I have just started to discover the power of Google Maps and BlackBerry Maps on my Bold 9000. These applications work so seamlessly with other applications in the BlackBerry Smartphone. On recent trips to different towns I started to use the GPS to navigate the way. The first and most annoying thing I have noticed is that the company I work for has a (good and required) security policy that auto locks my device after 10 minutes. “So how am I suppose to use this GPS without touching it and violate the distracted driving law?” The first thought to mind was an idea that when using a GPS program the device would ignore the auto lock command. After security ran through my head I knew this would be a bad idea for a few reasons. If you have your device in your window at a gas station and you’re filling up your tank, along comes Mr. Thief and sticks their hand in and yoink your unlocked device is gone. The BlackBerry will stay unlocked as long as the GPS is up when not in use. The other bad idea to that would be a BlackBerry smart thieve would just activate your GPS after they stole your device to keep it unlocked until they we able to retrieve what they required.
I had to come up with a better idea then just keeping the BlackBerry unlocked. The idea came to me the other day and it was so simple I almost ignore my own idea. The idea was better found by changing the question to “Why does RIM have to switch the screen off when the device is locked?”. RIM could still lock the device after 10 minutes according to policy but a program could still update the screen. With this method the phone would continue to be secure but users would not need to worry about policy auto locking the device when they are using programs like GPS or media info showing when driving. This would need to be an open API that had a simple binary value of 0 or 1 The user could even set this in the program with a check mark with the simple question of “Show application if device is locked when active” If this application is active when auto lock triggers the screen will continue to display its information. All developers could then design their application for a screen saver type of mode to show their application screen. This would not only be great for GPS, BlackBerry Music player but applications for Geocaching, you could set your coordinates into the program you know you have to walk for a few KM so you holster your BlackBerry . You could pull it back out 20 minutes later going down a trail and still see the map or compass direction on the device without needing to unlock it just to see how far you still have to go. Any key press would bring up the unlock dialog as usual when the device is locked.
I would like to see any input others have on this and how we could make a better secure device but keep our functionality.
Update 2011.02.24 – So from installing BES 5 I have learned that there is a new security policy you can set that specifies if 3rd party applications have the ability to reset the timeout count. Since setting this I am able to GPS, watch podcast videos without the screen locking up. YES!!!. This is again a work around and I don’t know how I feel about the device possibly staying unlocked as long as a user has a 3rd party application running. There is also a forced timeout that cannot be reset that you can specify so that no matter what after x minutes even if there is activity it will lock the device. My Initial thoughts are still a good one, force the lock of the device after 10 minutes but leave the screen up to continue to display GPS or Album Art etc but only for non sensitive programs like music or GPS apps. Thanks commenter “Torch 11″ for making me look!
If you are a IT admin or a user of Adobe and have ever tried to use Adobe’s installers you have most likely ripped out your hair out on more then one occasion.
Note the story is long watch the video if you dont have time
Cover your kids ears!
Seriously let me go off on a rant here…. . I don’t know about you but corporations pay a lot of money to buy these programs, it’s Adobe you have no choice. With this kind of money spent on a program I would expect them to install the first time every time, you’re paying for quality and maturity in the application right? The Adobe developer team that creates these installers should be ashamed to call themselves developers. I have wasted more time on installs then I can ever remember in my life as an IT administrator. The worst part is that once you finally do get your software to start installing the installer must stop for a tea break because it takes 15+ minutes on a x64 machine to install. Adobe, why does it take 15 minutes plus to install a program? What is your installer doing? Most installers just expand some files to your system and do some registry connections and additions, a couple of icons and it’s done. But wait it even get better after this, after waiting 15 minutes for the install to run and you try to register the product it says “Sorry there are too many activations” so you have to call and wait another 20 minutes on hold to the same looped 5 minute computerized song. Last time I called I had someone tell me that I need to activate my product by phone and that was my problem. I explained that no that was not the problem, the problem is that the activations have been used up for the product and if they could deactivate all other installs and add one install to the database I could activate it over the internet just like they do every other time I call. They told me the phone activation was the only way to fix this problem. Personally I know from working with Adobe support rats that arguing with them helps nothing so I just went along with it to get them off the phone. Even though I know that activating by phone will not allow me to deactivate the product later and I will have to call in again next time I need to activate this program. You can see the frustration on a single install their product can cause and this is just a normal day for a person trying to install Adobe products.
