IB: InfoBulletin

1. Homework becomes popular!

What's the issue ?
Working at home is getting more popular, whether to ease the life of the mobile workforce or as a means of circumventing commuting disruptions.
IT technologies have helped facilitate peripatetic existences but - like science and ethics - the sociological consequences are only just becoming apparent.

How to manage homeworking
Have a definite plan regarding how far your organisation wants to go with home working. A few staff working away occasionally will have a small impact but having the majority at home most of the time will cause radical changes in all sorts of ways, including overhead costs, the way your audience/clients perceive you, the office environment and staff morale.

Benefits

• less wasted time and energy on commuting
• decreased overheads in terms of office rents, heating and lighting
• recruit 'employed' staff from a larger catchment area
• reduced risk from strike disruptions
• homeworkers feel 'more trusted' in an environment they control

2. Microsoft's insecurities make way for Linux

Global charity Action Aid is testing configurations of Linux with the possibility of replacing all its Microsoft-based IT systems. The long term IT strategy favours a move to open source systems, rather than being locked into a particular supplier of software and operating systems.
Action Aid was prompted to look at alternative solutions after being hit by some of the recent MS-specific viruses like Naked Wife, Emmanuel and Love Bug. The resulting cost of downtime, phone calls and general disruption to the organisation was deemed intolerable and was particularly disabling in those countries where obtaining the latest antivirus identification files on the Internet is difficult.
ActionAid works with over five million of the world's poorest people in more than 30 countries across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.
http://www.actionaid.org/

In Germany, the military are to ban the use of Microsoft programs, reports Das Spiegel. The German Army are concerned that access to their own confidential data may be gained by the US National Security Agency (NSA) which they believe may have 'back door' access to Microsoft's program source code.
German companies Siemens and Deutsche Telekom will be employed to write proprietary software instead. We are reliably informed that "in computers, which are used in sensitive areas, no software of the company Microsoft is therefore to be used more. After realizations of German security authorities the American espionage service NSA has encoded data all relevant source codes of the US firm and can read in such a way. In order to protect secrets, the Ministry of Defense sets Siemens and Telekom therefore on encoding techniques of the domestic companies."

The military are also revising its video-conferencing plans, since much of their international traffic is routed via Denver, Colarado in the USA.

Read Das Spiegel's newspaper report here - in German, of course.

3. Optimising your email addresses - routing aliases

What's the issue ?
How well do you use your organisation's external email addresses? Are enquiries from your Web pages routed efficiently to right person? Is it a big hassle to change the address names when someone's changes roles or leaves?

A good example
An enquirer fills in a form on your website. The resulting email is redirected to the correct department where any one of a number of your staff can deal with it. The enquiry also triggers an automatic response telling them it's being dealt with and pointing out alternative sources of information on your website, as well as relevant publications that you can sell or fax them by return.
Is this your response process? Perhaps it should be - it's becoming a typical one.

A typical example
What often happens is that, say, :

SOURCE	DESTINATION
publication sales go to	john@yourorg.org.uk
accounts queries go to	jpatel@yourorg.org.uk
web enquiries go to	jenny@yourorg.org.uk
NFP news goes to	jack@yourorg.org.uk
NFP news goes to	jillp@yourorg.org.uk

When John has sick leave, his team have to 'break into' his mailbox simply to get publications orders out. Big no-no.
If either Jenny, John or JPatel change their jobs internally or leave altogether, the systems administrator gets involved in a game of 'musical chairs for email addresses'. So they may have to route web enquiries for Jenny to the new part-timers Jane and Rob, and accounts queries for JPatel to the incoming accountant Rory.
The trouble now is that the enquiries are duplicated in Jane and Rob's email accounts, so may not get answered for a few days. Furthermore, JPatel subscribed to a whole of shopping Web sites before she left so all those emails get forwarded to poor Rory as well.
Both jack and jillp receive "NFP news" - a free email newsletter - but which means twice the phone bill required for a download.

The solution
Use aliases.

