Big Brother Is Watching vs Freedom and Integrity

I was shocked to learn that a school near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania has been accused of cyber-spying on their students via the web cam in their Macbooks. This is a school whose district officials had bragged that they had given all 2,3000 of their high school students these laptops to "ensure that all students have 24/7 access to school-based resources."

Apparently some of those same School Officials had 24/7 access to the students as well in the form of web cam spying.

The Superintendent of the school district has since admitted that they do have the ability to spy via those web cams - in other words they can remotely activate the web cam on the sly allowing them to see a live image of whatever is going on in front of that camera as long as the computer is turned on. However the Superintendent of the School District is claiming that this 'feature' was for security purposes only - that it was to be used in case of computer theft.

Honestly, that is the lamest thing I've ever heard! Why didn't they instead keep the MAC addresses of those machines and track those electronically if the machine went missing?? I am incensed to think that anyone would believe that remote access to a web cam was good idea!! When would it EVER be okay to turn a computer that you are giving to children into a spying device that allows you to peek at them in their private quarters?

Ignorance is no excuse. I believe that most of the officials of the School District honestly believed that the spying 'feature' would never be used except in case of 'emergency' or theft. Still how could they ever approve this? Did they ever even consider how this system could be abused?

And what IT professional recommend such a thing? As IT professionals we all know that we have the ability to spy on people if we really wanted too. And some of the more deviant of us do. But for the most part folks in the IT industry are very careful to police themselves and maintain a high level of personal integrity when it comes to this kind of thing. Or maybe I'm dreaming. *sigh*

Parents only learned about the cyber-spying machines that had infiltrated their homes when an Assistant Principle called a student on the carpet for 'improper behavior' at his home.

This article from the Philadelphia News explains:

The family first learned of the embedded webcams on Nov. 11, when Harriton High's Assistant Principal Lindy Matsko reprimanded Blake Robbins for "improper behavior in his home," according to the lawsuit. Matsko cited as evidence a photograph from the webcam on the boy's school-issued laptop.

The lawsuit does not specify why the photograph was objectionable.

They were spying, in private homes!!! This should increase the blood pressure of every one of us who believes in the US Constitution and in our rights to fundamental freedoms.

And what exactly were those pictures of? That's the really frightening thing...

Honestly I am incensed over this issue and as far as I'm concern someone had better go to jail over this issue, including the IT 'pro' that set it up. It's not only wrong, it's just plain stupid.

Green Data Center

That photograph is the Telehouse Dockland Facility - and they are doing exciting and innovative things!

I know how hot my little server room gets here at APC - and it's a shame to have to waste that energy. But greater minds than I have figured out a way to use it. They are going to put that kind of heat to work heating homes and businesses in London.

"The Greater London Authority has approved a plan in which waste heat from the $180 million Telehouse colocation facility will be used in a district heat network for the local Docklands community.

The project is expected to produce up to nine megawatts of power for the local community, and allow the 130,000 square foot Telehouse West to reduce its carbon footprint by 1,110 tons. “The energy savings will equate to boiling 3,000 kettles continuously,” the company said."

Wow!!! This is very exciting stuff! You can check out the full article here.

And you can check out Telehouse at their web site.

Sonic Wall Fiasco

My Sonic Wall TZ190 went south. When it went down the first time it lost some settings. Our connection went down 2 hours later, and I reset the Sonic Wall by power cycling, and again it worked. But the third time was a charm. They are sending a new one overnight, but in the mean time we're using a little linksys router...

Ya, very hinkey, but I specialize in hinkey. At least we can get to Google Docs

0.0

Internet Ministry VS Real Life

I have in the past been against the idea of an Internet Church Campus, but a recent experience changed my mind with one POWERFUL caveat:

The Internet can not and should never replace RL.

(Real Life for those non geeks amongst us)

I had the very good fortune of attending a webinar hosted by DJ Chung of the Multi Site Director Leadership Network which featured Internet Campus Pastors Brandon Donaldson from LifeChurch.tv and Brian Vasil from Flamingo Road Church. The testimony of these two anointed men showed me that the Internet can be an incredibly powerful tool for reaching the lost. Many people who are lost and disconnected from God and society turn to the Internet for solace. I was one of them.

