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

What is it ?

StarOffice version 6 has been launched, but although its 'free' status has disappeared, a mere £53 (US$75.95) will secure you the entire multi-platform office suite with support included and has stormed to the top of Amazon.com's software charts. Available since 1999 as a free download up to version 5.2, the fee has been introduced because users disliked the lack of support in the 'free' model.

Sun Microsystems is distributing the new StarOffice 6.0 through software retailers, Sun's direct sales force, the StarOffice NOW program and Original Equipment Manufacturers (several of whom will be bundling it with their own products). For enterprises, the suite will cost only US$25 to US$50 per seat and educational establishments get it free, paying just the cost of the media and shipping (eg a CD).

Who is the competition ?

Well, Sun Microsystems, actually - and of course Microsoft.

In a slick piece of timing Sun has arranged its launch to co-incide with imminent arrival of Microsoft's new (but not overly popular) licensing scheme. Although Microsoft too offers large volume licensing agreements, its standard version of Office XP will set you back over £400 or £199 for the upgrade (£500 and £300 respectively for the Pro versions, inc VAT).

But the other significant offering, and one that still remains free, is OpenOffice - an open source project sponsored by - wait for it - Sun Microsystems.

What's inside StarOffice6.0 ?

StarOffice 6.0 is comprised of 5 modules:

StarOffice Writer	the professional wordprocessor
StarOffice Calc	the spreadsheet application
StarOffice Impress	the multimedia presentation tool
StarOffice Draw	the 3D graphics and special effects designer
StarOffice Adabas	the user-friendly database

New features are XML-based document format for smaller file sizes (compared to version 5.2), better file filters and excellent compatibility with Microsoft Office documents. New font rendering and an improved user interface make StarOffice 6.0 more intuitive.

Benefits

• Offers an affordable alternative office suite; the Central Scotland Police bought into StarOffice recently, estimating savings at £250,000 per year.
• Interoperability with other office suites means users can read, write, and edit Microsoft Office files and co-exist with other office suites.
• Using new XML file formats Users can create, manage, and access complex documents and Web pages
• Intuitive graphical user interface (GUI) makes it easy to learn and use; minimal retraining
• Support for open standards like XML means you are not locked into proprietary formats
• XML means dramatically-reduced file sizes and thus shorter transmission times
• Paid-for support is included
• No susceptibility to Visual Basic macro viruses

StarOffice 6.0 runs on Solaris, Linux and Windows.

• Solaris TM; 8, 7, or 2.6 Operating Environments (SPARC[R] or Intel Architecture platforms)
• Linux kernel 2.2.13 or higher
• Microsoft Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000, ME or XP

What's in it between StarOffice6.0 and OpenOffice.org 1.0 ?

Both of these offerings are popular with the Linux crowd and any enterprise that needs to run a single office suite across several operating platforms (eg Windows, Linux, Solaris).

Differences between StarOffice and OpenOffice.org

Those things which are or will be present in StarOffice but are not available on OpenOffice.org include:

• Certain fonts (including, especially, Asian language fonts)
• The database component (Adabas D)
• Some templates
• Extensive Clip Art Gallery
• Some sorting functionality (Asian versions)
• Certain file filters

Differences between StarOffice 5.2 and the future of StarOffice

Significant changes have happened since version 5.2 :

• Gone is the integrated desktop; word processing, spreadsheet and graphics are now separate modules
• Email, calendar and scheduler have been removed to be replaced by your designated preferences
• Browser replaced by Netscape & Mozilla
• File formats are now XML-based
• Improved Microsoft filters
• Multi-lingual support (Asian, Chinese, simple and traditional, Japanese, Korean)

Drawbacks

Switching to StarOffice may involve some user retraining, possibly undermining any savings in the purchase, but StarOffice now claims to offer better support.

Although StarOffice provides good file compatibility with its MS Office equivalents, the lack of macros and Visual Basic (VB) means migration of those Microsoft Office features could be expensive for organisations who rely heavily on macros and in-house VB programs.

What's Different in StarOffice 6.0

If you've used a previous version of StarOffice, you may wonder what happened to some StarOffice features, such as the StarOffice Integrated Desktop or the StarOffice Mail, Image, Chart, and Schedule modules. Customer research indicated that most users of StarOffice software were not taking advantage of certain features. In response to requests, the StarOffice 6.0 suite has been redesigned with a focus on improving the performance of the core module, while giving you the freedom to supplement discontinued StarOffice features with their preferred alternatives.

