End of Windows 98, WiFi indoors, Content Management, Outlook Web Access, Blaster virus, SpamNet

C O N T E N T S **** NewsBytes **** The twilight of Windows 98 W.i.F.i - Will It Function Indoors ? Web Content Management - Part 1 Outlook Web Access: make your mailbox come to you Virus: dam and Blaster Terminator: the end of spam Memory flash Clicks of the Trade - easy drag-n-drop copying

Overview of InfoBulletin Viewing IB Subscriptions Implementation Privacy policy Contact Details Archives & index of issues

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Dial M for Unmetered Massacre Oftel ordered BT to cut by 17% its unmetered dial-up Internet access charges to operators in July. The justification was that routing and call management services specific to unmetered tariffs were no longer needed by BT from the start of 2002. Accordingly, the 17% reduction is backdated to June 2002. How to value your donors Targeting your mailings so that you get the most out of your supporters without alienating them is of key importance to any organisation with a significant base of donors. At the next meeting of the Institute of Fundraising IT Special Interest Group (IOFITSIG) on 23 September, Charles Bagnall of Minerva and John Rodd of Rodd Associates will discuss the established and the latest techniques for 'scoring' your donors. "RFV - what is it and what's next?" costs £8 for members, £12 for non-members. More details and bookings from peter@athena.org.uk In-Dell-ible Inc Dell Computers is dead... long live "Dell Inc." The name synonymous with the manufacture of personal computers has been changed (though by only one word) to flag up its diversification into technology products in general rather than being viewed as computer hardware only company. And in what threatens to become a new fashion, world-leading PDA manufacturer Palm is rebranding itself as "palmOne", heralding a move to spin off as a separate business its Palm OS operating system (to be called PalmSource) later in 2003. Blackouts could happen in UK The August power outages that darkened North America are a possibility over here too. The deregulated power companies' approach of running near to their maximum supply capacity has been adopted on our grid, though not to the same narrow margins of just a few percent spare capacity in the US. While providing emergency power for a whole office would be prohibitive, ensuring the continuity of your organisation's lifelong work and data is fairly easy through server power protection via an Uninterruptible Power Supply and basic backups. Discs spin out of control We've discovered a series of 'duff' hard discs on client desktop machines of late. Far and away the majority of these headbangers hail from one manufacturer who have to remain incognito, suffice to say they were not performing "to the max". It serves as a timely reminder that you really, really should be saving any valuable data on desktop machines without a separate backup. More on the value of backups. Read the guides and be prepared.	So So-Big One of the most prevalent viruses ever rose to its height recently. The already-established SoBig mailing worm was reported by security specialists MessageLabs as constituting 1 in 17 of all messages they processed. Flexi broadband for teleworkers Bulldog Communications has a PrimeTime broadband service that may be ideal for homeworking and families. Off-peak (6pm to 8am all weekends), the downstream rate to the user is 2Mbit per sec, but during working hours it reins back to the standard 512Kbps speed. The £33.99 a month service is now available in major cities other than London as well. Visit www.bulldogdsl.com. Try Linux without any installation Lindows.com has made their 'Linux for Windows users' operating system available on a CD - with a difference. Simply placing the LindowsCD in your CD tray and starting your computer loads and runs the complete OS without affecting your existing operating system or setup. An excellent portable system for US$29.95 running on any processor better then 800MHz. The full LindowsLindowsOS version 4.0 can be purchased from www.lindows.com for US$49.95. Probably the greenest computer in the world Ethical Consumer magazine this month rates the top environmental best-buy PCs as Sun, Apple, Dell, Evesham, Fujitsu Siemens, IBM, Mesh, Samsung and Viglen, according to their ethical guidelines. They also say that "probably most effective and easy, environmental choice you can make" is to choose a flat screen monitor, with its inherently lower energy consumption, over a traditional CRT. Find out why we like flat screens and installed them throughout. Read more about display technology. Speedy Data Sees Light The October 2002 trial of BT's Symmetric DSL (SDSL) is about to finish and the following day, 8th September, sees the official launch of SDSL or "IPStream Symmetric" as they call it. Yearly tariffs for the various Kilo/Mega bit per second connection speeds look like this: 256Kbps: £1440 512Kbps: £1680 1Mbps: £2520 2Mbps: £3000 Even though these services are contended at a 10:1 ratio, the pricing is unlikely to appeal to consumers, firstly, because these are wholesale (ISP-only) prices and secondly, due to the need for a second copper phone line to carry voice calls, unlike ADSL. Furthermore an initial connection charge of £450 applies. Another BT service, Datastream Symmetric, offers the possibility for 1:1 contended SDSL products. Source: ADSLGuide. BT ServiceView IPStream Broadband Products. Find out What is SDSL?
