First off my Kubuntu install fell apart after most of my games library was locked out regardless of WINE. The titles that did work with WINE were too big a pain to get working again and I just wanted my incredible gaming rig back! Since my Windows 7 CD Key was coming up invalid, I found myself forced to install Windows 8 and after an initial "I hate Metro" period it proved to be quite a usable OS...if you throw Metro out the window. Still miss the Kubuntu desktop though and a revisit would be in order if it wasn't for the hassle of installing Windows 8 again.

I also upgraded my monitor to a 1920x1080 display so I am finally in the land of HD! With a dodgy TV, the XBox also got hooked up via VGA to use as a DVD player.

Work is going fine although I want to expand my thoughts on the Data Manager career at some point. It seems like one of those secret careers you never hear about, like those guys who determine insurance risks that train for years. Most of the time I just tell people I work in school admin, but I have this fear that I am being locked in to the SIMS database and not really learning much about proper data management in other sectors. Never had to use SQL, never grabbed data from a database and dump it into Excel and vice versa, not even had to design a database yet or mess around with XML.

Everything seems a bit too specialised and SIMS-centric. Do other data managers on this forum feel the same?

One last point is I have been playing with Silverstripe on my private domain. Not posting it here yet (it'd involve a crossing over of personal and professional even though you can probably find the site anyway, especially if you clicked through from Twitter). It's worth a look for small private sites since the features are limited but very easy to use.

Needless to say the Audio system on the other hand decided to stick to tradition and be nothing short of a stubborn pain in the audio jack. I have had to make a few tweaks here and there to get it to behave.

1) Crackling Audio

Pulseaudio ranks as one of my most hated pieces of software in the computing world. It sits up there with Adobe Flash and practically half of the catalogue of education software on the market, but this is a critical part of Kubuntu's audio system. Interestingly, it turns out Pulseaudio uses a Time Scheduling system instead of Interrupts (IRQs) and when combined with Skype, this made for an unpleasant experience.

Google to the rescue then, a quick check reveals a bug report on Launchpad revealing how to disable Time Scheduling and force Pulseaudio to use Interrupts instead: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pulseaudio/+bug/751265/comments/23

2) Distorted Bass

Once the crackling audio was fixed, firing up Amarok was causing bass heavy music to distort terribly. This solution luckily doesn't require delving into the console. Click on the speaker icon in bottom right, select playback streams and turn the volume down to around 3/4. Do the same for the Master Volume and the distortion should disappear.

3) Preferred Device

If like me you prefer voice comms to go through your headset, then you can set a preferred device in Kubuntu so when it is plugged in, sound goes through the headset. To do this, open the Mixer again used in Step 2 and choose Settings then Audio Settings. Find communication under playback settings and place your headset higher in the list. Save the changes and the headset will now override the speakers for VOIP programs. Remember to do the same for your Microphone, even if it is the only input device on the system!

Here's hoping Linux lasts this time. Given the recent Ubuntu realignment and their dropping of official support for Kubuntu, I only hope I still have a distro to get updates for in the near future!

Unfortunately the landscape of advertising has changed and I find myself finally forced to run an ad blocker on Google Chrome. Over time I have noticed a significant increase in the use of advertising by legitimate companies, which is fair enough, but also a significant increase in how invasive adverts have become. Let's take YouTube for example, their monetisation scheme means everyone is placing adverts on their channel thinking they will make an extra income on the side. For a few people, this is true and how they make a fair living. For others, they will never see any returns because their videos aren't popular enough. If anything, they are damaging their channel by adding a 30 second pre-video advert for 5 seconds of their cat doing something stupid.

