Actrix Newsletter October 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

This series of articles 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.

Last month we dealt with seven introductory questions that attempted to provide an overview of what's involved with getting a website online from scratch. Now we can begin to deal with some of the specifics.

A link is something on your web page, usually some text or an image, that, when clicked with a mouse, will cause the visitor's browser go and visit another page. Links can be external or internal. External links go to another site other than your own. Internal links call up another document from within your own site. Links are very simple to set up and both internal and external links work in pretty much the same way. To create links, all you need to do is put a little bit of text code in front of the words or image, and a little bit after the words or image. As stated, these articles won't go into too much detail about how to actually do the coding. There are plenty of tutorials around online for that. Have a look at the image here, though, to see just how easy it is to create a link. There are other things you can do to tell browsers how to display the link, whether to underline it, or display it in a different colour, etc.

Question 9: If I want to change something in my website once it is on the Internet, what do I do?

When you create web pages, you should save them on your hard drive somewhere so that you can find them in case you need to edit them. You make the changes to the text or coding of your web site page(s), and then save on your hard drive again. Last month I explained briefly what FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is. Use your FTP program to upload the altered files up to your site. At first it's always a buzz to visit your site online, upload a changed page, and then click refresh and watch the information change in real time. FTP is very simple to use. Moving pages up to your web site is pretty much just like moving files around on your hard drive using Windows Explorer.

Backing up your pages is often a good idea. Once you've finished your site, save all the files in the one directory. Save changed files in a different directory. That way if you make a mistake you can't quickly fix and you need to put the original file back, you can do so by uploading the original again from your first directory. Another idea might be to create a spare directory within your web site and put your original files there for safekeeping.

Not really. Macintosh, Microsoft and Unix based browsers all interpret HTML in pretty much the same way, so you don't need to worry about, for example, Macintosh computers being able to see your web site if you designed it on a PC. However, there are some minor issues arising from the fact that different browsers will occasionally interpret HTML in slightly different ways. Netscape and Opera, for example, will usually be a little more fussy than Internet Explorer, but the changes are not usually significant enough for you to worry about. Conscientious designers always check out how their sites look in all the major browsers and they tweak their code to make it look the same in them all. However, if this seems like too much of a hassle, then just design for Internet Explorer which is what 95% of web surfers use. By this I mean check your site out online using IE. If it looks okay for you, it will look okay for others using IE, and that's most people.

The only other thing to consider is that different people have different screen resolutions. Most will either have their resolutions set to 800 x 600 pixels or 1024 x 768 pixels. If you design using a screen resolution of 1024 x 768, visitors with 800 x 600 screen resolutions may experience your page in a squashed way. It's a good idea, then, to design your pages making sure any tables you use are set to 800 pixels wide. If you're just using simple text and images, it's not really a concern as the browser will always wrap your text and images so that they fit properly for the visitor's browser settings.

Well this, of course, will vary depending on what sort of site you have. if it's a business site, you want to make sure that visitors can always find out how to get to your order page, or to your page about your products. Therefore, the most essential thing you should have on every single page is a menu of all the pages you have so that a visitor can find his or her way to any section of your website at any time. It is also a good idea to put this menu in the same place on every page so that a visitor knows exactly what to click to get to the section they want. Online you're probably competing with other businesses or similar sites, and you can be sure people will move on to somewhere else quickly if they don't know how to find their way around your site.

Norrie the Actrix Nerd tried to stick to this principle when he created his site at http://users.actrix.co.nz/norrie/. You'll see that in most cases the links are all in the same position on all of the pages, and that you can get to any other section from anywhere in the site by clicking one of his handsome heads over on the left. Each page also contains a link back to home, or the opening page for his site. It's a reasonable example, though the HTML is nothing advanced or complicated. Also, you'll notice that some of the links don't work anymore. Ideally Norrie should take those down. I'll mention this to him when he returns from his current stint advising the WTO on technical matters.

Other essential information, of course, would include contact information such as your business telephone number for orders. Most sites also include an e-mail address, though this will make you a target for Spam eventually. It's up to you to work out whether that's a price you want to pay.

Question 12: I note that my Microsoft Word program has a "Save as HTML" or "Save as Web Page" function under the File menu. Is using this a good idea?

