One of the things that constantly comes up when you start taking the security of your computer systems seriously is the simple fact that your users are the weakest part of any security policy. You can spend all day working out intrusion detection systems, firewalls, nearly impossible to crack passwords, and doors with five levels of authentication, but when your security guard holds the door open for the pizza guy, you have a problem.

This is a type of hacking called “Social Engineering” and it can undermine all your work in a hurry. In general, people are trained from birth to be helpful and trusting, and hackers are going to take advantage of that. It ranges from the guy that tailgates behind an employee, to the admin that has the administrative password on a stickie under the keyboard because the password is too hard to remember. It also includes seemingly innocuous questions about the company or that innocent “I forgot my password” problem that a “user” calling the helpdesk is having.

So the real question is; How do you protect your company against a social engineering attack? In one word, Education. You need to make sure that your employees are properly educated in how to recognize and deal with social engineering attempts. For example, with physical security problems like tailgating, make sure they understand that holding the door for someone is not an option. They may even know the person, but what if the attacker is an ex-employee and they didn’t know?

At the end of the day, just remember that proper training and education of your employees will do wonders for your company’s security posture. It is also one of the most important aspects of security that gets left behind. Remember, most employees aren’t trained to worry about “Security” and think that it is someone else’s job. It’s your job to make sure that they think otherwise.

Security researchers have uncovered a massive database of web site FTP logins and passwords to web sites around the world, including many well known sites. The scary twist is that the crooks behind the database have put in place a trading and payment interface to allow less talented thieves to purchase access to these compromised sites and even automatically upload tools to help them attack site visitors.

Even the bad guys are getting into the software as a service model.

It would come as no surprise to me if entrepreneurs collectively named confidence as both their most dangerous and valuable personality trait. This trait can provide the drive necessary to achieve unimaginable goals, but it can also cause the bearer to promise results they aren’t 100% sure they can deliver.

Marc Schreiber (owner of DIVD Corporation and serial entrepreneur) often does just that. Is he setting himself up for failure? Nope. Why not you ask? He has a secret weapon that helps him remain calm in moments that would probably cause others to panic. His weapon is Lextech.

Recently, Marc’s company DIVD Corporation struck up a deal with AT&T to create and deliver 500 interactive kiosks (aka emerging media stations or EMS) according to a very aggressive timeline. The deadline was unrealistic, but he signed on the dotted line anyway because he had faith Lextech would help him keep his word.

What did Lextech do?

Lextech engineers worked around the clock to complete the EMS architecture and clone 500 kiosks to be distributed to AT&T stores nationwide. Lextech provided DIVD with a dependable system before they reached their AT&T deadline. The system not only met their immediate needs, it also has the capability to grow and change along with their future marketing goals. Our systems support team is now responsible for ongoing Tier 1 and Tier 2 support, as well as content updates and testing.

What is the big deal?

For AT&T this translates into faster kiosk updates and seamless transitions between content pushes. For DIVD, this means focusing on the core business while Lextech sweats the technological details.

For Marc, this means he can dream big and know that Lextech has his back.

One of the great things about working with really interesting systems for our clients is the inspiration it can give for those personal side projects. After working on a touch screen application for one client I had the thought to mount one in my car (a 1996 Nissan 300zx) and drive it with one of Apple’s Mac Mini computers (being older, the car doesn’t have a CD player so it made sense to skip a few generations and go fully digital). After some research online there were a few folks who had successfully integrated the mini into their car’s systems but no one had taken the functionality to where I’m envisioning. This series of articles will cover the research, install and evolution of my in car computer system.

Of course it has to handle the audio system (using iTunes for the music library and playback) but I’m thinking about slightly more advanced applications as well. Additional features I’d like to implement are checking email using a broadband wireless card and then having the system read any new messages to me while driving. GPS integration with a simple positioning device can then be linked to something like Google Maps for live traffic conditions. And with an always on internet connection the car can do all sorts of data collection such as sending video streams from in car cameras, providing a great test bed for some of the video streaming projects we’re doing in the office.

To get started, I dove in to the systems others had put together to see the components that seemed to work well and those to avoid.

