AT&T suffered a major service outage on May, 25 affecting 1.5 million customers using their U-Verse VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Service. The 4 1/2 hour outage was blamed on a “server crash” .

Excuse Me ? A Server Crash. One lone, humble server causes a outage that takes down customers in 22 states. Really?

While we cant address the massive AT&T infrastructure we can use this incident as a teachable moment.

Even with the best equipment available server outages happen. This is why (especially with mission critical services) server clustering and the elimination of single points of failure  is almost a requirement.

Clustering allows for statefull failover between hardware if a member node in that cluster fails for some reason. Meaning if one of the servers in the cluster fails the other node(s) take over without missing a beat. While clustering is a requirement for a mission critical delivery of services, it is not the only consideration.

Part of effective network architecture is to reduce or eliminate single points of failure in the infrastructure. The problem is that when some network designers look for single points they don’t extend their view all the way to the edge of their delivery network. For instance, having a server farm is great but when it is held together by one switch you still have a single failure point that can take down the entire delivery system.

There are many ways to design in redundancy to the environment but it all starts with a comprehensive analysis of your infrastructure to discover those single failure points.

Once those failure points are found and eliminated the network is well on its way to becoming a dependable platform to run your business.

I actually had a small business customer  ask me recently

What is so good about open source software?  I mean,  isn’t it DANGEROUS

I kinda chuckled and asked her where she heard that.  She directed me to Microsoft’s Compare site.
I was frankly floored by the half truths and blatant  distortions that I found there.

First for the record.  Alegria Tech supports and manages Microsoft Widows based technologies as well as Mac OSX and Linux.  We believe that there is no such thing as a one sized fits all solution for businesses.  Each organization has different needs that must be addressed.   A bulldozer is not the right tool when a garden shovel is called for.

As I visited  the site … I was drawn to the “Compare to Linux” section.  Microsoft  made the choice to compare to Red Hat Linux (RHEL).  Truthfully if this is a fair comparison in my opinion as RHEL is as much of a closed source system as Windows Server.  They touted a report written in 2005 by Ideas International and commissioned by Microsoft  indicating that Windows was more cost effective that RHEL.  They are likely right.  RHEL is the most expensive Linux distribution available at over 2400 per year.  What Microsoft does not say that this is for 24X7 365 support.  If you didn’t want the support option you may download CentOS which is the base RHEL distribution without the Red Hat support hooks for FREE  and use it on as many computers as you would like.  This simple distortion is the basis of their entire cost comparison.

Microsoft goes on to state that widows provides lower downtime that RHEL.  I am not sure that this is a supportable fact.  I have servers that have up time of over 2 years.  I have never had a Windows server come anywhere close to that type of performance .

They go on to provide some other “facts” that are simply not correct like Windows being easier to administer than Linux or changing package configurations “void the support agreements” or   “when migrating between Linux distributions, costs were often significant, with a wide [cost] range at the high end.” (from the Microsoft website)

I think that a real comparison of costs is in order Lets take this scenario.

A newly formed small business is desiring a simple to manage operating system for their new infrastructure.  The company projects 35 users over  the next 3 years.  Their business needs are basic email with some collaboration features like shared folders.  Document management and controlled web access is important.  For the user desktops they want a basic office package.  Cost control is a major factor

There are many ways to meet the needs of this organization.  We will focus on 2 options. Option 1.  Microsoft Small Business Server 2008 R8 with Windows7 workstations and Option 2 ClearOS and Ubuntu 10.04 Workstations.

Lets start with the servers. Both of the Server operating systems are designed to meet the needs of a small office (under 50 users) they both offer:

• Centralized Administration
• Mail, calender management, and instant messaging within the organization
• Printer management
• Web services
• Firewall
• Content management and team work spaces
• Antivirus
• Remote desktop management
• Virtual Private Network support

Both Windows SBS and ClearOS do these basic functions very well for a workgroup server.  The business can grow and thrive using either of these solutions.  But while SBS only offers these functions, ClearOS brings its own additional tricks to the party like:

• Firewall with intrusion protection
• Antimalware as well as anti-spam
• Database (extra on Small Business Server)
• Web Proxy services

So far the systems are pretty even.  Lets look at another metric System Requirements:

The Microsoft SBS has some pretty reasonable  hardware requirements:

• 2 gHz (x64 processor) or faster for a single core 1.5GHz for a multicore
• Minimum 4GB Ram
• 60GB HD Space

ClearOS Is about the same

• 2GHz processor
• 1.5 GB ram

Note an important difference.  ClearOS does not specifically recommended a 64 bit system. This means if there is existing (older)  hardware  laying about it could be used to support the server .  This could represent a cost savings to the client

Lets look at some of the important basic services starting with the biggie – the all important email services

SBS uses a limited version of Exchange 2007 to manage email services and groupware functionality.  It is a powerful platform that is very able  to manage the needs of our sample organization.  It is fairly complex to manage in its native form but a lot of that complexity has been hidden by the SBS interface so it is fairly manageable for a small shop.