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	1. The twilight of Windows 98 Lights out for a popular old timer. Who's going to be the new hand - Windows 2000 or Windows XP?
More help at hand. All the back issues just a click away	1998 - a year that lasted 6 years Windows 98 was always a surprise. I'm in a hurry - take me straight to the summary ... Hailed on release as just yet another upgrade to the (by then) at least 3 flavours of Windows 95 available (broadly A, B and C), critics labelled it as a cynical marketing exercise by Microsoft to keep up with the times. It was after all no longer 1995. Windows 98 features On the User friendly front Integration of Explorer and Internet Explorer Connect multiple displays Better power management Universal Serial Bus (USB) for connecting printers, hubs, etc easily Accessibility features like narrator and magnifier for sight-impaired users On the Reliability front Windows Update for patching vulnerabilities System File Checker (SFC) On the Speed front Disk cleanup and maintenance Disk defragmenter On the Web integration front Internet Connection wizard Internet Connection Sharing between computers Built-in E-mail NetMeeting Built-in FrontPage Express web design On the Entertainment front ... New hardware and graphics WebTV for Windows DirectX Desktop themes But the new Internet-aware public embraced Windows 98 with their hearts - and importantly for Microsoft - with their wallets. You can see why when you cast your mind back to the new features '98 presented. It's important not to underestimate the first and last categories - friendliness and fun. Those are what helped the MS marketers sell Windows 98 into the home and thus into many offices, particularly in the not-for-profit sector, simply because home users had experience of the desktop and could see it worked. They could also see it was cheaper than Microsoft's recommended - but more complicated - enterprise platform, Windows NT. The result was eventually an operating system that appeared on millions of desktops round the world and a rising platform that third-party developers could commit to. It's true to say that many users were disappointed by the touted reliability improvements once they had hooked up their Windows 98 workstations to the office network, but Microsoft's response was that they had always provided NT as the networked solution. And here lies the crux of the matter. The strains of Windows client In the 'Home' versions (Windows95/98/Me) the emphasis has been on providing features and performance for 3D graphics for games and ease of connecting peripheral devices. In the 'Professional' versions (Windows NT/2000) the emphasis has been on providing networking features and secure handling of personal profiles and policies. Whilst the approach of these Home and Office 'strains' of Windows are still apparent with XP Home and XP Professional, the two flavours are united even further this time around, for instance, in that both platforms require users to login the to the desktop (even where no server is present) and protect the data and profile settings of users from each other on the local machine. Playing leapfrog The trouble with this two-handed development is that each release 'leapfrogs' the other with new features. Thus, the new upstart Windows 98 added much more friendly dial-up features to access the Internet, while still remaining less secure and more open to attack than its older sibling Windows NT. Lights out Beginning in July 2003, Microsoft started a process of withdrawing support for Windows 98 and a pay-per-incident regime came into effect. Yep, you have to fork out for phone support to get Win98 problems fixed! By the end of December 2003, not even hotfix support will be available. This is likely to make it financially punitive for anyone with even a moderate degree of reliance on a Windows 98 PC to continue - and the interesting scenario here is that this will include millions of happy home surfers and self-employed SoHo workers. By the end of January 2004 there'll be no support available from Microsoft however deep your pocket. The new desktop contender: Windows 2000 vs. Windows XP Professional Essential minimum hardware requirements Windows 2000 Windows XP Processor: 133MHz or higher Pentium-compatible CPU Memory: At least 128MB of RAM. 256MB recommended Hard Disc: 1GB of free space available Display: VGA (640x480) or higher resolution monitor. Full requirements here Processor: 233 MHz minimum processor clock speed, 300MHz or higher recommended Memory: 128MB of RAM or higher recommended (64 MB possible, but may limit performance) Hard Disc: 1.5GB of available space Display: Super VGA (800x600) or higher-resolution video adapter and monitor Full