IB: InfoBulletin

1. BT's ADSL installation offer - faster Internet access
2. What is ADSL ?
3. Registering and publicising your Web site
4. Beware Intel 820 chipset on new PCs
5. Windows9x licensing
6. Cable & Wireless sells up and moves on
7. Fix available for Internet Explorer vulnerabilities
8. Of mice and dirty balls and smut
9. Microsoft play chicken

This bulletin is presented as a Web page (in HTML) that can be read in any standard browser and most email clients. It may help viewing if you adjust your frame to approximately A4 size proportions.
However, if you prefer to read it in an alternative viewer, you could copy/paste it into your usual wordprocessor or extract it into a text file or even print it to be read later - on recycled paper, of course!
As always, you can elect to change your subscriber address or stop receiving InfoBulletin altogether. Simply reply to this address giving us your preferences. Under no circumstances does Co-Operative Systems supply lists of customers to other organisations.
If you need to re-direct this bulletin to a particular group or person within your organisation, set a rule in your mail forwarder to trigger on the address: infobulletin@coopsys.co.uk and then fill in the internal address of your recipient(s). For NT/Exchange systems, redirect this address to an internal user or a distribution list of users you have set up.
InfoBulletin topics can be implemented by Co-Operative Systems if required on a chargeable basis or via Facilities Management (FM) for those with rolling work programmes.

Reply to this address or to : team@coopsys.co.uk

Sales: 020 7793 0395
Fax: 020 7735 6472
E&OE

1. BT's ADSL installation offer - faster Internet access

What it does
British Telecom is offering a free installation of its ADSL Internet access service if you register before 30th June. Thereafter the installation will cost £150. (If you need to know more about the details of ADSL, read the next article too). BT's version of the service also provides ISP-type extras such as free email addresses and webspace, a home or business portal, video rich content and invoice billing.

Benefits
BT's ADSL service provides high-speed digital access (between 512Kbps and 2Mbps downstream, and 256Kbps upstream). This is 10 to 40 times faster than today's typical modems. The service is permanently connected, aka 'Always On'. You don't have to wait 30 to 40 seconds dialling up so the connection is 'instant'. It does not affect the normal telephone, so you can make and receive telephone calls or faxes whilst on line. You don't pay call charges, but instead a monthly flat fee, so service bills are predictable. BT has just announced it will use Network Address Translation (NAT), which hides IP addresses from the public Internet, unlike fixed IP addresses (a good thing for users). While this helps to reduce the security threat from hackers, NAT will make it impossible to run virtual private networks from office to home.

Precautions
Before registering for ADSL, check if the service can reach you! This depends on whether your local BT exchange has been upgraded to provide BTopenworld services. Whether or not you are located the right distance from the exchange is also a factor. BTopenworld is distance dependent - customers will typically need to be located less than about 3.5-4km from the local exchange. It is likely 90% of people in the exchanges will be able to receive the service. You can check this easily by typing in your organisation's phone number in the search box at the bottom of this Web page :
http://208.56.203.238/signup/signup.php3
Because the service is 'always on', the rest of the Internet may be able to get access to your internal network just as easily as vice-versa! To protect against hackers and the like, you will need a protective device (may be either software or hardware) called a firewall. This applies to all forms of 'always on' services like leased lines, Kilostream, Megastream and xDSL. Watch this space for a future article about firewalls.

Costs
Free installation if you register before 30th June. Connection to one office computer at a fixed, all-in price of £39.99 a month (plus VAT) or *connect more than one computer from £99.99 a month (plus VAT). * the multi-user product can directly connect 4 computers, with up to 10 e-mail addresses. Customers are also able to connect more computers using their own cabling if they wish.

What do we need?
A For the single user(USB) home or business service you will need :

1. BT standard phone line and account
2. A PC with the following is recommended:
   Windows 98 / 2000, Pentium 166 MHz processor, 32 MB System memory, CD-ROM drive, video/graphics card 150 MB free hard disk space and a free USB slot.

1. BT standard phone line and account
2. Two dedicated wall mains sockets for the BTopenworld Modem and Router
3. A PC with the following is recommended:
   Windows 95/98 / 2000, Pentium 133 MHz processor, 32 MB System memory, CD-ROM drive video / graphics card 150 MB free hard disk space and a 10BaseT LAN card.

