thoughtstuff | Tom Morgan

Busylight Lync SDK Released! (inc. code samples)

Tom — Sat, 18 May 2013 14:11:20 +0000

With the new SDK, you can use the Busylight as a system status alert for SCOM, Twitter, CI Builds – whatever you want!

A while ago, I blogged about how you could use the DLL that came with the Busylight to create your own colours and control it from within your application.

The Busylight is a USB device with a speaker and light. It’s designed to show your presence from Microsoft Lync and other UC applications in a more visual way. In open plan offices, it’s a good way of signalling that you’re on a call and don’t want to be disturbed. There’s a good write-up by Scott Hanselman about it.

When I blogged this before, I used the DLL that came with the stock application to control some of the functionality of the Busylight, and I moaned about the lack of an SDK. At the time, Morten Ostergaard, a Partner at Plenom a/s (the people behind Busylight) made contact, gave me some hints and tips, and confirmed that an SDK would be coming for Busylight.

Well, it’s arrived! The official SDK from Busylight is now available, via their Developer section at http://www.busylight.com/develop.

When I last looked at the DLL that came with the Busylight, it was possible to get it to display colours on demand, but it wasn’t particuarly simple, and it was a bit too hacky to be used comfortably in a production environment. However, the SDK has made it really simple to control the Busylight, which makes it ideal for hundreds of use cases outside of the standard Lync presence reporting.

Get the SDK

Important: The download page only talks about the Busylight UC SDK, not the Busylight Lync SDK. That’s OK though - you can use the same SDK with the Busylight Lync. You just need to call a different constructor (see the code samples below).

Download the Busylight SDK

In the examples below I created a new Console Application in Visual Studio. You can do this if you want to follow along. Either way, add a reference to Busylight.Sdk.dll which is included in the download.

Busylight UC vs. Busylight Lync

The SDK works with both Busylight UC and Busylight Lync, although the website only talks about the Busylight UC. The default constructor for the BusylightController in the SDK will work the Busylight UC only.

In order to use the SDK with the Busylight Lync you need to use the overloaded version of the constructor, which takes 2 integers for the VID and PID. The values to use for the Busylight Lync device are:

VID: 1240
PID: 63560

All the samples below are for Busylight Lync, but if you have a Busylight UC, just remove the parameters, and you should be fine.

Lighting Up

Here’s how simple Plenom have made it to control the Busylight from your application:

There’s a choice of 4 colours: Red, Blue, Green and Yellow. I found that if you set the light, it will stay on for about 10 seconds before turning off. If that’s too long, you can call Light() with the color enumeration Off.

In the future, it would be cool to be able to specify custom colour combinations, maybe using RGB values, to allow for a range of different colours.

Pulse It

As well as just displaying a light colour, you can also draw attraction by altering the opacity of the light, to create a pulsating effect:

The SDK allows you to specify a colour, and up to 8 steps. Each step property is a tinyint (0-255) representing the opacitiy of the light. 0 is off, 255 is full brightness. The steps are executed in order, very quickly (I would say about 250 milliseconds between them). The example above gives a sort of fade in and fade out effect.

Each sequence is executed in full 7 times, before the light turns off.

You can also use this to save yourself writing loop code, if you want to show a flashing light. Just set each odd step at zero and each even step at 255. It turns out looking like this:

Light and Sound

One of the big things I couldn’t work out how to do before the SDK was sound. It’s included in this SDK however, as part of the Alert() method:

There’s a choice of 8 different sound clips and 4 different volume settings.

I noticed that when using the Alert() method, the alert never seemed to stop. The light would turn off after about 10 seconds, but the sound continued. I waited 3 minutes for it to stop, and ended up unplugging it to get it to shut up!

However, calling Light() will stop the sound. I use this trick in the code sample to cancel the sound after 10 seconds.

There’s also a method called AlertAndReturn(), but I couldn’t work out what this did differently from Alert(), apart from always using a blue light regardless of what you chose.

Conclusion

Plenom have made it really simple to integrate use of the Busylight into your own applications. Building a simple hardware notification to react to events such as system errors, or notifications is usually either expensive or complicated. However, the Busylight is an inexpensive and simple solution and you won’t have to spend ages putting it together.

To take just one example: Continuous Integration server build notifications. There are many ingenious and cool solutions out there, but sometimes you don’t have time, and just want something that works. I reckon I could hook this into TFS in less than a day. If I get time to try it, I’ll post up the code.

Lync CWEs – a Technical Introduction

Tom — Wed, 08 May 2013 15:30:09 +0000

Microsoft Lync CWEs – Conversation Window Extensions – are one of the key tools in the Lync developer’s toolkit, but when and how you can use them takes a little bit of understanding.

What are they?

At its simplest, a CWE is just a webpage browser, part of the Lync client and displayed to the user as a extension of their chat window. There’s no chrome (no windows, buttons, menus etc.) but content is rendered the same as in Internet Explorer, and some shortcut keys, such as Alt+arrow continue to work.

