The Future of End User Computing

VMworld session notes: Shawn Bass: The Future of End User Computing

Written on Aug 30 2015 Filed under: Desktop Virtualization, VMworld, VMware, Remote Desktops, Windows 10 6,079 views, 3 comments

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by Brian Madden

I attended Shawn Bass’s session at VMworld 2015 on Sunday called The Future of End User Computing. This was one of the 30-minute “quick talk” sessions. (Which, given Shawn’s reputation, seemed appropriate.)

This session was amazing. Shawn didn’t talk about VMware products or the future direction of VMware, rather, he just ran through lots and lots of trends, facts, and data related to end-user computing that will be the reality over the next five years that will apply to all of us, regardless of whether we use VMware, Citrix, whatever…

My notes are broken down into the major technology areas Shawn talked about.

Windows 10 in the enterprise

• Microsoft wants 1B devices running Windows 10 in three years.
• There are 1.5-2B total PC/laptop-type devices in the world today.
• 1.5B of these are running some version of Windows today:
  • 950M Windows 7
  • 250M Windows 8 / 8.1
  • 250M Windows XP (Yep, that’s 250 million PCs & laptops still running Windows XP in the world today.)
• 14M devices were running Windows 10 within 24 hours of its release. This was the fastest deployment of Windows on a launch day.
• 75M devices running Windows 10 within the first month. Shawn’s guess is that 90-95% of these are consumer
• After 1 month of release, Windows 10 is now in the #2 position for most popular OS according to world-wide browser access statistics.

Windows 10 will be the quickest-adopted version of Windows in the enterprise

According to Shawn, and here’s why:

• It’s free for consumers, so little barrier to adoption
• Windows 10 has similar resource consumption as Windows 7/8, so if you can run Windows 7, you can run Windows 10.
• It’s easy to upgrade to Windows 10
  • High app compatibility. XP to 7 was full of app compatibility challenges. Plus most enterprises were going from 32-bit to x64 then too. Now that most enterprises are on Windows 7 x64, there’s very little friction.
  • In place upgrades are a thing now
  • The new Runtime Provisioning feature of Window 10 will let organizations onboard new devices from manufacturers with little effort to get them to their corporate images.
• Windows 10 has “full” management from EMM. Windows 7 was almost completely done via Group Policy. Everything was domain joined. Windows 8 / 8.1 added some EMM management, but it wasn’t enough. With Windows 10 you can manage everything with light tough EMM that used to require GPOs and domain joined systems.
• It’s not Windows 8. The feeling was that Windows 8 was too disruptive, (even though it did have better performance and better security that Windows 7). Windows 10 is a better bridge between old and new style apps, and it’s intuitive to use.
• Many CIOs have said, “We waited too long to move from XP to Windows 7.” They got too close to the deadline, and they don’t want to make that mistake again.

Windows 10 will be a catalyst for change in end user computing. Anytime you touch something that interfaces with the user, you have the opportunity to change the way that things are done.

EMM

• Smartphones outsold PCs in 2011
• Today there are 2.5-3B smartphones, 1B+ tablets, 1.5-2B PCs in the world.
• In 2020, smartphones will be 6B
• In 2020, tablets will be 1.5-2B
• In 2020, 70% of world will have smartphones
• In 2020, mobile networks will be 5G with 20gbps
• Today the average person in the US has 3.2 devices. In 2020 that will be 5 devices.
• Gartner predicts that by, 2018, more than 50% of users will use a tablet or smartphone first for all online activities. We’re seeing this today. You wake up and go to your phone, etc. This does not mean the desktop is dead, but the quick interactions with information and workflows without having to sit down at a PC is huge.
• In 2020, there will 20-25B devices for IoT (AirWatch already manages IoT devices, and will continue for more and more embedded systems.)
• Modern desktop OSes, including Windows 10 and Mac OS X, are well-managed from EMM platforms.
• IOS 8+ and Android L+ have great EMM and work/personal separation built-in.
• BYOD is on the rise and will more than double by 2020. This is driven by smartphones, though laptops and tablets are increasing their shares. CXOs are saying “I want out of the device acquisition and management business.” This is the quickest way to reduce expenses.
• Technologies like VDI and RDSH enable BYOD for any device with IT lending very little operational support.
• VDI and RDSH will continue to grow due to device proliferation. You just can’t manage all these different devices, and VDI/RDSH really make the device not matter.
• The future of systems management is light touch. Disk imagining will decrease in the future.
• Look for increased trend to publish Windows applications as more apps are moved to web-based SaaS solutions and local Windows app needs decrease.
• Windows is not going anywhere in the enterprise anytime soon. Especially as apps go to SaaS, we’ll use even more VDI/RDSH app publishing.
• Enterprises are moving away from VPNs and going to micro-VPN tunnels. This is built in to Windows 10. VMware AirWatch has this via NSX. It’s coming in general across the board