Contact
www.btopenworld.com

2. What is ADSL ?

You may have heard of Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) as a faster means of getting digital data up and down your phone line. Speeds of between 512Kbits/second and 2Mbits/second are typical, compared to today's 'fast' modems delivering 56Kbits/second.
The word "asymmetric" refers to the inward (downloading) speed usually being faster than the outward speed, which is typically the pattern of demand required by users browsing the Internet. Key:

• ADSL :
  256Kbits/s - 1.5Mbits/s out, 1.5M - 8Mbits/s in
• ADSL Lite :
  Domestic use, 512Kbits/s out, 1.5Mbits/s in
• HDSL :
  1.5 - 2Mbits/s in & out, full duplex
• SDSL :
  2Mbits/s in & out, full duplex
• VDSL :
  1.5 - 2.3bits/s out, 13 - 52Mbits/s in

3. Registering and publicising your Web site

What it does
Gets people to come and visit your Web site. You can do this by word-of-mouth, by conventional fax, postal and e-mail services and by getting Web search engines to recognise keywords on your site.

Cost
Anything from a tenner month down to nothing.

How to make it happen
Let colleagues in your industry sector know, publicise your site via email and newsgroups. Even just doing nothing will result in your Web site being indexed by the well-known search engines, which 'crawl the web' continuously finding new sites.
To speed up the process, you could go to some of the better-known search engines and use their procedures to register your site manually, rather than waiting for one of the 'crawlers' to find you. Indeed, some sites like Yahoo use different techniques for searching and catgorising, so you may be better off doing this anyway.
For least effort on your part, use a promoter site; many are free, some charge for the service. Free services may use the email address you supply for advertising channels as well as confirmation emails, so be prepared - don't use your own email address! Set up a new one specifically for the purpose so you can reroute any unwanted email, eg weblaunch@yourorg.co.uk.

Contact
A useful guide to the registering process, though some links are out of date:
http://ep.com/faq/webannounce.html

A list of currently available search engines : http://alt.venus.co.uk/weed/search/welcome.htm

Some of the many promoter sites :

• Banister's Submit-It. One Stop Shopping to submit your site to MANY places on the Web. Excellent time saver; however you can't tailor your listing for each site. Great for those that want a lot to happen fast. US$59 pa
  http://www.submit-it.com/
• A1 Index of over 650 Free WWW URL Submission & Search Sites. Here is a list of Web sites that will take your announcement. Very comprehensive list, no descriptions (so you have to search around to see what is appropriate). Great for ideas.
  http://www.a1co.com/index.html
• onLine Business. Over 650 sites to promote your Web site for free.
  http://online-biz.com/promote/

Some free promotion services :
http://www.smartage.com/submit
http://register-it.netscape.com

4. Beware Intel 820 chipset on new PCs

What it does
There are reports that the new Intel 820 chipset 'hangs up' (causes the PC to restart unexpectedly) on up to half of Pentium PIII processors. So be careful if you're buying new Pentium III computers with the 820 chipset which also have SDRAM (as opposed to RDRAM).

Benefits
Er, none.

Details
Intel added a memory translation hub (MTH) to make the 820 work with the cheaper SDRAM instead of Rambus, but this seems to have backfired. The reported earlier failure rate of 80% is now down to 50%. The solution so far is to change the motherboard, but Intel's revised chipset is only likely to be available in July.

Cost
You could lose data in the event of a 'hang up'.

Contact
http://www.motherboards.org/news/mthhubbub.html
http://intel.com/support/mth/

5. Windows9x licensing

What it does
A licence for Windows operating system software (or any other software) allows you to run that software legally, usually on one computer in your organisation. Windows licences do not expire. They are permanent, physical numbers licenced to you upon purchase and are shown in a paper certificate included in the original pack. It is important to keep the certificates (usually identifiable as having a 'hologram' imprint) even you lose the discs, CDs and everything else, since these items can be obtained again. As long as you have one certificate to correspond to each installation, you're OK.

