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Older computers may have been built during a time when the electronic components used in their construction were of poor quality. In particular, a large number of capacitors suffer from a syndrome called the “Capacitor Plague” where they swell, bulge, burst and may even blow up with quite a bang!

Photos: A motherboard with the Capacitor Plague

Before these components fail catastrophically, they will likely cause stability problems with the computer. frequent lock-ups and crashes. The computer may even fail to boot or fail POST, amongst all manner of other issues. 

How this came to pass is a story straight out of a James Bond movie. Several Taiwanese manufacturers used a stolen formula that had vital details missing, which resulted in the components not being manufactured to the correct construction or grade. The result was the supply of components to electronic device manufacturer that were destined to fail given some time and use!

The Wikipedia entry for the “Capacitor Plague” makes for interesting and comprehensive reading on this topic.

If you’ve got an older computer and are experiencing strange problems that don’t seem to be down to the usual Operating System, drivers and software causes then it is worth a quick inspection of your components for signs of this condition. Roundtrip Solutions can perform this inspection for you if you suspect it is the cause of your computer problems. This is a part of our computer support and repair service offering that covers Edinburgh, Fife, and Tayside. We will advise you of the necessary repair required to get your computer operating again both stably and safely.

Technorati Tags: capacitor, capacitor plague, computer repair, computer support, Edinburgh, Fife, Tayside, Wikipedia

The BBC’s Panorama show features an alarming report tonight to do with the seedy side of the online world. Every parent should be watching this important public service programme tonight on BBC1 at 8:30pm to ensure their kids don’t fall victim to the predatory nature of pedophiles.

Many parents will remember the “Charlie Says..” public service announcements of the late 70’s, so let’s take that advice and update it for today! Don’t remember it, well here’s a little reminder for you…

Our support staff have already provided assistance and support to Fife parents that have discovered grooming like activity in time and wanted to ensure their kids were safe in the future. The first few times we have came across such instances it was with some disbelief that we approached the issue and a feeling of remote detachment and denial as we tried to get our heads around the actions from the worst scum of society. Many parents will also go through these feelings and believe it won’t happen to their little darling! Be warned that it could unless you are vigilant.

We recently delivered an IT Security talk  to the Institution of Engineering and Technology in Edinburgh. One of the sections within that presentation was on Child Protection issues, along with all manner of advice to make computers and the Internet a safer environment for the children who reap great benefits from its use. Even taking our first hand experience into account, we were alarmed by some of the resources and statistics discovered to do with online grooming whilst performing further research for the presentation. Needless to say, the advice and protection resources form a vital section of our presentation. 

A copy of the presentation is available in pdf format (requires Acrobat Reader to view).

You shouldn’t believe banning your kids from using the Internet is the solution, when the key is education, how the computer is set-up and the trust relationship you have with your children. The benefits from the Internet are numerous and the risks can be mitigated thereby preventing these scumbags from depriving our children of the wonderful advantages of the online world. We must do everything possible to get these predators removed from society and banged up in prison for a very long time. Report any suspicious behaviour and preserve the evidence of the offense for the authorities.

Please feel free to contact us for further information, advice or help in securing your computer to better protect the children from this most deviant part of society.

Technorati Tags: BBC, BBC1, child protection, IET, Institution of Engineering and Technology, Panorama, pedophiles

The BBC is reporting the digital divide is lessening between rural and town communities and is even going so far as to say the “Rural Homes Dominate Broadband UK”

They report:

Ed Richards, Ofcom’s Chief Executive, said “Our report highlights a closing of the geographical digital divide in the UK. Rural households are today as well connected to broadband as their urban neighbours”..

Declan Curry of BBC Breakfast reported the release of the latest Ofcom report that is the trigger for the BBC news article. Our own John A Thomson sent in a comment that was read out in part online and we’ll expand upon these thoughts in this blog post. Thank you Declan.

Roundtrip Solutions, as a rural IT provider, uses and services both the rural and town communities of Fife. Our real world experience of typical broadband users of all denomination, geographies and providers gives us a real insight to the current state of play regarding broadband. What we do see on the front line isn’t necessarily the same as Ofcom’s interpretation of the higher rural take-up figures, performance levels and satisfaction ratings!

Let’s use a metaphor to describe the feeling of many rural broadband users:

The technologies of today, and more especially those coming in the future, will see broadband services supplied in towns running like formula one cars while the rural community relies on a horse and cart.

