Over here in the UK, OnLive has just launched in partnership with BT. It's concept is to stream games directly to your PC, Mac, mobile device or TV etc, without the requirement for high end hardware - think of it like an SBC (Server Based Computing) product similar to Citrix Presentation Server or XenApp, but optimised for gaming. The expensive kit sits in the OnLive datacenters somewhere, while your own computer, with the installed OnLive software, becomes a thin-client - only your keyboard / mouse movements are sent over the wire, along with an audio / video stream of the game itself.

Because BT are the UK partner, if you are a BT Broadband customer, then you're entitled to a 3 month free trial of the service - specifically the OnLive PlayPack Bundle, a collection of over 100 games. Fortunately for me:

1. I have BT Infinity, and;
2. the two 19" LCDs I ordered off eBay earlier in the week have arrived.

Having already loaded a clean copy of Windows 7 onto my Dell OptiPlex 745 (while still waiting for the 2 x 755's to arrive), I signed up to OnLive and installed the client software - no issues, and all straight forward. It should be a good test for it's advertised promise, as the 745 has far from a decent graphics card for any kind of gaming (being an onboard Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3000). The key requirement for such as service is, however, a low latency connection - it will be interesting to see if this is possible over UK broadband networks, particularly during peak times, and especially on BT's own network.

Loading up the software and logging in was straight forward - I did receive a notification that my latency was not great.... hmm, this is BT's network, the selected UK OnLive partner, on BT's fastest broadband service, BT Infinity! I quit and relaunched the app, which didn't re-prompt the latency issue, so just carried on as normal.

Once logged in and using the service, it's clear that it's all full screen streamed video content as you can see the compression being dynamically adjusted depending on the quality of the connection, but it is impressive none the less. If you end up trying the service yourself, I would recommend jumping straight into the 'Arena', which displays a scrollable grid of live in game users, allowing you to spectate in real-time any current game session in progress - it's one of those things to show someone to get a quick "wow!", but functionality wise it's also a good way to see what games are available, how they play out, and the performance of the service.

Playing games does show some lag between your keyboard / mouse movements and the game reacting back, and although initially annoying, for most it's not too much of a distraction and you gradually adjust to compensate. While playing, again I could see the video compression adjusting, and worse, the audio would jump from mono to stereo then back, with also lots of audio artefacts very noticeable.

After playing around a while with it, and trying out various games, I then installed it onto my MacBook - what was interesting, even after the 'don't use wireless' connections message on startup (as my MacBook connects via 802.11n to an AirPort Extreme), I actually got better performance than on the 745, and no audio drop outs... I put this down to the crappy graphics card in the OptiPlex, that probably couldn't cope with the full screen video very well.

What was even more interesting, I later tried the service again on my MacBook but via my Three MiFi device - and it also worked, though the graphics compression remained pretty heavy.

My experience was not totally without issues and error messages however - the following night, after work, I was faced with 'service full' messages, which is not that surprising considering everyone is probably jumping straight onto the service having just been launched, but I hope it's not something I see too often.

Also when running up another random game, I was presented with a pretty random generic error, booting me straight off...

Final verdict? Not bad, but it will be interesting to see how the available game catalog expands out. There are already some big name games available, but also some pretty cruddy 'never heard of that' titles in there to, which I suspect is to push the 'look how many games are available' marketing message. I did have a lot of fun with Wheelman, wasting a few hours racing / smashing up cars etc, but even so I don't think, at the moment, I'll find myself subscribing after the 3 months free trial period... 

I do, however, recommend you at least check it out, as even if you are not a BT subscriber you can still play most titles in a 30-minute time limited mode, without charge. There is also a promo on at the moment, that the first full title you buy only costs £1.00.

Following up from my post yesterday, I managed to get a few really good bargains on eBay today:

• 2 x Dell UltraSharp 1908FP 19" LCD Displays @ £40.00 each
• 2 x Dell AX510 Soundbar Speaker Attachment @ £12.00 each
• 2 x Dell OptiPlex 755 SFF, 2GB RAM, Intel Core2Duo E8400 CPU @ £140.00 each

It looks like I'll be able to transfer over the RAM from my existing OptiPlex 740 / 745 systems into the new ones, which should avoid any further memory purchases - I've also got plenty of spare hard drives, so it will be just a case of making sure the fastest ones are installed. Overall, they'll be two identical pretty well spec'd machines, especially with the E8400 processors - the key will be if I can get XenClient installed and working successfully. If any further 'juice' is required in the future, I can drop a couple of decent PCI Express graphic cards into the PCIE-16 slots, though for the moment I'll have dual-port NIC cards installed in that spot for my own use in the lab.