Identity and security

• Users have too many logins. (But not too many passwords. 🙂 Users average 25-35 accounts which they use regularly, with total counts usually over 100.
• The weakest security on one site, when broken, will be used on the 100-200 most common site on the internet, and many of these user/password combinations work!
• Most users tend to only have 5-7 unique passwords.
• Two factor authentication is great, but not a substitute for reusing passwords.
• There’s a great website, turnon2fa.com, which tells non-IT people how to turn on 2FA for Apple, Google, Twitter, Facebook, etc. Tell your friends & family.
• Corporate end users will still need to engage their corporate IT folks to get 2FA for all their apps.
• VMware will be able to leverage AirWatch device enrollment as a second factor of authentication.
• Biometric can simplify 2FA. Apple’s TouchID is actually great. They do it right. Not so much for others. There are some Android devices that stored the fingerprint images as regular files on the device’s file system, so a stolen device meant that the thief also has access to fingerprint images!
• Windows Hello is very effective biometric solution. It can also works with infrared cameras which will be coming out in many devices soon. These cannot be fooled by a photograph.
• Biometric authentication will be integrated into Horizon.
• SaaS apps need to be SSO with single-click access from mobile devices. (VMware will talk more about this this week.)
• Mobile users should not need different methods to access Windows, web, and mobile apps. They need a unified, yet device aware, catalog. (More on that this week too.)

The bottom line is that business consumers want simpler access. They don’t want to boot up, start the VPN, login etc. Mobile users don’t want to have to VPN into the corporate network. Combing micro-VPNs, multi-factor authentication, and centralized & federated identity management will be a game changer in the next five years.

Remote protocols user experience

• Every single endpoint today—desktop, tablet, smartphone, etc.—has a GPU in it.
• The majority of VDI/RDSH remoting protocols do not deliver a solution that leverages a client-wide GPU for decoding.
• A client-side GPU can dramatically improve users’ perceived performance.
• Use of GPU is inevitable.
• Protocols will continue improvements of compensating for latency and packet loss
• Protocols will move to H.264 which will let the client-side H.264 decoding hardware decode it “for free.”
• 4K video will create new set of challenges, as it requires 15-20mbps
• GPUs greatly improve ability for display protocols to handle 4K resolution encoding.
• HEVC/H.265 will replace H.264, but hardware decode support will lag for some time.

Data

• Growth of data is crazy.
• IBM says 90% of global data was created in the past 2 years. Think about this. It’s mind-numbing. 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created every day!!!
• The greatest use of cloud storage is driven by consumers.
  • This used to be about data backup.
  • By 2017, 30-50% of consumer data will be stored in the public cloud
• A big reason for this is device proliferation. You can have all data on every device, yet you want to access everything from everywhere. High speed mobile networks make this easy.
• Enterprises are slowly moving to cloud storage, but not fast enough for users.

Growing importance of search

• Think about where users’ data is today:
  • Network shared drives
  • User home drivers
  • Intranet / SharePoint / etc.
  • Corporate social networks
  • Corporate cloud apps
  • Personal cloud apps
  • Social media
  • Locally on the users’ desktops and laptops
  • Email client
  • IM client
  • Browser
  • Browser history
  • … plus probably more??
• We’re going to see a lot of intelligent search assistants which will index and search across all this.

So, all this, and Shawn managed to finish with 48 seconds remaining on the countdown clock?

Seriously, this session was amazing. I was a really smart setup to paint the future landscape all of VMware’s EUC plans will be built for. And it’s great for everyone since this is the world we are going to live in, regardless of how we decide to deal with it.

Congrats to Shawn. Really, really good session.

BTW, everyone knows what a fast talker Shawn is. Taking notes from a Shawn session requires some fast typing too! 🙂 I typed 1150 words of notes in 29 minutes and 12 seconds. 🙂

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How to Upgrade a PC to Microsoft Windows 10, Step by Step Instructions

How to Upgrade a PC to Microsoft Windows 10, Step by Step Instructions

http://www.forbes.com/sites/dougolenick/2015/07/29/how-to-upgrade-a-pc-to-microsoft-windows-10-step-by-step-instructions/

Doug Olenick
CONTRIBUTOR
I write about computers, gaming, tablets and smartphones.
FOLLOW ON FORBES (8)
Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.
Windows 10
The Windows 10 desktop.