The key components boiled down to:

• Xenarc 700tsv 7″ USB touchscreen (more on this one later — works great, just too big for my car)
• CarNetix P1900 power supply with Mac Mini cabling
• Griffin Powermate (programmable function control knob)
• Apple bluetooth keyboard
• Mac mini
• ActiveTuning Nissan AUX Input plug (the silver bullet for getting audio into the existing Bose system in my car)

Following the same process we would for any fancy military system, the next step was creating a system diagram to show all the wiring points, approximate cable lengths and power requirements. It looked like the best mounting setup was to put the mini and power supply in the trunk and run cables for everything else back to the front of the car. I was able to purchase a copy of the service manual for the car which helped immensely in finding the right points to tap. Using the diagram as the master plan, I purchased the components and hooked everything up on a workbench to make sure I was happy with how it all functioned prior to installation. Not wanting to run the auxiliary device power output from the CarNetix supply all the way back up to the front of the car I opted for a simple unpowered USB hub in the dash rather than a powered unit that would need to be switched on and off.

So everything was planned out and tested. Next step — Install Day in part 2.

The decision to move your IT infrastructure from one data center to another is not one that ever should be taken lightly. There can be a considerable investment in planning time and personnel, and there is usually some downtime unless you have purchased twice as much equipment as is needed to do a live cutover. However, by planning it well you can minimize the negative factors and make the transition painless.

We ended up needing to move data centers twice in one year, and our planning made both moves go as smoothly as possible. Our first move was made necessary because of the data center’s policies. Some of these policies (which I won’t get into here) made it difficult or impossible to get our work done. After researching other nearby data centers we moved to a new one, but within a few months it was obvious this data center wasn’t meeting our needs. Although we didn’t want to move again we didn’t really have a choice.

At the time of our first move we had 1 rack of equipment, which had both a mix of our servers and network gear and customer equipment. The services included email, web servers, terminal services, and others, and needed to be up as close to 100% as possible. By the time we moved again we had expanded to two racks, and had started allotting serious downtime from periodic network failures that the data center support personnel could not identify or clear up. As time went on the situation became intolerable and required the second move. In both moves we planned well in advance.

The key item during planning was building a comprehensive checklist. This checklist included every possible aspect of the move that I could think of, from planning our address allocations and usage, notifying customers, dealing with DNS, and quite a few others. I’ve found that in dealing with large, complex tasks (such as moving to a new data center) a growing checklist, planned out in order, helps keep you on track, makes sure you don’t miss anything, and, when you’re moving servers and readdressing at 3:00 AM and incredibly tired, keeps you from losing track of what you have and haven’t already done and helps you avoid making serious mistakes. Next time I’ll get into what we put into the checklist.

Lextech refuses to employ some of the less imaginative sales tactics used by other growing companies. For example, we don’t use obnoxious sales pitches or interrupt families gathered around the dinner table by cold calling them. Why? Because we have faith in our work.

We believe that we can only be as successful as we make our clients. If our clients are successful and happy with the work Lextech has done, they will tell their friends. And they have!

100% of our clients to date were referred to us by previous clients or friends.

This referral helps us immediately establish a higher level of trust and a close working relationship. When our clients trust us, they are more likely to share their real business challenges and pain points - making Lextech more effective at designing custom solutions.

We don’t simply want to be the systems engineering company you trust with your business. We want to be the friend you would trust with the business you have financed by taking out a second mortgage on your family home.

I just had the opportunity to put video conferencing to a real trial by fire in an unexpected setting - a hospital waiting room. The other challenge was making the link using only a cellular broadband card — no ethernet, no wifi.

Much to my surprise in conversations with both the Mac’s iChat doing video over AIM and Skype using video, the conversation and video were very usable. iChat compensated for the limited bandwidth by having good looking but more jerky video (fewer frames per second). Skype was smoother with a higher frame rate but was much fuzzier. It was definitely not on par with a high speed desktop connection, but the ability to have a video connection from essentially anywhere was pretty amazing.

Apple has a (well-earned) reputation for creating products that are simply a pleasure to use. The iPhone springs to mind as a crowning achievement in this regard. But man, do I ever hate Xcode.

Nothing is where I expect it to be. I can’t seem to close a window I don’t want without closing the whole project. When I try to debug an application, I can’t get the present value of variables in all levels of the stack trace.

I’m willing to consider the possibility that it works great, and I’m just doing it wrong. Maybe it’s just the inertia of being comfortable with my current IDE. But in any event, when I found myself needing to write and compile a C application using OSX libraries, I let out a bit of a groan.

