installed as well, poking holes in your computer's defenses. Next thing you know, you're fully infected.

The moral of the story here, folks, is to stay on your toes. Question everything. Did I really want to see that video? What is VLC? Why does this blasted video keep asking me to download a file when I try to increase the volume? How can I upgrade when I don't have a previous version? How come I can't right-click? I could go on. If you don't know what it is, and it's not hindering your Web experience, just let it be. And when in doubt, Google it.

Here's hoping that a few less people will get infected due to this article!

Have a good night,

Steve.

Today's Virus Removal: Windows Vista Repair.

Gather round, folks, and I'll spin you a yarn.

I received a call from a damsel in distress on a warm Monday afternoon, and it would appear that her hard disk drive was about to kick the bucket (from the error message I was given). While I was not overly excited about having to replace a hard drive and reinstall OS and Apps, it would have allowed me to upgrade the user to Windows 7 from Windows Vista (yuck!). As it stands, this is no hard drive failure. It would appear that a friendly app named Windows Vista Repair is informing said user that there are memory and hard drive problems detected.

I tried to be sneaky right off the bat and try a system restore, as the issue didn't start until roughly Monday. System Restore didn't load in regular mode, no surprise there. I figured I'd jump right into ninja mode and try from safe mode with command prompt. No luck with c:\windows\system32\rstrui.exe. Just for giggles, let's try System Restore in regular ol' safe mode. Oddly enough, I could access the app. Let's see if the restore point was infected...

While we wait for that, how about a brief interlude?

I have just stumbled upon a Molex-to-SATA power cable adapter. Stoked. Yes, the server I am re-building is that old. Whatever. I'm looking forward to having a CentOS based server to tinker with. Then maybe I can fix the Extreme Networks 48-port purple switch I have kicking around, and build a PacketFence NAC solution! Yes!

Anyway, back to business. Looks like System Restore removed the virus. Occam's Razor, for the win. I have also removed Kaspersky AV, and installed AVG Free for my client. Kaspersky has been somewhat troublesome. I have had to re-add the licence key at least three times, and this time when it "expired" the client got infected immediately. Time to go back to the bullpen. Scanning with AVG now... Once that scan is done I will manually check some registry keys to ensure that there are no files ready to run the next time I start the computer, and I will also check the prefetch folder and other fun stuff to ensure that the infection is gone.

I guess that's it for now! I think it's time to head to bed for me. Maybe my next post will be about how awesome my new server is! If you're really lucky, you may get the play-by-play! I know, I know. Awesome.