Google Wave A Real Time Collaboration

A month ago I visited to my friend and while we were discussing some great online entrepreneurial ideas, I told him how a couple of friends and I have been trying to arrange social media marketing and strategy workshops but we never get time to be at one place, brainstorm our ideas and plan the entire project.


When I was done narrating my predicament, he told me that we don’t necessarily have to be present psychically at one place to brainstorm and collaborate. He told me to try Google Wave which is an amazing tool to collaborate in real time with team on a project and so far he had found it very useful.

So I gave Google Wave a try.

The first thing I liked when I logged in was the mail in my inbox with embedded Google Wave tutorial video (it was great help to understand what the tool is all about). Then as I started exploring Google Wave, I saw options to create a new Wave for a meeting or a brainstorm session or a new document or task tracking.

I created a new Wave by clicking on the brainstorm icon. A new sub window popped in the main window and then I added my 3 friends who I had to work with on our workshops project.

I decided that until all 3 invitees find their invitation to join Google Wave, I should write a welcome note for them and type down my ideas about the project so I started typing. The first line typed became the name/title of the wave and then after typing a rather funny welcome note to greet my friends I wrote a brief intro of our workshops project and what was to be done next.

While I was just typing my thoughts away, I saw that one of my friends had just logged in on Wave and began to write something too in the same wave. He had started sharing his thoughts and both of us began working on the plan. In the meanwhile third friend of ours logged in and all 3 of us were typing and throwing our ideas at each other at the same time from the comforts of our homes.

The best way to describe Google Wave experience is that it is a combo of email and online chatting yet in a more visually pleasant and rich media format.

You can drop images, videos, attachments in the wave, use rich text, add links to the discussion, edit documents and what not but the best part is that it gets saved as one big mail message so you don’t have to worry about losing all the million dollar brainstorming you have done with your team on any project.

My experience with Google Wave is still underway as I am happily working on my project with my friends by collaborating with all of them in real time from the comforts of our own homes.

If you haven’t tried this fun and such an effective communication and collaboration tool by Google yet then you must give it a shot at least once. I bet you won’t be able to keep yourself off of it and you will be planning all your events and projects on Google Wave from then on.

The Holidays Computing....!!!

I have written extensively about the best ways to speed up your computer and the perils of “online hoarding.” Once upon a time homes and offices were cluttered with stacks of papers, photos, video tapes and record albums and cassettes. As the digital revolution evolved, documents were then stored on computers, video tapes gave way to DVDs and records albums and cassettes were replaced with CDs. Fast forward to the new century, and most users began storing music and video files and digital photos on their computers.

The current trend gaining steam is ‘cloud computing,’ which allows you to store all your documents and files in a web storage service, eliminating the problem of a cluttered hard drive that is ready to burst at the seams. Especially during the holiday season when you're busy amassing hundreds of photos and numerous short videos of family and friends, you need a safe haven to store, organize and share all these files with your loved ones.

Problem of computer ‘overcrowding’
All those documents, files and photos that have been sitting in your documents folders for months or years and all the family photos and music downloads you have stored on your PC not only take up valuable disk space, but also slow down your system. If your computer is working at a much slower pace than usual, a likely culprit could be the overwhelming amount of files and photos you have saved on your hard drive. Simply deleting these will help speed up your PC. Computer crashes, which can happen at any time, can also eradicate all your stored content as well.

Cloud computing to the rescue
As the Guardian explains, “The ‘cloud’ is the Internet, and the term is fitting -- it's large, out there somewhere, and fuzzy at the edges. Cloud computing is about putting more of your material out there and less on PCs or servers that a business runs for itself.”

A number of tech experts predict that in the next few years, more users will move their content into the ‘cloud,’ and subscribe to web storage services instead.

Web storage services are cropping up everywhere, and they offer users the ability to store their photos, videos, documents and files safely on the web, which can be accessed from anywhere as long as you are connected to the Web.