Here I am less than enthusiastic. In most cases, doing this will lead to more trouble than it's worth. Indeed, Word will turn a page of text into an HTML document. However, as soon as you include images, the whole process becomes much more complicated. Word will automatically create image links to other directories that it assumes you will have set up. Those looking for a quick solution are going to find that they still need to know a fair bit about HTML in order to get anything more than a text document to work. Also, Word will bloat your HTML document incredibly. I created a test document in Word that was one line of text and one image. This should have come to around 4-5 short lines of code or less. The HTML document created by Word contained 149 long lines of code. Almost all of it appeared to be unnecessary rubbish. The problem with this, of course, is that your document becomes unnecessarily large and takes much longer to download.

There are a number of ways to get images. Firstly, you can download them from the web. Do a search for free images at Google or a similar search engine. You'll find lots of clip art and background archives that people will let you use for nothing. Secondly, you can take photos with a digital camera, or use a scanner to get electronic copies of photos you already have. Lastly, you can use a graphics program such as PhotoShop, Image Composer or PaintShop to create your own. There are free trial graphics programs that you can download and use, and in most cases, some form of editing software will come with the digital camera you purchase.

Question 14: What do I need to remember when making or coming up with images?

The most common mistake people make with images when starting out is that they are just too big in terms of file size. Any image on your website should not be much bigger than 20 or 30 kilobytes. A 20 kilobyte image could take between five and 10 seconds to download via visitor's 56K modem. If you have several of these on a page, the page could take too long to download and your visitors' interest will be lost.

Two ways to reduce the file size of an image are firstly to reduce its geographical size. In other words, reduce it from being 500 x 300 pixels down to 250 x 150 pixels. Secondly, use compression when you save the image. The most popular form of image on the web is the JPEG. This is a compressed image that reduces file size whilst minimising loss to picture quality. Most graphics programs will allow you to set the level of compression when you save as a JPEG. The more you compress, the more the picture deteriorates, but a happy medium can usually be reached.

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.

Last month we didn't have any customer letters, but this month we've been overwhelmed and I am not able to include replies to all of them here. When you send a question in to the forum section, you will get a reply, even if I don't decide to include it here. Some forum questions will be kept for inclusion later in case we have another dry month, but a private reply will still be forthcoming as soon as I am (or one of the Support staff is) able to provide one.

In response to the first article on questions about starting a web site, Dion writes: I don't know if this is where to send this, but I have found ACEhtml a useful program. I tend to write my own code, but you can edit tables in an easier format than html, it is free, it is easy to use, and it has a browser built in unlike many, so you can see your result without having another browser open at the same time.

Thanks Dion. I have heard of others who have downloaded and used ACE HTML and that they've enjoyed it and found it useful. Ace HTML can be downloaded from http://www.visicommedia.com/acehtml/.

Dear Editor, Every time I use the dial-up connection it sounds like a bus load of budgies going over a cliff. Is this caused by the phone line or my computer and is there anything I can do to get rid of this racket? I enjoy your newsletter. John Stewart.

Hi John, Thanks for your kind words. The squawky budgie sounds are your modem and ours talking to each other. When two modems connect, they have to send signals to each other explaining who they are and what they want to do. Then they have to agree on a language to speak, and a speed at which to speak it. Yours will be saying "I'm the modem on John Stewart's computer and I'd like to speak to you this fast." If the Actrix modem understands it will say back that it is an Actrix modem and that's a fine speed at which to speak. If it can't quite understand what your modem is saying, it will respond that it isn't sure about you and can you try again. Then your modem will introduce itself again at a lower speed and this dialogue will continue until both are happy. You'll notice that your modem suddenly goes quiet for a few seconds before you are fully connected. At that point, our reception modem is handing you over to our authentication server so your user name and password can be checked.

I like these noises as they help me understand where the process is breaking down if I ever have connection problems, but yes, most of the time you can turn the sound off on your modem. With a Windows machine, you can usually get to your modem settings by clicking the Start button, then Settings and then Control Panel. Once the Control Panel opens, look for an item labelled Modems, or Phone and Modem settings. Double click this.

A "Modem Properties" box (or a box with a similar name) will come up that will contain a list of all the modems installed on your machine. In most cases there will be only one. Make sure your modem is selected in the list by clicking on it if it isn't already highlighted in blue. Once you've selected it, click the Properties button and then look through the options until you find the modem volume settings. If you can't find these settings, then it may be that your modem doesn't allow you to turn the volume off or down.

Terry asks: How do I get a Linux program and how do I make it work? What technology, and how to use it?