Warning long story… (I warned you!)
Back to the real problem at hand, the installer. So normally when you purchase Adobe Creative products online you have the option to purchase media for some extra cash which is around $30. The normal person will chose the option to just download the installer files and just burn them to DVD. When you download your product the download usually gives you is a single exe self extracting compressed file or a small executable that expands a 7Z file to the destination of your choice. You download your files and run the exe to uncompress the files. For the most part it will run or ask to run the installer after the extraction is done. If you are one of the lucky few and get your product to install you will see that Adobe also nicely leaves all its extracted files behind for you to clean up, I hope you remember when you extracted them too! I joke that it’s kind of like when a MAC user borrow my thumb drive, the MAC OS leaves what I like to call “MAC poops” in every folder so you know where its been. So again thanks to the installer team for asking the option to clean up its mess. Because the extraction takes about 5 minutes on a fast machine, I decided to copy the extracted files to a DVD. This way you can just run the setup next time without waiting for files to extract. If you use the extracted files to continue the install you normally don’t have any issues. So you put your DVD of the files in your repository and wait for the next install.
2 weeks later you have another install to do so you grab the DVD you created and run the setup. The setup asks the normal questions as to where you want to install the program and language etc.. You are then presented with the summary screen and the final button to start the install. When you press the install button you get this generic annoying error:
The screenshot above are from different Adobe products.
To give Adobe some credit CS4 installer is much better then most CS3 installers because it actually tells you enough to be useless. As you can see by the first screenshot that you need to insert your media in the drive that the installer was started from. CS3 installers just tell you to insert your media to continue no drive listed nothing. Both don’t tell you anything else other then the setup believes the files it is looking for are not in the location it thinks they should be in. So instead of asking for the file it’s looking for it just reports a generic non helpful errors….. gee thanks Adobe.
The first time I saw this error I had to scratch my head because the media was in the drive. Then I started to blame myself that I did something wrong creating the DVD and I must have corrupted the files somehow. So I start again and make another DVD only to get the same error. I start to search the internet and find hundreds of posts to this issue with no real solution other then keeping the folder path the same as is extracted to your desktop. I read that you cannot just copy the files to root of the DVD you must also keep the folder structure the same. I swear to myself a bit thinking any novice programmer knows how to make an installer that is relative to the setup.exe location so that you never have to deal with absolute file locations. Whatever, there the huge software company they must know or have a reason why they do this (other then making it a pain in the ass to burn their files to a DVD) I create the DVD with the proper folder structure as the self extractor created and try to reinstall. I get the same error again. So now I’m stumped because this is a brand new computer and has never had an Adobe product on it. I know to check for other installs of Adobe products because in Adobe’s infinite wisdom if you have a CS3 product to install but you have already installed a CS4 product it messes something up with the installer and you must uninstall everything and install your products in a lowest CS number to highest to fix the problem. Sometimes this does not work and to fix it you need to format your system and reinstall the OS.