Imagine my relief when I finally figured out how make Eclipse see the OSX libraries. All you have to do is add an entry to Project Properties-> C/C++ Build-> Settings-> Tool Settings-> MacOS X C Linker-> Miscellaneous-> Linker flags. For each framework you want to use, just add:

-framework framework_name

For instance, after adding:

-framework QuickTime

I was able to use the Quicktime libraries by adding the appropriate import to my files:

#include <QuickTime/QuickTimeComponents.h>

Easy, right? I would add the caveat that I have not yet done any GUI development using the native OSX libraries, so YMMV. Xcode may still be your best choice when making interfaces using Cocoa and Quartz. But if you just want to write C/C++ applications to unleash your Mac’s inner Unix, Eclipse is hard to beat.

Lextech will provide technology expertise for the 2008 Whiteboard Challenge held on June 17th. This event gives local applicants an opportunity to present their innovative ideas to members of the Chicago entrepreneurial community and a chance win a $5,000 prize courtesy of Bell, Boyd & Lloyd.

Presenters have 5 minutes to describe their innovative idea, business concept or solution to a known problem to a panel of experts using an interactive whiteboard system. Lextech will provide the interactive systems and act as a technology resource. Recording devices will be set up on the whiteboards to capture and display each presenterʼs notes and drawings on additional screens.

“As an active member of the Chicagoland entrepreneurial community, Lextech understands the need to encourage new innovations and novel ideas that can be the catalyst for future growth,” says Program Leader of Early Market Partners, Inc. David Smith, “We are delighted to have their involvement in the 2008 Whiteboard Challenge as a demonstration of their commitment to the vitality of our local technology community.”

Submit your innovation or learn more about the event at http://www.mitefchicago.org. Applications are due by May 18, 2008. Final presenters will be selected by a team of experienced entrepreneurs by June 2, 2008.

Office Express President, Bill Raspe’s e-commerce website experienced 3 to 4 days of downtime per month. Maintaining, updating, and adding new features to the website was incredibly difficult and often impossible because the vendor gave Bill limited access to the back end of his system.

He wanted to change vendors and upgrade the system, but because a large portion of an e-commerce company’s business is generated through internet searches, the old website URLs had to remain live to maintain search engine rankings once the new site went up. The success of his business hinged on a smooth upgrade.

What did Lextech do?

Lextech’s systems engineers started by converting the old Microsoft ASP website on a shared server to open source technologies on a dedicated (private and secure) server, which was more cost effective. Project engineers even trained Office Express personnel in the PHP programming language, so they could make changes and updates to the site whenever they wanted. Lextech engineers also followed a very structured plan to link the old website back to the new one and test each link in various search engines. The search engine rankings remained intact.

What is the big deal?

Limited access, excessive downtime, and costly licensing fees are unacceptable barriers to growth. Office Express said sayonara to their crappy vendor, and welcomed Lextech’s cooperative methodology. Since the upgrade, envelopesexpress.com’s conversion ratio has improved by 60%.

The guys over at CakePHP have whipped up something full of awesomeness for the PHP community. They have provided a tool to make our lives easier and more productive by removing the hassles of creating redundant boilerplate code using a framework to cleanly build web applications. I’ll briefly delve into what Cake is and why I think it is so awesome.

The main concept to learn behind cake is the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture. This basically means that the code to handle data (model), the code to handle html (view), and the code to handle logic (controller) is neatly broken up into three separate files. In essence, the controller gets data from the model (usually synonymous with a database table) and figures out what it wants to do with the data, then supplies the view with the processed data. Additionally, if you want to get started quickly, you can declare a variable called scaffold in your controller and CRUD pages will be auto-magically created for that table in your database!

To take things a step further, you can run a command line utility that can create permanent copies of these CRUD pages and help you define relationships between your models. The CakePHP project is very active and I’ve only glanced on a couple of the cool features.

Once you get in the mindset of using it, which includes familiarizing yourself with some naming conventions and taking full advantages of models instead of making raw queries, you’ll be creating PHP sites in a fraction of the time. (For further information about getting started, please look at The CakePHP Manual.)

In the old days, big companies hired clipping services to keep track of mentions of their company, competitors and specific markets. Today, using tools like Google Alerts, it’s possible for anyone to have real time, targeted information delivered for free.

We tested a number of the web clipping services (from free to very expensive) and just didn’t find anything as easy to use or as effective as the free Google Alerts system. Once you have a Google account (typically meaning you have a gmail account) you just sign up for the alerts. You can enter in whatever search terms you want to cover. If you’re looking to overload your email box, just put in something broad like ‘iPhone’, but I’d recommend using extremely targeted searches for things like client company names, key members of their team or competitors. A great way to help get the right articles is to use the exact person or company name enclosed in double quotes in the search so you can be sure it is an exact match.

