|
|
|||||||||||||
**** NewsBytes **** NewsBytes **** NewsBytes ****
NT4 ends with 2004
By the end of 2004, pay-per-incident and Premier support will cease for Windows NT4 Server, as well as the security hotfix support that stopped at the beginning of the year. 1st January 2005 sees the end of NT4 online support too. See Retiring Windows NT Server 4.0. Support for Microsoft's "New Technology" line of secure desktop and server has been extended twice and 'service-packed' 6 times during its lifetime.
Demon's bright future junks spam
Demon now includes spam filtering on accounts to its customers by default (unless they choose otherwise), removing junk mail before it ever gets to their inbox. Although a tentative initial announcement suggested it would not be a guaranteed service, it is in fact backed by one of the UK's leading suppliers, Brightmail. The latter employs so-called 'honeypot' (non-existent) addresses to trap spammers and claim a failure rate of only one in a million (incorrectly trapped emails). Read Demon's spam filtering FAQ
Microsoft, is it?
In a bid to make its operating systems and Office applications available to the world in a wider variety of local and minority languages, Microsoft has launched its Local Language Program, doubling the number of languages to 80. A Welsh language version is intended to be available by Autumn with 4 additional languages (Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Gujarati) to be ready by the end of the year. Implemented via new Language Interface Packs (LIP), everyday usages like the Start menu and Save commands will be those targeted. More details at Microsoft.
Updates for Exchange Server 2003
Two problems in Microsoft Exchange 2003 Enterprise and Standard Editions are overcome by downloading updates for the mail server software. These articles describe a vulnerability (that could lead to privilege escalation) and a corruption that occurs when trying to access an Exchange mailbox. For more info see http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=836993
Catharsis on Channel9
Channel9 stems from a cockpit analogy about conquering the fear of flying through learning. It seems Microsoft intends to apply the principle by inviting comment and perhaps criticism (though no doubt that will be moderated) on its products with the aim of forging new features as requested by users in future versions of Windows and its applications. On close inspection, we can learn that "Longhorn", the next version of Windows, may be called "Windows 2006" - not arriving any time soon then. It helps to have an up to date Windows Media Player for this site though.
http://channel9.msdn.com
Spam protection worth paying for
So say over half of the British public that were polled about their current experience of the Internet and e-mail. Most respondents to the MORI survey, that sampled over 1,000 UK Internet users on behalf of Web content security firm Detica, cited spam, viruses and obscene content as a major problem and while most subscribers expected their own ISP to be tackling this universal scourge, 54% of them were prepared to fork out as much as £2 a month extra on top of ISP charges for such a service. More at Detica.
Wireless trains
Following a successful trial on the East Coast Main Line, GNER will be the first UK rail company to launch an uninterrupted wireless Internet access on high-speed trains. Aimed at business travellers, the service will be free to GNER First Class passengers but will cost of £4.95 per hour for the rest of us in "Standard accommodation". The end of 2004 should see ten rebuilt GNER electric trains fitted with Internet receiving satellites on the line between London Kings Cross, the East Midlands, Yorkshire, the North East and Scotland.
More at www.gnermobileoffice.co.uk.
Sun and Microsoft shake hands
Sun and Microsoft have decided to settle over anti-trust and Java issues, among many others, in a £2bn settlement. In several separate million dollar payments, Sun will receive payments from Microsoft to resolve disputes over patents, anti-trust issues and royalties for Sun technologies. A side effect is that Sun will withdraw from the actions on antitrust and interoperability against Microsoft that it initiated within the EU begun in 1998, thus pulling a large rug from under this multinational legal process.