Clear OS uses a application called KOLAB groupware for email serves.  It offers about the same feature set as exchange with Outlook.  While not as powerful as the almighty Exchange (and I mean that in a good way) it will more than meet the needs of the organization.

Web Services are another big point that managers look to when deciding on small business servers.  ClearOS offers APACHE which is (arguably) the de facto standard web server with  54.5% of market share (as of March 2010).  IIS is offered on SBS (24% market share).

Again both of these are fine services … with the edge going to Apache just in sheer number of installed web servers.

We can go on … but ClearOS and IIS are so evenly matched the final analysis comes down to Cost.

Lets cut to the chase

Windows Small Business Server Standard (without database) 1089.00 and for the 35 users @77 per CAL 2695.00 making your investment 3784.00 (without hardware)

Clear OS for the 35 users…well 0.00 (it is open source)

Let’s see 3784 VS 0 with a slightly better feature set Winner is ClearOS.

Lets move on to the desktop … and this will be quick … The sample company needs a basic office package and email … we can do that.

We are looking at Windows 7 Vs Ubuntu 10.04.  We could spend days talking about the differences between these 2 systems things like Ubuntu requiring 4.1 GB less disk space for a basic install, being about 22% less memory dependent than Windows 7, Ubuntu as a Linux based OS is more secure than Windows) but lets leave it to these being 2 very powerful and capable operating systems with a wealth of application support.

Each has a  office software system that offers  the basics of word processing, spreadsheet and presentation with some light desktop publishing.

Microsoft Office 2007 is the leading product for SBS (although there are other applications that do the job very well) For Ubuntu Oracle Open Office is the leading product (By the way Open Office will run on Windows 7 also).  The have different looks and feels but at the end of the day they do the same job.

Like the servers … Price is an issue:

For Windows 7 Professional (brought through OfficeMax) will run 299.00 Per copy or  10465 for our 35 employees in addition we will need to purchase 35 copies of Office Small Business 2007  at 259.00 each for a total of 9065. bringing your total for software only to 19530.00.  Now these prices will actually go down as you will need to buy workstations that will have a operating system installed  and most will come installed with windows 7  reducing these software costs some.

The cost of the Ubuntu 10.04 Workstation 0.  Open Office goes for 0.

Lets sum up:

To satisfy the requirements of the sample company we can go on the Microsoft solution for 23, 314 for workstation OS,  office suite and Server OS or 0 for the ClearOS and Ubuntu solution and NOT loose any functionality.

No wonder the Microsoft makes up their own facts about open source software.

The question that has to be asked is what about technical support.  This is a fair concern.  Microsoft does offer support on the SBS for 245.00 per incident   and yearly support options are available.  There is commercial support for both ClearOS and Ubuntu.

Of course Alegria Tech can support all of these products.

So to my client … Open source is only “dangerous” to Microsoft.  To the rest of us it is a cost effective and powerful solution to providing secure, functional and dependable software.

There is a ongoing problem with Adobe Flash on Linux. In some situations clicking on flash enabled buttons does not work at all.

I have found a workaround that seems to restore the functionality.
Rename the mpviewer.bin file to npviewer.bin.real

cd /usr/lib/nspluginwrapper/i386/linux
mv npviewer.bin npviewer.bin.real


Then create a executable batch script called npviewer.bin
sudo nano npviewer.bin

it will contain the following lines
#!/bin/sh
GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=true /usr/lib/nspluginwrapper/i386/linux/npviewer.bin.real $*


Make sure that you make the script executable
sudo chmod a+x npviewer.bin

Restart your Firefox and that should do it.

This is from https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/flashplugin-nonfree/+bug/410407/comments/143

Every Windows 2008 support professional should have a copy of a Linux live CD in their tool kit for use in hardware troubleshooting.

A support tech can spend a considerable amount to time working with Windows drivers and configurations only to find that the hardware is actually bad.

Popping in a Linux live disc (we use Ubuntu Linux 32 bit desktop disk) can save a whole lot of time and effort by validating if the device is indeed functional

In addition Linux does have the ability to mount NTFS hard disks so if you are working file issues or file recovery the live disk works great by giving you full access to the files that you need to manage without having the limitations of Windows.

