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**** NewsBytes **** NewsBytes **** NewsBytes ****
Join DAT list
Network Associates now have an email subscription service for DATs - the updates that ensure their customers' NAI anti-virus software remains up-to-date for detection and repair. The mid-weekly postings are now sent as an email to subscribers, alerting them that the DATs are ready to download. Sign up for the AVERT DAT Notification Service.
Nutch ado about searching
With large search engines currently taking a battering over the quality of their search rankings, the time may be right for "Nutch" - a project aimed at providing search-engine software for free. Their "nascent effort to implement an open-source web search engine" paves the way to make page-ranking algorithms - the equations that decide which web sites appear at the top of search results - transparent rather than closed, proprietary ones like those used by the major engines.
www.nutch.org/docs/en/
The first 20 years were the worst ...
It's 20 years since Douglas Adams and Steve Meretzky first corresponded across the Atlantic with an early version of something called email. The latter (co-author of Infocom's Hitchhiker's Guide computer game) described the reliability and ease of use of their new messaging medium as "... perhaps half a step ahead of signal fires."
A shame that, since email today is actually reliable and useful, the proliferation of junk email now threatens to take us all back to 1984 again. Marvin, the paranoid android, would probably revel in the wretchedness of it all.
Data Spring-clean discount
Experian Intact are offering discounts on a range of their services such as Database Cleaning,
Supporter Recruitment and Corporate Fundraising to help ensure that your data is accurate, resulting in significant time and money savings. Discounts of up to 30% are available to NCVO members, while non-member voluntary organisations qualify for 15%. www.experianintact.co.uk/ncvo/
Doom for Mydoom
Tools to remove the MyDoom and Doomjuice worms have been made available from Microsoft in their Knowledge Base article 836528. Products affected: Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Outlook Express, and Web-based e-mail. A good page to watch is the PSS Security Response Team Alert on MyDoom as it will continue to be updated with later alerts.
People - a good investment
Co-Operative Systems passed its first re-assessment for Investor In People with flying colours. The assessor's report described us as having a working style that was "at once conscientious, professional and fun".
Prescott packs a punch!
Intel's latest processor, coded 'Prescott', puts processing speeds firmly in the 3GHz-plus range, with
new manufacturing technology set to ramp that up to 4GHz by the end of 2004. The new chip, now labelled Pentium 4E, doubles both its Level 1 and Level 2 cache memory sizes while remaining as a drop-in replacement for existing Pentium 4s. Prices for the latter are falling in the wake of the news of the Pentium 4E/Prescott launch. However, initial independent speed tests have shown the new chip actually demonstrates slower performance than its predecessor and consumes more full-load power as heat - giving a temporary edge to competition like AMD's Athlon64.
Clean Up Your Computer
The terrible labour conditions of workers who assemble computer components has been highlighted in a report by the Catholic charity CAFOD. While the clothing and shoe industries have been the subject of past similar campaigns, the computer production business in low-paid countries has managed to avoid similar exposure. Already the "Clean Up Your Computer" report has had an effect, with at least some of the major players in the computer market addressing the issues raised by, for example, implementing new supplier does of conduct. Full report on CAFOD web site.
**** end of NewsBytes ****
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1. Windows Small Business Server 2003
The latest version of SBS packs in even more than its predecessor. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| More help at hand. All the back issues just a click away |
Based around the full-blown Microsoft Windows Server 2003, this latest version of Small Business Server boasts improvements in areas of installation, deployment and management.
For the first time we have a server operating system that bundles and integrates its mail server (Exchange) obviating the purchase of 'extras' and makes it easy to set up too. Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003 boxes up everything a small organisation needs for complete Internet connectivity - email, printer-sharing, document handling, faxes. Furthermore, with a standard price of around £500 it translates to an affordable purchase for small groups or branch offices.
Broadly providing everything you need to get Internet-connected, Windows Small Business Server 2003 bundles in a full implementation of Exchange Server 2003 for email and provides a single first time installation wizard to configure this and your network, firewall, and internal web site (if any) settings. Security has been enhanced with Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) support and the ability to filter file attachments out of incoming emails.