The share of homes getting broadband in the cities and rural areas isn’t the crux of the digital divide debate; this was the big problem some four or five years ago. The real issue has moved on as many people in rural areas struggle to get the fastest speeds available today due to their distance from the exchange, the age and quality of their telephone line, and the BT technology level available in their local exchange. Even when BT has rolled out their 21CN network (next generation), the last mile (the connection from the exchange to the home) in rural areas is liable to still be the same copper telephone lines that we have today.

Tim Hubbard, Head of 21CN Technology Futures for BT, gave a presentation to the Edinburgh branch of the British Computer Society in January 2008. He presented the vision for the next generation BT network during which it became evident that the last mile connection was liable to remain the same, especially so in rural areas where it is uneconomic to replace. John A Thomson of Roundtrip Solutions even questioned him on this very matter during the Q&A, resulting in the admission that without government subsidies then it is unlikely that BT would replace the last mile in rural areas.

There is a PPT presentation and an MP3 podcast available on the Edinburgh BCS website.

From an end users point of view, the town users will be able to access fast and faster broadband services as BT upgrades all elements of the telecommunications system, while the poorly serviced rural customers will look on in jealous amazement at the services available to them. To add to the teasing, the rural customers will have a local exchange with the latest generation broadband available, but they won’t be able to utilise it due to the “piece of [copper] string” connecting their home to the exchange.

The debate today is clouded by those people on a connection supplied by the big boy providers who have a sub standard service that cannot meet the demands of their customers especially at peak times.This is mainly down to the overselling of their services matched against the capacity they have in their networks. There are some very good broadband providers out there that supply very good experiences and decent speeds, but the next generation broadband services that rely on super fast broadband (24Mbps and above) will still be unavailable to rural customers simply due to the existing BT telephony  infrastructure not being up to the job - specifically, the last mile. 

We see many customers complaining about their broadband that are made extremely happy when they are migrated to a good supplier. If you would like to find out more about getting high speed broadband with UK based support at a reasonable monthly charge then please Contact Us.

Technorati Tags: BBC, broadband, BT, Declan Curry, digital divide, last mile, rural broadband

This is a fabulous concept from the One Laptop Per Child project.

Technorati Tags: BBC, OLPC

… and we’re going to enlighten you to what is going on in this blog post.

We’ve come across two instances over the last few week in Fife where BT Broadband personnel have failed to secure end customer equipment using their own recently updated and freely available advice and instructions.

What exactly is this newly discovered vulnerability that requires the advice to have been recently updated? Well, it isn’t the older discovery that WEP encryption can be cracked within a minute, a fact that has long since seen WEP being considered as NO security. It is the more recent discovery that sees the Home Hub being cracked with practically no effort due to its particularly bad WEP implementation.

As a slight side note, the Wikipedia entry for WEP makes an interesting statement:

Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) is a deprecated algorithm to secure IEEE 802.11 wireless networks.

For those who’re unaware of what "deprecated" means, we’ll draw upon another Wikipedia entry:

In computer software standards and documentation, the term deprecation is applied to software features that are superseded and should be avoided.

Since the Home Hub uses WEP security by default, and appears to be left in this state by BT Broadband employees, then there is going to be a large number of Home Hubs vulnerable to all manner of criminal activity. Following the logic through on this one,  BT Broadband leaves their product in a state that has been superceded and should be avoided.

At least someone at BT has noticed this security issue and has tried to deal with it:

Automatic wireless security

To help you get set up quickly and help prevent unauthorised users access your wireless network, your BT Home Hub automatically provides some wireless security via a WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) key. However, using new technology, it may be possible for hackers to break this key and connect to your Hub, possibly accessing your computer or using your broadband service.

You can increase this basic level of security, at no extra cost, by changing your Hub’s security from WEP to WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access). We recommend that you consider doing this, even if you don’t connect to your Hub wirelessly.

It is a shame that their installers and support people don’t seem to know about this issue and a travesty that they haven’t been trained to leave customer’s broadband in a more secure state.

Let’s now look at the two scenarios that led to us question the training and skills of personnel in the BT Broadband installation and support operation. 

Scenario 1:
A long standing BT customer signs up for BT Broadband after using their dial-up service for many years. They asked for an "engineer" install, at an additional charge, believing this would be the best way to achieve a problem free broadband connection. The day of the activation comes around and a BT installer turns up to setup their broadband. The installer starts on the installation,  the customer leaves him alone to complete the work and job done, he leaves the customer’s home.