requirements here Parallelling the success of Windows 98's acceptance in the home, Windows 2000 has won the favour of the business culture with its stability (lack of crashes) and its relatively uncluttered default layout. With its 3-year pedigree you are buying into a tried and tested operating system and one that was built with server versions to accompany it - Windows 2000 Server. Windows XP bundles more features, but is inevitably heavier in its demand on hardware resources to run it. We have encountered problems with it and the oh-so-soon release of XP Service Pack 1 after the initial launch was an indication that fixes were sorely needed. Another trip-up that can cause lost time is that if you are going to 'fiddle with the hardware', you will to have your Windows Product Activation (WPA) key (a long string of numbers) reaffirmed by an MS licensing house, otherwise Windows will refuse to start after 30 days! This security measure was launched as a first by Microsoft to foil software pirates. 'Fiddling' in this case could be anything from installing something new like upgrading memory to replacing an expired hard disc - WPA isn't fussy about your reason for opening the box. It's triggered whenever you "significantly overhaul the hardware in your computer". The corollary of this is that in an organisation with tens of desktop PCs - all ready to expire in the summer's heat - fixes could take longer to implement. Of course, there is a workaround to WPA called Volume Licensing distribution but only much larger organisations will find the economies worthwhile. The most important facet to realise is that for the first time 2 operating systems have effectively been released together and you don't have to settle for a 'Home' version just to buy into new features; Windows XP Professional is there to support standard networking and security as well providing built-in "must-haves" like CD-RW burning - a Roxio acquisition of Adaptec's excellent EasyCD Creator software - handling of compressed zip files and a viewer for most media graphics and video files. Buy new PCs and downgrade the operating system? This solution might seem the ideal one: get the latest XP licences that come with a new PC and replace the operating system with the preferred one throughout your organisation. However some drawbacks rear their ugly heads to foil your brainwave! Windows XP Professional is really the only licensable candidate for doing this as you can then legally use any previous operating system in its place like Windows 2000, Windows NT or Windows 98SE. Windows XP Home version, by contrast, doesn't have such clear licence downgrade rights and anyway is not an appropriate solution for the office. It's fairly clear that very large PC manufacturers are given financial incentives to ship the very latest operating systems on their newest shiniest machines. What's more, supporting increasingly older versions adds greatly to their costs. Thus, the Windows platforms they supply with the machine are usually the only they will give support for. If asked, some manufacturers may supply a new PC with your chosen system instead, but they will probably charge an additional fee. So substituting the supplied system with your company-preferred one on a DIY basis means you're on your own for support. Using any DIY scenario above, you may even find that parts of the computer won't work! We explored this extensively in "Rolling out new PCs". Nuff said. Summary In summary, Windows 2000 is the safe bet where we you have a 'mixed kit' environment, eg Windows 98 and Windows 2000 desktops. If you are purchasing new machines for your office, a majority of which will all be similar hardware, Windows XP Professional is a preferable choice and also integrates well with Windows 2003 Server, but be aware of keeping all the documentation to hand if you need to change any desktop components like a hard disc. Contacts Microsoft support for Windows 98 phasing out Microsoft Windows 98 home page Top Issues and FAQs at microsoft.com Volume Licensing distribution for XP's Windows Product Activation How to change the Volume Licensing Product Key on Windows XP SP1 The Past Windows 2000 first look Windows XP launch The Present Windows 2003 - networks for grown-ups? How often should I replace a PC ? Rolling out new PCs The Future Windows.NEXT: long haul for Longhorn -IB- Acknowledgements: Zorina Baksh, Phil Anthony, Paul Craig, Tony Weeks, Ken Flury	Good read? Rate this article Print this page
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	2. W.i.F.i - Will It Function Indoors ? Wireless equipment is relatively straightforward to set up but when it comes to siting the boxes, about the only place it's guaranteed to connect is on the beach.
