I Disabled Flash in Google Chrome and I’m not Looking Back

Between the recent series of Hacking Team zero-day Flash exploits and the declining battery life & performance on my 2013 MacBook Air, I decided to disable the Flash plug-in in Google Chrome (via chrome://plugins). I previously used the Flashcontrol extension to selectively enable Flash – but this wasn’t enough.

So how’s this working out?

The result is perhaps not surprising – but it’s certainly pleasing so far. It appears that most sites detect the absence of the Flash plug-in and instead show HTML5 video. And HTML5 video runs much smoother than most Flash video.

On the downside there are some sites that rely on the Flash player – DRM content sites such as Spotify, HBOGO, and Hulu and live video streaming sites such as Livestream, Ustream, YouTube Live. But it’s a minor tradeoff since I mostly use the mobile/TV versions of the DRM sites and I can re-enable the Flash plug-in on a case-by-case basis for live video streaming sites.

One minor gripe is that HTML5 video seems to take a little longer to load on some of my regular web sites.  YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook and Apple.com are very snappy and seem highly optimized for HTML5 video.  But some sites such as Vice.com and TheVerge.com use either substandard HTML5 video players or have poor video content CDNs. None of this is a deal breaker since the video loads and plays just fine – it just takes a little longer.

And how about overall system performance? My MacBook Air’s fans have been silent and my laptop is cool as a cucumber.  There have been no random hangups in Chrome or crashing Chrome processes/tabs.  This all might be anecdotal since it has not been very long – about 12 hours.  However, it feels much better.

Linus calls Linux ‘bloated and huge’ • The Register

Citing an internal Intel study that tracked kernel releases, Bottomley said Linux performance had dropped about two per centage points at every release, for a cumulative drop of about 12 per cent over the last ten releases. “Is this a problem?” he asked.

via Linus calls Linux ‘bloated and huge’ • The Register.

Linus goes onto say that kernel bloat is unacceptable but it’s also probably unavoidable.  Personally, I think this is one peril of a monolithic kernel.  Can’t really fault Linus for this even though the releases go out with his blessing.  Feature inclusion is a by-product of preventing forking.  We want everyone to use and contribute back to the same kernel sources.  Perhaps it’s time that the gentoo system is more closely examined and made more user-friendly?

Don’t Ignore Your Users, Empower Them

Michael Arrington ends his post about Facebook’s acquiescence to user feedback with:

Making users happy is a suckers game. Pushing the envelope is what makes you a winner. 

I don’t agree.  One of the largest (if not the largest) provider of end-user web services is Google.  So – how does Google implement change without such user outcry hitting the headlines of all the major blogs and news outlets?  First, there’s transparency and collaboration.   Ideas come from within Google and from outside via efforts like Greasemonkey or random open source mash-up projects.  

Second, and more importantly, these features are incrementally made available on an opt-in basis until a critical mass of users have accepted a critical mass of features… leading to a new release.  Through it all, there are statistics informing the designers and developers of the success and/or failure of individual features.  In turn, there is a cyclical refinement of features based on reviewing end-user statistics AND end-user feedback.  Finally, all of this is happening on a controllable scale without alienating the user.

As I’ve written previously, Facebook’s mistakes are not in their design, but in how the design disempowered it’s core of established users.  It reminds me of when Microsoft bragged about how the completely redesigned Office 2007 tested extremely well with novice and new users.  Are these really your core customers?  

Google empowers their users by giving them random opt-in beta access to features under development.  Nothing is imposed, very little is disrupted, and ultimately (and most critically) the user has control.  

In other words, if you hate the feature you’ll probably try it, hate it, turn it off (an important usability vector), and ignore it as a beta feature that’s being tested.  If you love it, you’ll not only use it, but you’ll talk it up, tweet about it, or even write a blog entry that sings it’s praise.  

Bottom Line:  A happy user is a user that feels like he has control.

Sage Timberline Office, Citrix, and Error TS 3723

TS 3723 – This error occurs because the application can’t find or access the Timberline Accounting application share on your server.  According to Timberline KB, the problem is that the “System Directory” key is not set properly.  This is usually not true.  In my experience, the problem occurs for one of 2 reasons.

(1) Redirected Drive Mappings – when I tested the Timberline applications in Remote Desktop mode (instead of ICA Desktop or  Seamless Application mode).  I never saw this error.  So when I logged into the server in ICA Desktop mode I realized that the drive mappings were all screwed up because Citrix tries to map new drives in the remote session BACK to your local computer’s drives (A,C,D, etc).  It does this by starting with drive V: and working backwards.  Unfortunately, my Timberline Application folder is drive T:    When my users were logging on, Citrix was remapping Citrix session drive V: to local drive A:, Citrix session drive U: to local drive C:, and Citrix session drive T: to drive D: or E: (optical drive).  Damn that’s cold!

Using this Citrix KB article (http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX238200), here’s the fix I used:

  1. Navigated to the registry key “HKLM/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control/Citrix”
  2. Created a new String value called “InitialClientDrive” and set the value to “S:”

(2) Asynchronous Execution – when the user launches the Timberline application, he is basically logging into a fully server session.  This means his profile and settings are loading and any logon scripts are running (including DRIVE MAPPINGS!!).  By default, this is an asynchronous process, which means that Timberline will not wait until logon scripts are finished before executing.   If Timberline launches before your Timberline Application mapping on the file server is connected, you will see the TS 3723 error.