You can load whatever you want in a CWE, as long as you think it will render. For instance, I could choose to show this site as a CWE:

As a user, I can open this anytime I want to using the More Options ellipses in the bottom-right corner of the chat window.

Integration

There’s two advantages CWEs have over regular webpages though, which really open up possibilities for developers:

CWEs can be invoked from code to open on a client’s machine automatically
CWEs can communicate with the Lync system, to read information about the Lync session, or to send information to other applications

Let’s take each of these and break them down.

CWEs can be invoked from code to open on a client’s machine automatically

As an application developer, creating applications using either the Lync Client SDK or UCMA, when your application is in conversation with a user, you can “invoke” a CWE to appear on their client. You do this by sending a special code through to the client (which the user doesn’t see), which pops open the window. This is useful if, for instance, your application is telling the user about a recent sales order – it would be useful to open a webpage showing the order and related information.

As you might imagine, there are some security prerequisites to this (wecan’t have people opening windows everywhere on other people’s machines – this isn’t the 90′s!), but if you’ve prepared the way you can create some really nice experiences for your user this way, by giving them rich additional content to support whatever other information you were providing them.

CWEs can communicate with the Lync system, to read information about the Lync session, or to send information to other applications

As well as just opening the CWEs, there’s a clever way your application can communicate with Lync, which opens up a number of exciting possibilities.

The CWE window supports the use of Silverlight. As part of the Lync Client SDK, Microsoft provide Silverlight DLLs for Lync development. This means that you can write a Silverlight application which uses the Lync DLLs and which therefore can talk to Lync.

Why would you want to do this? Well, to take the sales example from earlier, rather than just showing a webpage with sales data, you might want to write a Silverlight application which showed the data, but targeted for the user that was looking at it. You might also want to show the Lync presence of other key people involved in the sale, making it easy for the user to contact them. You can also integrate the process of contacting people deep within your application, making it more intuitive – the user doesn’t feel like they are switching over to Lync to call someone, they’re doing it from within your application.

Microsoft have released a load of Silverlight controls which you can embed into your CWE applications. There’s an example on MSDN of adding a ContactCard into a Silverlight application to display contact information. Or, if you want to write your own, just grab a reference to the Lync client in code and have a play – the Intellisense is a good way of discovering what you can do. Start with:

Other applications can also talk to your CWE, via the Context Channel. This is a like a hidden pipe through which applications can trade data. If you’ve written an application in UCMA which contacts a user and opens a CWE, then the UCMA application and the CWE application talk to each other, without the client being aware. This unlocks some pretty powerful abilities, as it makes your CWE webpage or Silverlight application “come alive” by being able to react to events. An example would be a chess game, where you play against the computer (a UCMA application). The application would open a CWE window with a Silverlight application containing a chess board. When you make a move, this is sent over the context channel to the UCMA application. When the UCMA application has worked out its next move, it sends that back over the context channel, and the CWE application updates. of course, this communication could also be between two CWE clients, or between multiple CWE clients and a UCMA application etc. There’s a really nice code sample on MSDN showing how to send and receive context. It’s written for Lync 2010, but it should work fine in 2013: Using Lync Controls to Send Contextual Data.

Security

CWEs can perform powerful functions, such as opening on remote command, and sending data silently, so there are some tight rules about how they operate. I think this is why people find them confusing – it’s often not clear why they don’t work – but it’s usually security related! First, in order for any CWE to be opened, either by the user locally, or by an application remotely, it must be registered. This is done via a registry entry. The registry entry contains the name of the application, its URL and a unique GUID to identify it. This must be in place before you attempt to open a CWE on a user’s machine via code. The command to open a CWE doesn’t take the name, or the URL of the CWE – it takes the unique GUID. This is then sent to the client. If the client recognises it in the registry, then it opens the stored value of the URL. If it doesn’t recognise it, you see the “Context is not support” error in the Lync client. This means that the client doesn’t have a match for the GUID you’ve just sent it. The registry settings are keyed by the GUID of your application, and contain a friendly name, a size, and two URLs – for internal and external access. This allows you to specify an intranet URL if you want to serve a different version of the application to internal users (versus those that arrive via your Edge Server):

If opening a URL is all you want to do, then you don’t need to do any more work. However, if your application needs to establish communication with the Lync client (using the Silverlight DLLs) then the application also needs to be trusted. In Lync 2013, this means adding the domain the site is running at into a special registry key, the Lync Trusted Sites key. (in Lync 2010, this key didn’t exist – sites had to be trusted in Internet Explorer by placing them into the Trusted Zone). If you fail to do this, when your application first tries to use the Lync DLL, you’ll receive a Client Not Trusted Exception:

(for more on trusted sites, see blog post here.)

Conclusion

“CWEs are a great way for developers to extend the functionality of Lync to their users. ”

CWEs are a great way for developers to extend the functionality of Lync to their users. Microsoft have done a good job of providing controls and tools to allow applications to communicate with the Lync client and react to events. They can also send data to other CWEs or to applications running UCMA, which allows for a powerfully integrated solution. Because of their power, there are some fidlly security rules to work with, but once you understand these, and what you need to do to satisfy them, you can be up and running creating CWEs to extend Lync in no time!

