I n f o B u l l e t i n

February 2003

coopsys.net

CO-OPERATIVE SYSTEMS

C O N T E N T S

**** NewsBytes ****

  1. Web voting
  2. SBS 2000: There's no business like Small Business
  3. Will email become unusable ?
  4. Book review: "Customer-Driven IT"
  5. What are we on!
  6. Inkjet repairs become uneconomical
  7. Zap discs on your old PCs
  8. FBI: Followed By Intruders ?

**** NewsBytes **** NewsBytes **** NewsBytes ****
IB giveway A high quality multi-media base unit is on offer for the first client to contact us with the correct answer to a simple question (find it in this IB):
"How fast is Co-Op's ADSL connection?"
Our free giveaway Philips 6G3B11 unit clips underneath a standard 17/15" monitor base (CRT not LCD) and adding sounds and multimedia capabilities to any PC, without having to open the case.

Tubes for anoraks A complete multi-lingual guide to everything on the London Underground, including, crucial twice daily email alerts, can be found at www.thetube.com/. Sign up here. Discover the interactive tube map, scrolling news screen, journey planner, first n last train times, rebuttals of tabloid news stories, weather (uh?) - and so much more, that you'll probably miss your train!

NCVO + MS = ICT @ 20-2-02 A major "Anticipating the future" ICT conference is to be hosted by NCVO on 20th February 2003. The Microsoft-sponsored one day event is aimed at ICT-responsible managers and convenes at the National Council for Voluntary Organisations' London base at Regent's Wharf. Full details here.

Microsoft Office SP3 Office 2000 Service Pack 3 fixes a number of important Word, Excel, Powerpoint and email editor bugs, including the "Rich Text documents running macros automatically" problem, as well as rolling up all those in SP2 and is available here.

A Discount Spree Looms ISPs Demon.net and Virgin.net have dropped their monthly broadband ADSL fees to under £25 until the end of March. But Demon are also offering to waiver setup fees until the same deadline, saving business broadband newcomers up to £250. Monthly business fees are £75 to £270 depending on connection tariff.

Wise words, no junk Novell's new version 6.5 of its GroupWise messaging platform includes integrated Instant Messaging, GroupWise Messenger, that calls on eDirectory for identity management for secure IM within your organisation. The new IM system should eventually be compatible with other IM clients, while GroupWise anti-spam features claim to reduce unwanted email by 65%. Gearing up to the challenge of Microsoft's Exchange and the IBM/Lotus Notes platforms, Novell Inc is hoping to win back some of the market for enterprise collaboration software to swell its global installed base of 34 million users, according to IDC.

**** end of NewsBytes ****

^ Back to contents ^
  1. Web voting

Web voting has already arrived. And it's free!

 
More help at hand. All the back issues just a click away

Driving us up the poll!

You've heard about web voting being dogged with problems?
Even with today's advanced security and authentication technologies, online voting seems to be as far away as ever, and anyway not everyone has access to a computer.

But forget a moment about the application that everyone associates with voting - namely, political representation - and scale it back a bit.

Why would I use it ?

How about just polling your colleagues quickly, for instance, on some internal decision that needs input from a lot of staff?

Why?

  1. Firstly, it's easier to count the votes.
  2. Secondly, someone else (the WorldVotingBooth) has provided the mechanism for you.
  3. Thirdly, it's on the Web, so your voters, staff, whoever, can vote any time they like; they don't have to be in the office.

Three steps to voting heaven

  1. Go to http://worldvotingbooth.com/register.asp and register (they only want the bare minimum of info) and sign in with your username. When you see the "Welcome - you are signed in" screen, you can proceed with vote registration and voting.

  2. Click the Voter Registration link (http://www.worldvotingbooth.com/VoteRegister.asp) and type in the Vote Question Number, and the Vote password you have been given and click Submit. This stage checks whether you have previously registered for a vote and stops people voting twice.

  3. Now you are into the poll that your Vote Sponsor has set up. Use the menu on the left to select "Ballot" and cast your vote.

You are requested to participate in a vote at World Voting Booth, the FREE online voting service.
Simply go to http://www.worldvotingbooth.com and follow the instructions below.

Here is the question to be voted on along with the answer selections.

Question:  How do you find InfoBulletin?
TOO TECHNICAL or NOT TECHNICAL ENOUGH?
Comments and opinions also welcome.

1.  TOO TECHNICAL

2.  NOT TECHNICAL ENOUGH

 3.  ABOUT RIGHT

4.  DON'T KNOW

Site registration.  The first step is site registration at  WVB Registration.

