IB: InfoBulletin

1. Project planning via your spreadsheet

What is it ?
A really brilliant free plug-in called ProjeX from WAA Inc. gives Excel spreadsheets a project planning capability. It is simple to use and simple to add-in (no installation or restarting). The only limitations on the freeware version are on the number of tasks and the time axis configuration.

You get a project manager type application inside Excel which produces coloured Gantt charts (bars showing time and completion) used for critical path analysis.

How it works
After downloading ProjeX (separate versions available for Excel 95 and Excel 97), you simply copy the add-in (a .xla file) to a sub-directory, double-click it (launches Excel) and from the ProjeX | ProjeX Properties menu, select 'Install ProjeX Add-in'. That's the setup - there's no real installing to do.

Creating a new sheet is as easy as pulling down :

ProjeX menu | Produce a new ProjeX sheet (like this screenshot)

2. How to share mailboxes? Answer: carefully

What is it ?
One of your colleagues goes away on holiday or suddenly is struck down by the lurgy. In their email account, they have received (or are continuing to receive) important messages or documents, like job applications, for instance.

What do you do?
Most people's instant reaction is: "How do we get into their mailbox?"

You really should not be hacking into someone's mailbox, in fact, there are now human rights issues to overcome before you can legally do so. Strictly, only the systems administrator should do this or give permission to do it.

3. YAC - a mobile phone without the hardware

What is it ?
YAC is short for You're Always Connected and essentially is a 'free' phone re-routing service. You get an 11 digit 'YAC Number' which you give out to friends and associates and an account that sits behind it. A clever piece of configuration software, operated from your YAC Web account or through a special phone number, allows you to re-route your calls to any number you choose at any time - hence almost a mobile phone without the hardware.

However, the free package is bundled with a whole lot more besides - akin to a unified messaging service: it's also your personal fax number and a place where you can distribute your own voice message to a prepared list of email accounts you have set up. This latter saves a lot of ringing around and is quicker than texting.

How it works: access all areas
For the sake of convenience, you can program up to 4 numbers where your YAC number will reroute to: home, work, mobile and temporary. You can also set 2 of those numbers to be the first and second numbers to try if engaged tones are encountered.
If none of your chosen numbers have message recording attached, you can choose to store incoming voice messages at YAC's own message store to be retrieved when you dial in. Just like any answering service, you can set an outgoing message (OGM) for this that callers hear.
The third option is to have your voice calls forwarded to an email account you designate; when you pick up the calls, you obviously need to have some sort of media player configured and connected to headphones or speakers to listen to the audio files (.WAV, .MP3, .AIFF or .AU).
If you have a mobile phone, YAC will send you a text message when you have messages to collect from the YAC Message Store via SMS.

And as it all that weren't enough, you get a call screening facility for up to 10 UK phone numbers, which route straight through to your email inbox. Depending on your preferred mode of operation, you could 'screen out' unwanted callers (if you spend most of the time at a phone) or 'screen in' important calls (if you spend most of the time looking at email). The screening feature relies on Caller ID being present on the caller's phone.

Once you have automated voice-to-audio-file-conversion, the next logical step is to provide voice distribution lists and YAC does this too. You call the central YAC low rate number (0870 735 0870), select one of your 3 prepared lists of people and record your message, which is then distributed as an audio file to the email accounts of your associates.
Received faxes are converted into TIF files and forwarded as attachments to the same email account you designated earlier and are readable in correctly-configured browsers.

All of your account routing and configuration can be done via any touch-tone phone (a PIN secures it, numeric 4-8) or via any Web browser (a password secures it, alphanumeric 6-12).

So what's the catch?
Surely this is the 'free lunch' syndrome. How can YAC provide this service free of charge?

The answer is they receive a percentage of the rate the caller pays when ringing a YAC Number - somewhat like a paging system - it's at the caller's expense. Only more so in this case, because it's quite possible your caller will get through to you (as opposed to just leaving a message) and the call will cost them 32 pence per minute (ppm) at peak times, 22 ppm evenings and 10.5 ppm weekends from fixed-line home and business phones (32/22/10.5ppm -the standard 'J' telecoms rate set by BT). The cost of calling a YAC Number from a mobile phone depends on the mobile operator service tariffs.
Even the Telephone User Interface (TUI) on the special low rate number - 0870 735 0870 - costs you 8/5/4ppm if you use that to make routing changes to your account.

Benefits

• Free service to the YAC number owner
• Yours permanently as long as the number not idle (ie not received at least one call) for more than 2 months
• No hardware necessary
• You only need have one contact number to replace work, mobile, home, etc subscription service, submit details
• Your account is configurable from any phone or any Web browser
• Good for the frequent traveller, eg redirect YAC Number to your hotel/lodging

4. Web chokes on a solid diet of worms

Another day, another virus
We have experienced a high number of Internet related problems at many of our clients and the Web is showing all the symptoms of being choked with traffic. This is most likely as a result of the recent viral infections, though actually some of the delays are being generated by emails and tests in pursuit of information - in the same way that when vehicle collisions occur, the resulting traffic jams are in good part due to drivers slowing to watch, rather than the incident itself.
Typical problems showing up are difficulties accessing Web pages, with connections timing out before the pages are served, and abnormal delays in email delivery.