Scuba Diving Insurance – What to Look For, Who to Choose & Why it’s Important

Tom — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 07:24:33 +0000

This is a mega-post, so at each section I’ve provided links to all the other sections. I’ve also broken up some of the sections with picture, just to brighten it up a bit!

Introduction – why it’s important to take diving insurance seriously, and the two different sorts of insurance providers
What to look for – things I look for when choosing an insurance provider
Research on Insurance Choices – I asked some other divers what insurance they chose, and why. This is what they said
“Normal” & “Adventure” Insurance Providers – A list of 27 non-specialist insurers, links to their policies and notes on their cover regarding scuba diving
Specialist Diving Insurers – A list of 5 specialist insurance companies, links to their policies and notes on their cover
Conclusion & Recommendation

Introduction

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You’ve booked your holiday, your once-in-a-long-time opportunity for some sun, some relaxation and, yes, some diving. You may even have “pushed the boat out” (badum tish) and plumped for a liveaboard. Maybe you’re going to Egypt, or perhaps somewhere further afield.

And now I want to talk to you about something much less interesting: your insurance. No, not in case your luggage gets diverted to Lithuania, or your airline goes bust (this happened to me!), I’m talking about your Diving Insurance. You know, in case bad things happen whilst you’re diving.

A lot of people don’t think about this, or don’t give it the attention (I think) it deserves. For a start us Brits are spoilt when it comes to healthcare. Thanks to the wonders of the NHS, our care is free at the point of delivery. Even if we do something silly like BMX into a bus, or yes, ascend too fast on a dive – the NHS will be there to care for us. And they won’t want a penny. This has made us complacent, cossetted in the belief that surely this sort of care is our unassailable right wherever we happen to find ourselves in the world. Well, the sun has set on the Empire, this is 2013 and unfortunately this just isn’t true.

Travel insurance has many parts to it, but one of those parts covers your medical assistance whilst abroad. If you’re in the EU then your EHIC may offer you some good assistance, but if you’re outside of the EU (and a lot of very good dive spots are outside the EU), then you need to know what your insurance will cover you for.

“Your insurer may want to know beforehand that you are planning on diving.”

Here’s another thing: diving is seen as a hazardous activity. It’s an extreme sport. It’s a safe sport, far safer than many others, but it’s classed as a activity with increased risk due to the special conditions we divers choose to subject ourselves to. That affects your insurance, quite a lot in some cases. Your insurer may want to know beforehand that you are planning on diving. They may want to impose some restrictions or charge you a premium.

The Price of Care

Some people don’t get any insurance when they go diving abroad. That means that, should anything happen to them which requires medical assistance and this isn’t covered by anyone else (such as the NHS or a EHIC card) then they must foot the cost. What is this cost?

In Sharm el Sheikh, hyperbaric treatment costs around $750 per hour (source). If you were to require 4 days of decompression therapy, 8 hours per day (which is not unreasonable) that comes to around $24,000, or around £15,500.

Note: the EHIC card (the European Health Insurance Card) which covers you for emergency healthcare in Europe and which is available free from the NHS, does NOT cover Egypt (or anywhere else not in Europe)!

High Street Cover

Many banks and building societies offer travel insurance as part of bank account packages. A lot of these also cover scuba diving.

My concern is that people don’t read the small print of their cover, not digging any deeper than “Scuba Diving Covered”. For a lot of these high-street providers, the scuba-diving is not the majority market, and therefore there is little incentive to offer the perfect cover for divers. The cover you receive may be lacking in several areas, including things you may have taken for granted.

Here’s an example… and the first disclaimer. I’m not a lawyer, or an insurance specialist. I am quoting from a policy, and you must make up your own mind what it means.

This is from the American Express Travel Insurance policy:

You are covered for: All reasonable and necessary expenses which arise as a result of a medical emergency (excluding search and rescue) involving you.

What is defined as “search and rescue”? What if you suffer an unsafe ascent away from the boat, and a search helicopter is dispatched to find you? What if you are taken by helicopter from the boat to the nearest hospital – is that “rescue”? I’m not picking on American Express, they aren’t the only one to exclude search and rescue, but it raises important questions in my mind – and this is an area where I don’t want to have unanswered important questions.

Specialist Diving Insurers

There are specialist diving insurers available. These are insurance companies set up specifically to cater for divers. They tend to understand the sort of concerns and questions diving should have, and cater for them accordingly.

The most surprising thing about these insurers is that they are not expensive, especially relative to the price of a holiday. I think the greatest barrier to people choosing these providers instead of their normal travel insurer is apathy: it’s another thing to research, another form to fill in, another bit of paperwork to deal with. Besides, nothing bad will happen to me, right? I’m on holiday!

What to Look For

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Firstly, I’m not an expert. This is what I look for when comparing insurance cover. You should make sure you fully understand both the conditions and the exclusions of any policy you plan to rely on to cover your scuba-diving activities.