Just a quick tip !!

We have been treated to the big cats from the folks at Apple with great releases in the OSX line from Tiger to the current Snow Leopard add to that the name of Lucid Lynx.  But this is a whole different cat than the OSX mascots.  This one heralds the newest build of Ubuntu Linux 10.04

The 10.04 refresh of Ubuntu brings some marginal changes to the 9.10 build including new GNOME2.3 support,  much better support for Nvidia graphics and  one of the best cloud network integrations  available.

Alegria Tech will be supporting the 10.04 LTS release for servers and 10.04 for desktops starting April, 2010

Managing a corporate IT infrastructure is much more than just making sure that everything works correctly.  It involves effectively managing the  most unpredictable component in the environment.   The User

Users will do all manor of crazy things on corporate networks.  We have seen full blown video games installed on users workstations, ebay sniping applications on CEOs machines and a host of “free and useful” web applications that do nothing more than gum up the operation of the workstations.

Here is a fact-most  users will follow any network use regulation that is in place.  IF they know about it.  That requires IT management to have a comprehensive enforceable policy that is written AND presented to the user.  Telling your users not to go to a website is not going to stop them from going there but having them sign a policy page that outlines specific sanctions for going to “restricted” sites will stop them dead in their tracks.

From a HR perspective a user generally can not be sanctioned with out a policy in place.  So it is imperative to have one.

How do you stop the silly little web applications?

Build effective computer policy using group policy management that restricts the ability of adding applications.  That does bring a little more work on the IT staff by requiring them to install applications for the users  but in the long run it is well worth the additional time to install an application or two for a user ranther than having to un-gunk a workstation full of crapapps.

no discussion of policy would be complete with out touching on the topic of web filtering.  Our official position is to step very lightly when considering web filtering applications.  The technical solution may work very well (most do).  But there is a very good chance of insurrection in the ranks.  Users will not appreciate web filtering as it will amount to management snooping in their eyes.

It is far better to control behavior with effective policy than with heavy handed (and expensive) filtering applications .  If you must use filtering applications,  publish a strong acceptable use policy and use the reporting functionality of the filtering application to go after the violators  of the policy.  Using that technique all of the users do not seem under constant scrutiny (even though they are).

Putting your policy together is a task that requires IT management to really take a hard look at the way that your organization works not just the IT infrastructure.  A well thought out network acceptable use policy should not hamper the way that users work but protects the company if a user chooses to go rouge.

Alegria Tech can help craft an effective acceptable use policy an install effective web monitoring and filtering.  Contact us for more information on how we can help !

On Patch Tuesday this month Microsoft will release a security patch that addresses a whopping 13 different issues.  Of these 8 are considered critical by Microsoft.  These issues cover Microsoft Vista Microsoft server 2008 and even the yet unreleased Windows 7.

One of the most critical to many organizations that use Microsoft Servers is one that closes a exploitable issue in Microsoft IIS  FTP services that allows Denial of Services attacks against the server.

Another of the fixes in this update package closes a hole in Windows 7 that allows an attacker to take complete control of the computer.

The Windows 7 issue is particularly disturbing as it seems to continue the heritage of Windows XP and Windows Vista with security issues that compromise the integrity of the operating system

Of course we strongly recommend the installation of these critical patches AFTER a full backup of the system to provide a regression path if the patches create other operation issues as is sometimes the case with Microsoft patches.

Designing great websites is a balancing act of creating great design and coding that design so that it looks right for a majority of your website visitors.

Each major operating system offers their users dozens of web browser options with a endless assortment of user customizable features.  A professional web design firm like DFW Joomla Design, knows that while many users are based on Microsoft Windows XP and Internet Explorer not all of a websites visitors will have that configuration.

Research shows that  while more than 61% of Internet users use Internet Explorer that usage is broken down into 3 major versions.

• Internet Explorer V6 25.25%
• Internet Explorer V7 21.0%
• Internet Explorer v8 15.0%

Each of these Internet Explorer versions render a website slightly (or in the case of IE6 radically)  different from each other making the job of the website designer much more difficult. Then add in the Firefox and Safari browsers and the web designer is faced with a daunting task of keeping site design consistent between these different browser rendering engines not to mention the multitude of other browsers out there that have their own take on how to render a website.

The world would be a much better place for web designers if browser makers (mostly ones from REDMOND, WASHINGTON) simply adopted the accepted W3C standards and built their browser to that standard but that is too much to ask

This mix of browsers and engines is particularly confusing for web design clients that  believe that there is something wrong when their site does not render on their browser as they think that it should.  They naturally want to blame the web designer for somehow not creating proper  design when in fact the designer is doing what they can to make the clients site work under most condition.