Hi Terry. Not being a Linux user myself, I've asked one of the support guys to give you a brief introduction. Getting into Linux is a great idea if you're up for it, but covering your questions in detail would go a little beyond what we're about here in the Readers' Forum. We did a few articles on installing and using Debian Linux last year. If you go to the archives site at http://editor.actrix.co.nz/byarticle, you'll see a series of four articles in the alphabetical index on the left. Look for the word Debian.

Lalith from support has supplied the following:

Hi Terry, There are several flavours of Linux in use. Some of them are Debian, Redhat, Mandrake, SuSE etc. Redhat and Mandrake are not free. Suse is the version used in Europe.

Debian is a totally free operating system. (Still, there vendors who sell this version to cover their copying cost at a nominal amount.) In terms of security, reliability and the support available within the Linux community, Debian is deem to be the ultimate and the one we favour here at Actrix. If you wish to use Debian, provided you know what you are doing, what you need is a 2-CDrom set for the installation. We can supply this, if you can send us two blanks and a stamped reply envelope (P O Box 11-410, Wellington - mark to the attention of Lalith).

The following websites certainly will help start you off.

www.debian.org
www.learninglinux.com/index.php
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/debian/chapter/

Regards, Lalith de Silva

Dear Rob, Is there any way I can make use of computers when I am overseas (and accessing e-mail as well as contacting friends and family) using my current Actrix account and address rather than having to go to hotmail? Many thanks, Allen Heath

Hi Allen, Yes, there sure is. It's what Actrix web mail is all about. All you have to do is get online wherever you are in the world, and go to our home page. Near the top right of the page there is a log in box. Put in your user name and password, and make sure the radio dot is in the Web Mail option.

When you click the Log in button, you'll find yourself at a web-based interface with your inbox. From here you can read your Actrix mail, delete it, forward it, etc. Most importantly, you can send new mail from your Actrix address. You can also open, view or download attachments.

You won't be able to access e-mail that has already been downloaded to your home computer, but you'll certainly be able to deal with anything that comes while you are travelling.

The Actrix Security Suite consisting of our virus protection product (CyberScan) and our spam protection product (CyberFilter) was released in March this year. It has proved to be a successful addition to our services with widespread customer take-up. So far we have over 1300 customers using it.

CyberFilter is an effective and radical approach to spam control developed right here by the Actrix Networks web technicians. We're grateful for the way in which so many customers have gotten behind this unique product and sent in suggestions for its improvement.

We'd like to invite customers to take up our invitation to a free month's trial if they haven't already done so.

To read about the Actrix Security Suite (CyberFilter and CyberScan) click Domestic/Security Suite on the Actrix home page (www.actrix.co.nz ) or simply click here: http://www.actrix.co.nz/domestic/security/index.php.

There you can sign up for either or both products and try them free for a month. If you don't want to continue with either product, simply unsubscribe before your free month is up and you will not be billed. If you decide to continue with the products, your trial month will still be free. You can unsubscribe by clicking the Subscription Options link to the left of the Security Suite information pages.

To check out what customers have said about CyberFilter, click here.

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!

Crop Circles Continue
www.cropcircleconnector.com/2003/august2003a.html - They just keep turning up, and this site lists them all from the last month or two. geometric shapes are analysed and great pictures are provided, but those with slower connections may have to be patient while they download. Are they messages from aliens or just clever tricksters out in the fields with boards and ropes? Either way they're pretty amazing, and some are downright beautiful.

All Recipes
www.allrecipes.com/ - Principally a site offering advice for beginning cooks, All Recipes features cooking tips, an encyclopaedia of terms and ingredients and a searchable recipe database. It's free to use, well-organised and the search facility makes finding the sorts of recipes you want very easy. The information and recipe databases are extensive.

Aliens and Children
http://aliensandchildren.org/ - Hey, I just find this stuff! "This website features a series of drawings made by children who were abducted by aliens for the alien purpose of creating a new race of alien/human hybrids. The drawings show different aspects of the alien abduction phenomenon... [including] children playing with alien/hybrid children so the alien/hybrids can learn how to be human... The pictures were drawn by children who successfully resisted the aliens by using a "thought screen helmet" which blocks the telepathic control aliens have over humans."

Time Machine Kit
http://web.archive.org/web/20020604130644/members.fortunecity.com/jcattera/thetimevortexactivator/ - As stated above, I only find these sites. I can't be held responsible if you order a kit and build your own time vortex activator, and then go off and get lost in time somewhere or go back and prevent your own birth or whatever. But if you do go back and confirm whether or not Adam and Eve had bellybuttons, please write in and let us all know!

