Windows 2003, Personal Storage, Display Technology, Windows v. Linux, Cracking Office passwords

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	3. Interpreting Display Technology Shopping for a display screen now presents you with a bewildering array of technologies, but by cutting through the reams of tech specs with some broad guidelines can alleviate the decision stress.
More help at hand. All the back issues just a click away	Motorola and frog design inc. are out to convince us that we will soon be literally 'glued to the screen' with their wireless digital assistant (WDA) concept incorporating hi-tech goggles into its modular design, but until this technology leaves the drawing board most of us will still be viewing our digital information on big, flat, conventional display screens. Applications As with any purchase of new equipment that you're going to undertake, it helps to be clear about what you want to use it for. Here are some of the classics: Run-of-the-mill computers: Mostly working with text, not too fussed about colour consistency. Desktop Publishing (DTP): Heavy requirements on graphics and media manipulation, fine picture detail needed, high quality colour rendering, possibly even colour matching to printed equivalents. Reception, seminar or conference display boards: Banner-style indicators or large information displays for the public, clear read-outs required for quick viewing at a distance. What to buy CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) - the traditional TV screen CRT still rivals modern technologies when it comes to fine picture resolution. Best at sizes of 14" to 21". Bulky and relatively power-hungry by comparison with emerging display technologies. Fears about the effects of resulting electromagnetic emissions on humans are thus far unproved. Flicker can be a problem at high resolutions or if set up incorrectly (take the test, see panel). Screen Flicker - take the test An easy non-technical viewing test. using Windows Notepad. Start your wordprocessor or editor, (eg, Start | Programs | Accessories | Notepad ) Maximise it (click middle button in top RH corner) Now check the flicker by staring into the distance above or to the side of the monitor - about 4" or 100cm above. If there is flickering, you will notice it 'out of the corner of your eye' while still staring into the distance. Now fix it! Good for lower initial purchase cost; wide range of screen sizes or if space and power consumption don't matter to you. LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) - fat boy goes slim The truly flat computer screen has been scaled up from phone-sized displays to as much as 19 inches. Low power consumption, electromagnetic emissions and a tiny footprint on the desk have made these popular and are beginning to be shipped as standard with PCs. Best at sizes of 17" and below. Good for: bright, flicker-free images; low fatigue and eyestrain; durable product life; lower total cost over time. AOC LCD flat screen review. Plasma screen - wall-hanging wide screen Expensive, heavy and eats power are probably just some of the features you're not looking for, but these very big, very flat displays are immensely impressive and still slightly futuristic, soaring to over 60" in size, with 42" being a common entry-level. Overall shape is normally a 16:9 aspect ratio (width to height) in common with High Definition TV (HDTV) standards. Good in reception and training areas, conference venues; typically only 3" to 4" thick allowing wall-mounting; if you're doing this yourself think twice and borrow a friend - they can weigh 70lbs or more! Best at sizes of 22" upwards. Not to be confused with .... an equivalently sized rear-projection HDTV which is basically a 'bent' CRT design. For displaying large images or PC data in a room that can be darkened, you may want to consider a PC projector as a cheaper alternative. What to look out for Screen size - always measured diagonally in inches, because it combines both dimensions (and sounds larger!) Resolution - the number of separately visible dots as width times height. Current PCs typically shipped with 1024 dots wide x 768 dots high. Plasma screens are often 852x480. Finer is better, but beware of blurring as the brightness is increased. Dot size - the resolution as indicated by the separation of the smallest dots that can be displayed, eg, on a CRT 0.26mm or 0.28 mm is common. Plasma screen pitch is commonly 1.08mm. Smaller is better. Viewing angle - often around 160 degrees for most displays, effective for a small audience, but look out for colours and brightness fading drastically when viewing from the side. External inputs - for working with other multimedia gear: S-terminal for video input from DVD and cameras, SCART sockets from video recorders, RGB Input (15pin 3 row) from specialist equipment. Noise - ancillary units can house noisy cooling fans - not ideal if you plan to install your display in a quiet environment. Related articles LCD flat screen review Eliminate screen flicker Projector technology Flat panel or CRT? -IB- Acknowledgements: Dell	Good read? Rate this article
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	4. New Internet access: Pay-As-You-Like Light Internet users often feel penalised by paying a flat fee for access time they don't use.