The intelligence provided by these alerts can give great insights into the challenges clients are facing, where they are headed and changes in their organization that you might not normally hear about. It will also tell you when they update their web site so you know when to take another look. It’s a great feeling being able to bring a positive article about a client to their attention.

Don’t forget to include a search for your own company and your name to see what press you’re getting or any web comments that may be referring to you too.

Here at Lextech, we have internal training events a couple times a month. We take occasional surveys to find out what technologies people are interested in learning about, then figure out who among us knows it or might be interested in picking it up. These teachers are then cajoled into giving a class with the promise of free food. The classes take the form of either a brief overview during lunch, or a more in-depth look during the evening.

We’ve all been very excited about the release of the iPhone SDK (official and otherwise), so an evening training event covering that was a no-brainer. After a brief discussion, it became clear that I would be the easiest one to talk into leading the class since I respond well to flattery.

I decided that the focus of the class should be creating extremely intuitive applications that make use of the iPhone’s rather unique user interface. Coincidentally I had just finished up a project that involved controlling a pan & tilt camera from a PC, and this struck me as the perfect application for the iPhone.

Rather than throw an entire application at people and then try to go through all the different pieces, I thought it would be best to take an incremental approach. I presented the application in essentially the same way that I created it: one layer at a time. For the sake of clarity, each layer was shown as a separate Xcode project that built upon the previous one.

These are the different layers I used:

Video

The first task was to display live video from the camera we would be using. This seemed like a great layer to start with, since it provides an immediate usefulness all by itself. It would also be quick and easy to implement, or so I thought.

The output from the video cameras is analog, so we use a video server (an Axis 241Q) to digitize and stream it. It works great and is easy to use; just set it up and enter the URL in QuickTime.

Unfortunately it turns out that the iPhone does not support RTSP/RTP, the standard protocol for streaming video. After scratching my head for a while, I figured out how to use a UIWebView to render some HTML and Javascript that displayed the video as Motion JPEG. As an added bonus, this has much less lag than using QuickTime for live video.

Network

The server software that controls the pan & tilt cameras is Java based. Fortunately we already had an experimental AJAX interface to the Java server. All I had to do was create an NSURLConnection to talk to the existing web interface.

Touch

Now we get to the part that really shines on the iPhone: the user interface. Our standard GUI interfaces for these cameras have buttons for moving left - right (pan), and up - down (tilt). The obvious iPhone enhancement was to implement these controls using finger flicks and drags, just like scrolling in the other native applications. I just had to override the default touch behavior and send commands to the server using the network layer.

Bonjour

The metaphorical cherry-on-top for ease of use was auto-configuration. Instead of the user needing to know what cameras were available and, even worse, having to type in the addresses and other configuration data, we used Bonjour to make it all automagical.

Apple provides some very nice Java interfaces for Bonjour. It was quite simple to setup the Java server to broadcast information about the cameras using a custom service type. The application is set up as a listener for that service, and when the user launches it they are presented with a real-time list of all the cameras available on the local network. All they have to do is click on the one they want to control.

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The class went even better than I could have hoped. We all learned a bunch of cool stuff that’s going to give us a real head-start on developing iPhone applications. To try out their newly acquired skills, the class attendees even extended the application I presented, adding a pinching interface for zooming the camera. I was a bit surprised when they fixed the compilation errors and it just worked perfectly on the first go. It was a pretty impressive demonstration of the platform’s unique capabilities.

And really, this is what I hope to see more of on the iPhone. Applications that don’t just blandly replicate existing desktop functionality, but instead provide tools conceived within the framework of the revolutionary iPhone interface. Tools that exceed desktop functionality.

Applying the iPhone’s capabilities to existing real world systems is going to be a large new revenue source for companies in the next 12-24 months. Adding a mobile interface to systems that traditionally required a user to be sitting at their desk will open up many new opportunities. The new touch screen interface will also change how we interact with those systems, creating all new ways to use technology.

As an example, traditional surveillance systems use a joystick or mouse to control camera positioning. With the iPhone, the user has the potential of a much more intuitive interface to drag the camera around and zoom in on things by pinching the picture.

Here’s a little sample of one of the internal projects we’re working on right now showing off the capabilities of the iPhone.

Part 1 - iPhone controlling surveillance equipment

Part 2 - zoomed in view of iPhone

 

Update #2: We’ve put up a survey asking about the types of features you’d like to see in an iPhone/iPod based security & surveillance app.  

