Computers

Intel were then as they are now, the market leaders in CPUs introducing the 2.2GHz Pentium 4 in January 2002, closely followed by rivals AMD with their 1.73 GHz Athlon XP 2000 +. The introduction of the stylish Apple iMac in 1998 had encouraged PC manufacturers to move away from the boring beige box designs of the 1990s and more aesthetically pleasing designs were emerging from companies like Dell and Hewlett Packard who merged with Compaq in that year. Microsoft were still the dominant force behind Operating Systems and in 2002 added a Service Pack 3 to their Windows XP Operating System. Laptops around this time were generally somewhere between 12inch and 15inch screens, running at around 800MHz with up to 256MB of Ram.

CRT monitors were still very much in use but slowly being replaced by LCD monitors while the average screen resolution had risen from 800 x 600 on 13inch – 15inch monitors to 1024 x 768 on 17inch – 19inch monitors.

While Monitor sizes increased, devices got smaller as the Pocket PC or Smartphone market began to hot up with the two biggest rivals being Microsoft’s Pocket PC 2002 and Palm devices running their own OS. Typical specs around the time would have been around a 400 MHz processor and up to 64 MB RAM.

Apple

Apple computers were enjoying a resurgence in popularity since the release of the iMac and later the iPod in 2001 and in 2002 announced the next generation of iMacs, which had 15inch screens attached to a base via a pivoting arm. The iMac G4 machines ran 800 MHz PowerPC G4 processors and could take up to 256MB RAM. Slightly lower spec Emacs were also released on sale to the general public. Both machines ran OSX 10.1 .The iPod of the day was the Second Generation which connected via Firewire and could hold up to 10GB. The iBook was Apples laptop offering with a 14inch screen running a 700MHz Power PC G3 processor and a massive 30GB hard drive!

Web Development

In 2002, Adobe and Macromedia were still two separate companies, specialising in Print and Web respectively. Macromedia Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Flash were the tools of choice for the web designer at the time with increasingly more websites incorporating Flash and XML and some even made completely from Flash. Designers may have also used Adobe Photoshop 7 to design their websites, while Developers would have constructed the website using either PHP 4 or Microsoft’s ASP (Active Server Pages) which saw the release of ASP.Net in 2002.

Most websites around this time would have been viewed on Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 6 as it controlled 96% of all browser usage at the time. Prior to 2002 there had been a so-called ‘Browser War’ between IE and Netscape which resulted in several court cases. Microsoft’s dominance meant that browser development slowed down and Internet Explorer didn’t see any changes until 2006.

Of course if you were one of that 96% who had no option than to use IE6, then you will probably be familiar with the names Klez.I and Bugbear which were the two most common and aggressive viruses around in 2002 that took advantage of security vulnerabilities in the browser. These viruses could close down and prevent any security software from working on your PC and could also open up ports to allow hackers direct access to your hard drive. As a smug, Apple Mac using designer, I didn’t have these problems, even though I was running Internet Explorer 5 for Mac although I mostly used Netscape as it was the more standards-compliant option.

The Internet

Many people were still connecting to the Internet via dial up 56k modem in 2002. Broadband was available via your telephone but was capped at around 1MB. Cable was also available but was also capped at around 2MB. By far the biggest ISP in 2002 was Freeserve, the free ISP from Dixons. Other big ISP’s at the time were Breathe, Demon and Nildram.

So what are the big differences in IT between 2002 and 2012?

So what are the big differences in IT between 2002 and 2012? Well, CPU manufacturers couldn’t get their processors to go any faster as they would simply melt, so we have seen the introduction of using more than one processor, then later Dual-Core processors and Quad-Core and so on. Processors have also gotten smaller allowing advancements in hand held devices such as Palm and Blackberry and of course the revolutionary iPhone which runs a faster processor and has more memory and storage capacity than its iMac predecessor of ten years ago.

Broadband speeds have increased greatly enabling more services such as live video streaming to be served over the Web. Graphic heavy, content rich sites can now be downloaded quickly and smoothly allowing designers to employ more eye candy in their sites. The increased speed has made the Web more accessible to more people so it is no longer the domain of computer geeks but is used by people of all ages from all walks of life, especially social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and MySapce etc. The Web is also no longer just for standard PC’s as it can be accessed via phones, TV’s, Game Consoles and lots more.

Microsoft’s dominance has eased off with the rise in popularity of Mac OSX and Linux systems such as Ubuntu. Firefox, Google Chrome and Safari have taken back some of the Browser market and free, open-source software such as Open Office has created competition for the Microsoft Office suite.

Websites got bigger and wider as screen resolutions grew and grew, but now they are almost reverting back 10 years as they have to shrink again to fit into iPads and other mobile devices using Responsive design. Techniques for building websites have changed too. Technologies such as PHP5, Ajax, JQuery, JSon have expanded the boundaries of what can be achieved and free, open-source Content Management Systems such as Joomla, Drupal and WordPress have changed the way we construct websites, making the end result better for the site visitor and control much easier for the website owner.