Unfortunately such examples are why I have been forced to install an AdBlocker, depriving those making a genuine living from advertising of their entitled money just so I can browse the Internet without companies intercepting my requests and placing irritating videos in the way. You could argue it's theft of money but I could argue it's theft of my time and privacy. Had all adverts been merely 5 seconds or so long I wouldn't mind and left my browser open to their advertising. When full-page banners appear or minute-long unskippable videos get in the way the adverts frankly become intolerable and everyone suffers. I have lost count how many times I have given up on a site because it insists on thrusting the same advert in my face even if I back out and go to another page/video. The record I have seen for pre-video ads is also one hour long(!)

So I guess I now join the ranks of those warring against intrusive advertising companies blockading our browsers and trying to serve us what they think we want. The reality is those who install AdBlockers clearly don't want anything from them at all.

Currently I am a data assistant. At the end of the month I will be a data manager in a new school with a £5k pay rise, a scale going even higher and plenty of responsibility. And my own office. I don't care how small it is, I have my own office.

Of course, it comes at a cost! I will miss my yearly pilgrimage up to Preston for the EduGeek conference this year and I start the day before I spend the weekend at MCM Expo. This poses all sorts of fun logistical challenges.

But for the benefits? Worth it. Ideas for new office decorations below please.

This morning on BBC News, the story broke about Google's changes to their privacy policy and started with uninformed spouting by the general public about personal information being used to receive tailor-made spam E-Mails and worries about advertisers seeing personal information. Whilst interviewing a Google manager, it was stated that for advertising Google will suggest adverts using an algorithm and that advertisers will not see any personal information. This was immediately followed by the news reader saying there are concerns about advertisers seeing personal information in a direct contrast to what the Google manager had just said! I felt sorry for the guy as no matter how well he explained it, the same uninformed garbage was being swung in his direction.

Later in the day, I catch the end of the news on my car radio (this time XFM) where the news reader states that there are worries about Google sharing data with other companies such as YouTube. For those not in the loop (as XFM clearly wasn't) YouTube is owned by Google. The different companies that the data is being shared with are all operating under the same Google banner and in the case of YouTube, have done so for a very long time. Of course, this poor coverage is instead translated to "Google sharing your porn searches with world+dog" instead of actual fact.

Frankly, Facebook and their use of page analysis to serve adverts is considerably creepier and often with hilariously bad results. But unlike Google, they aren't as up-front and honest about their site's changes. I wonder how many people will boycott Google over nothing as a result of this teacup tsunami and carry on seeing advertisements for pumped up products in their Facebook sidebar with their friend's faces plastered on them.

Or heaven forbid, a family member's face.

Click here for pciturs on Google+.

This year saw the return of the Edugeek stand to provide tech staff with an amusing diversion in the form of a comfy sofa, piles of pizza and enough technical advice to sink a battleship. Hopefully all signed the poster and maybe caught a glimpse of a famous Edugeek celebrity.

Unfortunately I didn't visit enough stands to do a news post so I'll put my highlights here instead.

Serco - Serco were showing off their Progresso MIS this year, having written a completely new system to replace Facility. It's web-based, as can be expected these days, and has parental engagement tools built in to the MIS so you aren't adding a new product to deliver pupil data online to parents. Unfortunately I wasn't too impressed with the sales pitch; asking can I add a quick behaviour incident to a register led to a demo taking me to a whole new page. However, Progresso itself is definately worth a look at when weighing up what MIS to pick.

Capita - The (in)famous developers of the SIMS software package were once again pitched front and centre near their rivals and the main entrance. I was given a very good overview of the Discover tool, though it came after I managed to crash SIMS on their demo unit! Discover is looking to be a very good data analysis tool that if you haven't installed yet, is well worth installing.

Storyphones - Aimed at primary school kids, these all-on-one headphone/MP3 units are a feat of engineering in how to avoid destruction of your prized classroom equipment at the hands of overzealous children in single digits. They twist, they bend, they spring back to shape and are all updated at once with a USB dock.