The Horror of it all
I am left with no other choice, only one option left, call Adobe support {insert scary music and lightning here}. If any of you have ever called Adobe’s support department you will know what I am talking about. Their support is mostly offshore people with bad attitudes, I call these people support rats. Now I can understand their bad attitudes I really can, imagine if your job was to listen to people complain about Adobe’s poor workmanship! I would reach a breaking point and start to care less sooner then later. I take the plunge and call support and talk to a gentlemen to log my support ticket. The call was on hold for 45 minutes before being answered. I complained about the wait time and the support rat tells me that if I would like I can open an online ticket with them for future reference instead of calling to save time. “Are you kidding?” Online support is a 48 hour working day turn around system, it takes almost 2 weeks just for them to understand the problem. Not to mention waiting 48 hours to get a response like “is the power on?”. I want to talk to a live support rat until they have solved my problem. With that said my support rat understood exactly what I was saying and he was going to do his best to help me solve this problem (thanks for the script talk) So after some silly but required questions I tell him that I am running Windows 7 x64, at the drop of that he tells me that the product does not support x64 and that is the problem. He then tried to resolve my problem as this and close the ticket, he was certain this was the problem. I assured him that I have installed this program many times before on the same or similar hardware with no issues using their downloaded installer, as well the problem also occurs on XP Professional.
This guy went on with many reasons to give me for the root of the error. Each one was way off and completely ridiculous to be honest. At one point he asked me if my machine was a networked machine, I answered yes and he said that Adobe does not support network installs. ??? I questioned him because I was not installing this from the network or a network drive, I only say yes to that question because my machine is on a network. He said he understood but they do not support machines that are networked. At this point my jaw dropped and I asked him to confirm. I said you do realize that almost everyone has a networked computer of some kind. I think the support rat could tell that his BS answers were not going to fool me and get me off the phone. So he decided to do the next best thing. Give me a answer that would take time to prove wrong. His resolution was that that because I burned the installed to a DVD that I must have corrupted the files. He would keep the case open and to call back in if the problem continues. I need to use the original download or media from Adobe to re-burn the files to DVD.
I asked him if he could send me a link to get the original download so that I could start fresh because I deleted the download exe. I was told they will no longer send links to download old programs. Old programs?! CS3 is an old program to you? It’s only 1 version behind the current! At this point I was fed up with the crap I was getting from him and decided to go on a personal vendetta and solve this problem myself.
A little bit of background
I have worked in the IT field for about 10 years now and have been deep into computers since I was about 12, so I know what I am doing around a PC. Since my position at a advertising company I have had to have hands on more and more with Adobe Creative products. In the last 2 years I have faced this issue more then 6 times, most of them on a brand new install. I must confess that only 1 time did I get this error where I was able to uninstall a trial CS4 product to get my CS3 product installed. 1 other time I just gave up and found the original exe to install the program with instead of the custom DVD. At the same time it was chafing my ass that Adobe would not allow you burn the extracted files to DVD, why would it not work?
I’ll do it myself
I know from my years of computer destruction and reconstruction I could fix this issue without Adobe and their useless support. From my days of debugging I remembered a really useful tools created by Winternals called “Process Monitor“. Process Monitor is a standalone application that allows you to watch what an application does to your file system and registry and much more, but to put it simply that’s what I needed it for.
If you start the installer for your Adobe product and get to the point where the installer keeps asking you to insert your media. You can then start Process Monitor (procmon.exe) and create a fileter. You need to create a filter because if you run this program with no filters on you will see that it can populate almost 1000+ logs a second, this will be hard to sort through. I create a filter for Path that begins with V: (or what ever drive letter your DVD ROM is) V is my virtual drive for mounting ISOs. You would then clean your log so you know it’s cleared before the next step. I will then click the continue button on the installer. This will cause the installer to look for its files again. If you watch procmon.exe you will see a few lines populate. Once the data has been logged you can stop capturing. For myself I use Virtual Media Drives and ISOs to install everything this is why you will see why we are using the V drive. If you look through the logs you should see a step that looks for a file in the payloads folder and a failure beside it.
For some reason the installer is looking for a file located in “V:\Adobe CS4\payloads\AdobeALMAnchorService2-mul”. If I double check my install media the file is there. I then look close and see that the path is not the same path as my media has on it. This is not where I started the exe from Adobe! For some reason when Adobe installs from a media drive, instead of using the path from which the exe was launched Adobe has decided to use a hard coded value that the payloads folder must be in predetermined directory off the root called “Adobe CS4″. So this is why the error always comes up asking me to insert my media because it is looking in the wrong place for my files.