More help at hand. All the back issues just a click away	Surfing on the beach Brighton enthusiasts have set up a free wireless network called PiertoPier for those who just can't bear to be away from a network and must have sea-side surfing capability. For the rest of us, Wi-Fi is a hassle-free route to avoiding network cabling in the office or home and bestow instant access to portable devices. Connectivity however depends on how unobstructed the space is and possibly the age of the building. Site lines While it's clear that a wireless Access Point (like a 'transmitter') will link up to any communicating device in direct line of sight, say a Wi-Fi printer, what's less clear is the degree to which wireless can 'see' through and around walls. Recent experiences show that successful installation of wireless equipment can be rather hit-and-miss if you're just expecting to put up Access Points anywhere irrespective of location. Any tube or metro commuter quickly learns that mobile phone transmissions have problems with large amounts of brick and concrete. So if you are looking to pipe wireless connections into rooms or buildings with dense walls of 30cm (12") thickness or more, you should certainly survey the site before buying kit. But it's not just thick walls that can block a signal. Modern, thin plasterboard walls can contain an embedded metal foil layer for drylining that also severely attenuates a wireless signal. A solution here is to run an external aerial feed into such rooms or maybe even - shock horror - use wires for a short distance! Typical Victorian 9-inch brick walls and concrete floors as used in maisonettes don't usually present an impenetrable obstruction. Indeed it's not unknown for someone to discover that 'him next door' has beaten them to a wireless installation when they see their neighbour's signals popping up on their own new equipment! Hopefully, a well-configured encryption setup will prevent these two Joneses from tapping into each other's data. Within the average property, internal wireless communication should be less of a problem. Century-old internal walls are typically constructed of only lathes and plaster around 4.5 inches thick and today's studwork walls comprise wooden battens supporting plasterboard. Both of these contain plenty of airspace in and around, appearing almost invisible to wireless signals in the 2.4 to 5GHz frequencies normally transmitted. Short wireless transmission path between rooms or floors | | | | | | | AP | Laptop | | | | | | | An important factor is the length of the path that the wireless signal has to travel through or around around the wall in order go from Access Point (AP) to wireless-equipped PC, laptop or PDA and vice-versa. A short path is easily envisaged where the two devices sit directly opposite on either side of the wall. However a much longer path becomes apparent where the two devices sit at opposing ends of either room or floor, a highly likely scenario. Long wireless transmission path between rooms or floors | AP | | | | | | | | | | | | | Laptop | In an installation where the path passes through several floors or rooms, eg up-sideways-up-sideways, it is clear that the path becomes greatly increased and spends more of the time travelling through difficult dense material rather than just fresh air. So what may seem like a long transmission range on the paper specification of the PC card, Access Point or Centrino-chipped laptop is literally 'soaked up' by the fabric of the internal building. Many not-for-profit organisations are located in older buildings for reasons of cost, prestige or good location, but this results in the inverse of the large open plan office for which wireless computing is ideally suited. Subsequent modernisations, like knocking buildings together, can mean that what were once thick outside walls are now actually internal walls. Solutions: How to make it happen Do get a survey if you are proposing an installation of say more than 5 points. Ask us here. WiFi Finder Kensington's WiFi Finder detects wireless network signals up to 200 feet away but filters out erroneous signals from phones, Bluetooth networks and microwave ovens. With a 3-level signal strength indicator, the handheld detector finds both 802.11b and 802.11g networks and retails at around US$25. Borrow some kit and do some tests, though be prepared to expect that kit already in use will not be given up lightly! Alternatively, buy a cheap detector. If you know you going to have to traverse courtyards, barns and outbuildings, look for devices that accept external aerials which can be fitted to improve reception and/or transmission. Orinoco make such PCMCIA cards and also USB antennas. You can even make you own circular or omnidirectional antenna from a whiskey tin, assuming you have drained the contents first! Seek out larger spaces to site Access Points like stairways or reception areas. Not exactly unobtrusive spots but a location high up will minimise their visual impact. Avoid installing near other (especially communications) equipment - even a local phone socket can slow wireless transmissions down or degrade signals. Interfering neighbours Too much wireless can be a bad thing. A world-class exhibition of wireless products suffered from too many exhibitors radiating signals in close proximity with the result that airways were jammed and networks interfered with each other. Try to be aware if your closest neighbours or offices are setting up wireless networks - better still find out which standards they are operating. Related articles Interpreting Wireless technology, InfoBulletin April 2003 -IB- Acknowledgements: Phil Anthony, Dave Greenhalgh, Andy Goodwin, Malcolm Napier, Paul Craig	Good read? Rate this article Print this page
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	3. Web Content Management - Part 1 In this multipart article Lawrence Griffiths looks at Content Management (CM) and in particular its use in managing websites. Discover some of the thinking and issues that have created the need for CM as well as the tools and systems in use.