We have an ADSL modem in our house which provides our Internet connection and the plan is to extend our home network wirelessly to the shed at the end of the garden (around 250ft/76m) and to use a mixture of wireless and wired connections to connect the cameras up to this network.

The diagram below shows a rough plan of how it will all fit together:

The plan is to put together the network using mainly discarded equipment and cameras from around the office. An initial scavanging hunt yielded:

2 x Tenvis JPT3815 pan/tilt IP cameras – These cheap and cheerful IP cameras are readily available from ebay for about £35. They have 15 IR LEDs to allow them to see at night and offer reasonable picture quality. The web based firmware allows you to grab jpeg still images, HTTP motion jpeg streams and most usefully a vlc video stream.

1 x Tenvis IP602 external camera – Fixed camera ruggedized for outside use. Otherwise similar to above.

2 x Orite IP camera – Very old and not particularly capable, but couldn’t resist making some use of them.

Linksys DG-834 router – A very useful find as its an early version which we can install the OpenWRT firmware onto. We will cover this in a later post.

2 x Linksys WAP56G wireless access points – These provide wireless bridging which we will take advantage of to extend our home network down to the shed at the end of the garden.

The main challenge I forsee is getting a reliable connection and decent level of bandwidth from the Wifi extension between the house and the chick shed as at 76M this may require non standard aerials.

The main aim of this project is to prevent unnecessary waste from going to landfill.

As part of this project we have also bought some recycling bins so our plastic, paper, glass, cardboard and tins are all recycled.

These are the small beginnings of a big drive to make Coreware a more green and energy efficient company!

Next on the to do list is to fill the holes on the back wall, paint a rectangle of the wall white for the projector screen and paint the rest of the wall red.  I still need to source a nice big rug, pull in the other arcade machines, hang the projector from the ceiling and hang the pictures…we will then be ready for staff to use the area for lunch and evening entertainment…exciting times!

With a small amount of effort its possible to greatly reduce the risk of being hacked and its far better to put the effort in than have to recover from the smoking ruins of a website. Here are our top-10 tips:

1. Regularly check for security releases and bulletins for the platform your website runs on.

The vast majority of hackers go for the lowest hanging fruit and look for websites running pieces of software with known vulnerabilities. New flaws are found on a regular basis and so it is essential that you should watch the websites for all the pieces of software that make up your website. This should include the applications (eg WordPress, Joomla, Druapl), the webserver (eg Apache, IIS), the database (eg MS-SQL server, MySQL) and the operating system (eg Linux, Windows).

Always upgrade as soon as a security release is made, the clock is quite literally ticking…. Many hackers use automated tools, which can scan thousands of server an hour looking for vulnerable websites and so it is essential to remain fully up-to date.

If possible sign up to mailing lists to receive security alerts and if not possible, regularly (at least once a month) check the softwares sites for security bulletins and updates.

2. Keep good backups that you know you can restore from and store them away from your webserver.

All too often just an after-thought, but one that will leave you up a creek if you get wrong. Be absolutely certain that you are backing up and that the backups themselves are secure. If disaster does happen you need to be 100% certain you can recover quickly without significant loss of information/data.

Lots of website owners simply rely on their hosting partner to take care of backups and simply trust that everything is backed up properly. Take the time to do due diligence so you are happy that in the event of your website being compromised that you can recover all the information.

3. Remove anything that is not necessary from your web server. The more you run, the more likely it is that something will let evil doers in..

Lots of people don’t harden the servers on which they run their websites. Lots of unnecessary features and software is left running and any one of these could provide the backdoor into your site.

A well setup server should be stripped to the bone and then only the software necessary for the website installed. Make sure you web developers follow this approach.

4. Make sure that files can only be written to by the webserver when they need to be.

A common way that hackers compromise a website is by changing files on the webserver that have been left unprotected. This allows all kinds of mischief such as changing the text on pages, capturing information your customers enter into your website, adding malicious code to the pages (such as viruses and trojan horses).

When building your website have your web developers ensure that only the files that all files except the ones that need to be written to are permissioned so that the webserver cannot write to them or change their permission.

5. Use an encrypted webserver when needed

Often websites need to collect or display sensitive information such as your customers username/password or confidential information. Regular webservers don’t encrypt this information meaning that anyone who sits between your website and your users can intercept and read the information that’s being past. For this reason, you should use encryption on your webserver whenever you need to deal with sensitive information

If your website needs to display or receive sensitive information use secure HTTP (SSL/https) to encrypt the information. Avoid allowing users to sign in or register over a regular HTTP session

6. If you use applications like phpMyAdmin, don’t install it in standard directories

Often web developers install off the shelf tools such as phpMyAdmin to assist them in the development and maintenance of a website. Whilst useful, these tools also pose a security risk as they expose the inner workings of the website and loopholes have been found that have allowed hackers in.

In an ideal world these applications should be removed from websites when they go live but if this isn’t possible it is advisable to install them in non-standard locations so that automated tools that hunt out insecure installations have a much reduced chance of finding a way in to your website.