**** end of NewsBytes ****
| ^ Back to contents ^ | ||||
|
1. Outlook Calendar sharing
Take the chore out of booking time slots with people with a shared Outlook/Exchange calendar. | ||||
| More help at hand. All the back issues just a click away |
Knowing where folks are these days is getting harder, since people's personal worlds are shrinking down to the size of the mobile. Managing and seeing appointments and generally keeping tabs on the 'office buzz' can be assisted enormously by the relatively painless task of configuring a calendar to be shared by your nearest and dearest - OK, well the people you work with then. Create a Calendar in Public FoldersYou will only be able to create a calendar like this if you have permissions from the owner via the Exchange server to do so.
You can go to your new public Calendar folder and start planning your life away! However, first up you may want to actually make it publicly accessible to your colleagues and that's simple too. By creating the folder, Outlook/Exchange automatically assigns you the 'highest' permissions role of "Owner". Other roles in descending order of accessibility are:
Properties | Permissions tab
Aside from your own role (Owner), two other roles are also added for you:
In these special cases the role changes automatically to "Custom". You can either keep the defaults or add specific colleagues or lists thereof with the "Add" button. A typical example for an organisation-wide calendar would be to add a distribution list called "Office" if you had set that up to include everyone. BenefitsWith Outlook Web Access (OWA), calendar participants can interact in exactly the same way outside the office via a web browser as they do inside.Why stop at one?
And for each new problem a solution comes to the rescue. To avoid flipping between multiple calendars, a downloadable Office update add-in - called Multi-Calendar Viewer (see panel) - allows you to see the calendars of up to six colleagues at the same time. Those calendar owners will have to permit you access, as described above, and once that's done you can open their shared Calendar, read their itineraries, schedule appointments and meetings for them and so on. Related Articles
-IB- Acknowledgements: Mark Curtis, Manji Kerai, Paul Craig |
Good read? Rate this article | ||
| I | B | |||
Now if you are the Calendar owner, you'll need to grant some permissions for others at least to see what's going on - and most definitely if you want their participation!
| ^ Back to contents ^ | ||||||||||||||||||||||
|
2. Remote users - the weak link in your security chain
To give is better than to receive? | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| More help at hand. All the back issues just a click away |
We have to face it: Dial-up can no longer keep a Windows computer safe. To maintain the 'health' and integrity of a Windows system, a continuous raft of security updates must be downloaded. These ten or twenty MegaByte-sized patches cost money. And the ones who its going to hurt most are those who have stuck to traditional but ailing dial-up Internet connections. Broadband penetration in the UK is still only minimal; BT connected its two-millionth customer in February 2004, so that leaves a lot of analogue connections still out there. Even where an unmetered, flat fee dial-up is being used (Anytime, SurfTime services), the prospect of tying up the connection and potentially log-jamming the PC for hours is more than most people are willing to sacrifice. But it's a gambling game. Points of vulnerability - the one versus the manyInside an organisation, security is catered for en masse.
At a single point (normally a hardware firewall located within the router) you can configure a single point to deflect attacks from outside and, just as importantly, prevent 'loose canon' PCs from launching secret attacks on servers outside your firewall. The big advantage is that managing security on this 2-way street is placed conveniently under your control in one box.
A group of ten remote users equals the possibility of ten vulnerable address books for spoof email attacks, ten PCs capable of launching Denial of Service (DoS) attacks and ten points of vulnerability to be managed. But, you say, my remote workers have broadband plus a hardware router with a firewall. That's good, but is it good enough?
By default a typical ADSL router that includes its own firewall is configured to prevent all incoming connections except that the ones your computer calls for (inwards from outside). However the outgoing side is less well cared for. Result: a PC that's no longer under just the user's control. Someone 'out there' has a hand in it too. Anatomy of a security failureHere are two typical weak security situations:
It's perfectly feasible to configure Jo's router to block outgoing connections too - with the exception of specifically-defined ones (say for email or FTP if updating a web site) - but router interfaces still make this a daunting prospect for beginners and in the interests of getting first-timers up and running quickly 'out of the box', many routers allow all outward connections by default.