Later, they try to use the shiny new broadband for the first time, but all that was observed was the computer trying to connect to the dial-up service and errors being generated when attempts were made to download emails. At this point they gave up and called us in.

We arrive on scene and notice the following issues within a few minutes:

1. WEP encryption in use, against the best practice advice from BT themselves.

2. Computer has been left to use the Dial-Up service by default.

3. The email program had been left configured to use the Dial-up connection. 

4. The customer security software was out of date.

5. New email addresses assigned to this broadband account wasn’t setup.

It looks very much like the engineer has opened up the box, plugged in the ADSL filters, powered up the Home Hub, before finally connecting the customer laptop using the default WEP encryption key. It would appear that no attempt was made to connect to a webpage or to try to access email.

The fourth issue can be forgiven if the customer hasn’t signed up for one of the BT options that comes with BT security software as part of the deal. We didn’t ask so cannot comment further on this one. However, any good computer engineer would have noticed the lack of up to date security software and informed the customer that someone needs to take a look at it.

Needless to say, the issues were fixed and the customer was left fully satisfied with their new broadband connection.

Scenario 2:

Careless cleaner allows the ADSL lead to be sucked up into the vacuum cleaner, thereby breaking at least one of the signal cores in the cable. At this point, all that was required was a simple replacement of the damaged ADSL lead and the customer would have been fully operational again.

Instead, they phoned BT Broadband for advice and struggle for forty minutes to understand the broken English and broad accent of the Asian call centre support representative. After 40 minutes on the telephone, the customer has been told to turn off the Home Hub, reset it to defaults and finally to replace the damaged cable.

A trip to the local electrical retailer sees a new cable in place, but the broadband is still broken. Why is it still broken? Simple, we had previously secured their wireless network with a decent WPA-PSK pass phrase and now the computers were trying to connect to the router with the pass phrase they knew, but the router was using WEP and a completely different pass phrase! To use an appropriate analogy: a case of the computers talking English when the router is talking Hindi!

Another support call out for Roundtrip Solutions from the disgruntled Fife based BT customer. Within minutes we had logged into the Home Hub, went through some router initiated security configuration changes, before making the all important, and BT recommended, wireless security encryption changes to use WPA-PSK with the same pass phrase as used before. Everything sprung into life instantly without any further intervention.

The customer was delighted with our prompt service and completely pissed off dissatisfied with British Telecom, their support personnel and the fault resolution advice provided by BT, which did appear to be a bit back to front! They were even more frustrated when we told them all they had to do was to replace the damaged ADSL lead to get everything working again and all the resetting of routers had been completely unnecessary.

Again, we couldn’t believe the customer support person had left the customer’s router using the super insecure Home Hub version of WEP.

The Crux of IT

The BT Broadband advice available on their website clearly recommends setting up their Home Hub wireless router using WPA. Actually, that should be WPA-PSK if BT wish to be technically correct, but we’ll not be too pedantic in this blog post as more important issues are being dealt with.

In general, all users of a wireless network should ensure it uses WPA-PSK or WPA2-PSK with a strong pass phrase as a minimum level of security. Do not, we repeat, DO NOT use WEP - replace everything that only supports WEP.

If you are a Home Hub user then double check your configuration is secure.

If BT Broadband is doing an engineering installation then ensure BT’s own security advice is followed. Same applies for anyone that phones their call centre for support and has their Home Hub reset as part of the fault finding process.

We certainly wouldn’t recommend or condone the "repair" procedure used by this BT Home Hub user.

Technorati Tags: ADSL, broadband, BT, BT Broadband, Home Hub, router, WEP, wireless, wireless security, WPA, WPA-PSK, WPA2-PSK

Happy Easter everyone.

Since it is a holiday, we though you’d like to see this amusing little Apple Mac vs PC spoof that is performed South Park style.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Easter, Mac, PC, South Park

Approximately one year after Windows Vista went on general public release, Microsoft has now released the first major service pack for their latest desktop baby.

More information on Vista SP1 can be found HERE and in particular HERE.

The service pack can either be downloaded via Windows Update or the five language full service pack download directly from HERE, all 434MB of it! The most efficient and quickest way is to use Windows Update.

Unfortunately, it isn’t available through WSUS yet for those in a business environments that uses WSUS to control their Microsoft updates and patches! More information is available from this Microsoft Update Team Blog post.