Vote registration.  Next, register for the particular vote question above.  This must be done between  01/16/03 and  03/31/03.  At WVB, select Vote Registration.  Enter the vote question number ( 1706 ) and the vote password (IBPOLL, it's case sensitive) for this vote.  Your first and last name and email address will be made available to the sponsor of this vote for verifying registration.  If the registration cannot be verified, the vote sponsor may remove the registration until it is properly verified. 

Opinions.  You can enter your opinion on the voting issue up until the end of voting and you can review others opinions at any time.

Vote.  Go to WVB between  01/16/03 and  03/31/03, do site sign in and vote sign in, then select Ballot.  Polls are open 24 hours per day on the days specified.  No one (not even the vote sponsor) will know how anyone cast their vote.  No vote notification is sent to the sponsor. 

Review results.  Return to WVB after the close of polls to obtain the final vote tally.  Or, check back earlier to see how many people have voted.

That's it!
You can also add opinions and look at the number of votes cast.
Vote Sponsors can also check the actual voter list and weed out any rogue non-invitees - an additional security measure.

Benefits

  • It's free.
  • It's secure - nobody knows the outcome until the voting end date.
  • Voting is relatively straightforward, although we felt it could improve a bit.
  • Limit the dates for which both registration and voting occurs - independently.
  • Speed up the sign-in process by fetching back voters using their registration details to a previous voting question.

Drawbacks

Vote passwords are case-sensitive, so if you are sponsoring a vote you need to make this clear to your voters.

If you are coming back to this you may need several attempts as we encountered a few program errors so reliability could be better. Remembering to sign out helps.

How to make it happen

Enter
1706
for the Vote question and
IBPOLL
for the vote password.

Contacts

http://www.worldvotingbooth.com/

-IB-

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^ Back to contents ^
  2. SBS 2000: There's no business like Small Business

Not all, but certainly many, of your Small Business Server 2000 Frequently Asked Questions ... answered.

 
More help at hand. All the back issues just a click away

This is a handy site for SBS2000 related issues, calling itself "The Small Business Server 2000 FAQ" - sensibly enough - and it's not a Microsoft site!

The people at smallbizserver.net modestly admit it is a compilation of Frequently Asked Questions in the SBS 2000 newsgroup, but having said that, we found it more accessible than the official MS offering.

Benefits

The site is easy to navigate, shows clear, concise answers and is faster than finding Microsoft's http://www.microsoft.com/sbserver/, if you're in a hurry.
It also provides a good introduction to SBS 2000 features you may not have discovered before.

The business show must go on

The site is pretty much run from a home setup and, like so many of these, puts up pictures and details of the equipment it is running on. So at least you know these folks practice what they preach.

What can you discover ?

Aside from the usual Q&A and Tips & Tricks sections, other interesting topics include:
  • Tape backups,
  • browser issues,
  • email disclaimers/footers,
  • Exchange 2000,
  • logon problems,
  • network setups,
  • routers,
  • SBS fax,
  • security,
  • service packs and
  • virtual private networking (VPN).

Drawbacks

As we write, the site only runs from a basic ADSL line so it won't support vast numbers of simultaneous visitors and you may find page loading a little slow at times.

How to make it happen

The site authors and enthusiasts - Mariëtte Knap, Susan Bradley and Steve Foster - go as far as allowing others to distribute their material freely. It's a shame we can't a little more about these dedicated people, but then they probably don't want enquirers phoning and emailing for help - for that way lies a full support service.

On which note, it's timely to mention that we at Co-Operative Systems do provide such a service, as well as implementing all of those SBS 2000 topics covered.

Contacts

smallbizserver:
http://www.smallbizserver.net/

Microsoft Small Business Server site:
http://www.microsoft.com/sbserver/

-IB-

Acknowledgements: Mark Curtis

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^ Back to contents ^
  3. Will email become unusable ?

"Email congestion" charges into your organisation! What can you do to unburden your mailserver?

 
More help at hand. All the back issues just a click away

With the amount of junk letters coming through the door these days, it might be simpler to put your waste paper recycling box underneath the letter flap and simply sift through for the genuine missives of interest to you.

As if all that weren't enough, I was welcomed back into the new year with 1077 spam emails in our administrator account, where I would normally expect around a fifth of that. Fortunately, over 80% of them were dealt with by our automatic filtering rules, but it does indicate a trend.