The Outlook 2003 client once again holds all the collaboration tools that users see and integrates with Exchange Server 2003 to provide Outlook Web Access (OWA), an invaluable means of letting remote workers handle their email remotely just as if they were in the office. Outlook Mobile Access (OMA) extends the same remote access features to users of PDAs and compatible mobile phones and provides a simple setup and configuration for these. For all of the remote users it's also possible to provide information offline, like contact data, for times when no network connections are available.
A pre-built intranet comes supplied with Windows Small Business Server 2003, allowing staff and volunteers to publish standard documents and keep each other up to date with the organisation 'buzz'. Such an intranet (read: 'office internet site') is based upon Microsoft's SharePoint Services platform, also bundled here in SBS 2003. The keyword here is "sharing", and that applies to documents, pictures and lists, held in shared libraries. An included predefined set of libraries gets organisations up and running with titles like Projects, Presentations Archives and General Documents to get the feel before starting up their own. A common picture library clearly reduces the amount of time spent searching as well as the space consumed by having numerous duplicates - good for standard organisation logos, brochures and catalogues. Shared lists can comprise events, calendars or announcements. To save re-visiting parts of the intranet for an update, alerts can be configured to let users know if intranet content changes, in a similar way that a service like www.changedetection.com/ does for Internet web sites, eg "has the recent campaign document altered before I email it out to a supporter?" This alert service can apply to list and libraries. A fourth type of library allows the routing of faxes into a central store.
Having all this functionality is no big deal these days if you can only get to it from one desk. Windows SBS 2003 provides brings together Remote Web Workplace and its Virtual Private Networking (VPN) to make it easy for users outside the office - whether 'chez eux', at another site or on the move - to log in to their computer desktop (Remote Desktop), handles emails (via OWA or OMA) or access the organisation’s internal Web site (intranet). A new remotely-downloadable Connection Manager simplifies the DIY process of "connecting up to the office" for outsiders and saves time for admin staff. The latter have further time-saving features at their disposal when it comes to accessing servers and client desktops, intranet admin or monitoring Help Desk requests. Network performance and usage are also available.
Adding a whole pile of users, groups and mailboxes just got easier under SBS 2003 with a new multiple Add User Wizard via a user template, rather than a laborious one-at-a-time procedure. High time too as it's been standard with other server systems for a while. The Client Setup wizard handles new workstations and computers on the network, but new computers can even connect by going to a website that provides the necessary tools for network configuration, rather than traditional methods using floppy discs or CDs. A permissions wizard allows sys admins to open up or clamp down on user rights available on the network and also to enforce policies that prevent people employing 'lazy' passwords, such first name or organisation name. Finally, even software and applications can be deployed without walking to a machine. Again not exactly new but made faster and easier in this implementation.
A complete backup and restore solution is provided with Windows Small Business Server 2003, prompting the first time creation of backup strategy (what, when, how often) and the default settings are to backup and restore the whole server - email, intranet, documents and everything. Standard monitor and reminder features report by email on the success or otherwise of backups and alert for tape changes. However, it will take a lot to sway users from the enviable reputation of stability and reliability created in the market by the Veritas multi-platform offering, BackupExec - the bedrock of most organisation's disaster recovery plans. There may be cost savings in comparison with the classic Windows Server 2003/Exchange Server 2003 combination where two BackExec agents have to be purchased rather than one. Hardware RequirementsSelected from the "Windows Server Catalog":
DrawbacksA new fairly well-specified server - preferably a Pentium 4 or Xeon processor - will be needed to run SBS 2003 even just for Standard Edition. Dragging an old ex-workstation out of the corner won't suffice.Despite the new installation wizards, an indispensable checklist and a claimed faster install time than before, reports of actual up-and-running times vary between 20 minutes (faster than old SBS) and 2 hours (much slower). Fortunately it's a once-off job as far as end-users are concerned. It's a single server domain per organisation, because Windows Small Business Server 2003 does not support trusts between domains, thus eliminating sharing of user names and resources between servers. But then it's a product aimed at organisations for whom a simple network setup is key. Edition decision: Standard v. PremiumAll of the services mentioned so far appear in the Standard Edition, a flavour that will certainly appeal to a lot of organisations for the features it packs in.