So the day is finally here. Microsoft today launched Windows 10 giving the millions of people who own Windows 7 and 8 computers a chance to obtain for free to the company’s latest operating system.

Now the questions that remain are: should I upgrade to Windows 10, should I not to upgrade to Windows 10 and if I want it how do I, a tech novice handle the job?

To help all those considering taking this step Acer has kindly loaned out an Aspire V3 laptop running Windows 8.1 so it could be updated on the day of the launch.

win Acer
The reason that the decision to take the plunge and swap operating systems is more difficult with Windows 10, is that Microsoft is offering Windows 10 for free to anyone owning a computer currently running Windows 7 or 8. In the past the company always charged a fee, generally around $100, for its latest operating system. That alone, along with the complexity of personally handling the upgrade, scared off many people and they simply stuck with the software that came with their computer.

However, with Win 10 being a freebie more people will seriously consider making the change even if they are not particularly tech savvy. The good news is the upgrade process is painless and can be completed by even a computer novice.

Surviving a Downturn (in Alberta?) #Calgary

Surviving a Downturn (in Alberta?) By Tom Peters

You work longer.
You work harder.
You may well work for less; and, if so, you adapt to the untoward circumstances with a smile—even if it kills you inside.
You volunteer to do more.
You always bring a good attitude to work.
You fake it if your good attitude flags.
You literally practice your “game face” in the mirror in the morning, and in the loo mid-morning.
You shrug off shit that flows downhill in your direction—buy a shovel or a “pre-worn” raincoat on eBay.
You get there earlier.
You leave later.
You forget about “the good old days”—nostalgia is for wimps.
You buck yourself up with the thought that “this too shall pass”—but then remind yourself that it might not pass anytime soon, so you re-dedicate yourself to making the absolute best of what you have now.
You eschew all forms of personal excess.
You simplify.
You sweat the details as you never have before.
You sweat the details as you never have before.
You sweat the details as you never have before.
You raise to the sky the standards of excellence by which you evaluate your own performance.
You thank others by the truckload if good things happen—and take the heat yourself if bad things happen.
You behave kindly, but you don’t sugarcoat or hide the truth—humans are startlingly resilient.
You treat small successes as if they were Superbowl victories—and celebrate and commend accordingly.
You shrug off the losses (ignoring what’s going on inside your tummy), and get back on the horse and try again.
You avoid negative people to the extent you can—pollution kills.
You eventually read the gloom-sprayers the riot act.
You learn new tricks of your trade.
You network like a demon.
You help others with their issues.
You give new meaning to the word “thoughtful.”
You redouble, re-triple your efforts to “walk in your customer’s shoes.” (Especially if the shoes smell.)
You mind your manners—and accept others’ lack of manners in the face of their strains.
You are kind to all mankind.
You leave the blame game at the office door.
You become a paragon of accountability.
And then you pray.

iPad Virus and Hijacking, Things You Need To Know #Calgary

I remember 20 years ago, the old IBM Aptiva with a 486 processor was the fastest computer out there, until it was infected with the AntiCMOS.a virus which ran a boot code and wiped out your CMOS, killing your computer.

Fast forward 20 years, and we have iPads, iPhones, eBook readers and the truly digital world of advertising. We now have no types of infections called adware and malware. Most of the time malware hides on your computer and collects your information, while adware pushes ad’s to you to increase add revenue for some third parties. Using an iPad or iPhone to browse the internet used to be a safe way to steer clear of these infections.

90% of our customers have at least 2 – 3 iPhones and iPads in their homes, and people who create this malware and adware are beginning to develop new forms of infections for these devices. Which leads me to introduce you to: iPad Browser Hijacking and How to Remove This iPad Infection

How to Tell if Your iPad has been Hijacked:

If your iPad is infected with a hijacker and you open Safari you will be quickly prompted with a pop up dialog asking you to pay a ransom to get your browser back. You can click close, or close your browser as many times as you want but this hijack will still be there when you reopen Safari.

How to Remove This iPad Virus

Removing this pop up dialogue is fairly simple.

1. Press the Home button on your iPad

2. Open you Settings application

3. Under the General section, turn on Airplane Mode, this mode will disable your wireless and cellular connection

4. Press the Home button, and open Safari

5. Safari will try to load the last page that was open, in our case it was the iPad virus, because there is no internet connection the page won’t load. Now all you have to do is browse to another website like google.ca, rmcr.ca or select a website from your bookmarks. Let the page try to load, you will see a message informing you that your internet connection is bad.

