The topic of anti virus software came up at our last meeting, I am opposed to installing anti virus software on our workstations, I view it as shutting the gate after the horse has bolted. We use a third party to scan all our inbound emails, keep all our machines as patched up to date as possible and of course we use a firewall to protect us from the big bad web.

The only areas we are vulnerable is from users downloading files from the web and portable media / flash drives, so we need a utility that will protect us in these places. Ideally there will be a piece of software out there that can scan downloaded files and quarantine them if they contain a virus. It would need to do the same for newly inserted CD's and USB flash drives. Because we develop software on our machines we don't want the pain of something like Norton AV which sits in the background monitoring all files and which has the potential to cause problems, if you don't believe me check out microsofts knowledge base articles they are littered with 'disable your AV software'.

If you know of a piece of software that could do this for us and can recomend it then please leave a comment or drop me an email to Kitesurf<at>dualbotic.com. Alternatively if i'm way of the mark about how many problems are caused by AV software and you can recomend a scanner that will not negatively impact our developers then that would be great also.

Excerpt From their site: http://www.computeraid.org/home.htm

"Computer Aid International has already shipped over 50,000 PCs to more than 90 developing countries. Of those 50,000 shipped over 25,000 have gone to educational institutions and the remaining to community organisations working in fields as diverse as HIV/Aids, environment, human rights, and primary healthcare."

I contacted James at computeraid to see what types of computer equipment they need, currently they will accept working pc's from PII 233mhz and up. I am going to try and collect as many machines as possible and then arrange to transport them to their workshop in north london. If you are local to Oxted, Surrey and you have an old (working) PC you no longer have a use for then if you would like to donate it contact me at Kitesurf<at>dualbotic.com and I will take it to their workshop in north london at the end of the month.

They also accept CRT 15-17" colour monitors, leads and printers.

What the Widernet eGranary Digital Library project  does:

Most schools in developing countries do not have an Internet connection; and where they do exist, they are slow, unreliable and very expensive. The WiderNet Project’s eGranary Digital Library delivers digital information directly to Web servers inside institutions, bypassing the Internet.  More than two-million educational documents are currently delivered to more than 50 institutions in Africa giving at least 300,000 students and professors access to information over their local area networks (LAN) quickly and at no cost.  The eGranary Digital Library regularly adds new content that is provided by authors and publishers all over the world who want to enhance the educational opportunities for developing countries.

Please see the menu below for more information about the eGranary Digital Library. If you can't find what you're looking for, contact Cliff Missen, director, at 319-335-2200 or missenc@widernet.org

more...

At the time of writing it looks like four bombs have gone off in London, three on the tube and one on a bus. The tube is going to be closed all day and there are no buses in central london (zone 1). Mainline railway stations are mostly open with trains running but many trains have been terminated before reaching London. Trains that would normally terminate in paddington are terminating in Reading.

Casualties are estimated at 150 and deaths much lower but information is still a little scarce and sometimes conflicting. The hospitals seem to be coping well as are the emergency services.

My wife works near marble arch and is still wondering if she is going to get home tonight, luckily her brother has a flat in london where she could stay. A lot of companies are offering to put employees up in hotels if they can't get home tonight.

Like most westerners I have a bit of a guilt complex about the poverty that exists in large parts of africa. The problem is complex and not easily solved, if it was a simple as donating money then living standards should have started to improve by now.

I am looking for a project that is being run in africa preferably by africans albeit with support from westerners that aims to build infrastructure in a town or village that I can help fundraise for. I would like to see 100% of the funds raised go to the people it is meant to help. The sort of activities I believe will help africans in the long term are improving roads, building medical centers and schools, clean water, disease control, improving communications, electrical power generation, enticing foreign investment to build factories that create local jobs.

The skills that I have are in information technology, so I will be building a website that reports the progress the project is making. It will also be a coordination point for fundraising activity and allow donations to be made directly to specific parts of the project.

The problem I have now is finding such a project and putting my ideas to the people running it, they won't already be on the internet so google is not going to be any help. I am going to contact a number of charities that work in africa to see if they know of anything like this. If you are reading this and know someone who is already involved in this work then drop me an email to kitesurf<at>Dualbotic.com.

Update:
A big thankyou to Matt Smalley who emailed me with the following information.

"Widernet is a project run by the International Center at the University of Iowa. They aim to bring IT service and resources to developing countries, specifically Nigeria. The current connections to the internet from Africa are very limited and expensive, so universities have a difficult time providing access for their students. To help solve this problem the Widernet team has developed eGranary, a digital information library that can be deployed on a local network. Last I heard they had about 100GB of data dumped from various sources of the web (with permission of course.) They also provide help setting up local networks, operating systems, etc. The program coordinator also runs several other programs, such as computer donations to Africa, and I believe he has a program to help dig water wells."

Project homepage: http://www.widernet.org/
eGranary: http://www.widernet.org/digitalLibrary/index.htm
Slashdot article I posted last year: http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/06/11/2151235&tid=126&tid=198&tid=95

If your reading this then I have successfully moved dasblog wasn't too stressful

I have an irrational hatred for floppy disks, whenever I build a Pc for myself or a friend I refuse to fit one. Why does microsoft insist on relying upon them for installing 3rd Party RAID Drivers for their latest operating systems (XP, 2003)?

UPDATE:
I purchased a Mitsumi USB floppy drive (£15) and was able to load the drivers from it after pressing F6.

Redline Software (the company I slave for) has taken the plunge and decided to use Asterisk and a SIP provider and say goodbye to BT forever, well almost were still going to have one analog line for emergency's.

We have spent the last couple of weeks figuring out what makes Asterisk tick and selecting a SIP provider and have decided to use VOIPtalk and Swissvoice IP10's handsets. We will make use of voicemail, huntgroups and call forwarding. VOIP talk charge £9.99 for setting up an inbound 0845 number and there call charges for the UK are low 1.4 p a minute.

We were quoted £3500 for an Alchemy IP Office solution with IP handset and ISDN2 termination which I thought was pretty reasonable. It will cost us £2000 for handsets and a server to run Asterisk on!

Market economics, flawed DRM and DVD prices are all factors that influence digital piracy levels. I have formed a theory that digital piracy forces DVD prices down, or if you like, raising DVD prices increases digital piracy. In this way the pirates are keeping the DVD publishing companies honest.

I listened to a recent IT Conversations podcast, with Cory Doctorow from the EFF, in it he made the point that DRM stifles innovation by preventing entrepeneurs creating products that manipulate digital media in ways never imagined. He also claimed that the current DRM mechanisms are flawed and all will eventually be compromised.

So if DVD publishers don't use DRM then what will prevent one person from going out and buying a DVD and then giving copies to all they're friends? The simple answer is price and convienience, make the price affordable and the product accessible and you reduce the temptation of piracy because it takes time to copy DVD's and most people won't bother once DVD prices are easily affordable.

Removing DRM opens up a world of possibilities, legal DIVX downloads so that people can watch movies on demand. DVD jukebox products for people to store all their films on to watch in any room at home. The list is endless and every new product would likely encourage more people to watch more, is this not something the film studios are interested in?