Google - I didn't dare to try the weird concoctions in test tubes, but I did grab a Google notebook. Seriously, but this "touchscreen" model needs a "stylus." What are you talking about? Of course I mean the paper kind and it's a rather spiffy one to boot. What do you mean I was supposed to be paying attention to their stand? Oh...yeah--

Horizon - "Can I help you?" chirped the lady in the stand. "Umm yeah, what this stand about?" I asked, nodding to the half-assembled train sitting on the stand. It turns out Horizon manufacture Hydrogen Fuel Cells and are using them to power RC cars, train sets and even your mobile phone. This is one of the stands that I love about BETT, it opened up the world of Hydrogen and gave me understanding that it isn't the volatile and dangerous technology I thought it was. It's safer, cleaner and has come far enough to come in battery form and works on solar power.

YouSRC - When Michal Gove made his speech, YouSRC must have been overjoyed as I didn't see many stands offering programming experiences. YouSRC is a web-based tool for developing code in classrooms and I was given a very good demo of the system. The system is free and ad-funded, but they plan on offering a voluntary payment service to remove ads from YouSRC for your school. Worth a look when planning your new ICT Curriculum.

I paid a visit to the Smoothwall and Net-Ctrl stands too and ended the day helping ICT-Direct do a stand takedown. A big thank you to all the exhibitors and Edugeek for making it an enjoyable trade show and I look forwards to seeing them again next year at ExCeL.

My freebie-fu was weak last year. With any luck it has since improved!

Let's take a date in the format "1 March 2012" in cell C2. You can use the DATEVALUE formula in another column to convert it into a numerical format used by Excel to represent dates. To do this, you enter:

=DATEVALUE(C2)

You might need to choose Formulas then Calculate Now as SIMS has a tendency to disable automatic calculation. The datecode will now be shown as a number, in this case 40969. You can now right click the cell and choose Format Cells to change this to the Date format and make it readable. It will now work in Excel like any other date, including other formulae using dates or for grouping them in PivotTables.

But wait, deleting column C with the SIMS output in it will break the formula as the cells don't contain the value as seen. The cell actually contains the formula and it is pointing to the cell in Column C which will throw an error when that cell is deleted. What do you do now? Paste Special is your friend here.

Before deleting Column C, copy the cell containing your DATEVALUE formula then paste it over itself by right clicking the cell and choosing Paste Special. Select the option called Values and click OK. The cell will now be stripped of it's formula and the result will be inserted into the cell, leaving it unaffected by the deletion of it's neighbouring Column C.

https://plus.google.com/u/0/110682777448319652012/posts/a5VE8XZRqeB

Those are my two cats on the cake.

I can't think of any printer that will jam it's print jobs, make you so frustrated that you turn it off....then print what you wanted to when you turn it back on a week later. And it still refuses to print what you want to print even if you power cycle it.

This printer isn't just failing, it is spitting in my face at the same time.

So where is this snow? Seems to be plenty of gimmicks being punted by the advertisers.

I know people who have gone out buying snow shoe grips, snow chains, all sorts of stuff that you should use abroad in the Alps (who ironically have their own snow drought) but not in the UK. Even with the heavy snowfall in 2011 it made up a fraction of winter. But the snow entering the public conscience has had the placebo pushed into the public's hands by marketing companies.

Come to think of it, I've seen a distinct lack of festive spirit in the country too. Maybe Santa's elves will peddle snow shoes and tyres on a county market stall next year?

"Hello, I'm calling from Scottish power. Is Mrs X in?"

"Uhh..no this is a relative, she isn't here. Is this a sales call?"

"No, a sales call would be if I was offering the beast deal for your electricity or gas."

What a weird thing to say. Maybe this is a genuine call for said relative. I decide to press further.

"Oh right, she isn't here right now. What is the call about if I may ask?"

"Well, I want to find out if you are on the best deal for your electricity or gas and then see what Scottish Power can offer you."

...

"Thanks but umm, we aren't interested. Bye."

"OK, goodbye!"

*Click*

Me and my friend then broke down laughing at the absurdity of that phonecall.