There are 4 main things I tend to look for in diving insurance. They are:

Depths

Fairly obvious one this, but insurers will tend to put a limit on how deep you can dive. This may either be a fixed depth or tied to your qualifications. It’s definitely worth checking the small print for these numbers as this would be the easiest way for you to invalidate your insurance.

Like lots of other aspects of diving, don’t push the limits. If you’re an Advanced Open Water Diver (qualified to 30M) planning on doing dives at or around the 18M mark, don’t choose insurance which sets an absolute limit at 18M (or even 20M). Things can happen, especially if you get into difficulties and it’s easy to sink down a few meters and invalidate yourself.

It’s also worth noting that in order to be covered for any scuba diving, a lot of companies insist that you inform them first that you are planning on going diving, and have this written into your policy schedule.

Incidental/ Diving Holiday

I wasn’t aware of this until I started looking, but some policies will only cover scuba diving if done on an “Incidental Basis”. Some policies state exactly what this means, some don’t. However, if you’re planning a holiday where you have pre-booked 5 days diving and hired equipment, I would suggest that isn’t diving on an incidental basis. If your policy states this I would recommend you get it clarified before you rely on it.

Transportation Costs

Should something happen whilst you are diving then the captain or dive crew may well elect to have you removed to the nearest decompression chamber as quickly as possible. This may very well include a helicopter ride. It’s worth clarifying with your insurer exactly who pays for this if you need it, because some policies explicitly exclude search and rescue costs from their policies.

Quite often the insurers will require “proof” from a qualified medical person before agreeing to cover costs. Here’s an example (it’s from the M&S Money policy regarding travel cover) :

“With the prior authorisation of the Emergency Assistance Service, the additional costs incurred in the use of air transport or other suitable means, including qualified attendants, to repatriate you to your home if it is medically necessary. These expenses will be for the identical class of travel utilised on the outward journey unless the Emergency Assistance Service agree otherwise.”

You need to consider where you are going, how remote your diving will be, how long it will take for the Emergency Assistance Service to decide on the appropriate course of action and inform your insurers. There is evidence that “early HBO (hyperbaric oxygen) treatment in divers with neurological DCI is associated with a better outcome”. Whatever needs to happen, needs to happen quickly.

Other Exclusions / Comments

Some providers will not cover you if you dive using Nitrox (yes, really!). There may be other exclusions, limitations or restrictions as well, so read your policy carefully.

Research on Insurance Choices

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I conducted some research amoungst divers to find out what diving insurance policies they chose. I also asked them what they thought that insurance covered, and how they would classify themselves as a diver.

By the way, you can still contribute to this research, if you’re a diver and haven’t yet submitted a result. Please fill in the super-simple survey here. If I get a lot more responses I’ll be able to draw more conclusions about the choices people make.

What Do The Professionals Buy?

So, don’t just take my word for it!

There was also some evidence that people are purchasing non-specialist insurance but assuming that it covers them for a variety of emergency, diving-specific conditions. The numbers are too low to be conclusive but of the 10 responses who purchased “Ordinary Travel Insurance” or “Adventure/Extreme Sports Focused Insurance”, the following percentages thought that their insurance would cover:

“Normal” & “Adventure” Insurance Providers

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I collated a list of some of the more popular High Street insurers, plus some Adventure Travel insurers. For each one I looked through the policy, searching for things to do with diving, such as maximum depths, or search & rescue exclusion. I’ve included my notes below. If you use one of these providers have a check to make sure that the cover you think you’re receiving matches what’s in the policy.

There are 27 providers in this list, but there are many, many more out there. If I’ve missed your favourite one out, I do apologise. Drop me a note in the comments and I’ll do my best to add it to the list.

This is NOT a definitive list, nor should be used as the basis of any decision as to your chosen provider.

It is intended to highlight the differences in policy between different providers. This is a list of several providers who offer different travel insurance products, based on data available between Q42012 and Q12013 . I’ve looked at their policies and very un-scientifically searched them for keywords such as “scuba”, “incidental”, “rescue” etc. before extracting specific sections. Therefore, you should fully read the policies carefully before making any decisions. It’s also possible I’ve left comments out which should be in there: let me know of any omissions and I’ll happily correct them, with apologies.

These providers are either “ordinary” insurance providers who also cover scuba diving, or providers aimed at adventure/extreme holidays.

1 Stop Travel Insurance

Read the policy here: http://www.1stoptravelinsurance.co.uk/policy-documents/1stop-policy-wording-v8-201208.pdf

Depths

with Premium: Scuba diving (qualified and above 40 metres)

Incidental/ Diving Holiday

I didn’t see anything specific, you should check.

Transportation Costs

Not explicitly listed in policy document:

“If you wish to take part in an activity during your trip or if you are in any doubt as to whether or not an activity you intend to participate in during your trip will be covered, please contact Direct Travel Insurance Customer Services by phoning [...] or by e-mailing [...] before taking part to make sure that cover is provided.”

Incidental/ Diving Holiday

Read the policy here: http://www.hsbc.co.uk/1/PA_esf-ca-app-content/content/pws/content/personal/pdfs/CTRTG9185_HSBC_Singleand_Annual_Policy_Booklet.pdf

Depths

Scuba diving to a depth of 15 metres

Scuba Diving up to 30 metres (Optional) (but excludes Nitrox)

Incidental/ Diving Holiday

Incidental Cover Only

Transportation Costs

I didn’t see anything specific, you should check.