More help at hand. All the back issues just a click away	Definitions Content Management (CM) is a term used to describe the management of "content" - content being any type of unstructured data from Office Documents, web pages to Images and videos. One way to think of content is that it's everything that lies outside of your database and for conciseness, your mail system. But be aware content and Content Management are terms with many meanings, uses and contexts. So what do I mean by "management"? It is any of the activities for controlling such things as the creation, versioning, approving, archiving of and access to, content. A Content Management System (CMS) is an IT application that supports CM processes. There are four main categories of CMS. They are: 1. Document Management System: DMS - Manages Office & Engineering documents/drawings 2. Web Content Management System: WCM - Manages Web site, eg, HTML, Text and Images 3.Digital Asset Management: DAM - Manages Video, Images, Audio content 4.Learning Content Management: LCM - Like WCM but where content is used to support learning An application that covers categories 1 to 3 is often referred to as an "Enterprise Content Management System". Now with the definitions out of the way, I want to focus on Web Content Management (WCM). Web Content Management (WCM) Goals A WCM solution aims to simplify and automate the tasks of building and maintaining a web site. But why does the process need to be to simplified and automated? Got a couple of hours ... ? The main issue is/has been the over-dependence on one highly-skilled individual, once known as "the webmaster". An apt title, as s/he needs to be master of HTML, graphics, scripting, web servers, security, accessibility, search engine indexing, FTPing and a whole lot more. This dependence also becomes a bottleneck when there's a need to update a site frequently. Regular updates require the adding of new pages, the updating of existing ones, the removal of out of date content, the updating of the site's navigation systems and ensuring visual consistency and style. Dependence on a webmaster becomes a bottleneck when there's a need to update a site frequently The basic problem is that human skills and capacity don't scale up and as a result Web Content Management tools and systems have emerged that attempt to de-skill and automate the web-publishing process. WCM Tools and Systems Before we go any further, we should deal with some of the technical differences between what I call WCM tools and WCM systems. A WCM tool such as Dreamweaver, Contribute or Frontpage works with static HTML pages which are stored in files. Whereas a WCM system produces dynamic HTML pages from content held in a database or in XML. Because a WCM system knows about content it can automate such things as the retiring of out-of-date content and update the site's navigation system, all tasks that would have to be done manually using a WCM tool. WCM Users So who uses these tools and systems? Well, a web site has a range of general and specialist stakeholders each with their own area of concern and needs. For example, during a site's construction a web designer will be concerned with the visual design and branding of a site. The site design will need to be translated into templates to be used by the WCM solution. A web developer might be concerned with which browser version to support and how the WCM solution is going to handle selecting the right HTML output. During maintenance and operation a web master is concerned with range of strategic and operational issues such as site performance and traffic analysis. A web author (anyone who creates content) will use the WCM solution to update the home page or get the latest report live on the site. A fundraiser or marketer might be concerned with the site's search engine rankings or on how an online campaign is running. So - stating the obvious - different users employ different tools and features of a WCM solution at different times. In summary So far we have seen that Content Management covers a wide range of content types. Each CM type has its own set of problems to manage, but their goals are the same, to simplify the management of content. We've briefly explored some of the reasons why WCM came about. We've looked at the different users involved in building and maintaining a web site and started to look at the differences between WCM tools and systems. In Part Two In the next part of this article I will be exploring some of the features of WCM solutions and how tools and systems fit together. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 -IB- Lawrence Griffiths, is a freelance consultant specialising in Web Content management, e-services and business process management. You can contact him at: lawrence@avek.co.uk	Good read? Rate this article Print this page
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	4. Outlook Web Access: make your mailbox come to you "OWA!" An expression people utter when they discover they can dial into their mail remotely? Quite probably ...
