Actrix Newsletter September 2003

This newsletter has been produced to help you get the most out of the Internet,
and to keep you, as an Actrix customer, informed of developments and services within the company.
Past newsletters may be viewed at http://editor.actrix.co.nz/
Newsletters are now archived by article at http://editor.actrix.co.nz/byarticle/
Questions and comments about the newsletter can be e-mailed to editor@actrix.co.nz
Other inquiries should be e-mailed to support@actrix.co.nz

by Rob Zorn

We've all sent or received postcards before. We probably haven't thought too much about it, but there are general commonsense rules we usually employ when sending them. We're a privacy conscious species, so usually what we write is pretty generic. "We're having a great time, weather's been great, picked up a bit of a tan, this is the prettiest postcard I could find, wish you were here, back soon, etc etc."

Now the reason we stick to pretty basic stuff when using postcards is because we are fully aware that they can be read easily by many individuals, both in transit, and after they've arrived at their destination. The postal delivery person can read them, the mail sorters can read them, as can anybody else who happens to be near the postcard as it travels from place to place. We don't tend to put embarrassing details about ourselves and others on postcards, and we certainly don't put our credit card details, or the location of all the money we have hidden under our beds on them either! To sum up, we only commit to a postcard information that we wouldn't be too concerned about the whole world reading.

What some people may not realise is that the same situation applies to any ordinary e-mail you send. E-mail is really very much like an electronic version of a postcard. In most cases, once you click Send in your e-mail program, your message just becomes a text file wrapped up in some computerised protocol (agreed upon way of accomplishing something on the Internet) designed specifically for the passing of e-mail messages from one server (computer designed to be part of the Internet) to another. In most cases, the protocol used is called SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol). SMTP is freely available and easy to obtain and use.

The steps would be as follows: Your e-mail program sends your e-mail to your ISP's mail server. Your ISP's mail server then passes the e-mail to the destination ISP's mail server. If the destination mail server is along way away or in another country, your e-mail may well have been passed through several servers before it finally gets to the destination ISP. When the destination ISP's mail server finally receives the e-mail, it stores it on its own servers in the mailbox file of the intended recipient. It stays there until the intended recipient connects to the destination ISP's mail server and downloads the email to his or her own machine.

Now, anyone who can gain access to your e-mail as it travels from place to place can read it. For example, the mail technicians at your ISP, or any of the technicians that look after any of the servers your e-mail may travel through, could configure their mail server to save a copy of every e-mail that passes through them, or perhaps just to save e-mails from or to certain people, or which contain certain words or whatever. If they wanted to, these technicians could stop any e-mail they chose, and even change the message in it. That would be a bit like the postman changing what you have written on your postcard.

Now it is unlikely that e-mail technicians are going to do this. Firstly, e-mail servers usually handle thousands upon thousands of e-mails per hour. Saving copies would amount to a gross abundance of pointless information. Mail technicians are bound to have instant dismissal clauses in their contracts too, if they're caught at this sort of thing, so why risk looking at people's e-mails? If voyeuristic thrills are desired, there's no shortage of opportunities available online that don't necessitate risking your job.

However, mail servers can be interfered with by hackers, and this has been known to happen plenty of times. Usually the hacker will do so because he is targeting an individual and wants copies of certain e-mails for nefarious purposes of his own. They might sneak a rule onto a mail server that copies mail from or to a certain person to them so they can know about it or perhaps even alter it. Depending on how clever they are, hackers can often get away with this for a little while, but they will usually be detected and blocked (it's often impossible to trace them) very quickly.

Lastly, of course, your e-mail could be read by anyone who has access to your mailbox. Again, mail technicians don't usually need a password to get into the mailboxes on their mail servers. They are frequently required to go into mailboxes, delete corrupted e-mails, or even corrupted characters within individual e-mails. Mailboxes are transferred from one server to another for maintenance reasons etc, etc. At any stage, e-mail waiting for you to download could easily be read by anyone who has the root password to the mail server.

I probably should stress here that Actrix has very strict rules for all its staff in dealing with people's e-mail. No e-mail is ever opened or deleted without the owner's express desire and direction.

So what's the upshot of all this? Treat e-mail like a postcard. There is very little reason to fear that someone will read your e-mail, or even that they'd want to, unless they have some vested interest in getting at you. There is more chance that your postcards will get read. But by the same token you have to be aware that e-mail is not secure and it would be foolish to include sensitive information, such as credit card or password details in them, and it would be unwise to put anything potentially embarrassing (to yourself or to someone else) in them either. This is also why Actrix help desk staff work under the policy of not supplying passwords of any sort by e-mail.