How much?The basic Standard Edition combines a 5-user licence for around £440 (£517 inc-VAT).The Premium Edition with its 3 extra modules starts at over double this (£1070 ex-VAT) for 5 users. To add users in addition to the 5 included in each edition, it will be necessary to purchase extra Client Access Licences (CALs), up to a maximum of 75. It's here that a good value product starts to take its toll, such that large numbers of licences represent quite an investment. As we write, no announcements have yet been made about charity pricing, but we'll keep you posted as we hear of them. VerdictRunning a not-for-profit organisation is jolly hard work and anything that adds to overheads doesn't help. Here's a system that gets you up and running quickly with all the essentials in one box and makes management tasks easier for those that haven't time to learn IT admin in addition to their own jobs. SBS 2003 is excellent value for money for organisations that can't afford to buy all the parts separately. Good for 50 users or less.ContactsContact us for a quote or installation of Windows Small Business Server 2003.
-IB-
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2. Simply browsing - Firefox
A new browser may seem of little interest now that many of us are provided with Internet Explorer, but we must to remember that non-Windows users need a means to view the virtual world too. | ||||
| More help at hand. All the back issues just a click away |
Enter Mozilla Firebird ... ... a multi-platform browser from the folks who invented the original browser (NCSA Mosaic). This streamlined navigator is a million miles away from the cumbersome add-ons of Netscape-like versions however and boasts a bunch of features that is winning it fans and raves and has recently won top spot in the MAXIMUM PC "Softy Wards 2004". Firebird's 'standalone' nature is winning it a renewed following of fans, partly due to its portability but also because of the ridiculously simple setup.
The 'inner workings' of Firefox are now placed more intuitively under the Tools | Options menu, rather than Netscape's old style menu of Edit | Preferences
www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/ How to make it happenDownload Firefox :http://texturizer.net/firefox/download.html Contacts-IB-
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3. Taking Note
We buy more and more notebooks and laptops. | ||||||||||
| More help at hand. All the back issues just a click away |
Despite there being a few disadvantages with notebook computers, we all seem to love them.
In fact we love them to the extent that, in May 2003, sales of notebooks overtook sales of desktops in the US (dollar sales) for the first time. With the new portable breeds sporting better features, smaller footprints and more robust construction, our desire for anywhere-computing has driven increased market sales. The secrets of the little black bagA dozen tiny advances have combined to make 'baggable' computing even more attractive then before.Sizes and weights have come down and battery life has gone up. It's no longer acceptable to have a luggable ten-pounder that only stays on for 2 hours before needing 10 hours to charge it up again. The difference in specification and performance between those of a desktop and a portable computer are now smaller than ever before, and the same can be said about price.
However this coming together has meant there is almost less emphasis on "which type to buy" but more of a consideration of what sort of computing you want to do.
BenefitsContinuing the work you began in one place and finishing it in another, whether that's from office to office or plane to train, has become a given.The freedom of not tethering us to one place to do our work has unleashed creatives, who draw inspiration from writing or sketching in a park or by a river, as well as execs who have to squeeze every minute out of their working schedule; hence the droves of laptopped commuters struggling to win a seat on the train so they can complete reports and charts and send emails. Just opening up the screen and starting from where you left off allows your train of thought to continue. Carrying all your contact information in the machine means that discussions and written communication are easily to hand.
How much?Entry level prices are now down to around £700 including VAT HP/Compaq, IBM, Dell, Toshiba and Evesham are all making advances in the entry-level portable machine market, now starting at around £650 and have so much bundled in like CD rewriters and DVD-ROM drives that the only penalties are lack of expandability, although even this is often addressed with a plethora of docking options plugged into the rear of typical compacts.Smaller, thinner, lighterThere is now a huge range of sizes to choose from, let alone brands and models.
Below this size (or form factors, as the industry likes to call them), PDAs now continue the spectrum of portable computing seamlessly downwards from where notebooks end, until they blend into the area where smartphones take over.