Ten junk mails could be costing your organisation US$86 (around £50) per employee each year according to CloudMark Inc. SurfControl Plc conducted a recent survey revealing that 25% of corporate email constitutes spam with each of those messages costing up to a dollar.
Don't worry, you haven't been picked on at random by hundreds of email spammers. If you've been hit with unprecedented levels of junk mail, the consolation, albeit rather a small one, is it's a UK-wide problem. MessageLabs are reporting that one in eight emails in the UK is junk.
It's now relatively easy to buy a CD of email addresses, mailing software, or find an open mail relay and spammers can reach their potential customers at a rate of about £1 a go, even allowing for appallingly low response rates. The bad news is that it's a global phenomenon and a lot worse in the US - and that's where many of of the technological trends begin.

The exponential growth of the problem has been such that it represents between 20% and 50% more than just a year ago, according to companies in the spam-filtering software business. The reason for the wide variation in the figures is that a common cause of 'perceived spam' is recipients failing to remember which subscriptions they have signed up with, or even signing up unwittingly, whether through poor web site design or lack of clear explanations.

Greetings in wolf's clothing
The now apparently defunct greetings site, FriendGreetings.com, ran into controversy by sending out e-cards containing links to its site's ActiveX controls. Only by reading through the lengthy end user license agreements (EULAs) would unsuspecting recipients realise they about to permit more emails to be sent to all their Outlook address book contacts.
However, what is depressingly transparent (assuming you are on the receiving end here) is that tools for finding and adding email subscribers to lists (whether legitimately or not) are becoming more prolific, so we can expect to suffer a lot more.
Another dubious trend is that more third party outfits are doing the marketing - just a few of the third parties I've come across are xmr.com, funprs.co.uk, elistmanager.co.uk. - and that even some reputable firms who sell the end products are taking them up or appear to be encouraging the movement, examples being major anti-virus software vendors such as the McAfee.com Affiliate Programme.

What can you do to stop it ?

There are plenty of ideas around for combating junk mail.

One initiative is an E-Privacy Directive that is slowly taking effect in Europe that will only permit mail to be sent to those who 'opt in'. It should be in place at the end of 2003 and you can keep tabs on its progress at http://www.euro.cauce.org/en/timeline1.html

Microsoft even has a patent on spam-filtering software and Paul Graham's site describes the development of a spam-filtering algorithm written in a new language called Arc, based on the established Lisp.

However, these possibilities won't arrive tomorrow or even next month, so what measures can you take in the meantime?

The answer, paradoxically, may lie in yet more subscription services.

The Direct Marketing Association’s Preference Services
  • Mailing Preference Service:
    5th Floor, Haymarket House, 1 Oxendon Street, London SW1Y 4EE
    Tel: 020 7766 4410
    Email: mps@dma.org.uk
  • Telephone Preference Service:
    5th Floor, Haymarket House, 1 Oxendon Street, London SW1Y 4EE
    Tel: 020 7766 4420 Email: tps@dma.org.uk
  • Fax Preference Service:
    5th Floor, Haymarket House, 1 Oxendon Street, London SW1Y 4EE
    Tel: 020 7766 4422
    Email: fps@dma.org.uk
    		•
  • Global email opt-out:
    www.e-mps.org
    		•
    DMA home page www.dma.org.uk

    • The opt-out preference service
      One example is the global Email Preference Service at       www.e-mps.org.
      A clear set of links takes you to the opt-out page at: www.dmaconsumers.org/optoutform_emps.shtml where you can fill in up to 3 email addresses that you wish to opt-out of DMA marketers lists. This is very useful for removing subscriptions from staff who have left your organisation leaving trails of high-volume subscriptions in their wake!

    • The spam killer service
      Subscribe to a service like Cloudmark; this is a noble co-operative venture and at present only works with the Outlook client, but commercial services are beginning to spring up too, one of the early ones being ISP Star (www.star.net.uk/).
      We reviewed Cloudmark.com in October.

    • The honeypot
      If you absolutely have to give away an email address, for instance to download a piece of software, employ a 'honeypot' address. Traditionally used to identify real spammers, but now only used by large anti-spam software vendors, such an address is just a dumping ground for all the emails you don't want to read and saves bothering the actual human owner on the receiving end of a real address. Our most oft-used address is rather transparently called exploit@, but it could be anything you like. You could also set up an alias to do the same job.

    • Shut down the spammer Complain to the ISP who is hosting the spammer's account either by emailing postmaster@<isps_address> or abuse@<isps_address> and get the spammer shut down. For more info on how to do this along with plenty of links for reporting abuse visit www.euro.cauce.org/en/links.html#linkstracking

    • The commercial solutions Heavyweights like Mimesweeper and Brightmail produce excellent solutions, but you are having to pay for preventing the unwanted intrusion. However you could argue you are already paying in lost time anyway.