Is there a way to send e-mail securely?

Well, yes there is. It is possible to have your e-mails digitally signed which will confirm to any sender that they have come from you and they haven't been tampered with in any way. Digital signatures use formulas to give an original e-mail a specific "fingerprint." If the e-mail arrives and it's message differs from the original fingerprint, the recipient can be alerted.

It is also possible to send and receive e-mails in encrypted format. This involves you arranging to have a specific key (cryptographic algorithm) that can be published to the world through Internet security specialist companies such as VeriSign Inc, or Thawte. People then use that key to send you encrypted e-mail, but only you can un-encrypt things at you end, because only you know the pass-phrase that works specifically with your key.

Admittedly, this sounds like a lot of complication and bother, and for most people it probably is. Exercise a little "postcard protocol prudence" and there's really little need for encryption or digital signatures, but if you are concerned, there are options available for you to investigate further. One simpler option might be to go with a product known as PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) which comes in both commercial and free versions. PGP uses its own scheme of key servers where you can find the keys of others with whom you'd like to exchange mail.

A good page explaining PGP in more detail can be found here:

http://www.keysystem.de/yeti/online/keysystem.nsf/webview/1315B72D1FEB1EC3C1256C9000090F7A

The PGP homepage is at www.pgp.com.

by Rob Zorn

This article is mainly the brainchild of one of our customers, Roger from Lavender Pathways. Not being in any way a computer or web guru, Roger had been through all the pain of organising a web site from scratch. He therefore suggested to me that other customers might benefit from being able to read about some of the basic questions that occur to someone who knows little or nothing about the web, but who wants to organise a personal or business web page.

I agreed. I am especially grateful to Roger for supplying me with the questions he faced as he worked through the issues. These are really valuable because they're authentic. They're questions from a layperson which, when answered, are much more likely to be helpful to other laypeople than questions I think up and hope might be helpful.

There are quite a few of them, and too many for one article, so I'll start with the first few this month, and carry on in subsequent months. The first months set of questions will be like an overview. In subsequent months we'll get more specific about things.

Question 1: What is HTML?

HTML is short for Hypertext Markup Language. Its the name of the type of code used to make most web pages. It may sound complicated but it really isn't at all. The "hypertext" just refers to stuff online that you can click on to get other stuff - in other words, web pages. "Mark-up" simply refers to written instructions about how words or images are to be displayed. The good thing about HTML is that you don't need to learn any programming languages to create something decent. The "code" used is just abbreviated English and commonsense. "Language" just means that there are rules about how you have to write the code. You do need to do things a certain way, but as I have stated, the concepts are reasonably simple. It would take the average person less than five minutes to understand how to create a few lines of text in the size, colour and font of their choice. Five minutes more and they would be able to place images on the page. Five minutes more and creating basic links would be a snap.

Question 2: Is it possible for a layperson like me to set up an Internet website?

Yes, it is quite possible for someone who knows nothing about web sites to quickly learn enough HTML to make a basic site. The basic concepts are very easy to understand and no specialised tools are needed. I have dealt with this question before so I won't go into too much detail yet about how HTML code actually works. Two articles are Your Personal Actrix Web Space and What is All This HTML Stuff? Of course, the Internet itself abounds with free and simple tutorials. Any search engine will produce a long list of sites to try.

A lot is going to depend on the individual and how much time and inclination they have. Different people will catch on more quickly than others. Once the creative bug is caught, there can be no stopping some people. Others may give it a try and decide it isn't worth the bother. During my time on the help desk I watched several people develop sites from scratch. At first they needed a little help or a few pointers. Before long they're doing amazing things.

Question 3: Website design seems a complicated procedure. Is it?

This question follows nicely on from the one above. Web design is as complicated as you want it to be. A simple site containing text and some images and links is dead easy. Animations, things popping up, things that change when you mouse-over them - these aspects are a little more complicated. You would need special and expensive software for some of the more complicated things, but a good, functional web site does not need to be that complicated and could be created just using Microsoft Notepad.

Question 4: How do I get my website onto the Internet?

Once you have a site designed (and we'll deal with design issues a lot more in later questions) you need to organise a domain name for yourself and some hosting space. Your ISP can step you through these procedures. They will rent you some space on their servers for a monthly fee (Actrix currently charges $12.50/month for a small to medium sized site) and they can secure a domain name for you. As part of the service they will take care of all the technical business that makes your site come up when someone types your domain name into their browser. You don't even need to bother with understanding how all that works.