… and don’t forget to backup all your important data and files before you kick off this upgrade!

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Vista, Vista SP1, Windows, Windows Update, WSUS

Continuing with our “Geek Sayings” series, Stephen Lamb commented on how the paperless office wasn’t really happening to the degree he’d like to see.

One of the comments, made by Kevster, summed things up perfectly,

“A paperless office is like a paperless toilet” - Kevster

How are others finding the transition to the paperless office? Are you using more or less paper than you did five, ten, twenty years ago? Any tips to share with others on transitioning to saving the trees?

Technorati Tags: Geek Sayings, paperless office, Stephen Lamb

An informative video via Colin Mackay.

How To Behave On An Internet Forum

Technorati Tags: forums, Internet

The PC vs Mac debate is of religious proportions. It can easily start bar brawls, result in wars and may ultimate result in the end of civilization.

Okay, we exaggerate a little, but since it’s Friday we thought some PC biased folk would quite like this humourous video and there might even be some Mac fanboys who can see the funny side.

Warning: NSFW (maybe)

Technorati Tags: Apple, Bill Gates, funny, humor, humour, Mac, Microsoft, Steve Jobs, Windows, YouTube

Forget alcohol, forget heroin, the new addiction is “Technology”.

Technorati Tags: addict, addiction, technology, Word of Warcraft, WoW

Have you heard what Bill Gates said about Windows Vista? No! Well here goes and listen closely!

Your ears aren’t playing tricks, he’s saying that Windows Vista could well have been a candidate for more polish before it was shipped. Not really a revelation there!

However, it is fair to say that Microsoft have been working hard and Windows Vista is getting there now. A few customisations and a fully patched Windows Vista computer is now something we can recommend for home and some business customers.

We’d add Office 2007 as a close second place for more polish and that is even after Office 2007 SP1.

There is no truth in the rumour circulating the Internet that Office 2007 team members got polishing kits in their Xmas stockings… no truth at all. But it has been reported that the shiniest shoes in the US can be found in Seattle.

Technorati Tags: Bill Gates, Microsoft, polishing kit, Office 2007, Vista, Windows

One of the innovations in Vista is the ability to easily upgrade to a higher version. Basically, Vista ships with all the features installed, but the functionality that is switched on depends on the license purchased/supplied. The purchase of a new license key upgrades to a higher version of Vista and switches on the additional functionality for this new version.

More details and the upgrade order process are here.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Vista, Windows, Windows Anytime Upgrade

The performance problem and other bugs surrounding Outlook 2007 may well have been fixed by the just released Office 2007 Service Pack 1. There are going to be a load of happy campers now that Outlook 2007 has almost the same performance as Outlook 2003.

Our hat goes off to the Office team for making such a difference, but then it goes back on again when we start to question why such an obvious issue was missed before the release to manufacturing of Office 2007.

If you’ve been having issues with Office 2007, and in particular Outlook, then it is definitely worth installing. You will need to go get it yourself as Microsoft aren’t pushing this out through Microsoft Update for a few months.

Thank you Microsoft and a big thank you Office Team.

Update
Thanks to Tim Anderson for pointing out that their is a list of 450+ fixes, in Excel spreadsheet format, that can be downloaded from here.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Office, Office 2007, Office 2007 Service Pack 1, Outlook, performance

Dave Overton has announced the availability of Windows Live Writer 2008 Final. This is a must have product for all bloggers using a Windows PC. Best of all, it is FREE! Yes, you read that right, it costs nothing more than the bandwidth to download it.

It is a real shame that recent installer changes have bundled WLW in with all the other Live products and services, resulting in a requirement to pick’n'mix the product you want. Things seemed easier and less confusing when the WLW installer was the WLW installer!

Our top tip is to untick all the unnecessary Microsoft hijacker options and only select the Live products and services you use i.e. don’t allow your home page to be hijacked changed to the Live/MSN home page unless that is your true wish! We unticked everything and only installed WLW.

Come on Microsoft, make the default to leave user settings alone thereby making it a proactive choice for things to be changed in favour of your “stuff”! Many users are only irritated when they have to change back to their preferred configuration after accidentally allowing the installer defaults.

The UK version of the Windows Live installer can be downloaded from HERE. Remember the tips!

Technorati Tags: Dave Overton, Microsoft, Windows Live, Windows Live Writer, WLW