Storing holiday photos and memories
Think of web storage services as a type of bank. Would you ever store your valuables under the mattress or in a drawer where they might run the risk of getting lost or stolen? No. The same rule applies to valuable photos, files and documents, which can live more securely on the web, free of your home computer's potential crashes and hard drive malfunctions.

According to the Pew Research Center, "By 2020 most people will access software applications online and share and access information through the use of remote server networks, rather than depending primarily on tools and information housed on their individual, personal computers.” A good place to carve a niche in the great ‘cloud’ therefore, is to begin by storing your own personal digital valuables online. 

Windows 7 and Windows XP Mode

It’s probably inevitable that at some point during your organization’s transition to Windows 7, you’re going to
encounter an application that doesn’t run properly with the new operating system, no matter what hoops you
jump through. If you discover that such an application is considered essential by management, then you are in
the same boat with many other IT pros.
For such situations, Microsoft has provided a way for Windows 7 users to run a Windows XP virtual machine in
which the recalcitrant program can be executed, alongside native Windows 7 applications. This virtual machine
(VM) is also handy for running legacy device drivers that you may need for specific hardware. (I use Windows XP
Mode at home to talk to old scanners and cameras that still work but that don’t have Windows 7 drivers.)
This solution goes by the name “Windows XP Mode” and it’s an evolution of the special VM that Microsoft
made available for Windows Vista that was basically an XP virtual machine outfitted with Internet Explorer 6.
(That special VM is no longer freely available.)
Understand that while Windows XP Mode is fine for business users (it’s not supported on Windows 7 Home
editions) who have occasional needs to run a legacy OS in a virtual machine, it’s not a “managed” solution. For
that, you may want to take a look at MED-V (Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization), part of the MDOP
(Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack)—if, that is, you’re a Software Assurance customer.
Here are some introductions of Windows XP Mode and includes the following topics.
• Do You NeedWindows XP Mode?
• How Can You GetWindows XP Mode?
• Requirements
• Core Features
• ImplementingWindows XP Mode
• ManagingWindows XP Mode
• Challenges


Do You Need Windows XP Mode?
Before you decide that you need Windows XP Mode, always spend time trying other ways to get your apps to
run under Windows 7: haranguing the vendor to provide updates, tweaking the EXE’s compatibility settings,
and/or spending some quality time with the (free) Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT). Also, try
running your problematic applications with different User Account Control (UAC) settings; sometimes that can
help.
If you do decide to use virtualization to solve short-term compatibility problems, Windows XP Mode isn’t the
only virtualization technology that can help. You can have users remote in to centrally hosted VMs, instead of
running VMs on their own local workstations, in a strategy Microsoft calls VDI, for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure.
The VDI approach relies on Hyper-V and Remote Desktop Services.

How Can You Get Windows XP Mode?
This is fairly easy. Although Windows XP Mode doesn’t come “in the box” with Windows 7, it’s a free download
from microsoft.com. Actually you’ll get three files, as follows.
• KB 958559, which is the main Virtual PC program
• KB977206, a Virtual PC update, which removes the requirement that the hosting PC supports hardware assisted
virtualization (but not everyone should install it; see caveat in the next section)
• WindowsXPMode_en-us, theWindows XP Mode software, including virtual machine preconfigured with
XP Service Pack 3 (note that this file is approximately half a gigabyte in size)

Requirements
Windows XP Mode is only available withWindows 7 Ultimate, Professional, and Enterprise (either 32-bit or 64-
bit versions). Sorry, Windows 7 home users, you’re left out in the cold on this one. More seriously, Windows Vista
users are, too. That seems a little strange to me, given the many architectural similarities between Windows 7
and Vista. There are, after all, lots of Vista shops out there, and they have the same issues with legacy XP applications
that Windows 7 shops have. Sure, a Vista shop could use Virtual PC 2007 to host applications in an XP
VM, but you lose a lot of the nice integration features offered by Virtual PC 2007.
As noted in the previous section, Virtual PC no longer requires hardware-assisted virtualization (HAV) although
HAV does have a significant positive effect on performance. If you’re not sure whether a given machine supports
HAV, Microsoft offers an HAV detection tool you can download (havdetectiontool.exe) that will tell you (see
Figure 1). The tool will also tell you if your PC supports HAV, but it is not enabled in the BIOS.
Why should you care?Well, Microsoft actually recommends that you do not install the KB977206 update to
Virtual PC if the hosting PC does provide HAV.