As far as getting the site up onto your ISP's server so that the world can get to it - another piece of cake. The process to achieve this is called FTP. You can download free FTP programs that are easy to use. Most of them resemble Windows Explorer. They connect to your site and list all the files that are currently there, if any. You just select the files you've created that you want to upload to your site, and up they go. Your ISP will give you the user name and password for your site so you can tell your FTP program how to connect. You can also use your FTP program to delete files on your web site, change their names, and so forth.

Question 5: What is a domain name?

A good example of a domain name would be actrix.co.nz. Most domain names are used with a www. in front of them which turns them into a web address (e.g. www.actrix.co.nz). The domain name system in New Zealand is maintained by the Domain Names Commissioner. You can visit the site of the Office of the Domain Names Commissioner at www.dnc.org.nz where there is a search tool that lets you see whether the domain name you want is available. If it is, contact us and we can register it on your behalf. Once that's done, no one else can use it but you.

You can register a domain and not use it if you want. Some people do this to safeguard a domain name for themselves for future use. As mentioned above, once you have your domain name registered, Actrix can take care of making sure it points to your web site or we can just hold it for you on your behalf. You can also begin using your domain name as your e-mail address and you don't have to set up a web site first in order to do this. Our help desk can talk you through setting this up in your e-mail program. It won't take long. With Actrix (and our rates are hard to beat) a domain name will cost you $79.95 in the first year, and $44.95/year after that.

Question 6: I hear about programs like Microsoft's FrontPage or Macromedia's Dreamweaver. Will I need to buy software like that to create a web page?

Programs like these can be really helpful because they allow you to design your page by dragging and dropping stuff and they automatically create the HTML for you behind the scenes. They are very expensive (though FrontPage comes free with Microsoft Office 2000 Premium), and they have problems of their own. Sometimes they think they're smarter than you are and will re-arrange things their way, and it can be very hard to boss them back into doing things the way you wanted them to. There are cheaper alternatives to FrontPage and Dreamweaver, and you can download lots of them from the Net on a free trial basis before you buy. Coffeecup HTML Editor, for example (and this is one of the cheaper alternatives I'd recommend), has a free 45 day trial version, and eventually will cost you just $49 US. It is just over 6 Megabytes to download.

If you're planning on practicing and getting better at web design then I would recommend against them, at least at first. HTML files are just text files, so you can create web pages using just Notepad. By having to create everything from scratch all by yourself you get a much better grounding in the fundamentals. Later on you can try an automatic HTML editor, and you'll know enough not to let it get the upper hand on you. That's just my opinion, though. Lots of designers started out with the auto-editors.

Question 7: Can you summarise the main costs involved in getting a web site going?

There are three general aspects to a simple web site and we've dealt with each above. Firstly there's the content or the pages that you've made or that you've arranged for someone to make for you. Secondly there's the domain that we've just talked about. Actrix can register this for you and make sure that it is properly "advertised" on the Internet so that people anywhere in the world can type your address into their browsers and have your site come up. The third aspect is simply the space on our servers that you need to lease on a monthly basis. As stated, enough for a simple site (up to five megabytes in size which is usually ample) is not overly expensive.

If you'd like to ask a question or request some help on any Actrix or Internet-related matter. Simply send me an e-mail with the word "forum" in the subject line and check back next month to see the results! By the same token, if you read something here and think you may have something to suggest, please feel more than free.

There were no forum letters during August, but the forum has been well-used so far, so it would be good to keep it open. Please do feel free!

by Jim Breen

Actrix has many customers who are using Macintosh systems and some information and tips on how these customers can get the most out of their internet experience and be able identify and rectify common problems should be useful.

Last month Jim Breen dealt with E-mail Settings. This month he provides the last in the series and wraps up with Macintosh browser tips. - Ed.

Browser Tips

Toolbars

If you are missing any toolbars go to View menu and select Show in NS and tick all the tool bars or View in IE and you might find something that was not showing.

Images

If you have a slow connection and you are not concerned about images loading on a particular site, then turning images off will load cause the pages to load faster.
Internet Explorer - Go to Edit/preferences/Web content and untick show pictures.
Netscape 4.xx - Edit/Preferences/Advanced untick automatically load images.
Netscape 7 - Edit preferences/Privacy Security/Images

Find a Word

If you are trying to find a particular word or phrase on a web page, remember you can search for it by going to Edit and then Find on the menu at the top of your display. Type the word you are looking for in the box and click on the Find button.