After also investigating kid friendly software, I've now built up a list of good / must-have software and web sites (and all free!):

• KIDO'Z - an Adobe AIR-based Web Operating System for children between the ages of 3-7 yrs.
• KidZui - a web browser designed for children developed by KidZui, Inc.
• KidRex - Google search, but it's content limited to 'kid friendly' content
• Edubuntu - linux based distribution with education software components
• Norton Online Family - access control and monitoring solution
• OpenDNS - additional site categorisation based access control using DNS

Within Windows 7 itself, the parental controls are not that far reaching - you're able to limit when user accounts can be used (i.e. what days / hours), and what applications can be run, though it seems a number of built in Windows applications can't be limited, including Internet Explorer. Instead, something like Norton Online Family helps, as it layers on top extra controls and limitations, to prevent certain internet content from being viewed or accessed. In addition, using OpenDNS layers more control over site categorisation, and plays it's part of 'defence in depth'.

Access to internet sites through Internet Explorer should not really be a problem with my two at the moment, as I focus their activities through the KidZui and KIDO'Z children oriented web browsers, with access only to pre-filtered, human categorised content. The Edubuntu distribution also has a lot of good educational focused software, which I am currently running inside VirtualBox, until I get the new base units and test / run XenClient.

One other site I randomly came across was KidRex - a portal to the Google search engine, but uses Google Custom Search, and Google SafeSearch to limit access to unsuitable search results... I've set this as the default home page on Internet Explorer, but I also need to add it as the default search site when using the search box or address bar.

If you're not familiar with XenClient by the way, there are some very good introduction videos on the Citrix site:

• How XenClient Works - http://www.citrix.com/English/ps2/products/feature.asp?contentID=2300345

Over on XenAppBlog, Eric ended up switching from XenClient to Hyper-V, but I'll see how far I get with my setup for home use, rather than for my consulting day job.

Up until now, my kids have been using our MacBooks (with our oversight), which is great because they are simple to use, easy to learn, and their applications (such as Kidoz and KidZui) are quick to open from the LaunchBar.

However, as Amy is now learning ICT at school, I am planning to re-jig the setup at home to make the transition back and forth between school and home more consistent - this means primarily a desktop machine with Windows.

A couple of thoughts here - firstly, we've two kids, so what you do with one, you do with the other - therefore two machines are required. Secondly, it would be nice to keep costs down (i.e. ebay), and thirdly, make the setup as useful as possible, both to them... and to me :)

After a few different thoughts, I've decided to experiment with implementing a XenClient solution, a type-1 bare-metal hypervisor - it's free on standalone systems, and allows multiple virtual operating systems to be used at the same time, but without loosing out on performance like you might see with type-2 solution such as VMware Workstation or VirtualBox installed on top of the operating system. On each of the kids PCs, they'll have their own locked down Windows VM, plus possibly another with Edubuntu, while I'll have my own VMs to connect into other parts of my lab.

So, I've already checked what I can reuse of the kit I already have - of my spare desktops, a Dell OptiPlex 740, and a Dell OptiPlex 745 seem likely candidates (8GB of RAM each, as I've been using them as Hyper-V hosts). Any Dell system ending in a '5' will be Intel based, while '0' are generally AMD systems.

With the latest release of XenClient 2.0, it's now possible to run on non-vPro systems - this means as long as you have VT-x, you should now be able to use XenClient, though with just 2D support on those systems, as long as Intel integrated graphics are present. On vPro systems (i.e. those that also support VT-d), you'll get the full 3D support, and therefore, for example, all the Window Aero, OpenGL and DirectX support on Windows 7.

Looking over my own two OptiPlex machines, the Intel based 745 does not have vPro technology, but does support VT-x. I ran through a quick XenClient install, but while being reminded that the system did not support VT-d, it did allow me to proceed. However, I quickly hit a road-block a couple of screens further on, when it could not detect any hard disks, kindly advising to enable AHCI in the BIOS... not possible, as the option does not exist.

On the 740, being AMD, I didn't expect much success, which proved to be true - it didn't even reach the installation screen, with my monitor complaining of being unable to display the video mode.

So after some further researching, the Dell OptiPlex 755 seems like the next best option, fully supporting vPro, and so fully capable of supporting XenClient 2.0 - this was further confirmed on the Xen Wiki. The 755 also has the bios option to enable / disable AHCI support.

I am now planning on picking up two 755 systems, along with a couple of refurbished Dell 19" LCD monitors - when you've two kids of similar age, everything has to be the same... trust me :) In the mean time, I am going to install Windows 7 on the 740 / 745, and remind myself of the Windows 7 parental control options, possibly also revisit the latest version of Norton Online Family.