What about licensing? Good news here: you don’t need a separate license forWindows XP, to runWindows XP
Mode. (That’s not true, by the way, for MED-V, the managed version of Windows XP Mode.)

Core Features
Virtualization Engine. Windows XP Mode uses the Virtual PC engine, also known as “Virtual PC 7,” a freshening
of the Virtual PC 2007 product that Microsoft acquired back in 2003 from Connectix
Note that this is not Hyper-V, the server-based virtualization software Microsoft is trying to position as a viable
alternative to VMWare. Virtual PC is slower than Hyper-V, largely because it sits on top of a host operating system
(that is, Virtual PC is a “type 2 hypervisor”). Also, Virtual PC doesn’t emulate multiple processors or 64-bit
guest environments, and it doesn’t do snapshots. However, Virtual PC doesn’t require 64-bit host hardware as
Hyper-V does, and it doesn’t turn off hibernation and sleep capabilities as Hyper-V does. Virtual PC also isn’t
Virtual Server, Microsoft’s older IIS-based virtualization platform.
User Interface. You can run “Windows XP Mode” applications in so-called “seamless” mode (that is, just the
application window) or in a full virtual machine desktop. To perform the latter, just choose Start > Windows
Virtual PC > Windows XP Mode (see Figure 2). To perform the former, navigate to
Start > Windows Virtual PC > Windows XP Mode Applications  (see Figure 3)

One of the best features of Windows XP Mode is that when you choose to run an application without the entire 

desktop, the legacy app looks just like any other application window on theWindows 7 desktop (see Figure 4)

albeit without the Windows 7 “chrome” around the edges, and the user doesn’t have to interact with the XP 

desktop. (This technology, embodied in the vmsal.exe process, derives from the RemoteApp capabilities 

of Terminal Services. “VMSAL” stands for Virtual Machine Seamless Application Launcher.)

When you run the “full desktop” Windows XP Mode, you’ll see a special toolbar that you can use to perform
functions such as popping into a full-screen view, putting the VM to sleep, restarting, changing VM
settings, performing a true system shutdown, managing USB devices, and so forth .


It’s also possible for users to access theirWindows 7 profile folders from within a VM; this can be performed,
for example, by assigning the host system’s Documents folder as a drive letter on the Windows 7 host, so that it
appears as a host-based drive in the XP virtual machine’s “My Computer” window.
Windows XP Mode users can also use the clipboard between the virtualized app and host apps, and print from
the virtualized app to a host-based printer (although the user has to install the printer driver from within the
XP VM). And, as with earlier iterations of Virtual PC, users can access host-based optical drives. Finally, audio
support exists, and you can choose whether to redirect audio output to Windows 7’s audio drivers or use an
emulated soundcard.
Mouse integration and time synchronization are provided automatically between host and guest operating
systems. Users can enable or disable specific integration features via the VM’s “Tools” menu (see Figure 6).

Implementing Windows XP Mode
Windows XP Mode was designed to be configured on a machine-by-machine basis. You can mitigate that disadvantage
to some degree by installing Virtual PC andWindows XP Mode on your standard corporate desktop
image (if you have one), or by deploying these pieces through System Center, Group Policy, or other software
distribution mechanisms.