OpenOffice.org

OpenOffice.org is the open-source project sponsored by Sun Microsystems and is also freely downlable.

It's Mission Statement ...

"To create, as a community, the leading international office suite that will run on all major platforms and provide access to all functionality and data through open-component based APIs and an XML-based file format."

Contacts

StarOffice 6.0 site:
http://wwws.sun.com/software/star/staroffice/6.0/

OpenOffice.org 1.0 free download (49MB):
http://www.openoffice.org

What is it ?

A free SMS (Short Message System) account for 'texting'. You don't even need a mobile!

SMS accounts on the Web have been around for some time - usually as part of your own mobile phone network, but a few free 'independents' are available, connecting with friends and colleagues on their phones, while you get the freedom to type your messages from your own PC keyboard.

How it works

Find a site, register, and start texting!

Although these sites are typically bundled in with sport and news links, chat rooms, flirt lines and the now common portal-to-everything-on-the-planet, they exhibit some nifty features.
You can generally send a message to more than one mobile at once. Most accounts provide the basic limit of 160 characters per text message for free, with an upgrade to 320 characters on payment of a premium. Likewise, the number may be limited to only 5 or so, again with a chargeable upgrade. Accounts with email built-in often feature SMS notification of when emails arrive, so you know you have new mail in the same way that a pop-up arrives on your desktop in the office.

Two examples we have come across are :

• cbfmail.com (CardBoardFish)
  A useful SMS texter built into a free Webmail account from UK-based CardBoardFish (who say they have been around since 1989), this one also provides a secure login so that your password is encrypted as it travels over the Internet. A 'tag line' is attached to standard text messages, this being your email address login@cardboardfish.com. An excellent "Getting Started" guide, a glossary of terms used (good for beginners), an auto-responder and all the standard accessories go together to constitute a nice account. CBFSMS also sports full-featured and corporate versions of its SMS Webmail accounts for which they charge. Sign up at:
  http://www.cbfmail.com/

• sms.ac
  Based in South Africa, mobile network operator MTN provides a free SMS account (without email), but the unique feature has to be that you get a real phone number! See it under "myAccount" details once you've joined up. These means you can do 2-way texting with other mobiles.
  The slightly confusing front page sms.ac home page presents you with a "send SMS" page - apparently without logging in, but on clicking the "send SMS" button you do get a sign in screen, whereupon it goes straight to message composition.
  Join up at:
  http://www.sms.ac/Registration/Registration.asp

  Among its 400 or so supported world-wide networks, sms.ac currently connects with these in the UK :
  BT Cellnet, Guernsey Telecoms, Jersey Telecom, Manx Telecom, One 2 One, Orange PCS Uk, Vodafone AirTouch UK.

Benefits

What is it ?

Microsoft's controversial Software Assurance or Upgrade Advantage schemes arrive irreversibly on 31st July. 'Old style' upgrading of Microsoft suites and applications will be replaced by the new Software Assurance scheme, a kind of 3-year subscription which promises the latest MS software available to you whenever it is released. The Upgrade Advantage scheme provides a means of 'buying into' the subscription until 31st July.

Those who stay 'out in the cold' with their old versions of Microsoft Office, Access, Powerpoint, etc will find they have to buy full-price versions after this date. And if your MS Office upgrade plans include 2 changes in the next 3 years, it would indeed be cheaper to go to Software Assurance.

But for most of us in the not-for-profit sector, that's not the case, and even large commercial firms are not signing up, including two-thirds of Microsoft's largest customers, calculating that it will suit their budgets better to buy office applications 'as and when'. Critics are calling it an 'insurance' scheme - money up front for upgrades that don't exist yet and may even seek alternative office suites altogether - with the launch of new StarOffice and OpenOffice offerings - indeed, some are already evaluating them.

Benefits

Microsoft say you stay on top of upgrades and ahead of competitors, as well as receiving reduced rates on product support agreements.

Drawbacks

You commit to a 3-year subscription plan without knowing what software will arrive.
If you upgrade infrequently, Software Assurance could be more expensive.

Contacts

Read our explanatory article:
Microsoft Office upgrades: to buy or not to buy?