Other Exclusions / Comments

Not covered:

Any claim as a result of scuba diving where:
a) the claim is caused by you suffering from any medical condition which would normally
prohibit you from diving
b) you do not follow all diving safety warnings and guidelines
c) you are undertaking professional, commercial or technical diving including, but not
limited to, enriched air diving, tutor diving, ice diving, free diving, wreck diving, solo
diving and cave or cavern diving
d) you travel by air within 24 hours of completing a dive

Insure & Away

Read the policy here: http://www.insureandaway.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Policy-Wordings.pdf

Depths

Scuba diving (qualified, maximum depth 30 metres) under 14 days
per trip

5* Defaqto rated Worldwide Family Travel Insurance (included with some accounts)

Read the policy here: http://www.natwest.com/downloads/global_options/docs/NWB6849.pdf

Depths

SCUBA diving unless you are a qualified diver and you are accompanied at all times with another qualified
diver or if you do not hold a SCUBA diving certificate, you are accompanied at all times by a qualified diving
instructor and in any instance SCUBA diving beyond a depth of 30 metres is excluded;

Incidental/ Diving Holiday

You must let us know if you are taking part in any activity, which is either the main purpose of your Journey, or you know there is a good chance you are going to be taking part.

Transportation Costs

I didn’t see anything specific, you should check.

Other Exclusions / Comments

I didn’t see anything specific, you should check.

PJ Hayman

Read the policy here: http://www.pjhayman.com/downloads/UG_adventures_2013.pdf , http://www.pjhayman.com/downloads/PW_adventures_2013.pdf

Depths

Cover available to 30M, 50M or 50M+ (50M+ only as part of professionally organised activity)

Provided you are diving under the direction of an accredited dive marshal, instructor or guide. Alternatively, if qualified, within the guidelines of the relevant diving or training agency or organisation and not diving alone.

Incidental/ Diving Holiday

I didn’t see anything specific, you should check.

Transportation Costs

Search & Rescue costs covered with £500 excess for 72 hours following first assistance.

Other Exclusions / Comments

I didn’t see anything specific, you should check.

RAC

Read the policy here: https://www.acesecure.co.uk/ractravel/Documents/RACTravel/RAC-Travel-Policy-and-Summary.pdf#zoom=100

Depths

Scuba diving (to a depth not exceeding 20 metres and provided that You are either accompanied by a qualified instructor, or You are qualified and not diving alone)

Incidental/ Diving Holiday

Not covered where sports or activities are the main focus of, or form a significant proportion of Your Holiday

Transportation Costs

I didn’t see anything specific, you should check.

Other Exclusions / Comments

I didn’t see anything specific, you should check.

Post Office

Read the policy here: http://www.postoffice.co.uk/sites/default/files/TI_single_and_annual_policy.pdf

Depths

Transportation Costs

Will not cover: Any search and rescue costs.

Other Exclusions / Comments

I didn’t see anything specific, you should check.

Specialist Diving Insurers

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As you know, there are also insurance companies which specialise in diving insurance. I’ve collated 5 such companies here, and subjected them to the same searches I used on the other insurance providers.

This is NOT a definitive list, nor should be used as the basis of any decision as to your chosen provider.

DAN (Sport Silver)

Read the policy here: Not available unless you are logged into MyDan. May be available on request.

Depths

No depth limit (limits imposed on Bronze policy).

Recreational Diving means all snorkelling, and recreational Diving Activities carried out by the Insured as stated in the Schedule or Certificate attached to this Policy with or without breathing apparatus whether as a student or not including:
• Compressed air diving in any form
• Enriched air “nitrox” diving with fixed percentages with an open circuit or a “rebreather”
• The use of oxygen enriched air or of oxygen to maximize decompression safety
• The use of normoxic “Trimix” mixtures at depths less than 50m to minimize the narcotic effects of compressed air.

Incidental/ Diving Holiday

Covers any diving you undertake. Note: only covers diving – this is not a general insurance policy.

“THIS IS NOT a private medical insurance policy and only gives cover during a diving activity or in the event of accident or illness that manifests itself during a Journey”

Transportation Costs

Included: emergency transport by ambulance (or other rescue service to take you to the hospital or clinic)

Other Exclusions / Comments

Note: diving insurance only. DAN provide you with a insurance card and a telephone number (both local and international) to call. This will connect you to an English speaking operator who will then co-ordinate rescue and care for you.

Divemaster (IDEC Diver Accident Insurance)

Read the policy here: http://www.divemasterinsurance.com/assets/PW/IDEC%20Wording%2007.09.pdf

Depths

80 metres for unsupported dives and/or 130 metres for supported dives unless underwriters agreement is obtained after a written submission. However:

” i) We accept that being a certified recreational diver does not necessarily make you qualified for all challenging dives. The SCUBA Diving Certifying Associations (Authoritative Diving Bodies) recommend that you increase your diving depths and experience by gradual progression and log them as proof of your experience.
ii) Conversely we accept that there will be many recreational SCUBA divers who are qualified to dive certain challenging dives by way of logged experience but may not be certified to engage in these challenging dives.
iii) In all claims situations attaching to this policy we will consider both your diver certifications and your logged dive experience before coming to a decision.”