More help at hand. All the back issues just a click away	No surprise then that new breeds of payment are entering the market, best described as a kind of half-way house between flat fee and pay-as-you-browse. MyInternetPass A simple scheme not dissimilar to purchasing pay-as-you-go time for mobile phones or phone charge cards. It's a 'no strings' deal - you buy your time and connect through a freephone 0808 number whenever you like until the time allocation has run out. Claiming the lowest UK pay-as-you-go service at 0.5p per minute, the time allocation comes in two flavours: Timed Internet access 34 hours (2000 minutes) at £10.00 Unmetered Internet access for 30 days at £10.00 You get a MyInternetPass account on their site allowing you to login and check how many minutes you have left. At present, you must be an existing BT customer with access restricted from inside the UK. Sadly, the service doesn't work on a Macintosh platform. www.MyInternetPass.com Metronet Part of the reason that broadband ADSL take-up in the UK is slower than it could be is that the many people find the entry-level high - typically anything upwards of £20 per month. It's a bit steep for those who want Internet access at faster-than-modem speeds, but may only spend a few hours a month - though crucial ones - dealing with email and browsing, costing a paltry £10. Not a huge incentive there to doubly the outlay, then. Also going under the tenner a month banner, Metronet claims the UK's first and only pay-as-you-go style broadband service. PAYGoDSL gives you full broadband high-speed Internet access, from £10 a month. Metronet sample PAYGoDSL services Service type PayGo500 PayGoS500 Contention ratio 50:1 20:1 Minimum cost per month £10 £20 Data usage included 200 MB 400 MB Maximum cost per month £23.99* £54.99* * Package cost is capped at this maximum, irrespective of your data usage. The desirable feature is that the minimum cost of the service package you sign up for is typically half that from conventional ADSL providers and the maximum you will ever pay per month is capped - at a level, it turns out, that is also comparable with those conventional providers, but irrespective of how much data you up/download. "But how many MegaBytes do I use and why should I care?" we can hear potential subscribers wailing. Fortunately Metronet provide a usage calculator online to work this out and, since contracts run at a minimum of 3 months, it's fairly simple to switch or upgrade if you need more or less bandwidth (MegaBytes per month). This is good news for home users and small organisations alike, providing a standard 512K download/256K upload ADSL services at 2 different contention (sharing) ratios. Faster 1Mbps and 2Mbps services are also available. If you have opted for the right service for your organisation, costs will drop when staff are away (for instance summer holidays), but you will also meet their peak communication demands (eg Autumn conference season). www.metronet.co.uk Who is Pay-as-you-browse for? Anyone with a Small Office/Home Office (SoHo) setup Teleworkers Mobile workers Cash-strapped workers Contacts www.metronet.co.uk www.MyInternetPass.com -IB-	Good read? Rate this article
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	5. The big match: Windows v. Linux Even the technologically-challenged can hardly have failed to notice images of "Shrek" jumping out of the colour supplements, promoting Linux as a vehicle for HP. What's going on?
More help at hand. All the back issues just a click away	The big picture Globalisation and uniform systems can have huge benefits, for example with people and machines all talking the same language. However, when a new virus finds its mark, catastrophic side effects can also result, as the tragic spread of the infectious disease Sars has demonstrated. Sir Martin Rees, author of "Our Final Century" (the title refers to the fact that he only rates humankind an evens chance of surviving it), is of the view that the computer script kiddies of today could tomorrow be writing malicious genetic codes instead, using readily-available tools with lethal consequences - not for machines, but humans. Such dramatic forecasts may not directly affect the way we select our networks and operating systems here and now, but they certainly have a bearing on why popular systems are subject to the greatest number of attacks, both verbally and technologically. Each camp has been stamping on the other's traditional territory So, after years of choosing Windows-based systems, should you be looking at Linux instead? Sometimes it appears as though everyone else is - or will this have been just a fad once we look back? Microsoft has always excelled at creating user-friendly software, be it Windows or Office applications, but faired poorly on the stability of their operating systems, at least in the early days. Linux/Unix and other open source systems have thus far been the exact reverse - stable but for geeks only. Since the beginning of the 21st century, each camp has been stamping on the other's traditional territory so that Windows users now find the new graphical environments of Linux familiar and Linux fans would have to admit that Windows systems are less prone to crashing than they once were. Linux supporters will point out that if you want to become a dominating player in supplying operating systems, be they desktop- or server-based, you need to build a secure platform from the ground up. However, Windows fans argue that any widely popular system will always come under heaviest bombardment because it provides hackers and intruders with the most prominent outlet for their own potential notoriety. Although these arguments may appear a little detached from your everyday business, this