The question is… As a professional website designer,  how to avoid this situation?  There are several answers.

An answer that comes to mind is just design the entire website in Adobe Flash and be done with it.  Nice solution but not very practical and  rather expensive and the SEO hit would be unacceptable to most businesses.

The correct answer would be to write a different stylesheet for each of the browser variants that your site may encounter that corrects inconsistencies in that browser.  Many web designers do that right now by embedding IE versions of their CSS into the website design.  This is by far the most popular technique for getting around the browser problem.  Even with this other steps are required.

At DFW Joomla Design we communicate as part of our standard web design contract EXACTLY what combination of browser and operating systems we will support.  For Instance

• IE6 – No Support ( That’s right we do not support IE6 At all.  It is way too buggy and insecure)
• IE7 Windows XP – Vista
• IE8 Windows XP – Vista Windows 7
• Firefox  3.0 Windows XP Vista Windows 7 Debian Linux CentOS RHE
• Firefox 3.5  Windows XP Vista Windows 7 Debian Linux CentOS RHE
• Safari (OSX Snow Leopard, leopard, Tiger Windows XP, Vista)
• Screen Resolution larger than 1024X768 4:3 Format 16:9 Format is a special request -  Normal font setting

We have found that this browser support matrix covers 99% of  website visitors.  Of course if our clients have a unique audience like Wii or Playstation users or iPhone or iPod we can custom tailor our design for those browsers (Yep,  the game consoles have browsers also Wii uses Opera and PS3 uses a custom Browser )

We verify our designs using  BrowserShots.

We believe that website designs should bee seen as the designer intended and not seen differently by different web browsers.  But because there is no requirement for browser makers to use a consistent standard  a website designer needs to take steps to make sure that their designs look good on as many browsers as practical.

Creating and using supported browser list is a good solution for most designers.  And keeps your clients happy.

One of the advantages that Joomla has over some other Content Management systems is the structured management of content.  When set up properly Joomla is a SEO powerhouse.  Part of the proper setup is managing the website URLs so that they are easy to find (and remember)  for the website visitors and clear and consistent for the Search engines to index.

The blog system Wordpress does a brilliant job of allowing the webmaster to craft the website URLs to fit the needs of the site through the permalink structure.

Joomla on the other hand has  a fairly weak native structure for SEF URLs (SEF = Search Engine Friendly).  We are indeed fortunate to have powerful tools to overcome this shortcoming like Artio JoomSEF and sh404SEF.

In the past both of these powerful,  and in our estimation necessary,  extensions have been free.  That has recently changed.  sh404SEF is now on a subscription model.  The cost of the subscription is 35.00 for one year and it is a unlimited use license.

While some may bristle at the notion of  “it was free yesterday and it costs me 35 bucks today”.   DFW Joomla Design  does not have a severe problem with this charge for sh404sef,  provided that the product is developed and built upon and extended  in such a way that it brings value to the Joomla Community.

Because it is now a “commercial” application,  the standards are raised,  the expectations go up  and tolerance for the “little buggies” are greatly reduced.

With that said … we strongly encourage the new caretakers of the sh404SEF application to develop a no cost (lite version) so that this base functionality is made available to the Joomla Community.  Maybe a version without the ability to add plugins.

 We will be purchasing a subscription.  We think that this tool is essential to the success of our website designs. and we strongly encourage everyone that uses this tool to do the same.  At the end of the day… this one is worth is.

Just a quick tip for wordpress users.

We saw a lot of “broken themes” when we were installing our new blog.  Wordpress complained about the style.css fire being unreadable.

We set the directory permissions to 755 but still saw the error.

We fixed it !

SOLUTION

Ensure the file owner and group owner is the same as your webserver owner and group

In this example

drwxrwxr_x  2 apache www-data 4096 Aug 11 19:47 classic
drwxrwxr_x  3 apache www-data 4096 Aug 11 19:47 default
drwxrwxr_x  3 ftp-usr      wheel   4096 Sep  9 09:00 eximius
drwxrwxr_x  3 ftp-usr     wheel    4096 Sep  9 08:45 jules-joffrin
drwxrwxr_x  3 apache www-data 4096 Sep  9 08:37 wp1

classic loads

default loads

eximius fails

jules-joffrin fails

wp1 loads

Try the chgown and chgrp commands under *nix to fix the ownerships.

The same solution works with plugins and widgets -

Good luck and have fun