Email aliases are like a nickname which stand between the person finally receiving the emails and the outside world. So in the above example, you could use 3 additional email addresses:

SOURCE	ALIAS	DESTINATION
publication sales go to	publications@yourorg.org.uk	publications team
accounts queries go to	accounts@yourorg.org.uk	jpatel
web enquiries go to	webenqs@yourorg.org.uk	webteam
NFP news goes to	nfpnews@yourorg.org.uk	pressteam

Now, your IT Manager simply has to re-route the alias to another person when rôles change. They can also safely shut down old email accounts like JPatel's to cut off the stream of shopping offers!
Your Web editor doesn't have to track leavers by changing the contact addresses on the Web site - they simply publish "webenqs@yourorg.org.uk" and leave it at that because they know all enquiries will always go to the Webteam group of Jane and Rob.
A single copy of "NFP news" is downloaded and then forwarded to all the press team members.

An even better method of dealing with the "webenqs" address would be to route mails to a public noticeboard or folder. This is ideal for a function that is fulfilled by a group of people - like dealing with enquiries - especially if they job-share. Each person in the group, eg webteam, is given network rights to the public folder, eg webfolder. The group member who is 'on duty' for that day/morning/afternoon deals with each enquiry by replying, then deletes it. At any time there is only one copy of each enquiry, so no confusion occurs from duplicating it in many mailboxes.

In the above example, the routing would look like this:

SOURCE	ALIAS	DESTINATION
publication sales go to	publications@yourorg.org.uk	publications folder
web enquiries go to	webenqs@yourorg.org.uk	webteam folder

The final touch - to continue with "webenqs" example - would be to reply automatically to the sender just to confirm their message was received. This standard return message (one size fits all) is also your opportunity to publicise other aspects of your Web site, sell publications, give out contact details of your outreach centres, etc; just adding a few HTML links or telephone numbers will improve communications with your audience enormously.

Benefits of aliasing

• helps to categorise your incoming email for you by subject, instead of arbitrarily by the person it's addressed to
• cuts down your maintenance of addresses, especially redirection from the Web site
• helps your audience: a general email contact address (info@yourorg.org.uk) is easier to remember and arguably looks more professional than a personal one (l.j.macarthur@yourorg.org.uk)
• protect the actual personal addresses of your staff and volunteers

4. Does your virus engine need a tune-up ?

What is it ?
If you run Dr. Solomon's or McAfee anti-virus software, then you need to upgrade the 'engines' that run them. In essence this means upgrading the software program itself as opposed to the anti-virus definition files that are distributed regularly. These upgrades only need to done about once a year.
Sophos users http://www.sophos.com receive regular engine upgrades on monthly CDs so the upgrade process is seamless.

What's the cause ?
Basically, new virus attacks require new methods of scanning and disinfection and resulting virus definitions have grown enormously in number - currently around 100 new ones each week. So older virus engines may not scan correctly by, for example, failing to allocate enough RAM to hold the all the new definitions.

Getting under the bonnet
If you have engine version 4.0.50 or below installed, it will need an upgrade.

In the system tray, right-click on the soldier (Dr. Solomon's) or the shield (McAfee), select 'About' and look at the 'Scan engine' version number.

From May 2001 it will be imperative to be updated to 4.0.70 or higher.

How to make it happen
Visit www.nai.com, then go to "Download Updates" or click on http://www.nai.com/naicommon/download/upgrade/login.asp

All the engine versions are shown as far as 2002 as well as the period for which they are supported. You simply need to enter your licence number or login id for whichever product you have.

[Acknowledgements: Nick Arkas ]

5. Small Business Server 2000 replaces SBS 4.5

What's the issue ?
Microsoft's Small Business Server (SBS) version 2000 is replacing the previous SBS 4.5. Although support for version 4.5 will continue, Microsoft will no longer supply it.
If you are about to make a new purchase or upgrade, our established office-plus-server solution of SBS 4.5 on a Dell server will eventually be moving to SBS 2000. Like SBS 4.5, the 2000 version still includes Exchange email server, a proxy gateway to enable Internet access for all workstations and the MS SQL database.