Your request for an EcoSplash has been received. (No, We never sent a request!)

 

If you don't require it contact us on... (Stop there. We didn't order one so no!)

 

You will need to give us your address so that we can remove your details (And confirm I am an idiot? No thanks!)

 

For more information visit... (Doesn't even appear in Google searches and the WHOIS points to a marketing agency, no chance!)

UPDATE: I should correct this as surprise surprise, the ShowerSaint actually DID turn up. Aplogies to the parent company but really, try a better and more informative marketing campagin next time. Unsolicited items really raise suspicions as to wrong doing taking place, especially if you haven't even got a presence or website set up yet.

And yes, it was marked Return to Sender and dumped back in the psotbox.

It shows that you need to be careful what you say these days. All too often I see comments on Twitter or Facebook about people hating their job and often they don't realise, if I can see the comment so can their boss. What makes this case more chilling is the post in question had privacy settings applied so the poster thought it was safe, but a colleague on the access list clearly had other ideas when ratting him out.

This especially applies to the Red Door forum on this site. A lot of folks vent and that is what the forum is for, but care needs to be taken as it only takes signing up for an account to take a peek through the door. It only protects against Google indexing the posts and making it easier to find.

If you do use social networks, remember the following:

- Be careful who you add and what permissions they are given, especially work colleagues.

- Assume anything you post can be seen by eyes that shouldn't see it.

- Don't assume that you are 100% safe behind an online handle.

- Never, ever, ever add students!

One of the most popular stands was the OnLive service. Recently launched in the UK, the service jumps aboard the cloud bandwagon and tries to offer gamers the chance to stream titles online using a PC or a micro-console. This small box was available to attendees for £1 and the queue to obtain one was an hour and a half long. Eventually they ran out and had to give coupons out for people to order one online (which also comes with a sneaky £6 delivery charge). Luckily whilst trying a demo of the system at the BT Stand, I dropped the hint I am a customer and he went to get me a voucher.

Another piece of kit being shown off was the PS-Vita, a console with reverse touch. Attendees of the EduGeek Conference will recognise this technology from the Microsoft future preview video with the changeable plane ticket and I am surprised to see Sony offering it commercially already. Unfortunately the queue was also very long for giving this device a try and I didn't get a chance to. The marketing video did show the use of the camera function to play a beat-em up with whatever is in front of you as a backdrop.

Once the OnLive console arrives I will be posting a quick review of it on here. Currently the PC client appears to be having issues contacting the servers due to Eurogamer thrusting it into the spotlight rather quickly. It will be interesting to see how the cloud fad works for an application as intensive as gaming.

(Please note these are personal opinions of the talks!)

Data Protection: Dos_Box's brother, known on here as Drummer Boy, gave a good talk about the data protection act regarding the myths and the musts of this commonly mis-interpreted law. The talk covered important points such as what constitutes personal data and how tasks may be delegated but responsibility cannot. As someone who works in a data management role, this was probably the most important talk for me in the whole line up!

OneComputing Green Talk: This talk started as a discussion about power and how to save money but soon descended into more cloud propaganda. I'm not sure if it was a talk or a sales pitch about a product, but there were some eye-openers with a handy formula for working out power consumption. This talk gave good reason for turning off your kit at home and at work if it isn't in use, useful in this day and age of budget cuts and recessions.

AEG Power: This is the first talk I didn't like. Plenty of preparation was put into it but the slides went through too fast and I'm not sure where energy grid designs fit into school environments. More information about designing power systems within a classroom and less about how datacentres and big office blocks should use it would have been better. It also overlapped in places with the previous talk after branching down the green route.

Smoothwall: As someone who takes an interest in computer security, Tom provided a talk that was not only informative but also provided some fun afterwards. Expecting a Smoothwall sales pitch, I was surprised to end up with notes about tricks and tools that can be used to test the security of your own systems at work and home. My handset now has Overlook Fing installed and NMAP traffic was flying across our small guest-wifi network like candy in a pre-school. If you want to see how your ports can be scanned down and your passwords sniffed from network traffic, this is a good talk to watch.