I opened my ISO and created the folder structure it was looking for and moved the filed into that directory, I tried to install and I finally got progress.
The Ending So that is my story, sorry it was so long but it had to be told, but it does come with one question that I hope Adobe reads and give me an official answer, “When are you going to replace your developers?”
Short Story
Adobe’s Creative installers seem to be dynamic when run from a HDD, meaning that it knows the path where the file was executed from and looks for its other files in that same directory. No matter where I extract my files to the installer always work (as long as there is not a different installer error).
When I run the installer form removable media like a DVD or ISO image (flash card has not been tested) the installer is no longer dynamic and is static and looks for all its installer files in a folder “Adobe CS4″. No matter where you place your files it cannot find them and will always ask for the install media. Unless you put it in this one directory it will always fail. You must re-master your DVD or ISO to follow their path
I have created a list below that I want to keep up to date with different dir locations on media that you are required to place all the extracted files in
Adobe Contribute CS4 – Place all files in a folder called Adobe CS4 in the root of the media Adobe Flash CS3 – Place all files in a folder called Adobe CS3 in the root of the media Adobe Photoshop CS3 – Place all files in a folder called Adobe CS3 in the root of the media Adobe Photoshop CS5 – Place all files in a folder called Adobe CS5 in the root of the media (Thanks NaN) Adobe Flash Pro CS5/11 – Place all files in a directory called Adobe Flash Professional CS5 in the root of the media Adobe Creative Suite CS5 Production Premium – Place all files in the root of the media
Well as most of you know last week RIM suffered not 1 but 2 major outages to there NOC (Network Operations Center). This occurred due to the fact that by design BlackBerry’s are designed with security in mind and being paramount. BlackBerry’s are in my opinion one of the most secure devices to use when dealing with sensitive emails and data transmissions (The US government military use them so I am guessing they are secure enough for you and I). The reason BlackBerry’s are so secure is the design of RIMs security model that routes all traffic through RIMs NOC using encryption, this way all traffic is useless if intercepted and is only decipherable by RIMs servers and services. The problem with this is that if the NOC suffers an outage all services that are supplied by that server or services or NOC are down until the outage can be corrected.
How does this effect you? Well you can’t get email, Live Messenger, Facebook or whatever service went down until its been corrented and brought back online! What!!!! Are you kidding me? (reaction of some consumers to the outage last week). As RIM starts to draw in a larger consumer base that is not business oriented and care less about security this reaction is almost expected. Most business uses like myself will deal and dealt with the outage and continued when it was back up. I live, breath, and die (not yet) by my device. Like most of you I combined all my devices into one for convenience, I carry it with me at all times, so don’t get me wrong I feel your pain when these services go down.
So the question was proposed by Kyle at BlackBerry Cool (http://www.blackberrycool.com/2009/12/28/is-rim-in-need-of-more-redundancy-to-prevent-outages/) does RIM need more redundancy or more NOCs to prevent these outages? That got my brain turning and you all know what happens when my brain starts thinking (no smoke does not come from my ears) it comes up with an idea. So to that question from Kyle I answer….. it depends what caused the outage.
With the last 2 outages caused by a software programming issue with BlackBerry Messenger I would say that no matter how many distributed NOCs or redundant services or services you have it would not have stopped this issue (unless this is the story RIM gave the public because someone tripped over the cord to the network gear and didn’t see it for 8 hours). I believe from what I have read that no matter how many NOCs you have the same problem would have happened to all of them resulting in all of them being effected until it could be corrected.
