IB: InfoBulletin

February 2001

This is the Co-Operative Systems InfoBulletin.

It contains Information Technology tips that we come across during everyday research and support activities and which may be useful in improving your IT operations, either internally or on the Internet.

C O N T E N T S

  1. Introducing new technologies - get the culture right
  2. Pipex mail servers slapped by spam
  3. How to type mail headers correctly
  4. Co-Op on camera
  5. Opera - the 'other' browser is now free
  6. Windows 95 begins to fade
  7. And finally ... accelerated server downing - not recommended

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1. Introducing new technologies - get the culture right

What's the issue ?
When introducing new technologies, prepare the ground carefully and consider issues of 'culture' as well as technical matters. The classic techniques of implementing a new project ....

  1. determine your needs,
  2. survey the market,
  3. test the products,
  4. select a product and implement it.
.... focus on the technology, but usually benefit from considering the humans who have to use it all. For example ....
  1. determine your needs, but include your staff to at least some degree,
  2. survey the market, but also find out what other organisations do
  3. test the products - again find out what other organisations do/use
  4. select a product and implement it. Afterwards, get some feedback on how well it went.

Benefits

  1. include your staff
    Fewer of those vital needs are likely to be missed if you poll the eventual users. Potential pilot groups (guinea pigs) may come to light. Scores well on the feel-good factor.
  2. find out what other organisations do/use
    You're bound to find some techniques/methods/software that you haven't heard of, as well as what is commonly used. A good stage at which to get site references to discover which software is reliable and easy to use. A relatively inexpensive (and amazingly overlooked) method of avoiding pitfalls. Most not-for-profit organisations are happy to oblige, if you approach them sensibly.
  3. get some feedback on how well it went
    You might think your project was a great success, but unless you're in close touch with the users, you'll never know. Feedback will pay dividends for next time.

Drawbacks

  1. include your staff
    Doing a full review internal review of what tools people need to do the job costs time and/or money. Internal interviews cost time. External consultants cost money. Some combination is usually best - fill in where your skills are lacking with external expertise.
  2. find out what other organisations do/use
    Benchmarking like this will tend to be word-of-mouth and subjective, but don't dismiss the method.
  3. get some feedback on how well it went
    You may get more criticism than you bargained for! Don't leave it too long after the event.

Countdown to failure: an example

  1. Organisation's IT department finds a potential diary application which runs across the network, allows users to make their diaries, view other diaries, assign viewing permissions, schedule meetings and projects, etc. For example, the software finds the first available appointment for 2 people who want to meet and books it.
  2. A pilot group of IT folk start to test the diary and scheduling features, with good results on the client configuration and server performance.
  3. A second pilot group in another department begins, as a prelude to rolling out the diary software organisation-wide.
  4. After a few days, people on the pilot groups find they are receiving so many invitations to meetings and automatically booked appointments that they have little time to do any work. They react by closing off permissions to access their diaries (another feature of the software), thus making them entirely private.
  5. The possibility of staff scheduling their time in an integrated manner (as intended by the software) breaks down, as nobody can be sure that others are looking at their diaries or even using them at all.
  6. The intended rollout is halted. Requirements are analysed again. Back to square one.

Lessons to learn
This example was based on a real case. Making something technically possible is a big leap away from making it acceptable to users.
The human backlash to the technology occurred partly because of information overload, partly because of an initial assumption that it would work for everyone, but mostly because people's daily schedules were suddenly under the control of other staff (and technology), instead their own.
Very busy people whose activities require a lot of human interaction are often more successful at managing their time, interacting with assistants, overlapping into their leisure time, working to an open diary, etc. It may have been better to test the diary software on a pilot group like this first.

Contacts
Projects like designing a standard desktop can give you technical benefits, time-saving efficiencies and include the contributions of staff and volunteers. We can start you off with a standard desktop which you can modify to suit your organisation's needs. Email us at team@coopsys.co.uk.

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2. Pipex mail servers slapped by spam

What is it ?
We were among hundreds of thousands of Pipex Dial customers that were left without email services for about a week in mid-January after UUNET Pipex's eight mail servers ground to a halt as the result of spam - not Specially Pressed American Meats, but junk mail streams from Canada.
Pipex's systems have so far been some of the most reliable, but have been less so over the last 3 months serving their limit of a million customers. The huge volumes of spam email containing very long CC lists trying to use email servers as a free ride were the last straw. Engineers worked round the clock to separate out the two million unsolicited commercial email messages. Meanwhile the backlog of their normal customer email trickled through over the next 3 days. It is not thought that the flood of mail was deliberately intended to knock systems out.
Unfortunately, an unrelated server failure at their Docklands site caused further loss of connectivity. Some Pipex Web servers also are still giving problems for customers who have their Web pages at Dialspace.