Clearing Cache

Your cache consists of all the images and files your computer has visited recently on the Internet. To clear your History and Cache:

Internet Explorer - Edit/preferences/Advanced
Netscape 4.xx - Edit/Preferences/Advanced/Cache
Netscape 7 - Clear Cache. Edit/preferences/Advanced/Cache
Netscape 7 - Clear History. Edit /Preferences/Navigator/History.

Text Size

To increase or decrease the text size on a web page.
Internet Explorer - View/Text Zoom
Netscape 4.xx - View/increase or decrease text size
Netscape 7 - View/Text zoom

Compact the database

You should occasionally compact and optimise your e-mail message database. It can grow to huge proportions, because "deleted" files are not fully erased from the hard drive, even after you empty the "deleted items folder." They are partially still there, slowing down OE and taking up space on your hard drive (particularly the large messages with attachments.

Once you have archived and/or deleted many messages you can compact and optimise the files in each identity by holding down the option key while starting OE5. Keep the option key depressed until you see this window:

Select "YES" and OE5 will compact and optimise the files in the identity folder. This may take some time, so be patient.

Caution, If you select NO it will bring up another window asking if you want to do a complex rebuild of the database. If you then select YES, this rebuild will cause some mail and addresses to be lost.

Switch Identity

You can set up a separate identity in OE for another user or if you want to keep mail accounts each with their own mail folders. Go to File /Switch Identity.

This allows you to set up another identity or to switch between them if more then one is already set up.

Please note: Actrix supplies links to these sites for your interest and possible use. We cannot endorse or take any responsibility for their contents. Got a site you think would be neat to share with other readers? Let me know and receive a free Norrie the Nerd chocolate bar courtesy of Actrix!

Superman: The Many Faces of the Man of Steel
http://xroads.virginia.edu/%7EUG02/superman/ - Why is Superman so deeply embedded in our cultural consciousness? "[He's] one of our most enduring and recognizable cultural icons, the inspiration for countless imitators, and a perennial American role model. Superman embodies all our hopes and dreams, and our deepest fears. He is a man who is blessed with extraodinary superpowers many wish they could have. But this seemingly invincible superman can be felled when exposed to a tiny, green rock – Kryptonite. This tragic flaw only scratches the surface of Superman's many paradoxes and dualities."

Historical UFO Art
www.ufoartwork.com/ - This web site has been put together by Matthew Hurley, someone who has long been "intrigued by old artwork that appears to depict UFOs." His collection of artwork is arranged in categories such as A.D., B.C., Pre-1947, Hoaxes and so forth. The artwork consists of frescos, tapestries, illustrations, oil paintings and early photographs, and certainly makes you wonder!

Free Personal Google Search Agents
www.google.com/newsalerts - At this site you can sign up to receive daily news alerts on keywords of interest to you. You could use the system to keep track of your favourite celebrity, stock, industry, politician or whatever. The e-mail arrives each day with a paragraph on each new item Google found for you, as well as a link to the full story.

Bill's Online Games
www.billsgames.com Here's a neat little collection of online games. Included are board games, puzzles, mazes, brain teasers, word games and more. In most cases you can play against the computer or you can play against a friend.

Music for the Masses
http://pages.eidosnet.co.uk/johnnymoped/musicforthemasses/musicforthemasses_introduction.html - This one's probably most of interest to us middle oldies who grew up with Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and the like. There are lots of interesting pages about the Paul McCartney being dead Beatles hoax, band names origins, Pink Floyd album covers and lots more. It gets a bit wacky during some of the satanic roots of rock 'n' roll bits, but is well worth a read. Keep a grain of salt handy.

Encyclopaedia of Lucky Charms
www.luckymojo.com/luckyw.html - Here's a site dedicated to lucky charms, explaining their origin and providing excellent pictures, anecdotes and historical information. Why are rabbit's feet considered lucky and who first came up with the idea? What's a munaiwarmi? And, did you know there were such things as lucky swastikas? These questions answered and more...

The Journalist's Toolbox
www.journaliststoolbox.com/newswriting/corporateattack.html - Believe it or not, journalists are supposed to be able to know not to be fooled by the internet, no matter how authentic it seems. Here's a ton of resources journalists can use for discerning Truth from Fiction. Included are links to sites about the many urban legends, hoaxes, conspiracy theories and prank sites/e-mails that are circulated as fact. Surprise, surprise, you just can't trust the stories people send you via e-mail!