Because I was one of 'those people' I understand how important it is to encourage those who find salvation through their Internet Church Experience to connect face to face with those of like mind in their location if possible. Accepting Jesus into your life is just the beginning. Living life as a brand new creature in Christ becomes a powerful adventure that can only be realized by and through interaction with real live human beings face to face.

Mr. Donaldson and Mr. Vasil - who both maintain a vibrant, worthwhile online ministry - expressed that while they celebrated when their members and Internet friends chose to seek out a Face to Face relationship with a group or church nearby, they did not encourage their Internet Campus Members to do so. I do not agree with this decision based on my own personal experience. Our Church is exploring the idea of an Internet Campus, but I can only endorse an Internet Campus ministry that always encouraged a Real Life component to those who are seeking.

I became an Internet addict because I wanted to hide from a world in which I found no hope. I wanted to hide away from the pain of every day life, and the atrocities that happen in the world. During that last decade of my dark depression, the Internet became my /only/ source of socialization, my /only/ way to interact with others. I was literally afraid to leave my own home. I was searching online for a Truth that I had not found in 'RL' and an Internet Ministry would have been a welcome haven for me. But quite frankly it would have been just one more place to hide.

Salvation r0x0rs! But that's where the adventure should begin.

I know now that the Internet is ripe for the harvest! There are millions, perhaps billions more people who just like me are hiding there. So now I fully advocate Internet Ministry - if and only if a real life component is highly encouraged.

I needed arms to hug me. I needed to see a real life smile. The Internet can not and should never replace RL.

Seeking Security Advice.

People around here have very good intentions. But we all know where the road to good intentions leads...

Let me just preface this by saying that I love my Pastors, the staff here, and every single person that walks through the door of our Church.

But I want to address a growing problem here that's causing me a great deal distress and extra work.

I'm wrestling with the issue of security for our tech hardware - and I'm now imagining the sighs of understanding that I'm hearing from techies reading this.

The problem that occurred this morning was with our Wireless Access Point. It is kept in the Concourse of our Church to facilitate access to the internet for our Cafe our Sanctuary, and at times the prayer chapel upstairs. This morning I discovered that the config file has been reset so it's no longer accepting connections.

Let me just state that getting to the Wireless Access Point is not easy. It requires a ladder, or perhaps a sturdy person on whose shoulders you can ride. Or maybe they just climb up above our coat room like a monkey. I don't know how they are doing it but someone has pressed that reset button twice in several months.

I don't know how to keep them from doing it. I can't put the WAP in a cage or box, as I fear the metal will interfere with the signal.

Any suggestions? Is there any kind of security 'box' for a wireless access point? I honestly am at a loss as to how to proceed.

... And again I love everyone here. Especially Jesus. BOY I feel guilty for complaining... ugh.

SonicWall TZ 190 ships with poopy firmware

I hope poopy isn't a swear word. (sigh)

Anyway our SonicWall TZ 190 install is done. I hope. It was a thrill to know that it shipped with a corrupt OS, and the firmware has to be installed immediately. My advice is to do this before you manually insert the settings, as it wipes them and you'll have to do it all over again. The firmware it ships with won't allow you to export the settings.

O.O

It was not a joy, but I hope it will be now that it's in place and I can begin tweaking.

Has Remember the Milk curdled?

(Disclaimer: Highly frustrated techie about to blow off steam.)

We made the switch to Google Apps and everything was so snazzy - until Remember the Milk started acting up.

It does not always put your email into the task bar when you star it (If you have that option set) and sometimes the Task List disappears from your Gmail page altogether.

My Pastors need task lists!

Does anyone else have a mobile solution for a task list. I actually found one that while being awfully 'cute' looking did the job but it's name is Voo2do and it has a picture of a Voodoo doll at the top. O.O WOT??!?!?!

And as funny as it might be in the moment, I can't advise that we use that instead... (ahem)

So anyone else have any other suggestions or solutions? I would love it if Remember the Milk was working properly but they are having plenty of issues that they seem to be ignoring because none of it is covered on their Blog at all.

I wish Google would just up and buy RTM, and make it work.

168 Pin Dimm

I needed some. Our IT department is on a very tight budget, and I pride myself in making donated machines work.

I have a nice little machine that was given to us, nothing at all wrong with it, it is perfectly capable of running Firefox to use Google Apps, and it has an old but decent networking card for our server. Smallish hard drive but that didn't matter. Except it had 64 megs of Ram. Ouch. 168 pin SDram. Double Ouch.