Also, marked as an Exclusion: “A lack of the correct diver certification and/or lack of provable experience by way of your logged dive records where this lack of certification and/or logged experience was directly causative of the Accident/Injury.”

Incidental/ Diving Holiday

I didn’t see anything specific, you should check.

Transportation Costs

Covered, with the following limits:

Emergency Air Evacuation/Repatriation: £75,000
Search & Rescue: £50,000
Reasonable Transportation Costs & Accommodation Expenses: £5,000

Other Exclusions / Comments

Author Note: The IDEC Insurance policy is only for diving accident/medical emergency, and does not cover other things, such as cancelled flights or lost luggage. Divemaster provide a range of supporting products (such as Annual Trip Insurance) which provide these features, but the IDEC Insurance policy is the only one that provides medical cover.

Westfield

Read the policy here: http://www.divinginsuranceuk.com/index_htm_files/Westfield%20Travel%20Insurance%20Policy%20Wording%202013.pdf

Depths

I didn’t see anything specific, you should check.

Incidental/ Diving Holiday

I didn’t see anything specific, you should check.

Transportation Costs

Air Ambulance, Sea Rescue, Hyperbaric Chamber costs covered (up to £5M each)

Other Exclusions / Comments

No cave diving. However, many other forms of diving, such as deep or wreck diving, appear to be covered.

The only exclusion I could find was this:

Excluded: Any claims arising from the Insured Person’s failure to comply with the current safety recommendations of the Insured Person’s diving association.

Travel4Scuba

This policy has been withdrawn. The suggested alternative is Adventures Travel Insurance from PJ Haymen (mentioned above)

Scuba Travel

Read the policy here: http://www.scubatravel.com/extras/Insurance/Scuba_Travel.pdf

Depths

Scuba diving to a depth of 50m

Incidental/ Diving Holiday

I didn’t see anything specific, you should check.

Transportation Costs

Reasonable receipted costs if following you being reported missing whilst scuba diving, the local authorities deem it necessary to instigate a search and rescue operation.

Other Exclusions / Comments

I didn’t see anything specific, you should check.

Conclusion & Recommendation

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“don’t assume your insurance covers you for every aspect of diving”

Your choice of insurer when you go diving is an important one. You wouldn’t buy the cheapest set of regs without first making sure they were going to function correctly at the depth you wanted to dive to, and without finding out whether they were as reliable and dependable as you want them to be. Likewise, don’t assume your insurance covers you for every aspect of diving. This is true for all levels of divers, but becomes much more important the deeper and more technical your diving becomes.

My recommendation would be DAN. I’ve had DAN membership on and off for 5 years, thankfully I’ve never needed to use them. However, you don’t have to talk to many people in the diving world to come across story after story of positive interactions with the team there, and of swift and decisive action.

DAN is a non-profit organisation, and also do a great amount of medical and research work to try and better understand the underwater world to improve the safety of those that dive there. They have more than 100,000 members worldwide.

I have the Sport Silver Membership, which I find covers all my needs with a very conservative buffer. There are no depth limits and all types of diving, including technical, are covered. Last time I checked (April 2013) it was £75. You pay more than that to park your car at the airport for a week when you’re on holiday.

You can visit the DAN website or the online sign-up page. And if you found any of this useful, drop me a note in the comments!

(No-one, including DAN, has given me anything to say any of this stuff, or to include any of the companies on this site. Research responses to survey available on request.)

Book: Microsoft Lync Server 2013 Unleashed

Tom — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 08:33:16 +0000

There’s a new book on Lync Server 2013 out, and it’s been described as “The most comprehensive, realistic, and useful guide to Microsoft Lync Server 2013, today’s leading Unified Communications system.”.

Susan Bradley, Microsoft Senior Content Project Manager says that it “may well be the Lync Book of the Year”, and that the authors are a “powerhouse of Lync knowledge and real-life experience planning, integrating, deploying, and administering Lync Server for companies around the globe.”

High praise indeed. But then, 3 of the 5 authors work at Modality Systems, so I wouldn’t have expected anything less!

This book demonstrates how Lync Server 2013 has really evolved from previous versions and other communication platforms. There’s also new sections on Office365 and Lync Online. You can read the full report on Susan’s blog.

Available from Amazon: Microsoft Lync Server 2013 Unleashed (UK link)

Pro Tip

At the time of writing this, it’s not yet available in print as it’s so new. However, you can download the Kindle version right now, from Amazon.

What is 2-step Verification and why should I care?

Tom — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 17:00:26 +0000

I’ve just enabled 2-step verification for my Apple ID. Why did I do this, and what does it all mean?