Connecting to the worldOn the networking front, wireless technology has made connectivity virtually seamless and kept the portable computer a wire-free device. You can even send SMS texts from a laptop now with SonyEricsson's GC79 PC card, benefiting from a keyboard that is superior to almost any other text input method for PDAs and phones.
And yet, despite the limited surface area available to 'poke holes into' on a something around the size of an A4 folder, manufacturers are still providing traditional connectors like Ethernet RJ-45 sockets to plug in the normal cable from your in-house local area network. Adding bits onExpandability used to be the cry of desktop machine advocates, though opening up a machine to insert PCI cards wasn't always within everyone's technical grasp. However, by comparison, the tiny ports supplied with portable PCs - USB, FireWire (IEEE1394) and PCMCIA Type II and III - has encouraged even the least technically-confident of users to plug new peripheral devices of their choice. The ever-versatile PCMCIA slots accept wireless LAN PC Cards, to allow upgrades later on, though more and more notebook manufacturers are now bundling this technology right inside the machine.It seems you can never have too many USB ports (cameras, memory sticks and many phones use them), and increasingly, sockets like S-video out and VGA are being added as an invaluable tool to aid presentations giving access to TVs and second/larger monitors respectively.
Dell's Latitude X300 provides a docking station in the form of a sub-tray that sits under the main notebook and attaches with a satisfying 'click'. This tray duplicates some connections but also provides extras features like the ability to secure the whole arrangement to say a desk with standard wire locks - useful if you are working in an area to which the public may have access. For complete flexibility, Tablet PCs may be the answer, with a detachable screen that's still a self-supporting computer and accepts hand-written input, though this new technology is still trying to prove its boast to "become the most popular form of hardware" five years from launch. DrawbacksAs ever, the major problems arise from human failings. A portable computer is also a forgettable computer, although you won't find many lost property offices testifying to that because at the same time they are highly 'nickable' too.Security has risen to meet the challenge with a range of laptop security technologies, like 2-part key fobs and tracking devices. Another human failing is the lack of willingness to recognise that thieves who can't get to your data by physical means will do so by virtual means if they can. Here again, WPA encryption has been developed for encoding wireless signals. Sadly though, most users still accept the default setting of "encryption disabled" because the concept or the difficulty of working with encryption keys is too daunting. Contacts
-IB-
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4. Updates - fear and loathing
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We all fear the consequences of the next big bad virus/Trojan/infected email (hands up if haven't had one of these yet and go to the top the class!) But we loath the necessary updating impact these have on our time and budgets.
Failing the arrival of the unhackable operating system (a human impossibility), a lack of complacency and a small amount of diligence is all that's needed to keep PCs up and running safely.
Recent strikesIn fairly short order we (the 'globally networked') have suffered :
Despite some users feeling unaffected by the MyDoom virus, their machines may have been subjected to the Trojan which leaves open a 'back door' that awaits further instructions from any suitably configured virus to elicit potential malicious attacks on external web sites or servers. The so-called ASN.1 flaw was actually was actually first identified by eEye Securities in July last year. The ASN.1 library is a key component to most of Microsoft Windows professional level operating systems. Microsoft's defence of its late admission of the flaw is that it didn't want to publicise the security hole until it had built and fully tested a fix. Read Microsoft Security Bulletin MS04-007 for more information. How to make it happen - Self defence classesBeat a path to PC security.The 3 main planks are:
If by chance the standard preventative methods fail - for instance when a virus spreads faster than fixes can be distributed by anti-virus vendors - then removal tools (see panel) are always there as a last resort.