LUNS Geekfest: The guys from LUNS had already caught my attention with a shiny new Chromebook on their stand and they gave a very informative talk to appeal to geeks of all backgrounds. The first part was about their telecommunications branch and how they act like a service provider to their University, powering telecoms systems for events in the middle of nowhere. Next was IPv6 with technical discussion about how it works, why you should try it now and what to be aware of (did you know IPv6 computers don't use NAT but are visible to the outside world with their raw IPv6 address?). Lastly, we had an OpenSource talk though it did feel like I'd heard some of the points in the last talk before. Overall quite a good talk by LUNS.

Adobe: Adobe was one of the big talks that people were waiting for. Much like Microsoft coming to talk about the future last year, Adobe was the next big company to stand at the lectern in front of the EduGeek crowd. They demonstrated tricks such as content aware fill, turning a photo of something into a movable puppet and mapping 2D images on to a 3D space. Unfortunately the presentation was marred by technical errors that kept cropping up though the speakers did a good job of working round them. Adobe themselves admitted not many people use the advanced features in their software and after seeing them in action, I can see why it justifies such a high price.

Dell KACE: The last of the presentations was the most relevant to schools IT and especially technical staff. Dell KACE ran a product pitch for their management systems to roll out patches and updates to computers overnight. I am never too keen on talks that are pure sales pitches, though as someone who works in data and not server management, it still caught my attention.

Google Image Poisoning: The act of using Google Image Search to trick users into visiting infected pages. Images related to popular topics on Twitter or the news are pushed high up the ranks of searches relating to that topic. Victims search for said topic in their droves, click the image and are taken to the malware author's website where they are free to attack.

This also occurs in the normal web search but image search is far more dangerous as there is no text to give clues if the site is genuine or not. It is also not restricted to only Google but other search engines may be affected.

Drive-By Attacks: These are carried out using scripts embedded into a web page to attempt to download code to the victim's computer. They can find their way on to legitimate sites too through compromising the web page's code or inserting a poisoned advert into the site's rotation through legitimate advertisement networks. Any site can be affected by this type of attack.

When visiting the page and the script is executed, it will attempt to either download malicious files or redirect the user to a malicious website where further attacks can take place.

Social Engineering: The use of human nature against itself. This is common on social networks where accounts are compromised and friends are sent messages with enticing offers or silly features such as a dislike button. The link to said offer is actually a scam and will send itself to the victim's friends. The same thing occurs on chat networks with messages such as "Is this you in this pic???" and a link to a malicious website.

The newest trend is the use of scripts pasted directly into the address bar. These scripts are then executed immediately and the attack is carried out with the user themselves acting as the trigger!

Fake Anti-Virus: Also known as FakeAV, this variation of social engineering warrants it's own entry. FakeAV attacks have grown rapidly over the past few years and involve a malicious site pretending that your computer is infected. In reality, many of the sites do not have access to your hard disk and cannot tell if your are infected with a virus.

The user, shocked by these warnings, proceeds to download a malicious program which is installed on the computer. The FakeAV may also create fake symptoms of a virus infection and demand that the user purchases the software to get rid of the infection and cure the symptoms. FakeAV effectively preys on a user's fear of losing their computer to a virus and tries to persuade them to take action too quickly to stop and think about what has just happened.

These are just some of the methods used by malware authors to find their way into your computer. The best defence is knowledge and understanding how malware is distributed, especially for social engineering scams. A good, up-to-date antivirus is essential with the days of drive-by downloads upon us!

Not even Google knows what a tooder is, why they are massive or why there are more then one so I guess you will need to use your own imagination.

So what awaits me when I pop the keys off one by one to see what half a decade of non-cleaning will reveal?