More help at hand. All the back issues just a click away	Occupational Writing Addiction For those who find being separated from their up-to-the-minute email as traumatic as losing their mobile, we can provide easier ways than having work emails piped to a home or webmail inbox. How it works You open up a browser, type in a special, secure web address (URL) of the form ... https://yourmailserver.org.uk/exchangeserver ... and after a brief security warning and filling in your customary login details at the prompt (the same as you use at work), you are presented with a screen looking not entirely unlike the Outlook inbox you see in the office. Enlarge What's more, you have access to all of your Contacts, Address books, Calendars, Task lists and Public Folders. Emails sent from this screen appear to others just as if you were in the office! Although not absolutely every feature of the Outlook client is reproduced identically here, it's more than enough of a lookalike for everyday work. For instance, long lists of emails are split into pages so that browsers can cope with downloading chunks, rather than a massive scrollable list, but even on an 800x600 screen you still get the top 33 messages. Enlarge One invaluable feature, given the paged nature of the inbox, is the pull down box on the right-hand side that sorts messages by Sender, by Subject and, crucially for the time-starved among us, just Unread Messages. If you haven't set up a Virtual Private Network (VPN) yet - to allow remote users into the exact environment they would experience at their work desktop (file sharing, applications, email and the works) - installing Outlook Web Access makes a good first logical step and can go a long way to solving problems suffered by part-timers and peripatetic staff when trying to keep up with communications and the 'office buzz'. Benefits get email access from anywhere - home, Internet cafe, any Internet-enabled network or PDA or phone save time on dealing with work/home duplicates of emails secure transactions over the web means no snooping by third parties works from any browser send emails outside work without having to reveal your private address pretend to be in the office even when you're not! Performance issues While forwarding mail for remote users to their own separate account gives them the headache of managing duplicate sets of email, it does at least allow them to download at home (or wherever) and read and reply off-line, minimising call costs. So OWA does the reverse. Only one set of mail to manage (big time and cost saving there) but more online time spent. For those remote users on broadband, the flat fee isn't going to affect their online time so this makes an ideal combination for setting up OWA. With falling Internet access prices now on offer, potentially heavy users of remote access should look at "fixed speed" non-contention broadband connections to guarantee performance. To mimic the world of share dealers ... "performance may go up as well as down" Here's why it may vary from one minute to the next: Your organisation's load on its Internet bandwidth will be patchy, partly because mail transmissions are sporadic, but partly also because staff inside may occasionally demand big downloads (images, audio or video), legitimate or otherwise! A remote OWA person will make a short fairly heavy demand on your organisation's upload side of the Asymmetric DSL bandwidth which is usually half that of download speed on ADSL unless you have taken the plunge with Symmetric DSL. For this reason, uploading to your company web site will hit remote users quite hard. Both you and the remote user will likely be sharing your broadband connection with up to 49 other users in your geographical area and there's no telling what sudden demands they may make on the shared bandwidth. What the testers say "What i got was 'WOW'!" "... an oustanding bit of technogy ..." "Hooray! Very useful." (You can see some users were so excited they forgot how to spell! Don't worry - OWA does give you the spellchecker too.) Having said all this, we tested our own Outlook Web Access configuration from a typical low-end setup at home - a Windows 98 machine connecting via a standard 56Kbps dialup modem through ZoneAlarm's software firewall. It connected in 1 minute with a Mozilla 1.0 browser and was perfectly readable on an 800x600 monitor. What you need Firstly, a suitable Internet connection - preferably ADSL Home/remote users need a browser like Internet Explorer with 128bit encryption installed: - Inside IE5.5SP2/IE6, select Help | About - Inside Netscape 7, Mozilla 1.0, select Edit | Preferences | Privacy & Security | SSL Finally, you need us - to setup your mailserver end. It's a straightforward job. -IB- Acknowledgements: Mark Curtis, Mike Strickson, Zorina Baksh, Phil Anthony, Nishal Rooplal, Paul Craig, Wayne Toolan	Good read? Rate this article Print this page