To see the status Pipex's network systems, visit :
http://www.connection.pipex.net/support/network/status/

What is spam? Some nice, simple descriptions can be found at:
http://www.kimble.easynet.co.uk/jams/spam.htm
http://www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/~u8mjw/scrape/mine.html

[Acknowledgements: Ian Lynch, Robert Jaques, VNU]

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3. How to type mail headers correctly

What is a mail header ?
This is the bit of text at the beginning of a mail message. Typically you will see the "To:", "From:", "Cc:" and "Subject:" headers in an ordinary email.

How are they constructed ?
Your own address is constructed from 3 parts to make a fully specified "From:" address.
Starting at the back end is your organisation's domain name which is set up in your mail server so that it is the same for everyone:

@yourorg.org.uk

Then comes your username which is set up when your user profile is first constructed. This may or may not be the same as your login name and can come in several forms, eg:

janes or jsmith or jane.smith

Then comes your full name, which you may some control over in your mail client:

"Jane Smith"

So the full general form of a mail address :

"fullname" <username@domainname>

becomes ....
"Jane Smith" <janes@yourorg.org.uk>

How to specify a To: address
A To: address can be as simple as just the simple address part :

sales@xyz.co.uk

which is what many people type.
However, email clients that conform to standards will take the full address header and send it to the part in angle brackets, while allowing you to bookmark the part in quotes in your address book.

For example, writing to :

"Sales & Tech - Jenny" <sales@xyz.co.uk>

would send a message to sales@xyz.co.uk while ignoring the "Sales & Tech - Jenny" part - which you use to store useful information in your address book or lists.

When the sales people reply they may have set up their From: headers to :

"XYZ Sales Dept" <sales@xyz.co.uk>

in which you see the message as coming from "XYZ Sales Dept" in your email client.

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4. Co-Op on camera

What is it ?
We have installed a Web camera inside our workshop - "demonstrating the inner workings behind the true professionalism of Co-Operative Systems". ;-)

Actually the installation is entirely due to the efforts of Asif who has included it as one of the projects for his placement work.

In effect, you can see us dashing around the office, answering your support queries, building sales quotations, packing up your equipment to be sent out and - hopefully - still having time for a cup of tea!

Uses
Although it's still under development, we are just looking at the logistics and applications of Web cam projects, for which we've had a few enquiries. Potentially useful applications are security, video-conferencing, video emails, remote problem diagnosis for branch offices.
Meanwhile, it's just a fun way of 'looking at the inside from the outside'.

Technical review
Here comes the science bit - concentrate .....

We used the Logitech QuickCam Web Desktop model for our setup which retails at around £50. It has the usual snapshot button for capturing stills and a microphone for conferencing; a copy MS NetMeeting is included.
The Digital Radar IITM software that comes with it is fine for basic needs. It has options to upload the video stream to a website, create movie files, and use it as a stills digital camera.
No major problems were encountered. The QuickCam was very easy to set up via its wizard. Plugging into the USB (Universal Serial Bus) port resulted in first time detection by Windows 98, but the USB requirement means QuickCam only runs on Windows 98, Windows Me and Windows 2000. Since it gets its power through the USB port too, you only have one lead to connect.
No knowledge of Web design is required as it automatically creates the HTML page and the image and copies them (via FTP) to your Web site at a time interval specified by you. Logitech give you a free SpotlifeTM Web space for your Internet broadcasts.
The rest of the hardware needs to be a Pentium® 200MMX or better with 32MB RAM, 75MB of free disc space and a CD-ROM drive.

Contacts
The URL to our cam is http://www.coopsys.co.uk/webcam

Our picture currently updates every 30 minutes.

Other Web cam software
If you want more functionality from the cam, you can use software like Webcam32 from http://www.surveyor.com/webcam32/ which has additional features:

  • Upload images to your own homepage (rather than the free space Logitech give you)
  • automatically dialling an Internet connection to upload the file at specified intervals (rather than relying on a permanent internet connection.)
  • adds captions to the web cam image - like date and time the picture was taken.
More details on their website.

Webcam32 is shareware and the trial download will execute for 1 hour after which you must restart the application. Registering Webcam32 (about US$40 dollars) will gives you a non-expiring product release, unlimited email-based technical support, new version updates and priority feature and enhancement requests.

[Acknowledgements: Asif Johar]

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5. Opera - the 'other' browser is now free

What is it ?
The 'third' browser, Opera is now free - you used to have to pay a licence fee of around £21 per user. It also claimed to be the fastest and smallest - earlier versions used to fit the whole thing on one floppy (so easy to carry around). Opera version 5.0 is now out.