rather philosophical view can aid your IT strategy if only to realise where its weak points lie. The combination of popularity and uniformity delivers excellent communications, but arrives with the susceptibilities to similarly uniform mass attacks. Closed or Open? The two approaches Windows Linux Support Resellers and software vendors do the bulk of the everyday support. Microsoft itself only becomes involved in high-level or escalated problems in conjunction with their partners (like us). Customers buy support through contracts, often with a Service Level Agreement attached. Linux uses the open source community developers for support - a keen mix of Linux businesses, freelancers and volunteers. While the volunteers among those give their time generously and willingly, there is no binding agreement to hold them to, as with commercial operations, and they aren't obliged to have (or necessarily interested in) user-friendly approaches; the technical challenge is often why they are in that space. To fill this market space, an increasing number of systems suppliers, like RedHat, are charging for their software distributions because they also offer support, be it via phone or email. Bundled applications Microsoft bundles a lot of extras into its SBS (Small Business System) offerings (as does NetWare6 SBS) but goes for application approval and testing from third party suppliers. Part of that cost ends up in the licence and development costs. Linux has a bundled web server, DNS and email server. From the Internet, you can download a vast array of applications (some free, some paid for), created and supported 'developer community'. This even applies to mobile devices like the Symbian-based SonyEricsson P800 phone and the Zaurus SL-5500 PDA. Professional paid support isn't ruled out altogether though, with one of the biggest open source applications taking off being Sun's StarOffice (version 6.1 due shortly) at around £50 all in. Viruses and patches Microsoft provides comprehensive security alert and automatic patching services, but then it needs to - no other system comes under such frequent attack as Windows. The sheer number of patches issued makes keeping security up to date a major task. Not a perfectly secure system by any means, eg previous versions "sendmail" (the bundled mailserver) were prone to relaying attacks, but an inherently robust system combined with armies of watchful techies makes Linux a less attractive target for intruders. Usability Windows and Office software undoubtedly set the benchmark for user-friendliness in the 90s. Linux environments and associated office suites have sought to emulate this. Concepts are coined in familar plain English terms. Linux has always been designed as a server version from the ground up - that is, a desktop machine can be configured from the same software, so it's a single versatile package for learners to contend with. While the desktop for users may now look almost identical to Windows, for administrators working with basic command lines and troubleshooting the 'innards', the language used is at best cryptic. Will Microsoft go open source? CE codesharing Microsoft's initiative to share the compact edition (originally Consumer Electronics) of its operating system (for handhelds) has come under attack. Developers who take it up are required to license their improvements back to Microsoft, an arrangement whereby they receive no royalty. However, Microsoft point to the fact that big vendors are signing up as a sign that this code-sharing initiative is succeeding. The software giant's recent attempts to open its proprietary code have hardly confirmed to the spirit of open source. Moves have either been along the lines of a government-eyes-only restriction or under a scheme where developers receive no direct return for their input. The latter is not too dissimilar to the open source process, some might argue, but a major divergence is that Linux developers can resell their devices and software directly to the public. The bottom line A typical price for Windows XP Professional is about £240; MS Office comes in at around £480. If you run with those for 4 years, that's £180 per seat. With alternative Linux offerings and packages, you could easily halve this capital investment. However, bearing in mind that many users never get to grips with 80% of the features in their PC, the total it thus costs your organisation in training and learning time to become even moderately proficient at using the software - whether it's basic PC features or office-type applications - is going to mount up to at least as much again as your initial outlay. It could even be 3 times as much if you decide to switch to a new system. Indeed the cost of not spending time learning will impact your organisation's efficiency in terms of producing poor documents, inaccurate spreadsheets, indecipherable databases, unrouted emails, etc. Just as with PC hardware, the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of software is a key point to watch out for when choosing. And finally ... look at your costs in balance. Remember that 10 employees consume over £200-worth of teabags a year, with probably similar amount going on the other accompaniments and electricity. A more efficient kettle might be a better investment with faster payback. Related articles and contacts Linux for dummies? - Lycoris www.linux.org/ IDC Puts Windows Ahead of Linux in TCO Study -IB- Acknowledgements: Phil Anthony	Good read? Rate this article
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	6. Cracking Microsoft Office passwords Word, Excel and many Microsoft products provide facilities to embed a password and ward off prying eyes. Heaven for users and hell for systems administrators.