Clients who have a Facilities Management (FM) programme in place will be covered for this sort of protection, but those without need to put some measures in place. -IB-
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5. Key Technology
The writing's on the wall for keyboards. Or perhaps, one should say, up in the air. | |||
| More help at hand. All the back issues just a click away |
Easily overshadowed by today's leaps and bounds of computer technology, the humble keyboard is at last going through transformations. The latest popular twist are keyboards without cables - popular in reception and front-of-house areas where a 'clean' desk is just as important as technology that works. Jumping on the wireless bandwagon, such sleek input devices certainly present a good fit with the necessity of having a clutter-free environment. The price of minimalismHowever, unlike their TV-related cousins - remote and Internet TV controllers - the new breed of keyboard doesn't employ line-of-sight infra-red transmission to reach its destination, but wireless radio. And for "radio transmission" read: "signals squirted out omni-directionally into the air".So, how many users realise that computer-equipped strangers lurking just outside the building or in your foyer could be tapping in to your receptionist's every keystroke? With early wireless keyboard transmissions often providing no encryption, or having none implemented, on their way to the computer's keyboard input, some have been easy to 'tap' - so to speak - in fact too easy.
With hindsight, it's easy to see that infra-red signals end up more or less just where you point the transmitting device. With wired keyboards and controllers, there's even less doubt - your keystrokes are received exactly where you want them to be. But with wireless, it's much more of a broadcast medium. After all, if you are going to cut the physical connection between keyboard and computer, then the communication gap has to be bridged somehow.
Keys within keysFortunately, this security issue is being remedied by keyboards that embed wireless encryption - a means of coding the signals between the keyboard and its destination. A once-off configuration of a coding key in both locations sets up the secure transmission medium and locks out devices that don't know the key.
Powerful but powerlessA second side-effect of severing the cabled link is that suddenly the keyboard has no power either! Keyboard manufacturer Cherry decided to overcome the traditional "batteries not included" problem by building in a more environment-friendly solar cell, to make their Cymotion master solar keyboard truly self-supporting, as well as embedding secure radio transmission. At the other end of the scale, it's almost the absence of clutter that is dogging user's frustrations to input data into tiny devices like Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs).
Hoping to restore the human race's most recently-evolved skill, namely "typing", two recent ideas add back the 'missing' keyboard element instead of trying to redefine it. 
Leap frogFrogPad™, a one-handed keyboard designed to work with most USB-compatible
devices, compacts the letter layout down to the 15 most commonly typed ones for fast entry, apparently used 86% of the time by (English) typists.
Initial studies claim that the average beginner can reach a 40 words-per-minute (wpm) 'touch-type' speed within the first 10 hours of practice.
Integration with PDAs and wireless devices is the immediate goal, but the USB interface makes it accessible to desktops, laptops, tablets, wearable PCs, and gaming applications.
FrogPad™ currently retails at US$169.99.
Lazer BiznizCreators iBIZ Technology claim that one can get accustomed used to this non-tactile form of typing in about 15 minutes. Shipping from February 2004 for US$99. And it certainly marks an end to cleaning all the muck out from in between conventional keys! Contacts
-IB-
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6. More Doom - MyDoom-F
F in doom could spell gloom for documents. | ||
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Discovered in mid-February, MyDoom-F is the latest strain of that series of viruses, although it's by no means certain that the same author is responsible throughout. Larger numbers of MyDoom-F occurrences are being seen in what is assumed to be the gathering of attacks on targets like Microsoft and Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). That the virus exists in significant numbers at all is due to the fact that computer users have not patched their PCs and fetched the most recent anti-virus updates, according to anti-virus experts. While many computer owners might not be distressed about having their computer take part in a 'Rise of the Machines' type scenario, they may be more worried when they realise that the new 'F' strain of the worm digs its way through their own documents and graphics and deletes nearly half of them. Bye-bye Word, Excel and Access files! As with previous strains, MyDoom-F-laden emails jumble up a variety of From headers, attachment file names and subject lines to disguise them as genuine. Where it differs however is that the backdoor left open on infected computers stays there instead of extinguishing itself, leaving a malicious remote control gateway as a permanent possibility. The Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks against web sites trigger between the 17th and 27th of the month. See MyDoom removal tool in NewsBytes on this page. -IB-
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Clicks of the Trade - find "My Documents" faster
--- Quick tips for happier clicks! --- | |||
| More help at hand. All the back issues just a click away |
-IB-
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You now have a new shortcut on the right-hand end of your Quick Launch taskbar - it just needs a single click to open the "My Documents" window and se all your work.
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