Update: Microsoft have just announced that 2-step verification will soon be coming to Microsoft Account services. This will include Windows, Phone, XBox, SkyDrive, and the online versions of Office and Outlook. The rollour will be happening over “the next couple of days”. Excellent news!

The Problem

Your email, Facebook, Twitter, your bank, your favourite websites – they all have passwords. And, all these passwords are complex, hard to guess and different, right? (they should be!)

More and more stuff is moving online these days, and what you do online is increasing. This is good for us, but it’s also good for the Bad Guys. If the Bad Guys can access your accounts, what they can do today is much greater than a few years ago. It used to be that if your account was “hacked”, your friends might get some lewd emails and it would all be very embarrassing. Today, you can expect loans to be taken out in your name, money transferred out of your account and your iPhone and iPad to stop working.

Is this likely? Well, probably not no, not in the grand scheme of things. There’s lots of people in the world, and the chances of someone choosing you as their next victim are quite low.

But don’t tell that to anyone who’s been the victim of Identify Theft, or had their credit card details swiped. Just because it’s not likely, doesn’t mean it won’t happen.

Do you have house insurance? Of course you do.

In 2011-12 there were 43,500 fires in dwellings in the UK. (source) In 2012 there were 26.4 million households in the UK. (source)

All things being equal, the likelihood of your house catching fire in 2012 was 0.165%. If that’s high enough for you to take out insurance, you need to read on.

The Chain

Think about how all your accounts are chained together, to make things easy for you. Your Amazon account – the username is your email address, right? And the password reset email goes to… your email address. So, Bad Guy gets your email, he gets your Amazon account. Do you have 1-Click ordering turned on, or your credit cards stored with Amazon? That’s just going to be annoying – you’ll need to cancel the card, send the books back. But what if you have a Kindle?

Deregistering a Kindle will remove all the content and stop it working. It’s not a major pain, as your books will be stored on your Amazon account… as long as you can get it back and the account doesn’t get deleted.

LinkedIn and Twitter also use email password reset and things that happen here can affect your professional career, which is serious in a world where everything online is stored and available for future employers to search. Facebook? Well that would just be embarrassing really…unless of course you’re set up for in-Facebook purchases…

The Weak Link

Onto Apple. To reset your password with Apple’s tech support you need to provide the last 4 digits of your card number. Apple obviously reckon this is secure: a validation of you as a person.

Amazon consider it throwaway, non-sensitive information. Log into your Amazon account now, and choose Manage Your Payment Methods. Hmm.

So, what’s the big deal with having your Apple account hacked? Well, apart from the app and iTunes purchases (which you’ll probably be able to claim back), there’s this:

Obviously this works for iPads as well: a big deal for anyone with photos of their children, pets or other precious items.

There’s an even scarier prospect too, if you consider that anyone with access to your email and Amazon account definitely knows your home address, and just needs a way to know whether you own an iPad worth stealing, and when you’re not home:

This isn’t just theory by the way, this has happened.

2 Steps to Safety

So, what’s the answer? There’s no completely safe method, no silver bullet, but 2-step verification is a big step forward.

2-step works like this:

You log in as normal, with username and password
Before the login completes, a unique code is sent somewhere only you would have access to, such as a text message to your phone
You type the code in and the login completes.

It’s a very similar method to the RSA keys used by larger organisations, where the password is made up of a random stream of numbers, which changes every 30 seconds and is kept by the user on a keyring:

Typically, once you’ve entered the code, the computer will remember you for 30 days or so, meaning that you won’t have to enter a new code every time you use that device.

This is a huge step forward: it means that not only do the Bad Guys need to get your username and password: they also need to be in receipt of one of your devices, which is much less likely. You’re also moving yourself further up the Tree of Low Hanging Fruit – you’re now just too much work to try and hack, and there’ll be plenty of other suckers who haven’t turned it on.

Turn it on

2-step is now being offered by several of the larger sites, and I’m sure more will come on-board soon. Here are the ones I know about:

Google – a must do: Go to your settings and complete the section titled 2-Step Verification
Facebook : Go to your settings and complete the section title Login Approvals
Apple: Go to My Apple ID and select Password and Security. Apple have a lockout window of 3-5 days between requesting 2-step and enabling it to allow them time to notify all your devices and email address (in case it wasn’t initiated by you)
Twitter: 2-step authentication is coming soon following a recent hack attack
Microsoft: coming soon

There are some other places that use it, such as Dropbox and WordPress and if you use these, you should definitely consider it. And if your email provider doesn’t offer it, demand they do, before it’s too late.

Windows 8.1: Why the New Naming Convention is Important

Tom — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 18:03:14 +0000

I don’t usually do a lot of commenting on mainstream Windows stuff: I can’t keep up and there’s plenty of other people who can. But I do try and keep my ear in on what’s going on.

“the name change to 8.1 represents a huge change in the way Windows is developed & delivered.”

The big news recently is Windows Blue, the next version of the Windows 8 operating system. Its final name is going to Windows 8.1. You can read about this either from Mary Jo Foley or on The Verge, to just 2 of the better sources. This is unusual: not since Windows 3.1 have Microsoft used numerical points to iterate their operating system releases. People have been saying that the change to a point release name is more boring that calling it Blue, or that it makes it sound more like a Service Pack, or just that it’s usual crazy Microsoft naming conventions. I say this: the name change to 8.1 represents a huge change in the way Windows is developed & delivered.