Guess the TV Show
www.guessthename.com/ - At this site, you think of a tv show. The web page asks you questions which you answer by clicking yes or no. Eventually it will tell you which show you were thinking of. I tried it twice with an old and a new show, and the page got it both times. It's not hard to see how it's done, but, boy-oh-boy, someone has gone to a lot of trouble.

Home Computer Security
www.cert.org/homeusers/HomeComputerSecurity/ - Here on one page you'll find all you could ever want to know about home computer security, all written for the layperson. Why is your computer a target? How can it be it accessed? How can you know whether you've been compromised? And what can you do to keep secure. Nine separate tasks towards improved security are provided with detailed instructions and explanations for each one. Finally a set of links for further reading is provided.

Online Pacman!
www.ebaumsworld.com/pacman.html - What can I say? It's Pacman, it's just like the original (including the arcade music) Who needs Counter Strike, Quake, Jedi Knight, or Battlefield 1942? We got Pacman!

Online Netiquette Test
www.albion.com/netiquette/netiquiz.html/ - This test is designed to assess your knowledge of netiquette (network or Internet etiquette). netiquette covers common courtesy online as well as the informal "rules of the road" oc cyberspace. Take the test. I am sure you'll all do very well. You are Actrix customers after-all! There are some helpful links included on the left if you want to find out more about netiquette.

Online Art Quiz
http://quizzart.free.fr/ - Test your knowledge of all periods of Art, painters and painting with quizzes, games and puzzles. The site is aimed for all levels of knowledge, including children. Visitors are invited to participate in the making of new pages in English and in French. The page comes complete with lots of pictures. The only annoying thing (besides how ignorant I found I was) is the little Mona Lisa that followed my mouse around in the Renaissance section. Artistic nudity abounds.

Dumped husband offers answer to cyber affairs: Spurned American husband John LaSage has set up a "chat cheaters" website after his wife left him and their two teenage daughters without warning in 1999 for a New Zealand man she met online. The website - which offers advice, surveillance equipment and first-person stories of betrayal - averages 500 visitors a day, mostly women, Mr LaSage said. Click here for more.

Government's online worksite struggles to attract visitors : A Government internet portal designed to provide a "one-stop shop" for job seekers has so far failed to pull in big numbers of punters. The portal, www.worksite.govt.nz, was launched by Social Services Minister Steve Maharey in November with the goal of pulling together existing online resources concerning jobs, training, education and migration. Click here for more.

Courts to post judgments online: Courts Department spokesman Barry Ebert says the department is in the early stages of developing a website which will contain decisions of the Court of Appeal and the High Court. Over time, it will be extended to other jurisdictions. Since last month a handful of court judgments deemed by judges to be of "significant public interest" have been posted on the Courts Department's website. Click here for more.

Questions on domain name offer: A mass mailing to ".co.nz" internet domain name owners this week seeking to trick them into buying ".net.nz" domains looks likely to backfire after the local "virtual office" unwittingly servicing the scam almost became a victim. An Australian company trading as Domain Names NZ mailed owners of internet names ending in .co.nz, inviting them to register the same name in the .net.nz space for two years at $237. Click here for more.

Domain Names NZ promises refund: The Australian who mass-mailed New Zealand internet domain name owners inviting them to sign up for an over-priced and probably unnecessary extra domain says he will give refunds to those who feel unhappy. The Commerce Commission has issued a warning about the letters from Domain Names NZ, which seeks payment of $237 to register the .net.nz version of existing .co.nz addres.s Click here for more.

Spammers hit below men's belts : Competing fiercely with solicitation from the relatives of dead African dictators and US mortgage sales pitches, spammers are targeting men with big ambitions. The emails arrive daily: "How to boost your penis size & self-esteem" and "Satisfy your lover with an increased penis size" etc. Last week, my tally of "make big penis fast" spams went beyond the nuisance quota. I decided to track down the sender. Click here for more.

Online advisors help lonely hearts on internet dating: Single female, 35, attractive, likes movies, music. Would like to meet sincere, kind, good-looking man for long-term relationship. The message is sweet, short, simple, and, according to an emerging breed of online dating consultants, totally useless. Click here for more.

New Web domain is strictly for '.kids': Dot.kids' is intended for Web sites with content geared toward children. General registration for the '.kids' domain begins in September. Baltimore-based domain name registrar BulkRegister says it is currently accepting pre-registrations for the domain. It lets companies that want to protect their trademarks or their services stake out a '.kids' domain early. Click here for more.

The fight over stolen Sex.com domain: Comparing Internet domain names to property such as homes and cars, a federal appellate court has ruled that Web registry Network Solutions could be liable for damages after a convicted forger purloined ownership of www.sex.com from an e-commerce entrepreneur. Click here for more.