Benefits
It's free. Use the same browser across several platforms including Windows (all versions), Linux, Epoc (operating system pioneered by Psion and continued by the Symbian consortium), BeOS and Mac. Runs quickly due to compact size - 2.08MB for the Windows version without Java support or about 9.76MB with Java run-time. Good stability and standards support for Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), Extensible Markup Language (XML) and HTML. More intuitive look-and-feel than before (address bar at the top rather than the bottom). Built-in search bar. Multiple windows inside one browser. Resume interrupted downloads. Drop-down history menus in the back and forward buttons. New easy-to-use mail client with filtering and address books.

Drawbacks
Free version includes an ad banner to offset costs. Version 5.0 only available for Windows platforms so far; other platforms use previous versions. No support for Internet Messaging Access Protocol (IMAP) and Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP). Rather basic news group client.

Contacts
http://www.opera.com

[Acknowledgements: Jim Rapoza]

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6. Windows 95 begins to fade

What's happening ?
Microsoft is no longer issuing OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) licences for its Windows 95 operating system with PCs as of the beginning of 2001. Only a few vendors will be able to build computers with Windows 95 installed by request, but since Microsoft is moving to a fee-based system, end users are unlikely receive any free technical support calls. Bug fixes for Windows 95 will not be issued as of next year and some of Microsoft's latest products, such as Office 10, are not supported by it.

Background
The global agenda is to move users away from Windows 95 and encourage a wider use of Windows 2000 by businesses and individuals.
This change in licensing from Microsoft means that certain large vendors, such as Dell, will not sell factory-installed '95 systems. They may only make Windows 95 available through an "OEM Distribution Channel", for example, new systems purchased from smaller PC manufacturers, value added resellers, and system integrators.
Reducing distribution and support of Windows 95 is just one step in its eventual discontinuation. Older operating systems become expensive to support - whether by you (your organisation), your vendor (perhaps Co-Operative Systems) or the software manufacturer (Microsoft) - as their development comes to an end and they are unable to take advantage of features in new hardware on which they sit. As new applications become available, their incompatibilities with Windows 95 may show up in future.
Windows 95 can only be installed on systems that have been fully tested and qualified for Windows 95 compatibility. Future (hardware) systems are unlikely to be tested and qualified like this by existing distributors, unless specifically requested.
Dell's site says:
"The Windows 95 licences will be acquired via the distribution channel rather than the usual OEM licence, which may impact the cost of the operating system."
Only upgrades to Windows 95 are available under Microsoft Volume License programs, not new systems.

Alternatives
No announcements have been made to change the licensing or support for Windows 98 and Windows NT4.x. Clearly Microsoft would like you to move towards a Windows 2000-based system and indeed there may be significant advantages (performance, support and deployment) in using a newer operating system depending on which new PCs you buy, including a lower total cost of ownership (TOC).
Analysts are predicting more user support for the open-sourced, free Linux operating system in the next few years. Until recently Linux has been used widely for Web servers, but was less common on desktop PCs.

What happens about W95 support ?
Microsoft moved to fee-based support in September 2000, which may result in vendors increasing charges for customer support, although most will probably continue support for as long as it's maintainable.
Customers who have an in-house support infrastructure and no internal applications which are incompatible with a newer operating will be able to carry on as usual.
For some time, Co-Operative Systems has been supporting Windows 95 on machines as supplied (and will continue to do so in line with Microsoft licensing), while shipping Windows 98 on new PCs. This allows for a mixed environment that is still relatively easy to manage. Ring us on 020 7793 0395 if you have any further queries.

Contacts
Information about direct support options from Microsoft can be found at :
MS Support homepage
Microsoft Support Options Overview
MS Online Support
MS Contract Support
MS Support ONLINE costs
Expired Warranty support

Their very useful "FAQs & Highlights for Windows 95" page is at: http://support.microsoft.com/highlights/w95.asp

Dell's FAQ on Windows 95 end of life provides useful information from a distributor's point of view.

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7. And finally ... accelerated server downing - not recommended

What is it ?
A report from one our client call-logs this month reads ...

"Their photocopier engineer says he downed the server. What he actually did was pull the power off the server with everyone logged on and this caused problems ranging from users receiving incorrect e-mails to not being able to see their network drives. Even a reboot did not sort the problem. Andrew ran chkdsk and it emerged that the hard disk had developed some errors which were fixed. All ok now."

How to avoid it
Make sure you know which equipment your service people are working on. If you have doubts about interfacing or interconnecting with your computer network, do ring us first, even if only for advice! Support is on 020 7793 7877.

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