Choosing a password. The built-in user account for Windows XP Mode, XPMUser, needs a password, and, of
course, the temptation is to use the same credentials that the user uses to log onto Windows 7. That, however,
would be a mistake! Host applications, including evil ones, can access the credentials stored for Windows XP
Mode. This makes it important to choose a different password for XPMUser. You can haveWindows XP Mode
remember it, but even that’s better than using host credentials.
Installing applications. Applications that you’d like to run in Windows XP Mode need to be installed while
running Windows XP Mode. Once that’s done, the application will show up on the Windows 7 Start menu, and
can be run directly without the intervening XP desktop. The application will also show up within the VM if you
run the full XP desktop.
Configuring networking. Virtual PC inWindows 7 supports three types of networking for VMs: “internal
network,” which means that VMs can see each other but not the host; “bridged mode,” named after the specific
network adapter, in which the VM connects through the host network adapter and appears on the network as
if it were a non-virtual machine; and “shared networking (NAT)” in which the VM shares one TCP/IP connection
with the host and can, for example, access the Internet without appearing on the internal network as a separate
machine.Windows XP Mode uses the “shared networking (NAT)” method by default.
User training. Organizations should plan for some user training if Windows XP Mode is going to be used with
any frequency. In order to make things work without annoying error messages, users need to be disciplined
about exiting their virtualized apps and closing their VMs before relaunching applications.

Managing Windows XP Mode
Managing Windows XP Mode is largely a manual affair. What responsibilities IT departments might shoulder will
be a decision every organization has to face. Virtual XP machines need backing up, patching, anti-virus, antimalware, etc.
just like any workstation OS. And software running in Windows XP Mode may also be subject to
license management.
To take backing up as an example, you can take at least three different approaches.
• Use an XP-based backup program from within the VM
• After shutting down (not just hibernating) the virtual machine, back up theWindows XP Mode VM files,
including “undo” files, fromWindows 7 (these are normally in C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Virtual PC\Virtual Machines; 
you probably won’t need to worry about the parent VHD file
in the C:\Program Files\Windows XP Mode area because it doesn’t usually change)
• Make sure all data gets saved to the user’sWindows 7 profile and don’t worry about backing up any
data on the VM
As for the anti-virus situation, you may not need to purchase an additional license to protect your Windows XP
Mode applications if you are licensing anti-virus software on a per-user basis rather than a per-device basis.
But do understand that anti-virus protection for the host Windows 7 system does not typically protect your XP
virtual machines!

Management, and Control of IT Infrastructures

Networks are wonderful things. They connect servers, resources, applications, and
users together, all to drive your business forward. But as application complexity goes
up, as the need for more and more servers goes up, as more and more virtual servers
are deployed, and as the need for more and more bandwidth increases, networking
complexity increases as well.
There are routers and switches, NICs and more NICs, and cables and cables, and more
cables. Oh, the cables! Hundreds, even thousands of wires are running all over your
data center. And if you want to change a server or reconfigure an application, the time
and effort involved in juggling cables is almost ridiculous.
Cables and networks should help your business flow. Instead, as your business grows,
they become complex and challenging bottlenecks to productivity.
Fortunately, all that is about to change.
 
The Network Nightmare
The modern data center is a networked data center. Virtual servers live in physical
servers and blades. Blades live in racks. And all those virtual servers, all those physical
servers and blades, and all those racks need to talk to each other:

NICs, Switches, and Cables
When data leaves a server, it does so through a network interface card 
(NIC), then travels across a cable to a switch, which acts like a 
switchboard, then travels to and across other switches, and eventually 
travels through another NIC back into another server. Each server uses 
one or more NICs. As more servers are added, more NICs are added. As 
more NICs are added, more switches are needed. Connecting them all are 
cables. 
Virtualization Magnifies the Problem 
Virtualization reduced the number of physical boxes required for certain 
applications, but it didn’t reduce the network load. In fact, virtual servers 
have substantially increased the network load. It’s now almost absurdly 
easy to add a new server, but terribly difficult to add the network and cable 
infrastructure to support the new server. 
LANs vs. SANs 
Data center data and storage traffic  both travel across cables. Ethernet 
(and most IP-based applications) can  survive having some packets lost 
and then re-sent during  operation. But storage networking must be 
lossless, and must maintain throughput.