NSW police unit to pursue paedophiles online: NSW Police have vowed to get tough on internet child sex offenders, establishing a squad devoted solely to targeting online predators. The Child Exploitation Internet Unit is the force's first attempt to pursue paedophiles online, with police specialists recruited to join the hunt. Click here for more.

Web savvy can improve college chances: Savvy students who build Web sites to highlight their academic and extracurricular accomplishments might have a better shot getting into the college of their choice -- and paying for it. That's what some college admissions experts and some students who have done it say. Click here for more.

Secret networks protect music swappers: They are the country clubs of the file-sharing world, exclusive Internet networks that require knowing the right people and having a wealth of content on your hard disk to get into the clique. These private file-swapping networks have surfaced just as the music industry has been granted dozens of subpoenas seeking the names of those who trade copyrighted material... Click here for more.

Downloaders "not worried" by copyright laws: Two-thirds of Internet users who download music don't care whether they're violating copyright laws, according to a new survey that highlights the uphill enforcement battle facing the recording industry. Click here for more.

Man jailed for linking to bomb sites: A federal judge sentenced a man to a year in prison Monday for creating an anarchist Web site with links to sites on how to build bombs. U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson sentenced Sherman Austin to more than the prosecutor had recommended under a plea bargain. Click here for more.

Brits are 'nation of cyber-snoopers': Study finds men to be worst culprits for nosing at work, women at home Cyber-snooping is rife in the UK, with men reading other people's email at work and women spying on partners at home, according to research. Click here for more.

‘6 degrees’ theory holds true online: It really is a small world. The idea that there are only six degrees of separation — only a handful of people between you and anyone else in the world —holds true on the Internet, researchers said on Thursday. An experiment in which Internet users were asked to find any one of 18 strangers by using their online connections showed it took, on average, only five to seven steps using friends and acquaintances. Click here for more.

Rapidly Spreading Worm Cracks Windows: An Internet worm targeting Microsoft Corp Windows users was spreading rapidly around the world on Tuesday, triggering computer crashes and slowing Web connections, experts said. The worm, dubbed Blaster but also known as LoveSan or MSBlaster, carried a message for the Microsoft chairman: "Billy Gates why do you make this possible? Stop making money and fix your software!!" Click here for more.

Is File-sharing Stealing? : Almost everyone has stolen something at some point in their life, but most of us take pains to conceal it. The remarkable thing about downloading copywritten music, movies, TV, and other media is that it is openly practiced by our own children right in front of us, and there doesn’t seem to be much we can do about it. Click here for more.

Internet or Web? There's a difference: Many people use "Internet" and "World Wide Web" interchangeably. They shouldn't, and here's why. The Internet, of course, is the maze of phone and cable lines, satellites, and network cables that interconnect computers around the world. The Web is the name given to anything on the Internet that can be accessed using a Uniform Resource Locator, or URL. Click here for more.

Are you a Web addict?: GAINESVILLE, Florida (AP) -- To determine whether someone is spending an unhealthy amount of time with their computers, two University of Florida psychiatrists say doctors need to only remember the acronym MOUSE. Click here for more.

Microsoft beats Apple to the music: Microsoft has stolen a march on rival Apple by signing a deal with a digital music company backed by singer Peter Gabriel to launch the first internet download service in Europe to sell individual tracks. Click here for more.

Problematic 'do-gooder' worm surfaces: A new computer worm is spreading worldwide through a security hole in Windows - also used by last week's Blaster worm - but then patching the hole instead of crashing the system like Blaster does, security experts said on August 18. The new worm, dubbed "Welchia" or "Nachi," is similar to Blaster, but it purports to patch the hole Blaster exploited Click here for more.

Microsoft marshals forces to try to stem open source momentum: Linux's bark is turning into a bite for Microsoft. As a result, the software giant is stepping up to protect itself and keep corporate customers from turning to the open-source operating system to satisfy server and desktop needs. Click here for more.

Microsoft beats Apple to the music : Microsoft has stolen a march on rival Apple by signing a deal with a digital music company backed by singer Peter Gabriel to launch the first internet download service in Europe to sell individual tracks. Click here for more.

Keep updating computer security: Microsoft : Computer users will continue to be beset with worm and virus-related problems until they have automatic security updates in place, Microsoft says. Click here for more.

Asian Linux: Some keen, others cool: Asia can leapfrog Western countries in the development of Linux-based applications but some governments are not latching on to this opportunity, says a senior IBM executive. Click here for more.