The Geology of Mars
www.lukew.com/marsgeo/ - If you look deeply into the night sky, you'll see Mars glowing brightly. Mars is making its closest pass to the Earth in 60,000 years. For millions of years, the planet has rocked and rolled with six different geological processes, all of which are examined on this site. Start with a whirlwind tour of the planet as the Viking Landers experienced it in 1976 and go from there!

Which Book?
www.whichbook.net - Here you'll find book recommendations sorted by plot. Say, for example, you'd like to read a mystery, but don't want a lot of violence. You also like to be surprised, so unpredictability is a must. Oh, and you'd like it to be gut-bustingly funny. Sound like a tall order? Just slide the appropriate scales, hit "go!," and voila, a list of recommendations is yours. Use the demo page for a quick rundown on how to use the selection bars. Happy reading!

Internet Addiction Tests
www.netaddiction.com/resources/iaindex.htm - Are you addicted to the web, or is your partner or child obsessed with spending time online? Here are some online tests you can do to determine whether you or someone you know is a potential victim of the very real danger of Internet Addiction. It's a commercial site and you are offered booklets to purchase, but there are plenty of opportunities to pick up information for free. Try the FAQs, for example.

Newly Discovered Moon Footage Shocks!
http://shadowboxent.brinkster.net/moon/esjmoon.html/ - From a 70-mile high orbit, the Lunar Module captured film of a black cylinder moving on the surface of the moon, which had to be gigantic if it was to be seen from that distance. It's in every one of the eight frames and changes perspective as the camera moves. You may have to wait a while for the images to load. When they do you'll see the eight frames separately, and an animated gif that combines the frames and shows you the image's action.

Future Me
http://www.futureme.org/ - Do you wonder what you'll be doing, say, three months or years from now, or even further in the future? Set up an e-mail to yourself which preserves your thoughts, resolutions, and memories and specify the date in the future when you want it sent back to you. It's a great way to check in on yourself a few years forward and see if you've achieved your goals or languished in procrastination. You can also read e-mails created by others, though you are able to set your own one to private status.

Food Timeline
www.gti.net/mocolib1/kid/food.html - "Ever wonder what the Vikings ate when they set off to explore the new world? How Thomas Jefferson made his ice cream? What the pioneers cooked along the Oregon Trail? Who invented the potato chip...and why? Food is the fun part of social studies! The tricky part is finding recipes you can make in a modern kitchen, with ingredients bought at your local supermarket and bring into school to share with your class. This page is for you! "

Puzzle Blog
http://everythinghurts.typepad.com/scrabblog/ - Combining the dual passion of anagramming and blogging, this creation should be a daily stop for word lovers. Every day, you'll find a rack of seven Scrabble tiles and a playable strip that displays one letter already in place. Your job is to submit the highest possible word score. This is the place to kick around your word knowledge. There's a similar numbers game there, and good links to explanations of the rules.

City Creator
www.citycreator.com/ - This is a fun little site. Here you play part overlord, part urban planner - without the hassles of bureaucratic red tape to hamper your grand plan. You can drag and drop pieces of your city onto a blank canvas. Choose from medieval, modern, and winter wonderland motifs, then pick from a toolbox of all the architectural goodies you'll need - turrets and gables, paved roads, and even igloos to build your municipal masterpiece. Drag and drop any mistakes into a dump truck and you can start all over.

Kids get counselling for porn: About 30 Otaki College pupils have been offered counselling after they secretly viewed internet porn sites on school computers. Click here for more.

Where Kiwis flock to: Always curious what internet sites New Zealanders frequent the most? Wonder no more, writes Michael Herman. Click here for more.

Site names may net firm tidy profit: A Nelson company could be in for a tidy profit from the sale of several hundred Internet domain names it has secured. Earth Space Design has just put a small portion of the names up for tender. Click here for more.

Geeks inherit the web: "The real geeks aren't going to buy these..." The country's newest second level domain name (2LD), .geek.nz, has hit the ground running with over 270 names registered in the first hour. Click here for more.

Net closes on Aussie maverick: An Australian entrepreneur who rattled New Zealand website owners last month with a mass mail marketing campaign touting high-priced website registration services is facing legal action across the Tasman. Click here for more.

NZ man jailed on internet child porn charges: A New Zealand man was jailed for six months today on 25 charges arising from a 19-country operation against internet child pornography, the Department of Internal Affairs said. Click here for more.

Internet child porn on the rise - British Report: Child porn Web Sites have more than doubled in the past year and Internet paedophiles are devising ever more cunning ways to avoid detection, British police said on August 21. More than half of the child porn sites are hosted in the US while the number based in Russia has doubled. Click here for more.