How so?

Over the past couple of years, Microsoft have been trying to change how they ship software. From traditional 2 year product cycles, they’ve been trying to move to a model where they ship sooner, iterate faster, move in a more agile way. As a developer, I’ve definitely seen this happening in Visual Studio and its associated products. Apple (to some extent), Google (for sure) and the New World of small companies and individuals rapidly iterating software and apps is making them look slow and outdated, and they want to be part of the party, to be able to change pace and support the latest thing.

But Microsoft is a big company, a massive company, and Change takes time. This isn’t going to happen overnight. Lots of moving parts need to come together and align.

However, I believe the use of a numerical point system demonstrates their commitment to making this change. You can’t release lots of incremental updates clearly when your product name is ME, or XP, or Blue. It fragments the marketing story too much. 8.1 is a clear iteration on 8, and it promises a future of iterations.

More Than Just Bug Fixes

“8.1 will be the first of a new generation of MS releases, and you heard it here first!”

Back in 2010, I wrote a blog post titled “Why iOS4 Was The Most Exciting Service Pack Ever“, where I called out Microsoft for not shipping new features in their Service Packs, just bug fixes. I think, from Windows 8.1, we will finally see that change. I believe Microsoft have come to believe that they have to innovate their software, they have to shorten their release cycle, they have continue to add features, if they want to keep up with the competition. It’s what their customers demand these days, and I think Microsoft are gearing up to make it happen. 8.1 will be the first of a new generation of MS releases, and you heard it here first!

Lync 2010 on Windows XP Pro / Windows Server 2003: Lync client does not start (after installing March 2013 update)

Tom — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 16:28:49 +0000

There’s a fix for the fix

If you’re a Windows XP Pro or Windows Server 2003 user and have applied the March 2013 cumulative update for Lync Client 2010, you may receive an error when you try and start the Lync client:

“The parameter is incorrect”

To resolve this issue, install the April 2013 cumulative update, available from Windows Update, or here from MS Support: Description of the cumulative update package for Lync 2010: April 2013

And, relax….

By the way, and not at all related, but this is a really good book:

Lync 2013 for iPhone – No Video for older phones?

Tom — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 09:08:42 +0000

The Lync 2013 client has now been released for Android, Windows Phone and iOS. For a good look at the features (shown off on a Windows Phone) see Justin’s blog post, but I noticed something odd yesterday with the iOS client.

I have an (old) iPhone 3Gs, however the app installs fine, and is pretty responsive. It’s impressive given the age of the technology it’s running on, and it shows that Microsoft have invested time in understanding each architecture they’ve ported the apps to.

All the features are available to me, however, when I try and place a call, only voice calls are available, not video:

The video icon is greyed out. I don’t know if this is because the hardware can’t support streaming high-quality video, or whether it’s because the 3GS only had a rear-facing camera, but it’s worth noting.

By the way, the new meeting list, and meeting join is really nice (but again, no video for me):

Maybe I just need a new phone! iPhone 5 or Windows Phone, that’s the real question…

Creating UCMA Applications with a UserApplication instance. Example: sending IMs.

Tom — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 17:28:26 +0000

The UCMA platform is very powerful, but sometimes you just want to send a message. Of course, you can do this using the Lync Client SDK, but you might not want the obvious interaction with the Lync client and visibility that provides. If you’re writing a Windows .NET application, you might just want to perform a Lync activity within the code, silently and secretly

When you write UCMA code you choose whether to do so with UserEndpoints or with ApplicationEndpoints. UserEndpoints are tied to a specific user, a Lync account and must have a username and password. ApplicationEndpoints have to be pre-registered with the Lync Server like this and are generally more powerful than UserEndpoints.

However, if all you want to do is send a quick IM and you’re in an application that already has the user’s credentials (or you can re-prompt for them), then a UserEndpoint is fine.

Here’s a quick example showing how to do this. This code will create and establish a UserEndpoint, send an IM and then Terminate:

Powershell/.NET AD Search Request for Lync objects without using AD Module

Tom — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 14:33:52 +0000

This is more of an aide-memoir than anything else, but if you need to get user details, including Microsoft Lync SIP Address and Home Server and you can’t use Powershell Active Directory Module, then these are the Attribute Names you need to use to query the Lync Extended Attributes using the System.DirectoryServices.Protocols.SearchRequest class.

(and I wanted to play with Gist). Initially, I couldn’t find the correct names to use to pull out the SIP Address and Home Server. I’d already written something to get back users:

and was getting the information I need back using this:

but it wasn’t working when I added msRTCSIP-PrimaryUserAddress into the Attributes list. I found out that if you left out the Attributes.Add entries completely, and didn’t have any, you got back all the Attributes. That meant I could scan the list, and find out that what I should be looking for was msrtcsip-primaryuseraddress – turns out it’s case-sensitive.