What is it ?

It's all about what is labelled "Entry and Exit Strategies".

In plain English, that means introducing new computer users in a controlled and uniform manner and, just as importantly, 'phasing them out' when they leave!

These 'what you need to do' lists aren't comprehensive, but will serve as a guide for you to modify.

The rough guide to an ENTRY STRATEGY

Persuade staff they need to give you a few days' notice to set up a login account, rather than telling you on the starting day!

1. Add a new user
   The most basic part. Give your new user a login name to give them access to the network.

2. Give them a password
   The safest way to manage passwords is to give each new user a totally random, but not very memorable, password on a piece of paper when they first login. Then show them how to change it to something they can remember! Read our article on Using and choosing passwords to find out how to generate random passwords. More simply though, I usually just type random numbers and letters until I get a string of 7 or more alphanumerics.

3. Add them to groups
   Gives your new user 'special' permissions over information or applications on your network. If you're not already using groups to link typical rôles to network permissions, you could save a lot of time and complexity by boning up on this.
4. Add the new user to your database
   You may think it superfluous to keep a database of users (this is what NetWare Directory Services and Microsoft's Active Directory do, after all) but a simple text file, spreadsheet or even full database shows you the essential info at-a-glance (I call mine USERBASE). You basically need username, starting & finishing dates and a brief description of their rôle, especially if you host more than one department or organisation on your server.

5. Set up an email account
   ... if your system administration tool doesn't do this for you. This is a good point to test the new email account (correct reply address, personal name, etc), because now you can use this mechanism to ...

6. Send introductory emails
   Email is great for giving new users all the introductory stuff because they can read it at their convenience and refer back later in a place they find accessible. My 8 or so introductions are stored as templates in an email folder (to make it fast) and cover these subjects :

   1. Applications - where to find word processing, spreadsheets and all the usual office stuff to get them going.

   2. Drives - you should have private and shared areas on your server where people can work on private and public documents respectively. Let new users know what the drive mappings are; typically H: for 'home' and G: for 'group'. Persuade them of the value of using these network drives which have regular tape backups, rather than local C: drives which don't and are therefore susceptible to data loss.

   3. Printing - tell them where the nearest printer is and any special uses they fulfil, eg labels for mailmerges, headed or coloured paper only, colour printers for images.

   4. Email - spell out their address. Indicate how to look up local people and make an address book. Specify the intervals for collection and sending of email in/out of the building. If a user's job or department comes with alias email addresses, (eg pressdept or press@your.org.uk), spell those out too.

   5. Calendar/diary - Indicate where you keep public events and appointments, even if it's part of an office suite function. We use a Web diary/calendar which can be shared across the Internet.

   6. Noticeboards/public folders - Commonly used for internal discussion groups, routing email subscriptions to one place and handling enquiries, these public message areas help newcomers get a 'feel' of the place.

   7. IT support - don't forget to tell new starters where to get IT help! This may be a department 'power user' as a first point of contact and then you, if it gets more technical.

   8. Finally, don't forget to send an email to their supervisor/line manager to say the new account is ready, especially if you will be away when the new staff member of volunteer begins!

7. Email round a welcome
   It may not be strictly your job to welcome newcomers, but it often falls to the IT folk to do it! This is where your User Database comes in handy.

8. Talk to them!
   Now get out from behind your console(s) and go talk to them! New users will eventually need support from you and it helps to put a face to a name - for both of you! Not everyone learns in the same way; some users will be tech-minded self-starters and others will be complete newbies. You should try to gauge this fairly swiftly. If you don't have an induction process already, you can base one on talking through some of the bullet points above. There - you've re-used the guide already!

Once you have compiled this lot into lists and real templates and implemented it a few times, adding a new user should take no more than about 10 minutes. And you get the satisfaction of knowing it's all done consistently.

The rough guide to an EXIT STRATEGY

You may think Exits are just a reverse of Entries, but it's slightly different!

If you want to be really Draconian, you could just delete all traces of an ex-user's account the minute they've logged out and cleared the last bent paper clip from their desk. But you're likely to be storing up trouble for the network administrator (probably you?) especially in the email department! All those messages with nowhere to go will simply come 'bouncing' back to you in the form of the postmaster account.

1. Update your user database
   At least mark up the fact that the user has left. Depending on the complexity of your database, you may want to track which of the following tasks have been completed.