Tigerdirect had it Centron 168-pin 256MB PC133 SDRAM for 30 bucks. Plus shipping. I wasn't ready to spend that much, for a donated machine.

So I checked Ebay. I was reluctant, because you are never certain about what you're getting until you get it, and I was spending the Churches money.

I found MostMoe - the man with the memory, and he's got a Computer Memory Market online too.

I got 512 Megs of SCRAM for 25 bucks and free shipping. I paid via PayPal, and I had the ram in 2 days.

If you are in need of older ram you might wanna give his store a look!

Spicing up APC!

I have been setting up Spiceworks, and just sat through their intro webinar and...

WOW. WOWWOWWOW!

We currently have no real network monitoring, or help desk tools. I do it all in my head, and by walking around from machine to machine.

I am praising God like crazy for Spiceworks!

Now I just have to learn to use it...

O.O

Jott and Remember the Milk

Oh how I love these two programs. I can sent voice messages via Jott to my Remember the Milk task list that's integrated with my Google Apps Email. I'm in heaven!

Did I mention that they are both free???

Jott alone is fantastic. And the best part is...

(Gratuitous self promotion alert)

I did research for the beginnings of that voice recognition software WAY back when at Carnegie Mellon University. It was called the Sphinx Project.

It's nice to see that it actually works, and very well too!

Below is a public service announcement for those products. Do yourself a favor and check them out.

REMEMBER THE MILK Task List

Remember the Milk is a handy task list that goes together with GMail and Google Calandar. You will need to sign up to use Remember the Milk separately from your Google Account. It's fine to use the same user name and password if you wish. You can sign up for Remember the Milk here.

Firefox Plug In for Remember the Milk and Google Apps Email

This plug-in is a Firefox extension that allows you to manage your tasks in Gmail (complete, postpone, and edit tasks), add new tasks and connect them with your emails, contacts, and Google Calendar events, automatically add tasks for starred messages or specific labels, and much more!

You will need to install this for Firefox.

Video: Remember the Milk Plug-in in use

There is no sound, just follow along with the arrow mouse cursor.

http://www.rememberthemilk.com/help/screencasts/gmail/

Jott

Jott is a voice to text service, and it's free. It's like your own personal assistant. Find out more about Jott's many uses here.

At this link you can learn how to use your Phone to add things to Google Calendar.

You can also have your Gmail read to you by phone.

Or you can use Jott to add to your Remember the Milk Task list. There are two good articles here and here.

Dell Problems, and Bashing

I've heard uber geeks complain about Dell before. But then they complain about any 'off the shelf' computer that wasn't put together by their own hands. I like Dell. I like that I can open up the boxes and work on them. I like that they are very reasonably priced. I like their warranties and the fact that they are quick to replace problem parts (if you can stand talking to their help desk people until you get one that understands and/or believes you.) But all in all I like Dell. I can live with Dell.

Until recently...

We were in the market for 2 laptops for 2 pastors who have been living with computers that I would have used as a frisbee long ago. I was watching the trade sites for a sale, and lo and behold Dell made me an offer that I couldn't refuse! Six hundred and forty eight dollars for this:

Specs:
Intel Core 2 Duo T5270, 1.4GHz, 800Mhz, 2M L2 Cache
3GB, DDR2, 667MHz 2 DIMM (? but...)
128MB NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS
250GB Hard Drive, 5400RPM, SA160, for Dell Vostro 1500 Notebook
Windows XP Pro,SP2,Vista Business with Media,Notebook English,Vostro
And more...

Very good price. I ordered two on May 30, 2008. They offered delivery on June 6.

On June 6 I got an email saying that the order had been delayed until July 13, and on the 13th I got an email saying that it was delayed to the 20th. No biggie. I'm patient.

The 20th comes and goes, and on the Monday June 23, 2008 I got an email saying:

• This email shows a specific Order Number within your purchase that has been impacted by the Federal Mail Order Rule. To view the status of the rest of the orders within your Dell Purchase ID, click here.
• To obtain further information, please e-mail us at US_Dell_Notify@dell.com or call 1-877-868-3355.
• Please include your Customer Number or Order Number with any correspondence you return to Dell.