6. Press the Home button once more, and open your Settings application

7. Under the General section, turn off Airplane Mode, this will re-enable your wireless and cellular connections.

8. Press the Home button, and open up Safari, you should now be able to browse the internet hassle free once more.

Should I Scan My iPad For Viruses?

No, as long as your iPad is not jail broken this is not necessary. The reason for this is Apple only allows you to download programs through the App Store, this is a controlled environment and is also virus free. The iPad and iPhones are designed and built to only accept and run applications from the App Store.

I Need More Help

Worse case scenario we recommending bring in your device for a free consultation, if the above steps didn’t do the trick, or if this is constantly occurring this might be a bigger issue. JH Computer Solutions Inc. offers iPhone and iPad support and repairs to Calgary and area. You can contact us by phone: 403-875-7352  WWW.JHComputerSolutionsinc.com

Is Your iMac Hard Drive Failing?

Chances are if you have an Late 2012 iMac or older then your hard drive is failing, or is about to fail.

Why do we say this?

Hard Drives have a life span of 3-4years before bad sectors start to show up, bad sectors turn into lost files, which turn into corrupt partitions, and eventually a fully failed hard drive.

Last week, we had two iMac Late 2009 models that were running slower than normal, both customers had upgraded the RAM themselves thinking that was the problem, which it wasn’t. The reason your iMac slows down, rather than the typical Windows computer crashing is Apples HFS file system is much more efficient in managing bad sectors, and repairing corrupt files. This is why your iMac slows down, your hard drive is trying to do to much at once and it can’t.

How to check your iMac hard drive for errors:

1. Turn on your iMac

2. Open Finder and select Applications

3. Browse to Utilities and double-click Disk Utility

4. In the left pane you should see Macintosh HD in the list, select this drive

5. On the right side of the disk utility window you should see a Verify Disk button, click it

The Disk Utility will scan your hard drive for any issues, it will report any errors here as well, and direct you how to repair them. If you do see errors, and there is less than a few you should be able to repair them by select Repair Disk. Using this method will only buy you time, if errors are listed, you are only buying time and we highly recommend creating a time machine backup to ensure you do not loose any information.

I See Errors in the Disk Utility What Do I Do?

As mentioned above, back up your hard drive sooner than later and plan to replace it. The keyword here is PLAN you now have time to bring your computer into an Apple repair shop to get properly diagnosed. Most repair centres can provide you with a quote to replace the hard drive within a couple hours.

Why repair and not replace?

We’ll its simple, your iMac is still good, unless you create movies, or edit photographs your iMac does everything you need it to. A hard drive replacement should only cost between $200 and $400 depending on the type of Hard Drive you choose. We here at JH Computer Solutions Inc. like to recommend a Solid State Drive which are extremely fast and reliable when compared to the typical hard drive. Replacing your iMac can be expensive, most iMacs today can cost upwards of $1500 just like your current iMac, they will do everything you’ll want it to do.

How to Recover Deleted Photos from Samsung Galaxy S6/S5/S4/Note? #deletedphoto

“I accidentally deleted the full contents of the “Camera” folder on my Samsung Galaxy S3.
All the photos and video that I had taken in the last 2 months were deleted. ( I know I should have backed them up…but I was planning to do it today…not thinking I was going to do something stupid last night!)
I have a hunch that the files might be able to be restored…possibly using some sort of restore/recovery software.How can I recovery deleted photos on my Samsung Galaxy S3 smart phone directly?”

Are you one of the users using Samsung Galaxy phone? I am use Samsung Galaxy S4 phones.I experienced a similar problem, I have used a android data recovery software to restore deleted photos on my Samsung Galaxy S4 successfully, and now I share with everyone, I hope this android data recovery can help a friend in need. As a result mang users now are complaining about losing data on their Samsung Glaxy S4 and are eager to find a way to recover data from Samsung phone.

Why is It Possible to Recover Deleted Photos from Samsung Galaxy phone
When a file is deleted from your Samsung Galaxy phone, it is NOT really deleted. It is simply removed from the file directory in the folder. Even though you can no longer see the file in the folder, its contents still exist 100% intact at this point. As long as the file remains there, you can easily restore photos in its entirety. As a result retrieve photos from Samsung Galaxy is possible if you have a software tool.
Tips: It works well with almost all Samsung devices,like Samsung Galaxy S5/S4/S3/S2, Samsung Galaxy Note 4/3/2 and Galaxy Ace,ect.

I want to share with you a way to do android phone data recovery with a professional Android phone data recovery program. Besides recovering photos from Samsung Galaxy mobile phone,but also can help you recover text messages, contacts, music, videos, etc. for your memory card, hard drive and other removable devices.Now let’s see how to recover Samsung lost data with the help of this android data recovery software.