2. Change the ex-user password
   Only use this measure if you absolutely want to preserve the whole account, but still guard against unauthorised access.

3. Email exit strategy
   This part describes a 'phased withdrawal' of the email so that old correspondents are notified that the user has left and important ones are coerced over the new contacts in your organisations. For this purpose, "AL" is defined in our ex-user calendar as "After Leaving".
   1. Email re-directions [5 minutes AL]
      Do they have any auto-forwarding applied to their email account? You don't necessarily want emails flying out of the building uncontrolled!

   2. Set up an auto-reply [24 hours AL]
      For the next 2 weeks or so, set up an auto-reply so that colleagues and friends know the email account is closing. Even though you may know the new webmail account of the person leaving, it is bad data protection practice to give this out automatically. After all, close correspondents would likely know already! A typical reply might be :

      "I have now left this organisation and this email account will close soon. Please contact newperson@yourorg.org.uk instead and update your address books and mailing lists. [This message was automatically generated]."

      Now is the time to start checking for email subscriptions - the bane of an administrator's life! Your recently-departed user may well have abandoned a whole raft of subscriptions - still pouring into his/her account. Many of these will have instructions for unsubscribing at the end of each message (just follow them through) and some of those will require a confirmatory reply before unsubscription can be completed (which is why it pays to keep this account open for a while).

   3. Create an alias - continue accepting mail [2 weeks AL]
      Once you have stemmed the flow of subscriptions, you can safely divert their email (if necessary) by creating an alias email address to another user or a noticeboard or public folder. That way, the new employee doesn't get a whole of junk to deal with and just has to pick up the odd stray message.

   4. "Goneaway" message - refuse mail [2 weeks AL]
      An alternative to the alias above is simply to invoke an automatic reply at your mailserver, thus refusing all mail. You should be fairly certain by now that this won't result in a lot of bounced messages, so you can also remove the ex-user from the mail system. This also prevents it storing up all the regular rounds of internal mail ("Who's got my stapler?") thus saving server disc space.

   5. Delete the mail account [1 month AL]
      Unless colleagues really beg for access to an ex-user's old mail, the account can be deleted - say, a month after leaving (it will still exist on backup tapes for a while). Most leavers will have cleared their old mail folders during handover anyway.

4. Delete the login account [6 months AL]
   Some 6 months or so After Leaving, the whole account can go. This will keep the network directory down to a manageable size and prevent it slowing up.

5. Delete old user folders [years AL !]
   The user's directories/folders will still exist and, like most of our private spaces will be full of CVs, typing practice, games, images - and maybe even some work! Weeding through this mix of disc-eating files needs to be done carefully - we're not talking about ephemeral stuff here, but possibly content that is crucial to your organisation.
   Those most qualified to do this are a line-manager or new employee, so you need to make permissions available over the ex-user's space. But weeding over old information is always a low priority on anyone's list and a common reaction is to copy the ex-user's data into their own space, which compounds the disc space problem.
   An alternative is simply to archive the folder and record it on a CD-R then delete it. This form of 'near-line storage' is a useful trick.

The dangers of disgruntled ex-users

Although it isn't common in the not-for-profit sector, a disgruntled ex-employee can potentially turn into a hacker, particularly in cases where they have significant IT skills. This might mean sensitive data 'leaking' out to the Internet, theft of company strategies and other potentially valuable data.

Some of the vulnerabilities are :

• redirected emails
• continued access into the building (say via a friend) so they can still log in
• passing on updated passwords to ex-colleagues
• anyone dialling in with remote access
• web-enabled services you provide
• laptop PCs borrowed by ex-employees
• 'unofficial' accounts which may go unnoticed

A good protective measure is turn on the automatic time-out of account logins where you know a user is only staying short-term, eg contractors, volunteers, etc.

Benefits

What is it ?

By the second half of 2002, a new breed of computers that have touch screens and can read handwriting will have arrived.

Indeed Microsoft is showing a beta version of Windows XP at the end of June to run on just such a PC.

Tablet PCs are intended to make computer interaction more like writing on a piece of paper and are effectively modified notebook computers, but will arrive with more applications ready supplied and installed, such as handwritten digital annotations and voice recognition. They will also connect to anything - via cables, infra-red or wirelessly.