For a start, it begins life with a "gates shut" status, completely closing of all activity with the Internet. Secondly it prompts the user with alerts that specific applications (eg Internet Explorer) are requesting Internet access - a more understandable approach for most Windows users than those that require protocols and ports (eg TCP port 80) to be specified. ZoneAlarm Pro was rated tops in a recent review of software firewalls suitable for Small Office, Home Office (SoHo) use. For home or remote office workers with no hardware solution, typically those with a simple ADSL modem instead of a router, it's worth providing some protection and ZoneAlarm has a freely downloadable sibling, though you have to drill down into the ZoneLabs site to find it. Microsoft is now making its Windows security patches available on CD (at www.microsoft.com/security/protect/cd/order.asp), though while a commendable attempt to ensure all Windows systems remain up to date, it's not a routine that allows speedy access. Contacts
-IB- Acknowledgements: Anslem Munroe |
Good read? Rate this article | ||||||||||||||||||||
| I | B | |||||||||||||||||||||
| ^ Back to contents ^ | ||
|
3. Back to base units: monitor-free PCs
A flurry of base-unit-only computers is hitting the markets at the moment. Are they worth the cash saving? | ||
| More help at hand. All the back issues just a click away |
On the face of it, less has to be cheaper. You don't buy the monitor, thus manufacturers can pare down a computer 'package' to just a base unit, a mouse and a keyboard - possibly not even those last two. The screen represents a moderate chunk of the price so these "no monitor" deals may seem an attractive option. 
With no single answer that fits all the budgets and all the demands of flexibility in not-for-profits, the two schools of thought can be summarised roughly this way. Arguments for
Arguments against
Horses for coursesAt the end of the day you have to decide which component parts are the most satisfying to work with.
For instance, a graphics- or web-designer may find that a new LCD panel isn't a patch on their ancient 22-inch CRT screen which renders colours beautifully with an unmatched resolution; there's also a good chance that behind that special 'user experience' lies a considerable investment - not one to be ditched lightly. For those already on what might be called a second-round upgrade - where flat-panel LCD screens and scroller mice are the norm - "no-monitor" purchases sound like a better bet than trying to mix and match. Contacts
-IB-
|
Good read? Rate this article |
| I | B | |
| ^ Back to contents ^ | |||||||||||||||
|
4. Who needs IT support?
Does cutting down on support save money? | |||||||||||||||
| More help at hand. All the back issues just a click away |
Music to your ears?It's like the orchestra question.
How many bars can a bunch of professional musicians go without having a conductor?
The shrewd answer is: Until the score gets trickiest. The "when will it fail?" dichotomy applies to many everyday scenarios.
So too with IT support. MTBFIt's not just Sod's Law that equipment fails.Digging deep into the specifications behind the specifications of the components that make up computers, servers, printers and the like reveals that their manufacturers know fairly precisely how long their goods will last. Many of them define a Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) figure for their products. This is a kind of average lifetime, derived from a statistical failure rate of a sample of, say disc drives, and is usually quoted in tens or hundreds of thousands of hours. The value is only a guide, but if it's over this limit, you do at least know you're on borrowed time! However, because there are dozens of manufacturers of disc drives, motherboards, cooling fans, etc, any one of a myriad permutations can end up in the final build and a definite lifetime for the machine becomes impossible to determine. Insurance: how much is enough?There are consultants whose latest 'idea' is ditch PC support, the rationale being that PCs are cheap commodity items.Our previous comparisons might lead us to speculate: Although my car is coming to the end of its 4-year rent deal, in retrospect I wish I'd paid the £20 a month for the "full serve" maintenance, including a loan car if needed. It would have been less hassle even though I haven't had too many problems.or Should I pay maintenance on my 2-year old central heating boiler or suffer a repair bill half the value of a whole new installation after a few years (like last time!) ?Focusing on the hardware aspect of support is easy, because it's a physical, visible thing, but providers often fail to appreciate the context of the hapless user. (To wit: the car has been fixed but it's at the remote end of the motorway, or the boiler is refurbished but the kitchen is so trashed you can't cook in it.) So while a faulty PC part is what's identified as needs replacing, it's no good if a new network card doesn't connect you to the server and your email. Or a replacement disc drive then lacks all the office software and printer drivers that you depend on daily. As we've emphasised before, we offer user support, not just hardware and software support. The fix and the flowShort-termists might find the seat-of-the-pants style scenario acceptable, but the risk is big. After all, your organisation suffers all the inconvenience at the very time you need it least.Typically you need an IT problem fixed (say an intermittent printer or an overloaded mail server), but you also need to keep your colleagues working at the same time. At sites where there is an IT Officer and no other measures in place, there is no spare capacity to ramp up the effort supporting both the "fix" process and the "flow" process. The organisations that coast through IT crises the most successfully are those who have outsourced IT support as well as having someone on hand internally (not necessarily an IT guru) to cope with contingency measures, even if that's only keeping staff informed.