      Find more anti-spam programmes software listed at the end of October's article Change your diet - prevent spam.

    Running your distribution lists

    If you keep any sort of email distribution list or mailing list yourself, there are 2 key ways you can make it secure :
    1. Employ a human to manage the list. The only ways to corrupt, borrow or steal the list contents is then by some old-fashioned means like blackmail!

    2. Make subscriptions via you web site accessible only by a secure web page (https://). Furthermore, send potential subscribers an email to which they must reply in confirmation. This proves they actually have access to the account and aren't just signing up third parties maliciously.

    3. Configure mailing lists to accept moderator-added subscriptions only to prevent impostors signing up.

    Related articles

    "Your privacy on the line" IB November 2002

    A simple way to combat spam via secondary Webmail, IB march 2002

    Change your diet - prevent spam IB October 2002

    E-mail marketing on the rise BBC online

    Direct marketing repositions itself through better targeting of consumers and use of digital media BBC online

    -IB-

    Paul Craig
    Acknowledgements: Kevin Murphy, Matthew Broersma

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    ^ Back to contents ^
      4. Book review: "Customer-Driven IT"

    A new work aims to persuade us "How Users Are Shaping Technology Industry Growth" - it's subtitle.

    		 
    More help at hand. All the back issues just a click away

    I liked this book a lot.

    As an IT manager, sometimes you need to sympathise with your users when things go wrong (as well as solving the problem, of course) and this book does it for me by opening with a chapter called "Computers Have Always Been Difficult"!

    Under the bonnet

    However, this is not a quick and dirty "IT Infrastructure Planning for Dummies". At times, it's really big picture stuff. Moschella's background in economic history allows him to make an astute comparison with a former explosive period of technological innovation, the late 1920s, when, rather tellingly, progress was hampered by the prospect of war - a worrying parallel.

    customer-driven-it cover We are walked through just about every public and industry sector - health care, government, education, banking, music, advertising, retail, airlines - with examples of where customers, not suppliers, have taken the lead in IT, adding value to a product or service for other customers. This 'seizing the power' approach may sound a little odd to you as an 'IT consumer', but the Internet and inter-networking (through our everyday hardware and software applications) has thrown up many challenges and opportunities - ones the IT supplier industry is no longer in a position to progress adequately, Moschella argues.

    At every stage, incisive arguments are backed by industry evidence, as you would expect from an author with top-level experience at leading researchers International Data Corporation (IDC) and now also at Merrill Lynch.

    Along the way, there is also some heartening praise for all those committed IT innovators and developers who make genuine progress on a daily basis; a change from so much analysis that relies on throwing rocks in all directions.

    Everyone loves a happy ending

    The outlook - which may come as a pleasant surprise, given the economic and political disasters of the last 18 months - is optimistic. Computers and content can only get better.

    Does it tell me what to do next ?

    The conclusion marks out 10 IT themes and shows which key industries are leading the field - just so that you know where to look. The work finishes with a kind of game plan on "How to take the IT lead as a customer", identifying four key areas you need to tackle with their respective goals mapped out. Easy as falling off a web log.

    This book won't transform your operations overnight, but it will help you understand and secure a long-term future for your organisation.

    And by the way, it's very well written. In plain English.
    Even dummies can manage this.

    Factfile:

    Where can I get it ?

    At all good bookshops, as they say. But, in the spirit of the age, you should really buy it online.

    When is it out ?

    You can pre-order now via Amazon.co.uk in time for the printing deadline of 9th January 2003. However, if you prefer to turn a few pages first, you'll have wait until 28th February for it to appear on the shelves.

    How much ?

    In the region of £22. Good value, at the cost of a week's worth of lunches.

    Details

    Title: Customer-Driven It: How Users Are Shaping Technology Industry Growth
    Author: David C. Moschella
    ISBN: 1-57851-865-2
    Publisher: Harvard Business School Press
    Pages: 288, hardcover

    Web site:
    www.customer-driven-it.com

    Why would you buy it ?

    After all, you might say, with my not-for-profit budget and level of IT sophistication, we are years behind the 'leading edge', so I doubt it would help me.

    You would be wrong on two counts:

    1. IT infrastructure is engrained into just about every organisation. Just as importantly as in, say, fundraising, you need to know where the trends are heading;

    2. the future is likely to focus more heavily on what customers need (well, the title gives it away) and less on what the suppliers want to sell you. Thus, it's crucial to know what your 3-year plan (or whatever you choose to call it) can demand of IT.