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	5. Virus: dam and Blaster
More help at hand. All the back issues just a click away	It had to happen. Virus attacks computer DNA. We've all grown used to living with computer viruses, especially ones aimed at Windows PCs. We've also grown accustomed to keeping our anti-virus vaccines topped up through a variety of updating mechanisms. We all should have by now become familiar with fetching patches and fixes for Windows from Microsoft's WindowsUpdate site, especially since this service now analyses your PC for you and determines what you need - it's a tick-the-box operation. The windowsupdate.com facility represents, if you like, the incremental evolution of Windows between major releases and constitutes a significant defence against the manipulation by outside intruders of flaws and bugs in Windows code. Now if you're a virus-code writer ... ... it would be really handy if you could dam up the hole though which that defence arrives! ... enter the W32/Blaster-A worm ... Blaster/Lovsan attempts to turn infected machines on the source of their patch-fixer, namely WindowsUpdate. By flooding the windowsupdate.com server with useless traffic through certain ports, enough infected PCs could indeed bring down the update service. At the very least, this tactic by the virus author tries to stop infected users gaining access to the solution for their vulnerability. Now if you're Microsoft ... ... what do you faced with the possible termination of your update site? Well, if you are given a month's warning that someone is is going "huff and puff until they blow your house down", you move house! Which is just what they did, so that windowsupdate.com is now located at windowsupdate.Microsoft.com. Curiouser and curiouser In a bizarre twist to this story, another worm called Nachi came along in the wake of Blaster/Lovsan attempting to remove the infection and patch the host system to avoid the same occurrence in future. In case you think 'Virus Wars' might be the answer to combatting infection by letting them fight it out among themselves, be aware that virus writers are rarely altruistic do-gooders; Nachi exploits the same security hole in Microsoft systems as Blaster. About as trustworthy as a Terminator then. Anti-virus analysts believe that all these are only experimental versions of more sinister and intelligent viruses to come. Solutions Blocking incoming TCP port numbers 69, 135 and 4444 on your Internet firewall can help prevent Blaster arriving on your network in the first place. The worm exploits a vulnerability in the Remote Procedure Call (RPC) service and was already known about and reported by Microsoft in July. Windows XP machines may display this "System Shutdown" dialogue as the RPC service terminates before rebooting. AKA ... W32/Lovsan.worm, W32.Blaster.Worm, WORM_MSBLAST.A, Win32.Poza, Worm/Lovsan.A A new spreadable W32/Blaster-A spreads, not via email, but using a corrupted form of TFTP, a necessary program inherently present on vulnerable systems. Operating systems affected ... include: Windows NT 4.0 Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Services Edition Windows 2000 Windows XP Windows Server 2003 Operating systems not affected Windows 95/98/Me Conclusions The Blaster worm that targetted vulnerabilities in MS Windows releases confirmed that it is now too risky to rely for system protection on Microsoft firewalls that are part of Windows PCs and servers. The only way to ensure protection is to use a hardware-based firewall. Nor is it enough to rely on simple Network Address Translantion (NAT). Home users are also vulnerable and those connected by Always-On ADSL should install basic SoHo firewalls while those on dial-up modems should at least consider using basic third-party software such as Zone Alarm for protection. Realistically serious attacks of this nature probably can be expected twice a year or so, plus on going ad-hoc damage being attempted by hackers. Co-Operative Systems will be contacting all server-based clients not using hardware-based firewalls with specific recommendations. If you have queries or doubts about your own set up do contact us on team@coopsys.net Contacts Patch the W32/Blaster-A vulnerability. Info and downloads via the Microsoft Security Bulletin MS03-026. www.microsoft.com/security/security_bulletins/ms03-026.asp Disinfection instructions: www.sophos.co.uk/support/disinfection/blastera.html Automatic remover: www.sophos.co.uk/support/disinfection/blastera.html#2 CERT Advisory CA-2003-20 on W32/Blaster worm -IB- Acknowledgements: Sophos UK, CERT	Good read? Rate this article Print this page
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	6. Terminator: the end of spam Email was called the "killer application" because of its ubiquitous uptake. Now you can prevent junk mail becoming the "killer application killer".