What is this, do I have a hamster living under my keys? What is that in there? I recognise those, they might be Doritos from last...decade. Closer inspection:

No not a hamster, I think I have a cat living in my keyboard. That is only half the cat hair, the rest flew off in the wind as I took it outside. I also dread to think how much has made it into the other electrical devices in the house.

So next time you put those fingers on your keys, have a think about what's under there. Lift it above your head, give it a little shake...

(Reckon any will fall for that?)

Clean again, provided I ban the cats from the room.

Unfortunately for the show's marketing team, one user responded to the Naked Security blog post about the show with instructions for how to literally hack the game. Ironically, Flash is the security hole (again).

1) View the source of the first game URL and you will see a link to http://www.conyourfriend.com/contrasecurity/

2) In the source of the second page, look for the name of the Flash file in the fLoadFlash() function. This is called hack.swf, add that on to the end of the URL to get http://www.conyourfriend.com/contrasecurity/hack.swf

3) This is the third time you will have seen the file play but this time you are viewing the Flash file itself and can access Flash's play controls. Skip the intro and, using the right click menu, untick Loop, then click Play.

4) Ta-da, beat the game in less then 0 seconds.

Credit to *FromSQLSantizer on the Sophos blog for spotting this.

Another scam that has been hitting my phone a lot is the £3750 accident scam. Targets of the scam will be sent a text message like this:

Free Msg: Our records indicate you 
may be entitled to £3750 for the 
accident you had. To apply free
reply CLAIM to this message.
To opt out text STOP.

A quick search on google brought up this warning:

Beware: Mobile Text Scam - FREEMSG Claim 3750 for the Accident You Had

As you can see, many people have been hit by this scam from multiple numbers making it difficult to block. There are three possible types of people who will be the target of this scam:

- People who reply with CLAIM as they have just had an accident (purely coincidence, the scammer doesn't know if you have).

- People who reply STOP to stop the texts. They won't, if anything they risk getting more of them.

- People who reply with garbage or abuse since phones are a very personal space and some take a dislike to it being intruded upon.

All of them will likely be charged a premium rate and snared into receiving more messages at a cost whilst confirming the message was read instead of being trashed immediately. In many ways this bears similarity to traditional E-Mail spam, with a large number of texts being sent out to secure a small amount of business and an unsubscribe trap to go with it.

If you receive such a message then delete it immediately. Treat it like any other spam E-Mail and ignore it completely.

On the same note I paid a visit to the Apple Store in London today and the last thing I expected to see was outright disregard by the public for the security of their Facebook accounts.

In the shop there are demo units, with a live Internet connection, of the various gadgets made and sold by Apple. Of particular interest was an iPhone demo unit that I had a play with and spotted Facebook at the top of the history list in Safari. A few taps later, I was looking at the Facebook profile of a tourist who had visited earlier that morning and able to look up or amend any private details I wanted.

Of course, the profile was in a foreign language so I couldn't understand a thing, but the potential for mischief is there. After logging in on the demo unit, the tourist had closed Safari but left his login details saved after getting bored of fiddling with the phone. The next person to visit the site (i.e, me!) can then access the page and leave a little note on his wall telling him what a silly thing he had done. What scares me the most is how many of the demo units in the store were holding the private details of users of Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites.

If you want to protect your social networking accounts, take extra care on public computers or mobile devices! Always press log out and do not just close the browser or app!

And realise you have forgotten your wallet.

I have a supply of coffee at my desk, no problem. But lunch may be a problem unless...

15 minutes later after heading off on my break, I have a pound coin in my hand scavenged from my car ashtray. Will it be enough? Where can I get something decent for only a pound? Prices have risen, I doubt I'll get a sandwich for that much. Can't even buy 2 chocolate bars at 70p each round here.

Lady luck smiles though, as I chow down on a small sushi box for only a quid. Exact money, how's that for luck?