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Sharing thoughts and ideas on business, security and photographyLinkedIn reaches 200 million and I’m in the Top 5% most viewed profiles (along with 10 million others!)
Posted on February 17, 2013I received a mail the other day to say that LinkedIn had reached 200 million members, and that my profile was one of the Top 5% of most viewed profiles. Sounds impressive doesn’t it? Perhaps a little less so when you consider 10 million other members must have received the same mail. Ah well, below is a snapshot of that mail and the accompanying info-graphic just for interest sake. Sadly this doesn’t show South Africa to be a top user of Linked In. In fact Africa doesn’t even warrant a dot, I guess that means we have fewer members than even the 3 million of Australia. Ah well.
When is an expired account disabled? Well, certainly not when it expires.
Posted on February 17, 2013Around a year ago we implemented our policy whereby all contractor accounts must have an expiry date. We had a large number of contractors in the organisation, and while our “leavers” process was working reasonably well for permanent employees its wasn’t so great for contractors. In the third quarter of last year the first of these started expiring. This caused some unexpected problems.
Firstly, Windows / Active directory did not warn the users or any administrators about the pending expiry of the accounts. Unlike password expiry, account expiry just happens. We implemented a script to send an email warning to all users who have accounts that are going to expire so that if their contract has been extended they can get the expiry shifted out ahead of the expiry date and prevent a deluge of calls to the service desk all on the same day. Robert Martin has a nice writeup on this on his blog with sample script code to do this on a regular basis and send summary mails of all accounts about the expire.
Secondly, expired accounts still have some “rights”. What? Some users were still able to perform functions after their accounts expired. If they logged into their laptop while connected to the network it would give an account expired error and prevent login, but, disconnecting the workstation from the network allowed a local login. Once logged in, connecting to the network would allow email to be sent and received through exchange for a period (anything up to 48 hours or beyond). Further, they could still replicate mail to their iPads via ActiveSync, and continue to use their Blackberries as per normal. This was somewhat of a surprise and needs further investigation.
Caffe Luxe’s new and improved Nespresso Compatible coffee pods (mostly just pics)
Posted on February 16, 2013After one of our readers complained about the Caffelux capsules, the good folk over at luxurycoffee.co.za stepped in and offered to send her some capsules. At the same time they noticed my previous blog post on their coffee still showed the old branding and product. Since the product had been updated with new branding, capsules design improvements and coffee they very kindly offered to send me some of the new coffee to try, which I gladly accepted.
Below you can see the new whiter, lighter branded boxes of the five flavours.
The 5 flavours
Cheap (Legal) copies of Microsoft 2013 applications (for some)
Posted on February 16, 2013Microsoft has a home use programme that allows employees of many organisations from around the world to get copies of their key products:
- Office 2013 Professional
- Project 2013 Professional
- Visio 2013 Professional
- Office 2011 for Mac OS X
for the really awesome price of R81 each. This is for the download copy, for R120 extra you can order a physical media copy of each (postage not included).
This is applicable for a lot of people working in large corporates or at educational institutions. You will need the Home Use code, which you can get from your IT department. If you can’t find the code, then try the link below anyway, click the “don’t have code” option, just pop in your email address, and you may get lucky and be able to download it anyway.
Be aware the 2013 version of office is a download version running in some kind of virtualised environment which will ensure that it keeps up to date. When you download the installer it downloads a “download app” and then downloads and installs all in one, so you don’t get an ISO or installer per say, so you can install on just the one PC. Not really a big problem. On a site I was reading this morning (sorry, forget the name so no details) they did mention that the license key you get with the R81 version works with physical media, so once you have the key, if you can get the media elsewhere you can still use it.
As much as people bemoan the Microsoft Office suite, these are really great apps and at this price, nobody who is entitled to use the programme can complain they are too expensive.
http://www.microsofthup.com/hupemea2/home.aspx?culture=en-GB&country_id=ZA
Transversal password cracking with NMAP (without downloading the hashes)
Posted on February 16, 2013A few months back I discovered that our service desk had become a little “lazy” and were no longer using the defined process (identify user, randomly generate new password, set to change on first use) and were now handing out weak passwords without requiring the users to change them.
In order to assess the extent of the problem I wanted to do a test against the domain to see how wide-spread the problem was. I Google’d around a bit to try to identify a tool which could perform the exercise for me, but didn’t really find anything that looked suitable. I knew that I didn’t want to grab the hashes and do an off-line attack , but wanted instead to do it “live” against the domain, both to avoid the responsibility of having a copy of all the hashes (risk of is too high and as Head of Infosec I didn’t want that on my head) and also to test the alertness of the security operations centre in detecting the attack.