NSW survey on open source use, skills: The NSW Office of Information Technology is conducting surveys on the current state of usage of open source software, and the availability and depth of open source skills in NSW. Click here for more.

Prisons go for open source : The Department of Corrections will go live in two weeks with an open-source content management system to provide an intranet for its 4500 staff. Open-source software is free to licence and is developed by a global "community" of programmers in their spare time. Click here for more.

Red Hat files suit against SCO: Linux distributor Red Hat Inc. said on Monday that it had filed a formal complaint against the SCO Group Inc., which claims that parts of its software code is being used illegally in Linux software. Red Hat, a leading distributor of the free Linux operating system, said that it has also created a fund to cover the legal expenses of companies developing Linux and pledged $1 million to the fund. Click here for more.

Open source group urges switch to avoid 'costly' Windows worms: Open Source Victoria has expressed concern that the use of "insecure and vulnerable Microsoft platforms" have cost Australian industry and government a great deal in lost productivity and money and urged these sectors to upgrade to open source platforms such as Linux and FreeBSD. Click here for more.

Should Windows XP Be Free?: The Microsoft-versus-Linux skirmish has heated up discussions about how much a company should pay for servers, software and operating systems. In addition, the harsh economic climate has forced many companies to cut costs, so they are taking a long, hard look at licensing agreements, general ease of use and security - and they are considering Linux more seriously than ever before. Click here for more.

Time for Apple to Rethink Its Options: From the beginning, Jobs set the course for Apple as an innovator in one of the most rapidly evolving fields of the last 20 years. As a high-tech showman, he has no equal, developing nifty products from the trusty iMac to the iPod, the Walkman of digital music players. And despite the tech bubble popping, Apple under his guidance remains an efficient and well-managed company. Click here for more.

Mac anti-virus from Sophos: Sophos has released Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac OS X. The new anti-virus product was introduced at the MacWorld Expo in New York last week. The new program builds on earlier versions of Sophos anti-virus, including new security features and an enhanced user interface. Click here for more.

Where "Think Different" Is Taking Apple: Rather than accept being a niche PC maker, Steve Jobs is transforming his baby into a high-end consumer-electronics and services company. From the word go nearly two years ago, sales of Apple Computer's IPod MP3 player have been music to the PC maker's ears. Click here for more.

Mac Myths and IT: If yours is like most IT departments, you probably aren't deploying Macintosh systems in large numbers. And if you're deploying them at all, you're doing so in niche spaces such as graphic arts, multimedia and publishing. But the truth is the Mac OS has changed quite a bit in the past few years... Click here for more.

Laws to ban spam this year: Australia will introduce legislation later this year to ban spam, the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator Richard Alston, announced today. Senator Alston said the ban would be enforced through the Australian Communications Authority. Click here for more.

Do-not-spam list favored, study finds: Three out of four Americans favor a “do not spam” registry to keep unwanted e-mail at bay, according to a survey released Wednesday as the Senate prepared to vote on the issue before its August break. The survey of some 1,200 Internet users found broad support for an idea that so far has attracted scant support in Congress. Click here for more.

Russian minister declares spam war on American school: A Russian minister was so annoyed by the amount of spam he received from an English-language school, he decided to fight back -- with 1,000 automated phone calls. Click here for more.

Re: The false spam you requested: The Federal Trade Commission recently issued a finding that probably won't come as a shock to many computer users: Two-thirds of spam contains false information. Click here for more.

United we stand, disunited we're spammed: Until countries band together to create international law, the problem of spam will continue to grow. Steve Linford has been fighting spam for five years through his volunteer-staffed organisation Spamhaus. He's advised parliament, and is now calling for more international co-operation... Click here for more.

Do not e-mail’ site hawked in spam: A national “do not spam” registry may sound like a good idea, but a Web site that claims it will add you to such a list for a mere $9.95 a year is itself being promoted by spam. Remove.org’s founder says his site is for real, but antispam experts doubt whether any such service would actually work. Click here for more.

Meet the spam Nazi: What does a former white-power activist do after being drummed out of the movement? He turns to peddling penis-enlargement pills. Click here for more.

Swollen Orders Show Spam's Allure: A security flaw at a website operated by the purveyors of penis-enlargement pills has provided the world with a depressing answer to the question: Who in their right mind would buy something from a spammer? An order log left exposed at one of Amazing Internet Products' websites revealed that, over a four-week period, some 6,000 people responded to e-mail ads and placed orders for the company's Pinacle herbal supplement. Click here for more.

