Tuesday 25 November, 2008

Security Vulnerability In Tally

I noticed this loop hole in Tally Accounting software. Lets suppose you have a configuration that prevents people from modifying backdated vouchers. You have configured a company with Security Control, preventing of Create/Alter Backdated vouchers.

This works fine and your data entry people can not enter any backdated vouchers - or so you think!

Gateway of Tally contains an option Import Data. Its purpose is to import tally vouchers in XML format. And this option does not seem to bother about verifying if the vouchers are backdated etc. In fact, It does not seem to bother about the security control settings itself. It is perfectly possible for a backdated voucher to be imported!

To import a voucher, you need it to be in XML format. No sweat! You can export a voucher from Tally to XML format. So make an entry in current date, export it using the Export button to XML format, edit the date using *******, import it back to tally using the Import Voucher option and viola! You have created a backdated voucher!

I confirmed this with Tallysolutions and they recognized this vulnerability. Is it fixed in Release 3 BETA?

Thursday 11 September, 2008

My E-Book Website

Please check out my new e-learning site.

Tuesday 1 July, 2008

Backup Using USB Flash Memory (Pen) Drives

No, am not joking, Seriously, the cheap and common pen drives have the following advantages as a backup storage media:

  1. They are simple to use and understand

    A best backup solution is one that you can understand well and follow regularly. USB Flash drives are very simple to use and even non-technies know how to use them.

  2. They are cheap

    With 2GB and 8GB pen drives available at reasonable prices, you can use them to backup your important data files. Most important files like text documents, spreadsheets, pdfs, database files of line of business applications etc can be accommodated in this size capacity. You may not be able to use them to backup your entire computer though.


  3. No driver / drive problem

    When recovering the files, you need not bother about the driver for the USB Drive. Most systems with latest OSs support them out of the box. With tape backups, you need tape drives on the system you are planning to restore to.

  4. They can be stored easily

    When it comes to compactness, there is no beating the pen drives. You can compactly and securely store them unlike tapes.

  5. They can be erased and re-used.

    Unlike CDs or DVDs, you can erase or update the files on them. This is great if you just need the updated copy of your data and do not require archival.

Monday 30 June, 2008

Firefox 3 is Great!!!

I have tried Firefox 3. It is simply great in looks and usability.

"With more than 15,000 improvements, Firefox 3 is faster, safer and smarter than ever before."

The Mozilla community have cleaned up their act at last. Like improved memory management and utilization.

Visit Mozilla to download your copy now.

Monday 5 May, 2008

Why are Tapes not Suitable for Backup


Tapes are meant for backup. Though invented long ago and not invented for backups, they are still suited for backups because of two things: Reliability and Cost per capacity. They are very suitable for an enterprise, large or medium.

There are some problems with tape backup that make it less suited for a causal, personal user or someone without dedicated, trained IT department.
  1. Tape backups require tape drives. And tape drives come in varied specifications and types. You will be spoilt for options when choosing one.

  2. You can not read tape backups on all computers. Suppose you require to urgently recover a data to a laptop. You can not do that easily. Two issues:
    Firstly, the tape drive may not be compatible with the target computer. It might require SCSI cards, exotic cables or drivers.
    Secondly, your only tape drive might be damaged by the same disaster that destroys your data. Imagine that your workstation is destroyed due to a power surge or lighting surge. Maybe your tape drive or SCSI card gets damaged too. Keeping a second tape drive ready or as spare is not for everybody's budget right?

  3. It requires an up-front investment. You need a tape drive, a decent one will cost Rs. 15 to 20K. And you need to buy at least some 9 tapes to have full rotation.

  4. You must rotate to benifit. You must understand and adhere to a proper tape rotation scheme to benefit from the tape backup solution. If you do not know what is stored where in a hurry, what use is it? If you do not swap the tapes properly, you will overwrite backups and may loose backup. Religiously rotating tapes requires trained staff. (If you can buy Auto-loaders, you are not the small biz, casual or personal user I am writing about).

So what can the small biz or personal users use for backup? In a few days...

This blog's just been negleted - not abandoned.

Sorry for not posting for so long. Will keep adding more content soon.