    Contacts

    www.customer-driven-it.com

    -IB-

    Paul Craig

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    ^ Back to contents ^
      5. What are we on!

    Funny - a lot of people ask us this.

    		 
    More help at hand. All the back issues just a click away

    Just to clear up any misconceptions we are talking about our current Internet broadband service.

    In house, we use Demon's ADSL service, specifically their "Demon Express Pro" offering.

    This is a 2Mbps connection with up to 20:1 contention - that is, the possibility of sharing that 2MBps with up to 19 other organisations at any one instant, though it seems much better.
    As part of the bundle we get 20MB of web space and a fax service.

    So now you know.

    Related articles

    What is ADSL

    What is SDSL?

    -IB-

    Phil Anthony

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    ^ Back to contents ^
      6. Inkjet repairs become uneconomical

    Another scrapheap challenge?

    		 
    More help at hand. All the back issues just a click away

    Our mission is to leave you with durable solutions - be they in hardware or software. Thus, we don't willingly commit equipment to landfill and have sought out specialist repairers where they can do a job more efficiently than we would.

    Jettison the inkjet

    However, even we have had to admit defeat on the inkjet front. Their popularity has driven manufacturing costs so low that they are give away items on home computer packages.

    Where we can't fix them on site, it's generally going to be cheaper to arrange a new one for you. With brand new inkjet printers becoming available for mere tens of pounds, even the shipping costs both ways count considerably against choosing a repair.
    More comprehensive office do-it-all machines comprising a printer/copier/fax/scanner combination will only take around £150 out of your budget.

    Fortunately, the plastic casings surrounding such 'jet' technology at least are more uniform and, what's more, clearly marked for the benefit of recyclers, so re-use of the raw materials should soon start to be taken up more widely.

    Related articles

    Printing, Moving from black and white to green

    Recycling old computers

    -IB-

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    ^ Back to contents ^
      7. Zap discs on your old PCs

    		 
    More help at hand. All the back issues just a click away

    What is it ?

    Active KillDisk wipes hard discs, eliminating any possibility of future recovery of deleted files and folders.
    This compact DOS utility goes beyond standard utilities and commands like FDISK, FORMAT and DELETE in that leave a chance of data recovery by third parties.

    Works on ...

    ... most operating systems and file systems including DOS, Windows 95/98, Windows NT / 2000 / XP, Linux, Unix for PC.
    NB: Boots from a floppy.

    Useful for ...

    • ... cleaning old PCs to be recycled.
    • ... wiping confidential data.

    How secure is it?

    Conforms to US Department of Defense clearing and sanitizing standard DoD 5220.22-M.

    How it works

    Bypassing logical drive structures, Killdisk uses access to the drive's data on a physical level via BIOS.

    How much ?

    It's freeware.

    Contacts

    www.freewarepro.com/info.php?categoryid=81&fileid=156

    -IB-

    Acknowledgements: Dave Allen, PAN UK

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    ^ Back to contents ^
      8. FBI: Followed By Intruders ?

    		 
    More help at hand. All the back issues just a click away

    The eyes have it!

    In a bid to tap into terrorist activities, the FBI has apparently installed software that can track our every Internet move, even every mouse click.

    Really ?

    No.
    Actually just a clever piece of Java programming.

    Benefits

    30 seconds of amusement.

    Credit where it's due

    All down to Kurt Grigg esquire.

    How to make it happen

    See some of Kurt's 'web effects' DHTML scripts here.
    A neat site that lists comprehensively which browsers each script has been tested with and free to download.

    Contacts

    FBI eyes:
    http://users.chartertn.net/tonytemplin/FBI_eyes

    DHTML scripts:
    http://website.lineone.net/~kurt.grigg/javascript

    -IB-

    Acknowledgements: X-News

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

    ^ Back to contents ^

    Overview of InfoBulletin
    InfoBulletin is written and published by Co-Operative Systems and contains Information Technology tips that we come across during everyday research and support activities and which may be useful in improving your IT operations, either internally or on the Internet.

    E&OE

    Viewing IB
    This bulletin is presented as a Web page (in HTML) that can be read in any standard browser and most email clients. It is written in a compact format for fast viewing, short download time and ease of use for mobile computers. However, if you prefer to read it by alternative means, you could copy/paste it into your usual word processor or save it as a text file or even print it to be read later - on recycled paper, of course!

    Implementation
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