New features
SBS 2000 highlights are :

Secure, shared Internet access with Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2000.
Mobile connection can access your network remotely from any Internet PC via a secure virtual private network (VPN) Build and host your own Internet presence using FrontPage® 2000 and Windows 2000 Server Internet Information Services
Messaging and collaboration using Exchange 2000 Server and Outlook 2000 for email, fax, schedule meetings, real time-Internet meetings from the desktop
Better support for 'hotdesking' (profiles) with Win2000 client PCs
Terminal Server enables remote running of applications
The Domain model has been replaced by Active Directory Services which can be spread across multiple servers

What are the hardware requirements ?
The new requirements ask for the equivalent of a server with 'taught pecs and buns of steel'. Any extra hardware capacity over and above these requirements will be a good investment and will make your installation more 'durable', that is less susceptible to the need for further upgrade.

Requirements	PROCESSOR	MEMORY	DISC DRIVES
Minimum	Pentium II 300MHz	128MB RAM	4GB disc space
Recommended	Pentium III 500MHz	256MB* RAM	2 x mirrored 4GB drives**

*We recommend 512MB RAM. Microsoft recommend adding extra memory if you are going to use the Exchange 2000 mail server.
**Microsoft recommend RAID-5 (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Discs) if you are going to use SQL Server 2000. RAID is technique for configuring a multiple redundant disc array which automatically compensates for sudden disc failures.

If you want to make use of Terminal Services and very large discs, there is a RAM overhead that needs to be allowed for, but bear in mind that RAM is pretty cheap at the moment, so it's worth investing in anyway.

[Acknowledgements: Andrew Brooks, Zorina Baksh ]

Contacts
Want to know more? Talk to us or write to us here.

6. Hacker equals terrorist - it's official

The Terrorism Act 2000 came into force on 19 February 2001. Among other provisions, the new Act allows for a new definition of terrorism which may result in computer hackers being defined as terrorists. The new Act is designed to prevent dissident political groups from using the UK as a base for terrorism and 'cyberterrorism'. However, police investigators are given new powers over computer criminals under the Act and they will be the ones who have to decide whether a hacker's actions are "designed to influence the government or to intimidate the public".

When is a hacker not a hacker?
Internet security professionals also risk breaking the law and thus facing prosecution. These security experts have until now been employed to break into companies' security networks to test for weaknesses before a malicious attacker can find them.

Meanwhile, increasing numbers of hackers are being given 'better things to do' by offering them employment. Innovative companies are scooping them up and putting their hi-tech brains to constructive uses, like ... er ... Internet security professionals.

Contacts
The Terrorism Act 2000

7. Eggs for Easter - teapots and Seattle tour

What is it ?
Easter Eggs are hidden goodies often found tucked away in software applications and operating systems.

Here are just two of them.

• Screensaver pipes 'n' teapots
  Requirements: Windows 95 or 98
  1. Go to Display properties for screensavers (Start | Settings | Control Panel | Display properties | Screensaver tab)
  2. Select "3D Pipes" screensaver
  3. Click Settings button
  4. Select pipes as "multiple"
  5. Select Pipe style as "Traditional"
  6. Select joint type as "mixed"
  7. Surface style to be "solid"
  8. Click OK
  Once the screensaver starts, you should see teapots instead of ball joints! You may need to wait a minute or so and it's completely random.

• Seattle tour
  Requirements: Windows 98
  1. In the C:\WINDOWS directory go to "Application Data\Microsoft\Welcome\"
  2. Create a Shortcut for the file Weldata.exe by right-clicking on the file and selecting "Create Shortcut"
  3. Right-click on the newly created shortcut and select "Properties"
  4. In the shortcut tab, add the following at the end of the "Target" edit box
     You_are_a_real_rascal
     
  5. Now in the "Run" combobox select "Minimized"
  6. Click OK
  Double click the new shortcut and enjoy a tour of Microsoft's home town and campus along with Windows 98 credits.