Supporting the case for supportIn our experience, the organisations that kill professional IT support, problems are displaced down on to staff without suitable skills or are simply left hanging, resulting in long-term headaches.Our own analyses show that the average daily support cost for a user is less than for a pint of beer and lies roughly between the cost of a daily and a weekend newspaper. Furthermore, the costs per head fall as the organisation becomes bigger. How to make it happenContact us - it's that simple.Contacts
-IB- Acknowledgements: Philip Anthony |
Good read? Rate this article | |||||||||||||
| I | B | ||||||||||||||
| ^ Back to contents ^ | ||
|
5. Mice: a pain in the hand?
| ||
| More help at hand. All the back issues just a click away |
When users in your organisation complain of pains in their mouse-hand, it's worth investigating rather than dismissing them as minor. At the very least you should aim to fulfil employer duties with regard to health and safety or risk a potential claim.
How to make it happenHere are a few basic tips worth following:
Contacts
-IB-
|
Good read? Rate this article |
| I | B | |
| ^ Back to contents ^ | ||
|
6. Chuck out the spellchecker!
Plenty of us are amateur typists, but just how important is correct spelling? | ||
| More help at hand. All the back issues just a click away |
A so-called "Reading Test" circulating the Internet purports to show that it doesn't really matter if we don't spell our messages correctly; the human brain sorts out the actual words from the letters even when they're really, really badly jumbled up.
Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.
Amzanig huh? Most people's reaction is: I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdgnieg Is it for real?The closest connections to Cambridge is with Matt Davis and the research on neural mechanisms and language processing at the Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit.However, Snopes seems undecided on whether to rate this "bit of intriguing linguistic trivia" as an urban myth, a hoax or a genuine piece of research. This snippet appears to have been tracked and popularised by LanguageHat, but it may hail from as far back as 1976 with a letter to the New Scientist about "muddled or jumbled text". At the root of this is Graham Rawlinson's Notts Uni dissertation called "The significance of letter position in word recognition". Sadly, this odd discovery only finds a use so far in making it easy to read junk mail with jumbled up words in the subject lines and plays on our sense of curiosity encouraging us to open them against our better judgement. So is that the end of the spellchecker?There's no doubt you can do your own "jumbled text" experiments very readily, but whether that's science ....-IB- Acknowledgements: Suki Singh |
Good read? Rate this article |
| I | B | |
| ^ Back to contents ^ | |||
|
Clicks of the Trade - Enable Out-of-office responses
--- Quick tips for happier clicks! --- | |||
| More help at hand. All the back issues just a click away |
-IB-
|
Good read? Rate this article | |
| I | B | ||
^ Back to contents ^Overview of InfoBulletin
E&OEViewing IB Implementation Privacy |
Subscriptions ^ Back to contents ^Contact details
|
|
|
Read recent and past issues of InfoBulletins on the Web at http://www.coopsys.net/ibindex.htm or search our archives and subject index.
We hope you found InfoBulletin useful! If you would like to comment on any of the articles or request particular subjects to be covered, mail us here.
| ||