More help at hand. All the back issues just a click away	The password facilities available in Microsoft Office are undoubtedly easy to use. Too easy. It all goes horribly wrong when those 'in the know' is/are on holiday or off sick. The unique access to that document or spreadsheet is then denied. An apparently simple protection mechanism falls down because this method of managing data is entirely arbitrary. Opening password-protected Word documents, Excel spreadsheets Fortunately, there are utilities that can come to your rescue in the form password-cracking software. (Bet you never thought it would come to this, did you?) Other legitimate reasons for breaking into files are: you've forgotten a password, partially or completely you can only remember the first letter of a password the original creator has forgotten a password completely the creator has capitalised some password letters but can't remember which ones. As part of our review, we opened a couple of crackers, so to speak. Advance Office XP Password Recovery The mouthful that is this excellent product is abbreviated to an equally unpronounceable AOXPPR. Apparently an FBI favourite for opening encrypted Office files (whose they don't say), the name of this handy utility appears a little modest in that it actually decrypts files for all versions of Microsoft Office up to 2002/XP, whether that's for opening, modifying or protecting files. It's a trivial matter to download the 30-day trial standard edition (1.16MB - even fits on a floppy). "Hey - I can have the document cracked before the trial period is up", we can hear you announcing. Quite possibly, but you may want to adjust your expectations a little. There are two basic methods (or attacks) that AOXPPR employs to suss out the password embedded in your Office file. Dictionary attack A simple and fairly quickly process of matching the password against all the terms in the dictionaries supplied. Brute Force attack Literally attempts all combinations of upper case and/or lower case characters and/or numbers, according to which you specify. Accepts special characters too. The Dictionary attack can take under a minute. Indeed, we recovered a 4-character and a 5-character password in 39 seconds each. The Brute Force attack succeeds in a similar time for up to 4 lower case characters only, which will often be the, er, case. A password of even this relatively small size containing alpha and numeric characters (A-Z, a-z, 0-9) will have nearly 15million combinations to process. For more than 4 unknown characters at a time, (eg 5 unknowns might be pa?????d), you're going to have a longer wait. And it ramps up pretty quickly .... Our Pentium III 1.8GHz machine with 256MB of memory was capable of processing over 200,000 passwords a second but, even with this level of performance, cracking a 6-character password (17 billion combinations) took a full 24 hours. Mercifully, AOXPPR's extended stats window shows the estimated time remaining. So one of the disadvantages of cracking stares you immediately in the face: the chances are that the only time you have to resort to such methods is when you want the answer straight away! If you do have all day, you just set the task running. You can stop the process - in fact it's only a pause despite the alarming "Terminated" dialogue that pops up - and restart later or even save the whole affair (it's termed a "project", you can see your password-cracking initiation growing into a career!) to recommence the task even after having closed AOXPPR. Don't assume everything is crackable - a long well-chosen password may be impossible to defeat, but judging by the importance the average office worker attaches to their passwords, most will be weak and/or simple. The trial version will get you into all the common applications: Word, Excel, Access, Internet Explorer 3/4/5 (Content Advisor) - this latter being an impossible password to reverse if you 'mucked about' with the tab by accident. Other applications like Project, PowerPoint, Outlook, Money, PowerPoint, Visio and Publisher demand you buy the Professional edition first. http://www.elcomsoft.com/aoxppr.html The Personal and Business licences for Standard Edition are US$60 and US$120 respectively. A Personal License looks like it will cover not-for-profits in that you can use the program for non-commercial purposes in a non-business, non commercial environment. Professional Edition covers the works as a single licence of US$150 for both personal and business purposes. Elcomsoft don't stop short at Microsoft Office products, but also encompass password recovery software for ZIP files, Lotus SmartSuite, Corel WordPerfect Office, Adobe Acrobat PDF, ACT!, e-mail clients and Windows 2000 NTFS. Lostpassword Passware Another web source of password recovery solutions, Lostpassword offers a truly comprehensive Passware Kit, a bundle of cracking modules for multiple applications spanning all sorts of manufacturers at US$395, but happily they also sell application recovery in single instances too, like the Word Password Recovery Key at US$45 and Office Key Light, a 2-in-1 Excel/Word recoverer at US$65 as well as a 5-in-1 version including Outlook at US$125. Non-MS modules over and above those provided by Elcomsoft include FileMaker, MYOB, Lotus Organizer and Peachtree company files. They also have free software to access applications like Instant Messagers. http://www.lostpassword.com/kit.htm Contacts www.elcomsoft.com/ www.lostpassword.com/ -IB-	Good read? Rate this article
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	8. Clicks of the Trade --- Quick tips for happier clicks! ---
More help at hand. All the back issues just a click away	Start your browser quickly When your browser first starts up it spends ages looking for Google, downloading the Netscape home page, etc - right? Make the starting page a blank one for the fastest startup. Insert "about:blank" instead: In Internet Explorer: | Tools | Internet Options | click "Use blank" button In Netscape/Mozilla: | Edit | Preferences | Category: Navigator | tick "Blank page" You can still type key letters in the address bar to find your pages quickly, eg "goo" for Google, "netsc" for Netscape. ** try it now ** Mouse matters Rest your elbow on the front edge of your desk. Is your mouse/mat within a hand's reach? No? Or are you stretching over the keyboard past coffee cups, calculators and phones? Yes? You're looking for back trouble! Bring back your mouse to within reach of a position that allows you sit up straight. (You are sitting up straight aren't you?) Other measures that help: A tight, short mouse cable won't allow it to reach the front of your desk and is continually annoying. Sort out the tangle of cables, reduce the stress - for you and the mouse. (Switch the machine off first). Grubby old mouse? Treat yourself to a decent scroller mouse. Call us to get them delivered. ** do it now ** -IB-	Good read? Rate this article
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