Here’s how I fixed this:

  1. Moved the Citrix server into a new OU in the Active Directory called “TerminalServers”
  2. Created a new Group Policy on the “TerminalServices” OU  called “Citrix and TS Servers Policy”
  3. Enabled the setting “Run logon scripts synchronously” setting in the new policy under Computer Configuration::Administrative Templates::System::Scripts

Server Consolidation Begins

I am implementing Citrix Access Essentials for a handful of my remote users.  I bought a new beefy DL360 G5 w/20GB RAM,  2X 2.83 Quad Core Xeons w/12MB cache to run it.  But I reconsidered this and I think it will be overkill.  Plus, if my only Citrix machine dies, remote productivity goes with it.  Instead, I decided to install VMware ESXi 3.5 and migrate my current Citrix test system into it and allocate it more resources.  The balance of my plan is to migrate my other two remaining DL360 G5 machines to VMware ESXi piecemeal and then migrate the servers running on my older HP Proliant DL380 G3 Packaged Cluster into this new VMware ESXi farm.  The older cluster hardware will make an ideal iSCSI storage target for the VMware boxen.  Trouble is:  which storage target? and how much can I spend on this?

In testing openfiler 2.3 storage appliance as VMware VM, I am finding that it is buggy and crash prone.  But worst of all, the openfiler UI is poorly designed and doesn’t protect the user from accidentally exploiting it’s own bugs.  There’s also no status console that indicates the state of an action let alone the result.

My next step is to compare iSCSI target software that will run on Windows from DataCore and Rocket Division.  Both are probably very pricey.  I also am not clear on whether they support a clustered/mirrored iSCSI target service.

Cisco Linksys SGE-2000P VLANs

Been trying to understand how to use Cisco IP phones with LinkSys Business Switches – the SGE2000P in particular (now branded Cisco SMB SGE2000P).  The goal is to plug the Cisco IP phones directly into the SGE2000P and daisy chain a gigabit connection to a PC.  There’s no standard way to specify a data VLAN on a desktop/laptop PC therefore it will go in the “default” VLAN – the data VLAN.  Cisco IP phones (and most IP phones) allow you to specify your voice VLAN.  The recommended approach with Cisco IP phones is to use a Cisco switch since Cisco IP phones use the Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP) to find the switch and automagically configure separate voice and data VLANs on the phone and on port in which it’s connected.  However, a 24-port Cisco Gigabit PoE switch can cost between $4500 to $8000.    Can’t justify it.   😦

With the SGE2000P switches in play, I can do just about everything a Cisco switch can do. However, it appears there’s no way to force a specific Administrative VLAN on the Cisco IP phones without either (a) doing it manually on each phone OR (b) modifying the device firmware.  Unfortunately, I don’t have access to the firmware since the phones are managed by a hosted VoIP provider.  The manual approach raises concerns as well.   Changes may not persist if my VoIP provider pushes out a new firmware to all of their customers’ Cisco IP phones.

Anyone have any ideas?

Michelada

I went searching for a Michelada recipe and came across this one in the comments of this article.  I think it needs more heat and salt and perhaps some tamarind.

From drinksmixer.com via Michelada recipe.:

I’m a real Mexicanposted by Ruben @ 02:23AM, 10/16/06

Your Michelada is way off. Real Mexicans from Mexico never use lemons or soy sauce. We use only fresh key limes. Also you forgot the clamato. Here is the real Michelada recipie from a real mexican bartender.

Ingredients:
*12 oz. Mexican Beer, non-dark, (Corona, Dos XX….)
*6 oz Motts Clamato
*2 dashes of premium worcestershire sauce (Lea & Perrins)
*2 dashes Tabasco brand hot sauce
*juice from 2 non-yellow key limes
*1 pinch coarse ground black pepper (Mcormick or from a pepper grinder)
*1 pinch sea salt

Mix all the ingredients except the beer into a shaker and shake briefly. Pour Clamato mix simoultaneously with beer into a 22 oz pilsner glass

*1 pinch sea salt

Reset Your Mac OS X System Keychain

After deleting the default user account and recreating it in OS X, I tried to access the System keychain and kept receiving this error message:

After some digging around, I found this very useful little snippet about unlocking the System Keychain on the Apple Discussion Forums:

You can’t unlock the system.keychain – the password is known only to the system. If you need to remove items from it, open Terminal and type:
 
 sudo systemkeychain -vfcC
 
This will create a new, blank system keychain.

The options are documented here.

Once you have recreated the keychain, you can test if it unlocks properly with:
 
 systemkeychain -vt
 
The options used above are:
-v = verbose
-f = force
-c = create if needed
-C = setup system
-t = test unlock

Edward Bernays – the father of modern propganda

“Edward Louis Bernays (November 22, 1891 – March 9, 1995) is considered one of the fathers of the field of public relations along with Ivy Lee. Combining the ideas of Gustave LeBon and Wilfred Trotter on crowd psychology with the psychoanalytical ideas of his uncle, Sigmund Freud, Bernays was one of the first to attempt to manipulate public opinion using the psychology of the subconscious.” [more from Wikipedia]

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. …We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. …In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons…who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.” [Quoted from Bernays’ book “Propoganda”]

After the Great Depression, Roosevelt implemented the New Deal – which pushed for more government projects and direct spending in correcting social problems, with the blame for ills falling upon American Business. But American Businesses united under the banner of the first (and still standing) corporate oligopoly, National Association of Manufacturers (NAM). Edward Bernays consulted with the NAM and using his understanding of human psychology, his philosophy, and his personal political beliefs transformed the American citizens into American consumers.

[BBC Documentary: The Century of the Self]