Benefits of backward compatibility
It may help to understand Windows licensing here. Any later version of a Windows licence can be entered into the installation of a prior version. Example - you can enter a Win98 2nd edition licence into a Win98 1st edition installation (or even any Win95 version) but not vice-versa. Thus, it is the paper certificates that are important. The Windows95 media (CDs) have stopped shipping now, except as supplied with the purchase of some PCs and those will be the last version of '95, Windows95C. Win98 and Win2000 licences will continue to be backwards compatible as explained above.

Contact
Microsoft Connection 0345 002 000

6. Cable & Wireless sells up and moves on

Cable & Wireless have sold its 50% stake in the UK mobile operator One 2 One to Deutsche Telekom. It is also completing the sale of the residential cable assets of its subsidiary Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC ConsumerCo) to the UK cable operator NTL for cash and stocks.
http://www.cableandwireless.com/press/cindex.htm

C & W is also establishing a strategic alliance with Microsoft for hosted business applications. Combining with Microsoft platforms and Compaq Systems, their ASP offering claims to enable end-to-end E-business services.
http://www.cableandwireless.com/press/latest_3.html

We have had reports from several customers getting large and/or incorrect bills for phone or data lines formerly managed by Cable & Wireless. They have our sympathies as Co-Operative was also a C & W customer! Our recent switch to the new computer/telephony integrated (CTI) ISDN30 system has resolved the bills problem as well as providing voicemail, call forwarding and call queuing.

7. Fix available for Internet Explorer vulnerabilities

What it does
Microsoft has released a patch that eliminates security vulnerabilities in two ActiveX controls. The net effect of the vulnerabilities is that a web page could take unauthorized action against a person who visited it. Specifically, the web page would be able to do anything on the computer that the user could do.

Details
10 May 2000 : Email viruses are now spreading WITHOUT THE USER OPENING ANY ATTACHMENT. Personal computers running Internet Explorer (IE) version 4.0 or 5.0 and/or Microsoft Office 2000 are vulnerable to virus attacks using most email systems, even if the email recipient opens no attachments. You don't even have to use IE; just have it installed with the default security settings. If you have not closed the hole, you can receive viruses (and spread them) by viewing or previewing malicious email without opening any attachment, or by visiting a malicious web site. The problem is caused by a programming bug in an Internet Explorer ActiveX control called scriptlet.typelib. This is by far the fastest growing virus distribution problem and ripe for a hugely destructive event - at least as large as the ILOVEYOU virus. Updating your virus detection software, while important, is not an effective solution for this problem. You must also close the hole. The hole can be closed in five minutes or less using tools available at Microsoft's security site.

[Thanks to Jimmy Kuo of Network Associates and Nick FitzGerald of Computer Virus Consulting Ltd.]

How to make it happen
If you don't have the expertise or the time to implement the patch shown below, Co-Operative Systems can do this on a chargeable basis or via Facilities Management (FM) for those with rolling work programmes.

Contact
http://www.microsoft.com/security/bulletins/ms99-032.asp
The correction script may be run directly from: http://www.microsoft.com/msdownload/iebuild/scriptlet/en/scriptlet.htm

8. Of mice and dirty balls and smut

What it does
Your mouse cursor moves jerkily or not at all. The once-blue mouse mat has turned grey or brown. You've been misguidedly feeding them your cheese sandwiches. Unfortunately, these particular mice hate cheese.

Remedy
Clean the mouse ball: remove it by twisting or sliding the plate on the underside of the mouse - clean it with a damp cloth.
Clean the rollers: look into the space left by the ball and you may see two small black rollers on which the ball rubs. Remove encrustations carefully with a small screwdriver or scalpel, taking care not to let them fall back into the mouse body. Put the ball and plate back.
Clean the gliders: on the underside of the mouse at each end you may see some (once) shiny flat plates. Remove any black smuts of dirt with the edge of a credit card.
Clean your mouse mat: with a damp cloth.

The whole thing should glide and scroll freely now.

Cost
3 minutes of your time.

It's hopeless
If all this TLC fails to make any difference, it's time to have your faithful rodent put down and replaced - until such time as we find a more environmentally-acceptable solution than landfill .....

9. Microsoft play chicken

When asked why the chicken crossed the road ahead, Bill Gates replied :

"I have just released eChicken 98, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your checkbook -- and Internet Explorer is an inextricable part of eChicken."

... allegedly.