Well what is the solution then? One of the best solutions…. Give the power to the people! Say what!?! Are you crazy, give people power over the NOC? Nope, give people the control as to how the BlackBerry communicates during an outage. If an outage occurred and consumers were given the choice to switch to an insecure network, most would say “hell yeah, like I care I’m just planning a movie with my wife over IM+”. This of course would be preceded with a “Are you sure you wan to switch to an insecure network?” just to make sure the user know what they are about to do. Users could then continue on there merry way but would not be able to use effected services of course in this case BlackBerry Messenger or anything else that requires the NOC to operate. Once the NOC corrected the problem a push update would go out to all BlackBerry’s and switch them back to the secure RIM NOC connection and notify them the services were back up. I know you business readers are screaming security in your mind right now, don’t worry you would be given the option through BES to block this feature on business devices. These users would be forced to wait for the outage to be corrected before using services again.
From working at major NOCs myself, outages can occur from upstream providers, network issues, failed servers or services on those server. I can assure you there is redundancy in RIMs infrastructure and services or else RIM could not of made it his far without them. I bet the farm on it!
While shopping for a TV the other day I came up with a great idea that either I’m hoping already exists and someone can direct me to a site or take the idea and throw me a few $$$ for the idea. Most big box stores and major resellers of electronics will give price guarantees on products you buy. This is great because Christmas is a short time away and most stores are extending these offers of price matching to the new year. This allows you buy your stuff ahead of time and if you see the price drop for Christmas just show prof and get a refund. Problem with this is that sometimes prices drop for weekends sales or week long sales. It’s hard as a consumer to keep checking the sites every day to see if the price has dropped.
I would love to have a Canadian site (US site too for other users) that would allow me to enter my product information like model number and it would search brick and mortar stores within a 100km range of my Postal Code and alert me to price drops at those stores. If for some reason the store was not in the list you could provide a link to the products page on that site and mark where the price is on the page.
This would rock as a consumer to allow me to have someone else do my leg work of going to the sites every X hours to check on price. If the big box stores got on track they could also use this product to make sure their inventory is properly priced to competitors. This could be a really big money maker if you convinced everyone to get on board.
So there it is my idea out there for the taking. Just remember when you see it to say “Hey that was Caspan’s Idea!!!”
Well it’s Monday and I though I would post some more ideas to my Blog. This idea I have made some emails to people inside RIM but heard nothing back so far, Douglas Soltys I’m looking at you!! (BTW I’m poking fun at Douglas he has made a comment that something this big is not easy to distribute and get feedback from internally) This idea has been born out of the new “distracted driving” law in Canada, Ontario (I’m sure were not the only place that has this law coming into law or already in place). Which basically gives any police officer the right to pull you over and ticket you if they feel like you are being distracted by anything in your car.. Yes this means you smoking guy, holding a Tim Hortons’ cup, steering with your knee, shaving while talking on your cellphone in the rear view mirror!
I support this new law 100% percent, why? well because we have gotten away with it for such a long time and the excuse was always “well it’s not illegal!” I get it because I am one of those people I use my BlackBerry 100 times a day on the road and I have finally started to cut back my use (I only SMS while driving and email at stop lights) I’m kidding BTW… The only part I actually don’t not agree with is not in the law itself but in the enforcement, the grey area of what is considered to be “distracted”? So to me this law says even if I am changing the radio station I am considered to be distracted, I don’t know about you but I can never figure out how to change radio stations on my car stereo. I am a tech whiz but when it comes to radios just give me the old tuner knob back… What can we do about that? well nothing I guess we have always been a victim of the system that says we get to tell you what is right and what is wrong and it is at our discretion to enforce it.
I guess when it comes right down to it we believe driving is a right but it truly is a privilege that we have all slacked on the rules. There is no excuse you could ever give if you took a life while driving and using a distracting device. The same as no one could every give you an excuse good enough if someone took the life of one of your family members. Hind sight is 20/20 and only after would you see how stupid or unimportant it was to make that call or send that message. My one rule of thumb that I always use in security, parenting and every day life is “If you ever had to explain what happened to someone else, Wife, Boss, Police, Judge without lying would they understand and think you make the right decisions?” if the answer is no then you are taking a risk and you must be ready to deal with consequences of those risks.