How to Recover Photos from Samsung Galaxy?

Step1. Download Samsung Data Recovery and install it.
Step2. Select the target device where you want to recover your data from and click “Scan” button.
Step3. Preview the and select the files you want to recover. This provide a lot convenience for users who want to do Samsung Galaxy photo recovery
Step4. Click “Recover” button to save the recovered photos on your computer.

After these steps you could successfully finish Samsung Galaxy data recovery. Like I said it is quite easy, right?
Tips: You can use this Android Data Transfer software to copy those restored photos back to your Samsung Galaxy phone directly.

How To: Find Your Wi-Fi Password in Windows 8.1 #wifi #password

Once you’ve successfully connected to your own wi-fi network it isn’t generally necessary to connect again or remember the password. However, I’m sure many of you will have encountered the situation where visitors want to access your wi-fi and, even though your computer still knows what the password is two or three years later, you’ve completely forgotten it. You’re pretty sure you wrote it down somewhere but the prospect of locating that particular piece of paper is looking more and more bleak.

Many of today’s modern routers come with the wi-fi password printed on an affixed label but, even under these circumstances; if you change the password (and it is a good idea to change your wi-fi password periodically) or the label detaches and gets lost, or becomes damaged and unreadable, you will need an alternative means of identifying the password.

There are a couple of ways this can be achieved. More savvy users who are familiar with accessing and navigating the router’s configuration utility can go to the wireless settings and find the password there. However, the simplest method for users who are not familiar or confident with the first option, is to locate the password from within their computer’s own settings.

These steps are fairly common knowledge for earlier operating systems so here’s the run down for Windows 8.1– you’ll need to be on a machine connected to your local wi-fi network:

• Go to Control Panel and click Network and Sharing Center:

• In the Network and Sharing window, click on the name of your current wi-fi network…

• … then, in the ensuing Wi-Fi Status window, click on the Wireless Properties button:

• In the Wi-Fi Properties window, open the “Security” Tab and you’ll see your Network security key (password) represented by a series of dots. Simply enable (click) the Show charactersoption to view the actual password:

Find/Delete large files wasting space for Windows users. #HarddriveSpace #computertuneup

Find/Delete large files wasting space A handy tool called WinDirStat (Windows Directory Statistics) can be used to easily find which files and folders are taking up the most space on your drive. From there, you can delete them and open up a ton of storage space.

How to Handle Liquid Damage on a MacBook Pro

It doesn’t matter what you spill tea, coffee, soda, or just plain water on your Macbook Pro the end result is the same. Most people give the Macbook a shake, set it on its side and watch the liquid slowly drain, and then start using their Macbook the next day.

That is the wrong way to handle the situation, and will most likely only buy you time till imminent failure occurs.

Here is what to do in the event you accidentally spill something on your Macbook:

Step 1: Turn off your Macbook by holding the power button down for several seconds

Step 2: Grab some paper towels, we prefer Bounty, as it is thick and absorbent. You will also want to grab a small Phillips screwdriver ( the “+” one)

Step 3: Turn your Macbook upside down and remove the 10 screws from the bottom, as show in the image here

Step 4: Once the screws are removed, you should be able to remove the back cover by grabbing an edge and just pulling up, you may have to tug on it a bit as it has been screwed down for a while.

Step 5: Dry off the underside of the Macbooks Bottom case with your preferred paper towel, and gently pat down any excess water on the Logic Board, Battery and Optical Drive.

We highly recommend disconnecting the battery, as you don’t want any current running through the logic board so the liquid doesn’t short anything out.  Note: Electrical shorts and corrosion is what will kill the Macbook after liquid damage.

Step 6: With the cover off, and any noticeable liquid absorbed by your ultra absorbent paper towels, you’ll see a larger black connected just below the battery. See the image below for what exactly you are looking for. This is the battery connector, and it just pulls straight up.

Step 7: Remove your hard drive, this can be done by removing the two screws circled below and pulling up on the little black strip depicted by the arrow below.

Lean the hard drive on the side, and remove any liquid underneath and on the bottom of the drive with your preferred paper towel.

Step 8: Wait 48 hours, it seems like forever but it really isn’t, in 48hrs the rest of the liquid should be evaporated, now just follow the steps in reverse to reassemble.

Most of the time, following these steps will work, and you should be able to use your Macbook without any problems, however depending on the liquid e.g. soda pop, you may have some sugar buildup underneath the logic board, or keyboard, which may or may not affect your Macbook.

As always, it is recommended to bring your Macbook into your local mac dealer to give it a good once over, and to ensure nothing else was further damaged.