These separate levels of required performance have given rise to two completely divergent 

network infrastructures, one based mostly on Ethernet, and the other based mostly 

on Fiber Channel.  

The result is once again more cables, more connections, less flexibility, 

and increased complexity. 

Cable Aggregation  

Racks often contain many more servers today than they did even a few 

years ago. Virtualization has made  that possible. Unfortunately, the 

virtualization trend didn’t reduce the need for more wires. Instead it made 

it worse. 

Wiring and provisioning racks require many complex connections be made 

at top-of-rack, and then all of those connections are often bundled 

together at another set of switches at end-of-row. Always, the complexity 

increases.

It’s reached the point where the task of adding a completely new server application can
take far less time than simply wiring up the connections.  Gartner's Cameron Haight
reports that setting up a virtual machine is relatively fast (a matter of hours), but
provisioning all the networking changes required to support that  virtual machine can
take as long as six weeks.
Networking, a technology designed to help businesses grow, is instead getting in the
way of growth. IT organizations are change-adverse because a simple change, like
adding one new application, could have a complex ripple effect throughout the entire
data center.
The number of connections, switches, and cables keeps going up.  IT staff is spending
more and more time on maintenance and wires. The technical wizards who should be
driving innovation across the organization are, instead, being driven to distraction simply
attempting to keep up.
The Network as a Service 
The solution is turning the network into  a service, creating a virtualized network
infrastructure. What makes all this work  is a network topology known as a switched
fabric. Rather than using a lot of point-to-point connections, a fabric-based network
allows many nodes to connect to each other like threads in a tapestry, often dynamically
changing to compensate for changing load requirements.
Once you’re able to dynamically reallocate your network resources, you’re able to begin
serving network resources on-demand, both when and where they’re needed.

Here’s how:
Virtualize Connections 
Typically, one NIC supports one connection. Each new connection 
requires more NICs. It’s now possible, however, to virtualize your network 
connections, so each NIC can support multiple connections. You can 
dynamically add more connections and change the purpose of those 
connections on-the-fly.
Wire Once 
Once you virtualize your connections, you can build out your physical 
wiring infrastructure once. When applications and server requirements 
change, you can make changes in your virtualized connections through 
management software, eliminating the need to pull wires for each change 
in application or server requirements.
Repurpose Without Tears 
Once you embrace the concept of wiring once, you can repurpose 
network, storage, and compute resources on the fly. Your IT department is 
no longer subject to waiting days or weeks for a re-provisioned network. 
Instead, the network can be modified  to meet line-of-business needs 
quickly, and without drastic and complex changes to the physical data 
center facilities.
Increase Performance 
Complexity breeds bottlenecks. The more connections, wires, and 
switches you have, the more overhead you have running across your 
network, and the slower everything gets. 
Once you can virtualize your network infrastructure, you can cut 90% or 
more of your physical wiring, which will substantially drop the network 
housekeeping overhead. The result is increased performance, often by as 
much as 50%.

It’s astonishing how much IT time and effort is bottled up in cabling bottlenecks. By
virtualizing the network and turning your network into a service, most of that time can be
freed up and put to far better use.