At the same time, spam attacks are getting larger, with reports of millions of junk emails being sent through the mail servers of some ISPs. Common effects are delays to bona fide mail accounts being served by those machines or, at worst, complete collapse of the mail server.

Post Mortem
Recent viruses Sircam32 and Codered struck with alarming speed at the end of July, but fortunately over 80% of Co-Operative Systems clients were well-covered. Our checks on clients' servers showed that those systems had auto-updating of anti-virus software enabled and that it was still taking place successfully.

• The "Code Red" worm
  On 19th July, the Code Red worm infected more than 250,000 systems in just 9 hours. Codered and its variant Codered II affected machines running Microsoft IIS (Internet Information Server) 4.0 or 5.0 on Windows NT or any Windows 2000 server. Since IIS is installed automatically for many applications by default, the likelihood of being vulnerable was high.
  Most of you don't run in-house Web servers and therefore would not expect to be affected, but if you were hosting your Web site at an ISP or hoster who was using a combination of the vulnerable systems described above, then your site visitors may have experience some down time or slow performance.
  Machines running Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows Me were not affected.

• The "Sircam32" virus
  The problem with Sircam32 (the so-called "Hi! How are you?" virus) was that this time the ramp up in its speed of infection was almost faster than the anti-virus (AV) vendors could cope with. On 18th July, alerts and initial fixes were distributed, but by 24th July Sircam32 was much more widespread and many vendors upgraded the risk issued a second alert.
  For the first time the subject header of the email, rather than being static as in the infamous "ILOVEYOU" virus, now reflected the title of documents the virus had found in its last search of the My Documents\ folder, making it look even more authentic to unsuspecting recipients. So, from a poorly AV-protected PC, you would have apparently genuine emails going out to relevant associates found in your address book. There is also the risk that your confidential documents are being spread by email.

  Use this simple utility for removing Sircam32 from an infected machine.

5. Email message expiry

What is it ?
You send an email to a whole bunch of people, but you know for sure that it's going to be irrelevant in a few days' time.

Solution ?

Make your message 'expire' after a certain date or time. That means recipients who get the message before the cut-off date will see your message as usual; those who get it after the cut-off date will only see a faint grey subject header or the message may not show at all, depending on the email client they use.

Benefits

• Don't waste correspondents' time with ephemeral emails
• Reduce clogging on mailboxes you send to
• Your correspondents will appreciate what a friendly, considerate character you are!

6. Wipe sensitive data securely

What is it ?
Deleting a file in Windows isn't necessarily the end of the story, even if you've emptied the "Recycle Bin". Low-level disc tools can recover many files that were thought to be deleted - something to bear in mind if you are selling on old machines or drives.
Sure Delete is a handy little utility which removes sensitive data which might otherwise be recovered with a disc tool. At 440KB, the zipped file (sdel.zip) takes typically 2 minutes to download over a 56KBps modem. At publishing time the latest version was 4.2.3, released 21-April-2001.

How it works
Sure Delete has 2 tools for completely removing data from the hard drives of Windows-based computers:

1. File Wiper completely removes any trace of files that you select, either by using the "Add File" button or by using drag-n-drop from Windows Explorer for files and folders - useful for confidential files that you want to scrub completely. Once you start, there's no going back, unless you kept backups.
2. Disk Cleaner doesn't actually remove any files from the hard disc, but cleans the free space on the drive where files used to reside.
   It's not exactly a speedy process though the exact time will depend on your particular drive speed, access time, etc. On our test drive 400MB of free disc space took around 40 minutes to clean - so roughly 10MB/min - so 1GB of free space would need over an hour and a half. Cancelling the process means you have to start from scratch next time - there's no resuming where you left off.

7. IT Semantics and Antics

What is it ?
Do other IT user colleagues always understand what you mean?

Or are your conversations dogged 'my jargon isn't your jargon' and by having to explain really basic terms to each other?

Communicating IT issues amongst people can be fraught with complications, even within the same organisation. We all need to get our terms right, as well as the context.

Benefits

• Tackling everyone's understanding of most basic IT terms will bring the biggest benefits, particularly for beginners, newcomers and volunteers. Always try to bring the lowest level of knowledge up to a certain standard
• 'Automating' training by publishing common tips, initiating self-help groups, etc brings time-saving benefits for IT support staff. If you don't fit at least a short IT introduction into your induction programme and/or welcome pack for newcomers, then it's worth considering now, if only because their increased understanding will save time for everyone in the long run.