PC reality: Security is your own responsibility: Natural selection ain't it grand? That's survival of the fittest, of course, and for the techies, there are those who actually took Microsoft's advice, and downloaded a security patch back in mid-July, when Microsoft discovered yet another security hole in its Windows operating system. They're doing just fine. But there are also those who didn't get around to it. They're not doing so well. Click here for more.

Security Bugs Are Here To Stay: Last week was not a good one for IT security. No sooner had Microsoft come clean about a buffer overflow vulnerability in Windows Server 2003, than Cisco had to fess up to an Internet Protocol version 4 packet problem on some of its routers. Meanwhile, Gateway rolled out a new rev of its patch-notification process, and analysts tried to calculate how the time lost to emergency maintenance for patching indexed against the time that could be lost to attacks. Click here for more.

New e-mail scam emerges from Togo: Following a warning about e-mail scams from Nigeria, police have said that similar messages are now emerging from con men in Togo. The e-mails, which are often worded in flowery prose, are sent randomly in an attempt to trick unwary victims out of their money by promising large sums of cash in return. Click here for more.

FBI warns about bogus websites collecting personal data: The scam involves e-mail that links users to sites that are designed to look like legitimate sites and deceive consumers into revealing credit card or bank account numbers or other sensitive data. Click here for more.

NY Key logging case highlights information security risks: For more than a year, unbeknownst to people who used Internet terminals at Kinko's stores in New York, Juju Jiang was recording what they typed, paying particular attention to their passwords. Jiang had secretly installed, in at least 14 Kinko's stores, software that logs individual keystrokes. He captured more than 450 user names and passwords, using them to access and even open bank accounts online. Click here for more.

Microsoft reveals 'critical' flaw: Microsoft issued another passel of warnings about security holes Wednesday, including a "critical" flaw that affects most Windows PCs. The most serious of the flaws involves DirectX, a library of graphics and multimedia programming instructions used by most PC games, and could allow malicious users to run code of their choice on a vulnerable PC. Click here for more.

Experts anxious over possible Web attack: Seeing a rise in hacker activity that could be a prelude to a broad Internet attack, security experts Thursday urged computer users to protect their machines by installing a free patch offered by Microsoft. Click here for more.

Singapore a hotbed for hacking activity: Singapore, believe it or not, leads South-east Asia in hacking activity. In terms of hacking attacks in the Asia-Pacific region, Singapore's hackers are just behind those in North Asia (China, Hong Kong, Taiwan) and the US. Statistics gathered by info-security services provider, e-Cop.net, show that for the half year ended June 30, 2003, Singapore-based hackers were responsible for 9 per cent of hacker activity... Click here for more.

Study Reveals Bad Password Habits: The majority of users mishandle their passwords and user IDs, forget their passwords on a regular basis and then resort to calling their IT departments for help when they can't log on to their PCs, according to a new survey. Click here for more.

Attack of the mutant internet worms: Internet worms that spread themselves through corporate networks or e-mail programs, wreaking havoc on thousands of computers, are growing faster, smaller and more virulent, a security expert has said. One theoretical attack could be so-called "flash worms" designed to spread across the Internet in as little as 15 seconds... Click here for more.

French neo-Nazis, Jews unite in web hate: report: French neo-Nazis formed an alliance with extremist Jewish groups on the Internet to publish a torrent of hate messages directed against Arabs and Muslims, according to a report by a leading anti-racist group. Click here for more.

Activist adopts web address as first name : She knew her new name might finally stick when she got a phone message recently: "Hi, GoVeg.com. This is your mother. Please call me." Click here for more.

"There are people who don't like capitalism, and people who don't like PCs. But there's no-one who likes the PC who doesn't like Microsoft" - Bill Gates

"An idiot with a computer is a faster, better idiot" - Rich Julius

"The best way to prepare is to write programs, and to study great programs that other people have written. In my case, I went to the garbage cans at the Computer Science Center and I fished out listings of their operating system. - Bill Gates

I've never met a human being who would want to read 17,000 pages of documentation, and if there was, I'd kill him to get him out of the gene pool. - Joseph Costello, President of Cadence

Thanks again for reading the Actrix newsletter. Feedback can be sent to me via the e-mail address listed below. Please limit this to comments/suggestions regarding the newsletter. Requests for support should go to the Actrix Help Desk (support@actrix.co.nz) or to the Accounts Department (accounts@actrix.co.nz).

Take care through September,

Rob Zorn
editor@actrix.co.nz
http://editor.actrix.co.nz