More help at hand. All the back issues just a click away	We have had great success in-house with a product called SpamNet from Cloudmark, a means of blocking spam from Outlook in a (rather comfortingly) co-operative manner. How it works It works on a democratic weighting system whereby each email client automatically report their spam to a central database. This database in turn forms the blocking list that your own Outlook client uses to compare against. The more participating clients there are, the better the accuracy. Does it work ? This is best thing about SpamNet. It just works. Once installed, you don't have to do anything further. And unlike, say, the replacement for the directory enquiries phone service, it simply makes your life easier. A typical inbox at Co-Operative Systems now has over 800 junk mails a month removed from it automatically; our 40-a-day man is mighty relieved! How much ? SpamNet used to be free, but is now US$4.99 per month per user. I'll pay back! Finance directors will love the short payback time. An employee that has to deal with 10 junk mails per day will waste at least 45 minutes per month. Even if they are only paid £10 per hour, that's £7.50 worth of work time lost. They don't even learn anything useful in the process. Based on this example, the payback time is an astonishing 2 weeks or less per user. For administrators of group email accounts or addresses with a high exposure like press and media, this overhead is much higher and the payback accordingly sooner. In our own in-house 40-a-day example, we reckoned the payback period to be just one day! Towards the end of this article there is a description it. The next logical step - a mail server version Thus far, Cloudmark has produced just Outlook-only versions of SpamNet but they are at last beginning to develop a mail server (MTA) version of their product which would run on say Exchange, but they're being a bit coy about prices. You have to fill in an expression of interest form first. There is a claimed 5-10% impact on server performance. We are looking at this as a much more efficient and centralised method of dealing with this annoying problem, because we suffer as much as anyone! If your organisation has a public presence then your web site will inevitably become the target of software that trawls the Internet sites for email addresses to add to distribution lists, whether for direct marketing or other much more dubious purposes. Benefits frees up inboxes saves employee time How to make it happen Contact us for a quote on setting up SpamNet in your organisation. You can start with just a few mailboxes if you prefer. Contacts Don't forget that setting up redirecting aliases can help too - here's how: Optimising your email addresses - routing aliases, InfoBulletin April 2003 Cloudmark SpamNet mailserver: http://www.cloudmark.com/products/authority/ Related articles Email and blocking lists IB July 2003 Will email become unusable? IB February 2003. Tips on preventing spam "Your privacy on the line" IB November 2002 A simple way to combat spam via secondary Webmail, IB March 2002 Change your diet - prevent spam IB October 2002 Opt-in only E-Privacy directive -IB-	Good read? Rate this article Print this page
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	7. Memory flash Thought for the nanosecond
More help at hand. All the back issues just a click away	A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where train stops. On my desk, I have a work station .... what more can I say .......... -IB-	Good read? Rate this article Print this page
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	8. Clicks of the Trade - easy drag-n-drop copying --- Quick tips for happier clicks! ---
More help at hand. All the back issues just a click away	Copying at its fastest and easiest. How to make it happen Highlight a word in a document. Hold down the "Ctrl" key then click-n-drag with the LEFT mouse button to the place where you want the word copied. No messing with Copy/Paste menus and Ctrl+C keys and clipboards. Works in many applications but particularly useful for copying spreadsheet cells by tagging the black border of the highlighted cell. Doing the same operation with the Shift key instead effects a "Move" instead of a copy. To be prompted for the full list of commands, use the RIGHT mouse button instead. These operations take no clipboard buffer space so what you copied into the clipboard is still there from last time. ** try it now ** -IB-	Good read? Rate this article
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^ Back to contents ^ Overview of InfoBulletin InfoBulletin is written and published by Co-Operative Systems and contains Information Technology tips that we come across during everyday research and support activities and which may be useful in improving your IT operations, either internally or on the Internet. E&OE Viewing IB This bulletin is presented as a Web page (in HTML) that can be read in any standard browser and most email clients. It is written in a compact format for fast viewing, short download time and ease of use for mobile computers. However, if you prefer to read it by alternative means, you could copy/paste it into your usual word processor or save it as a text file or even print it to be read later - on recycled paper, of course! Implementation 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. Privacy Under no circumstances does Co-Operative Systems supply lists of customers to other organisations.

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