Update: Kids, Computers and XenClient - Part 2

Here is a useful way to bring an unresponsive Netware server down quickly – one step safer than pulling out the power cord...

At the console, press and hold right-alt, right-shift, left-shift then press ESC. The hidden debug screen will then be displayed. Type ‘q’ to quit, then ‘y’ to confirm.

One instantly dead Netware server J

Just a quickie that comes up quite often – how to disconnect the console user on a remote server, in particular, a Windows 2000 server where you can’t use RDP to connect directly to the console itself; i.e. you can’t mstsc /console or /admin (depending on the version of the RDP client).

If you’ve not already got a copy of the Sysinternals Suite on you system, grab a copy from Microsoft’s site as the tool you’ll need is PsShutdown. At a command prompt, type the following:

PSSHUTDOWN \\remoteserver -O -F -T 0

You can then verify the session has been logged out with the following:

QWINSTA /server:remoteserver

Just announced on the Maltego blog (http://maltego.blogspot.com/2010/07/ce-is-live.html), the community edition of version 3.0 is now available. I downloaded and did a quick test of the new product this morning, which already seems quicker than the previous versions, and is themed with a Microsoft ribbon style interface.

You now need to register to use the software (you're prompted during installation), and some of the tasks that needed manual intervention are now automated (such as updating the transforms, which is now done as part of the installation process). Also, where previously you needed to go through and accept the disclaimers on certain transforms before you used them, now on first use you are presented with a dialog box which helps with not breaking up your work flow.

Limits are also reduced - one which I reached regularly on 2.0 was the 75 transforms per day - I don't remember seeing where these new limits are documented, but maybe there is something over on the Maltego blog I missed.

Java is one of those components that most users have installed, but can be infrequently updated and forgotten about. Updates are published on a regular basis, the most recent of which having been set free in April of this year, and although supplied with a self-updating mechanism, it's just not suitable within controlled corporate environments with good acceptable use polices in place.

Following the trend of other popular software, the Java Runtime is also bloating out with other 'useful-less' components, so on a default install you can find yourself with extra memory resident processes, browser plug-ins and helper objects which are just not required to provide applications access to the Java Runtime.

Because of this, I now update my own lab environment with a scripted silent install of Java - it does not include the extra plug-ins and browser helper objects during installation, or the memory resident updater tool. Are there any other suggestions to keep the Java Runtime installation down to a minimum? I believe in only installing what is absolutely required.

There are now quite a number of podcasts available, covering all areas of Information Security - I find it a great way to stay up to date with the industry news, particularly when commuting. A fairly comprehensive list can be found at http://getmon.com/, while my current regular favorites are below:

• Paul Dot Com Security Weekly (feed) - one of the longest established US based security podcasts, normally around 2 hours long, with interviews, technical segments and industry news.
• Risky Business (feed) - an Australian based ~30 minute show, neatly split into news, interview and sponsor interview
• 2600 | Off The Hook (feed) - airs every Wednesday night at 7:00 PM EST in New York City on listener supported WBAI 99.5 FM.

I've created an aggregated feed of my Podroll, which makes subscribing quick and simple - on my phone, it means adding just one feed, instead of lots of different feeds for different podcasts (very useful when rebuilding your phone after flashing the latest ROM)... I did try RSSmix.com, which IronGeek also uses, but I found updates through the site don't seem to be that regular (and the site itself can run pretty slow as well), which means missing out on the latest content. Instead, I use Yahoo Pipes to merge and manipulate the various feeds together, and then publish through Feedburner to get some extra control / statistics.

You can subscribe to my Podroll feed here (http://feeds.andrewallen.co.uk/andrewallen/podroll), or you can view the Yahoo Pipes source here.

Update - Dec 14

I've updated the pipe to include the following feeds, and also strip posts with no enclosures:

• RB2 (feed)
• Network Security Podcast (feed)
• Security Justice (feed)
• Securabit (feed)
• Tenable Network Security Podcast (feed)

If you are following the latest releases in regards to BackTrack, following a recent update you may have experienced error when PostgreSQL attempts to start:

Starting PostgreSQL 8.3 database server: main* The PostgreSQL server failed to start. Please check the log output:

Then further down:

could not load server certificate file “server.crt”: No such file or directory

Here is a quick fix - at the console, type:

cd /etc/ssl/certs
ls -ld /etc/ssl/private
sudo ls -l /etc/ssl/private/
make-ssl-cert generate-default-snakeoil -force-overwrite
cd /etc/ssl/certs

Re-run the update commands, and you should be good to go:

apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
apt-get dist-upgrade