Bill Gates reckons these tablet-sized PCs will become the most popular form of hardware in the next five years.

What is it ?

This month Co-Operative systems went all 'flat'.

For your benefit and ours, we "put our money where our mouth is" and splashed out on a whole bunch of new 17-inch Liquid Crystal Display flat screens to replace the bulky monitors hogging the desks at present.

So, what do we think of them ?

Tony Weeks's comments here are as good as any executive summary :

"They were easy to set up. The size is cool, and I think the quality of the picture is pretty good, no worse than before anyway. They give you more room on your desk as well."

With a screen only as thick as your palm, rather than the size of two cases of wine, and a brightness that doesn't suffer under daylight conditions, these have to be the features that makes LCDs succeed on the desktop.

Our perception overall was that these screens are less tiring to view and are very versatile, as they can be sited irrespective of existing lighting conditions.

The colours came through very strongly and clearly - great for watching those football shirts, - er ... that should have been ... "web page layouts" - easy mistake to make!

Unequivocally good all round then ?

Criticisms were largely reserved for the sound, which had limited bass and no adjustments, other than volume. Another 200 readies gets you 'super-sound' but we didn't reckon it worth the expense, particularly in an open-plan office.

Cleaning may become an issue, since the viewable area is basically a thin, pliable plastic covering the liquid-crystal semi-solution, instead of the glass we're accustomed to - so it won't suffer a lot of poking. Indeed, pressing the 'Stargate-like' surface, you appear to be dipping your finger into a vertical pool of water. Surreal!

Benefits

What is it ?

Scenario - A mail server gets hacked, your email address is on the mail server, you start to receive email that has nothing to do with you. The quantity increases snowball like as fellow "victims" send angry messages to the innocent email addressees, who look like they are the source of the problem.

Fiction turns to fact

This recently happened with the Internet banking service of a major bank. Among the victims who also started getting junk mail were people who were not the bank's customers - including me! Where did they get my address from? Should they be holding it?

One possibility is that a virus-laden email scooped up the addresses of both me and one of my friends or colleagues, who may be a customer of the bank in question. All it needs is for a temporary lapse in security and - sneakier than a 'Beckham bend' - these emails nip round the finance corporation's defences and start transmitting to the email accounts of both customers and non-customers alike.

Another possibility is a poorly set up mailing list which may also have had its security breached, especially with high-volume email broadcasting now being outsourced to commercial companies rather than being an in-house function.

What should you do ?

Stay calm.
Send just one message to the 'hacked server' organisation if you have their address, if it looks like they aren't aware.
Delete the spam.
Corporate IT departments usually clear up these problems inside the day and PR people will ensure an apology follows in a trice.
Relax. Remember how difficult life was 'pre-email' ;-)

What you should NOT do ?

Fire off emails to all the non-solicited email addresses.
This just makes the problem worse!

Remember: on the Internet, everyone can hear you scream - and keep it on record too!

How to examine message headers

That "email from a stranger" didn't reach you by accident. Your address will appear somewhere in the message. Here's how to find the path it took:

• In Outlook:
  Right-click message | Options | examine "Internet headers"

• In Pegasus:
  Open message | go to "Raw View" tab or press Ctrl+H

Contacts

What is it ?

Ruth Handler died on 27th April, aged 85, but her most famous invention - the 'Barbie' doll lives and is now 'going digital' with help from Accenture's CSTaR lab.

Nicknamed in the press as "Smart Barbie" or "B2Barbie", this intelligent doll comes with 'shopping technology' built-in, its (or possibly, her) radio frequency identification (RFID) tag recording interactions with other similarly-tagged devices (eg other dolls in the vicinity.

It's only a short imaginative step from there to equipping the doll with a Web-enabled budget and credit card, so she can 'go shopping'. Your daughter's visit to a friend’s house with their dolls turns into a buying spree as the doll interacts with others and scans their desirable clothes and fashion accessories!

The RFID-based project is of course designed to demo the possibility of hitherto 'unintelligent' items (eg a boiler pump) acquiring the ability to self-maintain (eg the pump 'rings' the boiler maintenance company for a visit because it will only last another month) without human intervention.

Benefits

Sit back and let home appliances look after themselves.

Drawbacks

No way let them near your credit cards!

How to make it happen

Don't even try!

Contacts

http://www.accenture.com