7. Use secure passwords for all accounts and avoid obvious usernames

Another common technique used to compromise your website is the brute force attack whereby the attacker will try to automatically break into your site by guessing your username and password. For this reason, you should always set your password to a combination of upper and lower case letters, numbers and punctuation symbols and ideally have your passwords at least 8 characters long. Never never never use a dictionary word, a name or a date of birth, if someones determined they will manage to guess it eventually.

If possible, also replace standard usernames such as ‘admin’ or ‘Administrator’ on your system with less obvious alternatives and if not possible, pay special attention to giving these accounts a robust non-guesssable password.

8. Use a firewall to protect your server

You should use a firewall to ensure that only the applications that your users need to access are accessible from across the Internet. Applications such as databases should not be exposed to the Internet as this provides an easy way in.

9. Review your server regularly to check for suspicious activity

Often compromises on your server can go unnoticed for a long time. Attackers often want to have control of your machine without you knowing so that they can use it to email spam or attack other peoples computers. To help detect when your machine has been hacked, regularly inspect log files on your firewall and webserver. Often attackers will delete the logs to try to hide their tracks but this in itself is a clue that something is amiss. You can also install intrusion detection software on the server which detects when files are altered and this can be a very useful tool for picking up on a compromise.

10. If your website is compromised, don’t panic!

If you do get compromised by an attacker, the most important thing is to not panic as often this can make the situation worse not better. Here are some sensible steps for getting yourself out of the mire:

1. If possible, take the whole server that your website runs on offline and quarantine it. If you are on shared hosting and this isn’t possible, take your website down and inform your hosting provider of the issue.
2. Put up a simple ‘Out of service’ website in a new location whilst you diagnose and fix the issue
3. Its essential to understand how your site was compromised and the extent of the damage that has been done. Its no good simply cleaning up and putting the site back online as it will get compromised again very quickly.This alas is not easy and will require a fair degree of technical expertise. Techniques such as auditing the log files on the server may help. If you have intrusion detection software installed that may give you a clue as to what happened and what has been compromised
4. Rebuild the site, if possible on a fresh clean server, applying all of the principles discussed in this article

I hope you’ve found this article useful. If you’d like further advice please don’t hesitate to get in contact. We can be reached on 01483 894158 or email enquiries@coreware.co.uk

Before:

A few hours of sanding, painting and pasting later:

Many comics died to bring us this bar.

So far we have acquired two sofas, two chairs and part of the set up for our cinema.  We also found the makings of a bar which we recovered from the grounds of our office, it does not look much like a bar now but we have a vision, we intend to cover it in old comics and install a fridge.  Toby has been collecting arcade machines for a while now so we have plenty of those to fit in, we will kick off the top score competition at the opening party, I think I know who will win!  I shall continue to source the rest of the items on my list, which includes optics, comics, bar stools, another sofa, art and a brightly coloured rug, so far we have spent zero pounds, will I be able to do the rest for free?!

Watch this space soon Team Coreware shall be relaxing on the sofas and stuffing their faces with pizza!

We are from time to time asked to provide webcam functionality on websites often with the camera is difficult locations. A recent example is the Windmill at Windmill Hill in East Sussex (see http://windmillhillwindmill.org/weather-station/) where we integrated both a weather station and webcam and provided both live and time lapse video delivered via an ADSL connection.

To allow us to further hone our skills working with webcams and for a bit of fun, we’ve decided to fit a series of webcams to the chicken runs at our MDs house.

The Plan

In the spirit of our green aspirations we will try to build as much of this project using spare equipment we have at the office. We plan to run 5 separate cameras to cover the various runs. Because of the lack of wired networking in the chicken houses we will run a point to point wireless connection to extend the home network out to the outbuildings and then wire the cameras.

What we aspire to!

The Mission

After a visit to Google’s London HQ and marveling out their resplendent offices, we’ve felt inspired to turn some of our spare office space into an informal meeting,recreation and eating area to give the team a place to escape their desks.

Of course we don’t have anything like the deep pockets of Google and so in the spirit of our environmental aspirations to re-use and re-cycle we plan to beg, borrow and steal as much of it as possible.

The Plan

So here are our objectives:

• Provide enough comfy seating for all of the Coreware team.
• Have a small bar/eating area for the odd bit of friday afternoon relaxation.
• A gaming and TV area.
• Provide a meeting room table for up 6 people

We’ve set about scouring ebay and our local freecycle boards and have already collect some nice bits and pieces together. Progress updates coming soon…

We are big fans of extending WordPress to offer new capabilities and something we come up against regularly is the need for a WordPress plugin to allow auto dealers to setup car sales facilities on their websites.

The Mission

Our aim is to develop a plugin to provide the following facilities:

• Create and manage vehicle stock.
• Allow vehicles to be searched by price, make/model and features.
• Easy to integrate into WordPress themes
• Good SEO

The Plan

We will implement as an open source plugin for WordPress using a combination of custom post types and custom taxonomies.