Update:  Based on the feedback we’ve received so far, we’d be happy to let you know more about the application as it gets closer to release.  If you’d like to receive an email when the app is ready, please enter your contact info below.

 

Name

Email*

What items would you like us to alert you on?

iPhone security app

Other iPhone apps

Custom iPhone development for your company

The team here has been working diligently on a wide variety of iPhone apps for quite a while.  Having our official development keys, we’re cranking things out using the new OS.  We’ve even been holding internal training events on building iPhone apps. We are building applications to extend some of our clients’ systems as well as stand alone apps that will be available through the Apple store.

As they each get closer to being ready for distribution we’ll be posting more details here.  First up — controlling uber high end surveillance equipment using the iPhone!

After years of business and technology strategizing with us, VR66 received the financial backing they needed to transform their video delivery pilot into a revenue generating product with international appeal.

VR66’s product is a video delivery platform that trickle downloads video messages to desktop PC’s outside the web browser, so users can view content on or off line. Think YouTube - plus better video quality, minus the effort it takes to visit the website. The current video content consists of movie trailers and commentary.

What did Lextech do?

Alex (our CEO) personally took on the role of VR66 technology advisor and part-time CTO, while Lextech engineers dove into the development process. They started by re-architecting the VR66 system to provide scalability, fault-tolerance and system redundancy.

The update took the system from 2 servers to 20 including implementation of web load balancers, live server fail-over and a database cluster to remove any single points of failure. The new infrastructure was then load tested to verify that it would handle 2+ million users and deliver terabytes of video data daily.

What’s the big deal?

The system upgrades allowed VR66 to launch their business, making significant progress on their path to profitability. In early January, they successfully launched the Trailer Room on Cinemas Online in the United Kingdom. May holds possible launch dates in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Mainland China. Congrats VR66!!

Ok, I’ll preface this article mentioning that having and managing more then one computer at a time is a not typical problem for most people.

However, for the typical nerdy keyboard jockey it can become a cumbersome task. Thankfully, the guys over at http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/ have developed a cross-platform tool to effortlessly share your keyboard, mouse, and clipboard over any combination of OS X, Windows, and Linux computers. I’ve had my MacBook Pro, Windows XP, and Ubuntu 7.04 machines all lined up and controllable with a single mouse and keyboard without any extra hardware. You can even sync screen savers on most systems.

All thats required is a minimal knowledge of networking to modify a configuration file on the host machine to correctly point to client machines on the network and configure their screen positions (left of host, above host etc. etc.). I’d strongly suggest giving this a shot before you run out to the store for a hardware solution.

Picture this:

I am at Lextech interviewing for my current job. I have been getting to know as much about Lextech and about many of the folks here as they probably got to know about me. I’m liking what I hear and I’m mentally picturing the benefits of being a Lextech employee: Good salary, benefits, paid time off, learning opportunities, interesting projects, free snacks and drinks, and a great team to work with. Even though it means moving from another state, it really isn’t that hard to make up my mind.

I tell Alex that I’ve decided to come on-board and we shake hands. Moments later, I get the first of many pleasant surprises: a beautiful new iPhone.

Now THAT is instant gratification. I know I made the right choice.

Most systems (especially web applications) are built with very little thought about the post implementation life cycle of the system. One of the key components to staying ahead of the growth curve of a system (and quickly diagnosing problems) is a monitoring system that includes key system metrics.

Ping monitoring a server to determine if it’s alive is helpful to identify critical failures but does very little to tell you in advance when you’re going to run out of disk space or need to upgrade the server. The monitoring system should include key server level parameters (hard drive free space, memory used, CPU usage, network interface bandwidth, disk activity) as well as application specific items (numbers of users, page views, transaction counts, queue lengths, etc.) Having this information available for trending analysis makes it very managable to plan for system upgrades well in advance of the system going BOOM.

Identifying those key system metrics up front and building them into the application initially will be much more cost effective than try to retrofit them into an existing infrastructure. Putting in place a simple web based dashboard that includes graphs over time of those metrics allows any member of the technical or operational team to identify potential pitfalls.

I’m proud to say that through the hard work of a bunch of folks on our team, Lextech has a new online image. The web site does a much better job communicating our focus on building technology based revenue streams for clients and this blog will let us get lots of content out to the world much quicker.

With 6+ writers for the blog you’ll see all kinds of useful revenue generating ideas and technology tidbits appearing.