Jeff Rivett has worked with and written about computers since the early 1980s. His first computer was an Apple II+, built by his father and heavily customized. Jeff's writing appeared in Computist Magazine in the 1980s, and he created and sold a game utility (Ultimaker 2, reviewed in the December 1983 Washington Apple Pi Journal) to international markets during the same period. Proceeds from writing, software sales, and contract programming gigs paid his way through university, earning him a Bachelor of Science (Computer Science) degree at UWO. Jeff went on to work as a programmer, sysadmin, and manager in various industries. There's more on the About page, and on the Jeff Rivett Consulting site.

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Flash, Internet, Tools

Internet speed tests

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I’ve tried a lot of different broadband speed tests. Up until the last year or two, they usually agreed fairly closely when measuring my connection. Recently, the reported speeds have been much more diverse.

Why do the results vary so much? Is there a truly accurate test out there?

It turns out that most of the speed tests offered by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are actually using the same Flash-based test, provided by a company called Ookla. I’ve read that Flash-based tests are all currently unreliable due to technical limitations in the current versions of Flash. Here’s an excerpt from the TestMy.net web site:

There is buffering between the application and the browser and throughput bursting due to CPU usage. Flash based tests need to make adjustments for this… rough estimate adjustments of up to 40 percent. How can the test be accurate if it’s being adjusted by 30-40% to offset an unknown variable.

Emphasizing this problem with Flash-based tests is my recent experience with very slow speeds from my provider, Shaw. Shaw’s own test showed results that match exactly what I’m paying for: 25 Mbps down; 2.5 Mbps up. This made no sense, since even basic web surfing was painfully slow. I reported the problem; Shaw eventually found the cause and fixed it. Everything went back to normal: web surfing was extremely fast again. But what did Shaw’s Flash-based test show? The same results as when speeds were clearly slow.

So I started looking specifically for non-Flash tests. I’ve found two HTML5-based tests that seem to be much more reliable and accurate than the Flash-based tests: SpeedOf.Me and TestMy.net. Both of these tests avoid the problems inherent in Flash-based tests. Both also offer additional features, such as comparisons with previous tests and other test results in your region and from your ISP, and graphs that show previous test results.

But my overall favourite is SpeedOf.Me, because it comes closest to showing the actual speeds I’m experiencing at any given time.

Here’s a list of the speed tests I’ve looked at:

Java, Patches and updates

Java 7 update 40 released with no announcement

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A new version of Java was released yesterday with zero fanfare from Oracle. Presumably that’s because there are no security vulnerability fixes in this release, since normally there would be an announcement on Oracle’s Critical Patch Updates, Security Alerts and Third Party Bulletin blog.

The update is listed on the main release notes page for Java 7. The release notes page for 7u40 shows that there have been a lot of changes in this release, including some related to security, but no fixes for specific security vulnerabilities. The complete list of bugs fixed in this release is enormous.

It will be interesting to see what Adam Gowdiak says about this release, since some of the vulnerabilities he has reported still existed in the previous Java release, 7u25. Update 2013Sep24: According to the vendor log on the Security Explorations site, “Oracle provides a monthly status report for the reported issues. The company informs that Issue 69 is fixed in main codeline and is scheduled for a future CPU.” In other words, Issue 69 is STILL not fixed.

Internet Explorer, Microsoft, Patches and updates, Security, Windows

Patch Tuesday for September 2013

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Another month, another pile of patches from Microsoft. This month there are fourteen bulletins, addressing security vulnerabilities in Windows, Internet Explorer, Office, and the .NET framework. Four of the bulletins are rated Critical.

As usual, the updates will become available after 10am PST from Windows Update.

The SANS Internet Storm Center has a detailed look at the vulnerabilities addressed by this month’s patches.

The Microsoft Security Response Center has a somewhat friendlier summary of this month’s updates.

Adobe, Chrome, Flash, Internet Explorer, Patches and updates, Security, Windows, Windows 8.x

Flash 11.8.800.168 fixes several security vulnerabilities

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A new version of Flash was announced by Adobe today. Version 11.8.800.168 fixes four critical vulnerabilities. The official release announcement from Adobe provides details on all of the changes in this new version.

Anyone who uses a Flash-enabled web browser should install the new version as soon as possible. That includes anyone who uses Youtube.

The changes in this version will be ported to the Chrome web browser as embedded Flash version 11.8.800.170. Flash updates for Chrome tend to happen silently in the background. You can see what version of Flash Chrome is currently running by browsing to the chrome://flash/ page. Recently, the version of Flash in Chrome mysteriously rolled back to 11.8.800.97, so it will be interesting to see what happens with 11.8.800.170 (Chrome finally updated itself with Flash 11.8.800.170 on 2013Sep18, a delay of one week, which is somewhat alarming. The version of Chrome itself also changed at the same time, to 29.0.1547.76.)

Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8 also uses embedded Flash code. Microsoft Security Advisory 2755801, now available from Windows Update, patches IE10 on Windows 8 to use the new Flash version 11.8.800.168.

Mac, Windows

Latest Ouch! newsletter: personal backups

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This month’s Ouch! newsletter (warning: PDF) from SANS explains the importance of backups. Well worth reading, especially if you aren’t currently at least backing up your data. If you’re not sure whether you’re making backups, then I strongly recommend that you read this.

For my computers, I use a combination of techniques for backup. But the key component in my backup system is a set of tasks that run nightly, using Cobian Backup (Windows freeware) to back up data to an external hard drive.