Well enough seriousness.. being a gadget geek and loving to try all the new technology coming out about 2 years ago I decided to buy an after market stereo for my Mazda Protegé 5. I did a lot of hands on research at my local car stereo dealership Autosonics to see all the head units that they had on display and how well they worked with the Bluetooth that was built into the Curve 8310. You would be surprised with the amount of device that say they are Bluetooth compatible but were just painful or impossible to pair. I finally settled on a Pioneer single Din unit. The stereo worked great with my iPod with Bluetooth streaming audio until I started to use it for hands free and I had quite the problems with it. Needless to say Pioneer stepped upto the plate and admited to an issue that could not be changed and replaced my unit with a different model FH-P800BT. The unit resolved my hands free issues and I was happy again and faith was restored in companies that go the distance to help you.
Now! I make some job changes and some device changes over to the Bold. With the new job comes BES and security polices. One of these new polices on my device is that the device must auto lock after 10 minutes. As a security conscious person I agree with this. One downside to this policy is that you are not allowed to make outgoing calls when the device is locked. This options can be changed but most companies would not want to allow unauthorized use of a cell phone that was lost. So here births the problem which is the reason for this episode. When my BlackBerry is locked in my pocket or in its holster I am not allowed to make outgoing calls. So now to use my hands free I need to first retrieve my device and unlock it, then I can make a hands free call. Kind of defeats the purpose of hands free I think!
Okay so what our our options? Turn off security and don’t lock the device? Nope not going to happen! Allow outgoing calls when the device is locked? Well this would work but again not ideal for security. So what are we left with for options? Well nothing really, if you want to be safe you have to sacrifice security and vice versa. The only other option I can think is invent something!! Now we’re talking my language.
The following is how I believe we can solve this issue on all BlackBerry devices currently out. It would require some work by RIM but I’m sure they are up to it.
My idea involves the need for a verbal password to be spoken to use hands free when the device is locked. What would happen is that when a security policy is pushed or a user sets a policy that involves the device to not allowing outgoing calls when locked and the device is set to lock after X minutes and no verbal password is set. The device would warn the user on the save of these setting as follows “Warning you have chosen to not allow outgoing calls when the device is locked. This will prevent the use of hands free devices! Would you like to set a verbal password to still be able to ensure the use of hands free?” to this question the user could respond Yes or No.. we need to give them and option because to be honest not everyone uses hands free non could they care about touching their device while driving.
If the user chose No then the device would operate as it does now. If the user chose yes it would open a very small application that would ask you to please speak a phrase to use hands free while the device is locked. To which the user would say then repeat 2 times to ensure correctness a pass phrase. The device would then store that data that is unique to that user.
When the user goes to use hands free the next time you will hear the familiar female voice but instead of “Say a command” you will be prompted “Please say your hands free pass phrase!” to this the user can just speak their pass phrase they set earlier. This would unlock only the phone functions of the device and next you would hear the “Say a command!” and you can proceed with your hands free call without ever touching the device.
Once the call is finished the device would lock up again as normal. If you require to make another call you would need to speak your pass phrase again. I’m sure if it became a real problem to people that make a lot of calls in the car to unlock outgoing calls for x minutes so this would allow for some grace period of being unlocked.
As you could imagine the security people out their are saying “Well now everyone in the car knows the pass phrase!” To this I would calm the question with the fact that the pass phrase is tied to the voice of the person that set it and even if someone could record it and play it back to trick the device… they can only make phone calls. Yes it sucks but it is a level of defense to stop the other side of the coin which is unsecured full access to placing calls.
Also another option could be the ability to have multiple people be able to store a password should you and your wife use the same phone while on the road.
Sorry I don’t have a video or pictures to show you this one like my other episodes. This is more vapor ware that does not exist yet but would love to see on all RIM devices.
