Life and Kraya by Stephen Ramsay
Posts tagged Computer
Service Alert – Volcanic Ash & Computers
Apr 16th
As I am sure everyone is aware volcanic ash from the volcano in Iceland is causing major air travel disruption at this time as volcanic ash and planes do not mix. Similarly, volcanic ash and computers do not mix. We are seeing fine particulates falling to ground level just now and these combined with the larger particles we expect to see in the near future will cause issues for computers, servers, other electronic equipment and their cooling systems.
The cooling fans in computers work very much like a vacuum and vacuum up dust and everything else in the air around them including the volcanic ash particles. Whilst it is not something to panic over, all computer users should think about takeing the following action particularly if it gets worse:
- Please do what you can to keep rooms in which you are using computers as free from ash as you can.
- Please do not leave the windows open as the room will just fill with these tiny particulates
- Listen to the computers fans. If you notice a change in the tone or noise they make, please call us.
- Look at the air intake grills on the back of the computer, if they begin to clog up, please call us.
If you have any questions please call us. If you what to check what level of ash is falling in your area, place a clean white piece of paper outside and leave it for a few hours, then have a look at what has accumulated on it. There will be some very very fine dust. I don’t know what will happen over the next few days but this may increase.
Please do not try and clean your computers yourself as you may just push the finer particulates deeper into the fan bearings. We have specialist equipment for this kind of job and if necessary can send someone to your office to clean the computers and servers.
Adobe update – excessive traffic to ardownload.adobe.com
Dec 16th
Adobe has not been without its problems of late, and whilst there have been security issues that could have lead to losses, so far none of our clients have suffered financially from Adobe’s failings. Until now that is.
One of our Clients had their ADSL cut off this week as they had exceeded the usage policy. Why? Adobe Update Manager on one Windows XP PC had decided to download over 70GB of data over the course of a 7 day period. It would appear that it was getting itself in a loop and just kept trying to update continuously, 70GB worth of continuously.
The Adobe website serves the update MSI binary files as content type Text/Plain, the Adobe Update client has a very short timeout and immediately opens another connection to re-start the download. Hence if there is a slow connection or the caching server does not return the whole file in a timely manner the Adobe Update client enters the infinite loop of retries, causing the excessive bandwidth consumption witnessed here.
There are several forum threads including on Adobe’s own site http://forums.adobe.com/thread/392129 all linking this issue to a conflict between and old version of WebMarshall and Adobe updater; however our machines do not use WebMarshall and we do not have it installed anywhere on our networks.
We do however use Squid caching on our CentOS 5 servers. The server in this instance seems to be fulfilling the requests on each occasion in a timely manner – the issue is that each time Adobe updater passes a URL it is different in key areas, which Squid interprets as a separate request. This is not abnormal and we have seen this before when we have tried to configure squid to cache Windows updates. However rather than enter a loop of requests, Windows updates simply fail. Other automatic updaters work well with caching systems and indeed most ISPs are now implementing different forms of web caching on their own networks. Dose this mean the Adobe issue is affecting them in the same way?
The issue seems to only affect PCs (or at least we have seen no affected Mac users as yet), and it also seems to affect most Adobe products.
For now Adobe and the ISPs have remained quiet on the issue, however we have 3 other clients (and my own home ADSL ) who cannot update Adobe at all, access to ardownload.adobe.com appears to have been blocked by the ISP. Quite when the Adobe update issue will be resolved is unknown; however we have also taken the decision to block access to ardownload.adobe.com from all of our networks, for the moment.
Richard, one of our Systems Admin Team has published a more detailed account of the technicalities involved here: http://richard.blog.kraya.co.uk/2009/12/16/a-big-adobe-problem/
Busy Busy times
Apr 22nd
Goodness me, its been over a week again since I last posted, so much to do and talk about and so much to do. Firstly the reason for the gap, over the last 2 weeks we have been doing a lot to move towards the new improved Kraya service. This includes upgrading 4 companies networks and replaced their servers with new more powerful and more capable setups, 45 computers have also received the KrayaTec Day Spa treatment.
These exciting new changes that we have been making to clients setups are all part of the new look Kraya IT support, we have been working hard on a number of changes from our setup and processes to our new website, logos and corporate identity, the details of which Shri is announcing on Thursday night, if you have not received your invite and would like to come, please let me know.
I still have a lot to do over the next few days, not least of which includings planning a wedding and a lot to post here, so watch this space…
Computer Day Spa
Mar 13th
Kraya Computer Day Spa
The day before your computer comes in for its treatment we will arrange an Initial well being consultation, by calling and asking you to visit us on-line at http://helpdesk.kraya.co.uk this will allow us to connect to your computer and discuss the exact itinerary of treatments your computer will require when he or she visits the Kraya Spa. Dependant on your computers needs we will make recommendations from the following treatment list.
Microdermabrasion
(Internal Cleaning)
With tender love and high pressure air jets we will clean your computer inside and out removing all layers of dead skin and other dust particles, that have accumulated over the years.
Appendectomy
(Un-install Unnecessary Software)
Based on our earlier discussion with you we will remove all of non-essential items form your computer freeing up processing power and hard drive space.
Colonic Hydrotherapy
(remove temporary files)
With the use off our C’ cleaning tools we will relieve your computer of its temporary files and other accumulated debris.
Botox
(Install Microsoft updates and patches)
We will inject your computer with the latest Microsoft updates from our list of approved Updates, ensuring that she is looking her best when you get her back.
Collagen Filler
(Install Software Provider specific updates and patches)
We will inject your computer with the latest approved bug fixes and updates from selected software suppliers, ensuring that she is fresh faced when you get her back.
Reiki Massage
(Registry Cleaning and Tweaking)
Adjusting your computers Chi and energy through detailed and careful adjustments to its internal Registry.
Feng shui
(Check and Tweak System Settings)
Adjusting your computers balance through careful adjustments to its internal system configuration.
Intensive detoxification
(Hard Drive De-Fragmentation)
After all that cleaning and tweaking we will Detox your hard drive , using the latest De-fragmentation techniques.
Life style evaluation
(Hardware assessment and Upgrade Recommendations)
Assesing the Hardware and Body of your computer and making recommendations that will help to extend its Life.
The Kraya Day Spa costs £200 Per Computer and is complementary once a year to all Computers Supported on a Kraya Support Contract.