I had to wonder what the heck the FEDERAL MAIL ORDER RULE was. I called, and was connected to one of their outsourced help centers. I was told that they tried to deliver the Dells, but no one was here, so they took them back and cancelled our order and no we can't have them resent.

I knew this was bogus because I had called Dell the Friday before and was told they were still in production. And we're a Church, we're here all weekend.

I insisted on talking to someone else, and by the grace of God was put through to a not only very efficient help desk employee but a very truthful one as well.

After some investigation, he told me that no, they had not mailed those computers, but there was a problem with getting the video cards that were to be placed in that computer, so someone from Dell had just cancelled them.

I plead my case in a gentle though firm fashion, and he did a work up on the same computers for me. The cost now: 978.00 dollars with Windows Vista, the XP upgrade would be extra. Again I plead my case in a gentle but even more firm fashion, and he put me through to the upper level customer care representive, whom I'm certain is reserved for only the most difficult of cases.

Her name was Venus, and while at first I was a bit worried about that, she made good on the entire deal. We're getting the two computers to spec XP and all, with a coupon for the difference in price.

So yes, it was a nightmare. My blood pressure suffered that day. But they did fix the problem. And that is really all you can ask from any company.

I still like Dell. I do.

TIME SINK - Outlook Email Upload to Google Apps

I began the uploading of our users old email in Outlook 2003 to Google Apps.

They have a lovely little program called Google Email Uploader that works with Outlook 2003 and newer, Outlook Express and Thunderbird that will upload your mail and contacts from Outlook to Google Apps. They also have a users guide here.

The progam works fine, however I did not anticipate the time that it would take to upload all of that information correctly into Google Apps. :-)

I started with the worse case scenario, the pastor with 25, 542 emails and 3079 contacts to upload. The estimated time for this is 8 hours. :-)

I had 3059 emails and the estimated time was 1 hour and 14 minutes.

I am going to migrate the rest in the evening, after they have gone home. Live and learn!

Hallelujah!! Successful Google Apps Migration

Today we went live with Google Apps! The transition went very smoothly, the MX records propagated instantly and there were no bounces.

I have been using Google Apps and I believe this is a good move for the Church. It's not only free, but it will allow us to have access to all our information from any computer at any time. I'm not certain how much everyone will use Google Docs, but Gmail, Calendar, and Sites will be used quite a bit.

And we get the high end Educational Package for free because we're a non-profit.

And I love 'Remember the Milk' and the Firefox plug-in that integrates the task list with Gmail! It's very useful. Combined that with the fact that you can call Jott to send messages to your task list, and also have your task list send text messages to your phone and you have a very versatile package.

The legacy system that was in place at the Church when I arrived was an internal MS Exchange server that housed all the internal mailing lists AND an external mail system with our domain name. There were plenty of problems with people in-house sending email via the exchange server,which the Pastors with Laptops could not receive until they physically plugged into our network, because VPN was disabled, and the Firewall Appliance was inadequate for our needs in general.

We're going to replace MS Office 2003 with open source OpenOffice on all our work stations. We were using 2003 on machines that don't have nearly enough Oomph for Office 2007, and we were running into compatibility issues already. We certainly could not afford to upgrade all the boxes. Even MS's non-profit pricing is high in my mind, especially when compared to FREE software. OpenOffice runs fine on our machines, and again, it's free, and totally compatible with just about everything, as long as you set the default save to .rtf.

I was very pleased with the way the change was received. The Lead Pastor had suggested it to me at the same time I was emailing him about the same subject, and I'm lucky that there are plenty of folks at the Church that are very tech savvy so I didn't have to 'sell' it.

The downside is that what is free today may not be free tomorrow and that putting all your data eggs in one Googley basket may not be wise. And I do wonder about the level of future support. But even if things go sour two years down the line we've still saved a bundle, still have OpenOffice, and we just jump back with another email provider like we did before. And I love Thunderbird.

Considering the ease of use, and the fact that Google Apps is very user friendly I'm positive that everyone will love it.

I'm just happy that the MX propagation went well!!!

Internet History Lesson

Here is a link to an article on Wired Magazine siting the first DNS (Domain Name System) test of the Internet in 1983.

Before that we simply used Arpanet and connected via IP address, or by dialing direct from computer to computer via the phone lines.

The article says that "DNS will lay the foundation for the massive expansion, popularization and commercialization of the internet."

Ugh. Now you know why we elder geeks are so cranky.