My criterion was simple, find a tool that given a file of usernames and a file of passwords would test the usernames with the given passwords.
Using iDrifta with iPad Mini / iPhone5 / Lightning connector iDevices
Posted on February 16, 2013The good news is that you can use your iDrifta with the newer Lightning connector enabled devices (iPad 4th Gen, iPad Mini, iPhone 5) but you need to get an Apple Certified 30 pin lightning adaptor. I have yet to try this personally, but have ordered some connectors and converter cables from DX.COM to see if these far far cheaper generic converters will work. Will keep you posted once these arrive and I have tested them.
Just don’t forget, DONT UPGRADE to iOS 6.1 if you want to keep using your iDrifta, DStvMobile need sort their nonsense out and get their app upgraded to work with iOS 6.1 before you proceed. (See previous post).
Info obtained from dstv website here
The iDrifta is a mobile TV decoder that receives DVB-H signal for viewing on iOS devices. For the product to work it must be within the DVB-H coverage area. Currently, the device is compatible with iPhone 4/4S/5*, iPad 1,2,3,4*,Mini* and 3rd generation and the 4th Generation iPod Touch. * Using an Apple Certified 30 pin to lightning adaptor.
iOS iDrifta users/buyers beware! iOS6.1 not compatible with iDrifta (currently), works fine with Drifta (wifi)
Posted on February 16, 2013Users of iDevices who own the iDrifta are on the rampage. Since the release of iOS 6.1 the iDrifta has not been working with the iPad/iPhone and DSTV have no useful response. They apologise and have no timelines for implementation of a solution. I have reached out to a few people I know but have received no response either.
The only bit of info is this “Announcement” on their website :
“Apple recently introduced the new iOS 6.1 version for its devices. In keeping in line with the various operating systems that we service, the Drifta is compatible with the new version and we are in the process of making the iDrifta compatible with iOS 6.1 soon.”
Not sure how that helps those users who can’t watch the test cricket or rugby. Seems unfortunate that DSTVMobile aren’t keeping up with the times and testing their products with those they claim to be compatible with.
Some relevant links :
- Keep checking the iStore. Let’s hope this is not a repeat of the Blackberry debacle.
- You can follow the irate stream of complaints on Hello Peter over here (swearing and ineffectual customer service response involved!)
- The thread on the DSTVmobile forum with the hapless Thulani saying much of nothing
- And on facebook where a nameless sap apologizes for “any inconvenience that may have been caused.” indeed. A non-functional product “may have” caused inconvenience? What a lame braindead response. Of course it has caused inconvenience, the darn thing don’t work!
Service Desk Hell : The case of the missing Purchases Part II
Posted on February 09, 2013Read part I of Service Desk Hell : The case of the missing Purchase, then click-through.
Service desk hell : The case of the missing Purchases
Posted on February 09, 2013Normally for technical service desk calls it is best to log onto the on-line system and type them in yourself, less to go wrong in the process. In this case the on-line system was not working so a call was required. This particular call took 34 minutes with the agent to dictate the problem, including having the agent read it back after each line was dictated. A week later, the call was placed on hold as it was now waiting for further action from a third-party, this is what was sent to the individual who logged the call :
Sent: Tuesday, February 05, 2013 09:06 PM
To: XXXXX
Subject: Call on Hold – Waiting for Equipment/3rd Party for Incident
This email originates from a send only mailbox. Please contact the Service Desk if you require assistance.
Good day XX, XX
The ticket Incident IXXXXXXX, which was logged for: CCM PARCH MANAGMENT NOT OPPERATING AS REQURED ,, PURCHASE ARE NOT BEING PUSHED TO SERVICE REQURERING PURCHASE SERVICE REPORTING LOCALLY THAT NO PURCHASE ARE REQURED THE IS RESULTING IN ADMINISTRATOR, BELIEVING THIS SERVICE PARCH TO UP-TO-DATE WHILE SERVICE ARE MISSING MANY PURCHASE AND MSA REQUREMENT FOR PARCH TIME LINE ARE NOT BEING MARCH ,, CCM PURCH REPPORT SHOW MORE THAN XXXX SERRVICE WITH GRATER 20 PURCHASE MISSING is awaiting 3rd Party intervention in order for the issue to be resolved.
Please contact the Service Desk if you require assistance.
Yours in Service
XXX
When this was received, didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. If it wasn’t real it would be so damn funny. It did however cause much mirth and at least one meeting was cancelled because we were laughing so much we were crying and could not focus on the matter at hand. Love to see if you can figure out what the agent was trying to capture, leave it in the comments, then click-through to the next page to see what was actually dictated to the call centre agent.
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