Organizational Benefits 
When you transition to the network as a service, you’ll be taking complexity out of your
network. This will make it easier for you to manage not just basic networking elements,
but your entire IT infrastructure.
You’ll be able to turn your IT operation into an agile, responsive, innovative contributor
to your organization’s mission. You’ll also able to do more, even while spending less on
expensive networking gear. You can allocate what spending you do to support line-ofbusiness
objectives rather than for basic, repetitive, and inefficient operations.
You’ll be able to maximize your data center space, reduce your overall power costs, and
even free up strategic IT personnel for more bottom-line oriented tasks.
Future Innovations 
Today, network fabrics still have one substantial limitation: LAN vs. SAN. Local Area
Networks are usually Ethernet-based, while Storage Area Networks run on Fiber
Channel. Even though virtualized networks remove most of the cabling overhead,
there’s still the need for these two types of cables.
That’s changing. Standards bodies are working on encapsulating Fiber Channel frames
into Ethernet frames, so that all of the SAN traffic can run across Ethernet. This
technology is called Fiber Channel over Ethernet, or FCoE.
But encapsulating frames won’t solve the bigger issue, the need for a lossless Ethernet
mechanism, especially across a congested data center network. The Data Center
Bridging (DCB) Task Group of the IEEE 802.1 Working Group is working on adding
performance capabilities to Ethernet called Converged, Enhanced Ethernet.
Some venders are currently offering solutions they claim will be compliant with these
future standards. If you decide to implement these solutions now, make sure your
performance agreements include upgrades for  pre-standard revisions and eventually,
final standards compliance.
In the very near future, you’ll be able to  transition your network to a policy-based
approach for managing your infrastructure. You’ll be able to control it as a resource,
reallocating workloads dynamically depending on your needs at the time, whether
across the data center or even between data centers.

Optimize Computer Security Through Windows Settings

There are a number of steps you can take to make your computer and online experience more secure. Your computer comes equipped with certain settings that allow you to optimize security.

Security engineer and tech expert “Sam,” who wishes to remain anonymous because of his job, offers examples of security settings options:

--Enabling/disabling Windows firewalls
--Turn on/off UAC (User Account Control)
--Internet security settings (e.g., Internet Explorer)

“These settings allow a user to control how much security they wish to have on their computer. As a security professional, I would recommend keeping the Windows firewall and UAC on,” he explains.

Enabling Windows firewalls: A firewall allows certain communications to get through while preventing others. As Sam explains, “A firewall is like a doorman who stands outside your home (computer). It prevents unwanted users from just walking in to your home, and (with Windows 7 and Vista) checks that strangers that snuck into your home are allowed to leave.”

To make sure your firewall is on in Windows XP, for example: Go to Start, then click the Control Panel and Security Center. Click on the firewall button and if the box is checked, then it’s on.

Turn on UAC: The good thing about Windows is that while you’re busy installing certain software or making changes to your system, the UAC will ask you for permission before it carries out the task you intended. The User Account Control basically serves as a cautionary reminder when you are making changes to your system.

 If you are performing a particular activity such as installing a program, for example, it may first ask for an administrator password before it completes the application. According to Microsoft.com, UAC does not make “unauthorized changes”. As a result, “UAC can help prevent malicious software (malware) and spyware from installing or making changes to your computer without permission,” Microsoft explains.

For maximum security, apply the “always notify” setting. Windows.Microsoft.com offers instructions for turning on UAC in Vista, for example: Go to the Start button, Control Panel, User Accounts, Turn User Accounts on or off, then make sure the box is checked in User Account Control (UAC) to help protect your computer.

According to Sam, however, “With the advent of Windows Vista and Windows 7, Microsoft has enhanced security and made it an integral part of Windows. As such, as long as a user keeps the default settings for UAC and the Firewall…the settings shouldn't have to be changed.”

Internet Explorer settings: Internet Explorer already comes equipped with various security features, such as pop-up blockers and phishing filters. In Windows XP, for example, you can view security settings in IE by clicking Tools, then Internet Options, and Security. This then shows you the various security zones – Internet, Local Intranet, Trusted Sites, and Restricted Sites, which you can adjust accordingly. By clicking on Tools in Internet Explorer, you also have the option to delete browsing history, set up your pop-up blocker or manage add-ons.

Another security tip for keeping Windows system secure is to create a separate, non-administrator account for daily use. A non-administrator account cannot install software, so viruses and malware cannot easily be installed.

Programs like Computer Checkup also scan and fix various security flaws, remove spyware, and help identify system settings that can boost system security.