Agileview

Thought I’d share this useful tip with you all. If you have upgraded from Microsoft Internet Explorer and are using a real Web Browser, like FireFox for example. It can be very annoying to revert back to the bad old days everytime you click on a URL within Lotus Notes.

So how can you escape this time-warp? Here’s how:
1. First of all, find your Location Document in your Personal Name & Address Book.

2. Once you’ve found the current Location Document, edit this document and switch to the Internet Browser tab.

3. Select the Other option for the Web Browser and click the Torch icon (why this is a torch who knows…).

4. Using the pop-up dialog, navigate to your C:\Program Files\Mozilla FireFox and select firefox.exe. Of course, if you can choose any another Web Browser you have installed as well.

5. Click the select button and your Location Document should now be updated.

So the next time you click on a URL in Lotus Notes - FireFox will launch instead of Microsoft Internet Explorer - groooovy baby!

Our business has essentially 2 offices. The shop-front, based in the Epicorp Building in Acton. And our back-office (where all the really hard work is done), at my home.

Our home computer is primarily used for managing the finances and ensuring that Agileware complies with all the various TAX, GST and other Government requests. Our home computer runs Windows 2000 Professional and some basic business applications. It does the job.

Whenever, I use this computer I always take the opportunity to check for any security updates for Windows - just as a matter of course and basic maintenance. I use the computer on a weekly basis and always download a collection of updates - without fail.

Ran the system update feature on Tuesday and noted that there were 3 critical updates available. No worries, I think - download and install. Reboot and she’ll be fine mate.

It’s now Thursday night and on our home computer again, I find no less than 4 critical security flaws are ready for download. So what? You may say, however each one of these notices as well as the others which were download on Tuesday stated:

Microsoft: “A security issue has been identified that could allow an attacker to compromise your [Microsoft software] and gain control over it.”

So that’s 7 (or more) “critical - attacker compromise” updates within one week. Should I be concerned?

As a consumer, it is troubling that my computer and more importantly that my data is at continual risk and requires continual maintenance by Microsoft. I certainly would not accept this type of issue & maintenance on my car (and I drive a Mitsubishi - so I’m OK with some risk link1 and link2). So why is it different for computer software?

Diverting slightly, working in the same office as a Mac user has really opened my eyes and challenged an established paradigm of acceptance for computer software failings. The Mac just works - no wonder Mac users are fanatical about their OS. Small wonder too that so many Linux developers are now using the Mac.

I think our next hardware upgrade will be Mac.

Update 16/10/2004: Slashdot.org had an interesting article on an interview with Bill Gates. “Question: Speaking of security, Internet Explorer has had well-publicized holes… Gates: Understand those are cases where you are downloading third-party software.”. This insightful comment from a Slashdotter was very highly rated.

Justin, Itchybrain Productions and myself went to see Richard Stallman speak yesterday afternoon about the FSF. A really entertaining and informative speech was delivered by Richard, which is well worthy of its own post.
Afterwards I caught this article release from Novell relating to their stance on the Open Source Software patenting debacle which has recently hit the fore.
I applaud the Novell stance and hope that the Free Software Initiative is understood well enough by those in power around the world to stop these new software patent proposals from becoming law.
Software patenting is a very sensitive topic and one which we should all fully understand as IT professionals. If these laws are passed we will be in a very precarious position when it comes to applications development and maintenance - actually we would be in a very scary legal position every time we wrote code.
Enough said - check out the Novell view point.

I attended the Red Hat world tour this morning which was held at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. I arrived about half way through the presentation and missed most of the talks by the big three - Intel, Oracle and Red Hat.
What I did catch was the tail end of the Red Hat Enterprise Server presentation, a brief overview of the Red Hat GFS (Global File System), a quick look and demo of the Red Hat Desktop release, and a Red Hat client presentation on their migration to Red Har Enterprise Linux.
The final speaker represented a Canberra based telco, TransACT who reflected on a UNIX to Red Hat migration which they under took earlier this year. What stood out the most was their satisfaction in cost savings and performance increase that they gained in using GNU/Linux.
They were able to purchase two fully redundant HP servers and increase their SAN storage by another third to 1.5TB, as compared to the cost of a similar single UNIX server and only 1.1TB SAN storage and still save 40% on cost.
They have since reported increases in performance of what I calculated to be almost 800% in processing time and those figures are based on an average of almost 800 phone log processing cycles. The servers have been configured specifically for Oracle, which is their sole purpose in life and they have not had to make one service call to either Red Hat, Oracle or HP in the 9 months of operation.
Like I said, I was impressed with the setup they have and equally impressed by the performance they are achieving. Another feather in the cap for the GNU/Linux OS and it is great to see a local Canberra company embracing it.
Way to go TransACT and GNU/Linux!!

Welcome to the Agileware Blog.

This blog will be maintained and populated by Justin Freeman and Michael Manning.

Out posts will mostly relate to topics surrounding IBM Lotus Domino, Linux and Open Source products, and general IT techo issues which we have interests in or are currently pursuing.

Enough of the intro - you will get to know us as we blog away