How to succeed at online auctions without losing your shirt: Sure, you've known about Internet auctions for years. But it wasn't until you won your first bid and experienced that giddy rush that you realized electronic auctions aren't just a fad: They can bring in the bucks. Click here for more.

Email gossips put employers at risk: Gossiping or slating colleagues behind their backs might be a common, if unfortunate, workplace occurrence but doing it on email could have serious repercussions, as one employer found out last week. Click here for more.

Becoming slaves to technology: Anyone who has been prevented by viruses from using their computer in the past week or two may be reassessing the value of technology in the workplace, The Dominion Post writes in an editorial. Click here for more.

Music online: Getting to grips with legal downloads: After five years of regarding one another with fear and contempt, the music and technology industries are finally rolling out services that aim to make a business out of downloading music.... Click here for more.

James Bond zaps cybersquatter: GENEVA, Switzerland -- James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan has won a legal battle to claim the Internet Web site bearing his name, United Nations arbitrators have ruled. Click here for more.

Blair switches on email in move to engage public : Nine years after Bill Clinton set the precedent, Tony Blair has hauled himself into the technological mainstream and published a personal email address. last week, voters who feel aggrieved have been able to log on to the No 10 website and submit an electronic message. Click here for more.

Keyboard shortcuts can save time and frustration: In the beginning, there was the keyboard. The computer mouse, which came much later, was an invention that delighted many and aggravated many others. But whether loved or hated, the mouse universally slowed down everyone who touched it. Click here for more.

Parents crack down on Internet time: Stephen Pearson saw his children’s grades slip. His older daughter was falling asleep in school, after staying up until the wee hours chatting with friends online.Pearson quickly learned that despite the Internet’s reputation as a trove of knowledge, kids can easily squander their online time. Click here for more.

Mozilla: A Whole Lotta Features: Last summer, I found that IE on my mac was so completely screwed up I was forced to use another browser until they released an update. While I had only occasionally used mozilla for testing, after a couple weeks as a browser refugee I was a mozilla convert, and have been ever since. I use IE for testing only now, and can't see any reason to move off mozilla anytime soon. Click here for more.

School system blocks access to teacher-rating site: Students don't get to grade teachers at school, and Shelby County educators are making sure it stays that way. The county has banned the use of school computers to visit a Web site called ratemyteachers.com, where students can turn the table on teachers and assess their performance in the classroom. Click here for more.

Music file-swap amnesty planned: The recording industry is expected to announce as early as next week an amnesty program for people who admit they illegally share music files across the Internet, promising not to sue them in exchange for their admission and pledge to delete the songs off their computers. Click here for more.

Gaming and your health - the dangers: Whether you're a card-carrying, battle-hardened gamer or a concerned parent, video game injuries are a modern reality. While sensible play, with frequent rests and proper techniques will keep players from serious harm, a world of pain awaits those who overdo it. Here are just some of the potential pitfalls of video game zealotry: Click here for more.

261 music file swappers sued; amnesty program unveiled: The recording industry filed 261 lawsuits against individual Internet music file sharers Monday and announced an amnesty program for people who admit they illegally share music files through the Internet. Click here for more.

Addicted to the Web: VICKI Jacobs didn't realise how addicted she'd become to the Internet until she saw her end-of-year university results. Not only had she failed German, economic history and South-East Asian politics, she'd also flunked Japanese - for the third semester running. There was no way she'd be allowed back to study Japanese. Click here for more.

US students scared, angry over piracy lawsuits: NEW YORK: Anger, defiance and fear were the main reactions of college students today after the music industry said it was suing 261 individuals for swapping illegal copies of songs over the internet. Click here for more.

Flirting, pornography and bad language – how staff use IM: Workers admit to using instant messaging (IM) in the office for sharing pornography, gossiping and flirting, using abusive language and swapping music and video files. Click here for more.

Parents 'oblivious' to children's surfing: A lack of knowledge about the internet means too many parents in the UK have no clue what their children are doing online. Many worry about what their children have seen, but one in four are unsure where to get safety advice, says a survey. Click here for more.

Verizon tells Congress music industry subpoenas breach privacy: Verizon Communications Inc. and SBC Communications Inc. executives told Congress that the recording industry's use of subpoenas to combat music piracy violates personal privacy and threatens Internet growth. A federal court decision earlier this year that upheld the industry's use of subpoenas "has truly created a Frankenstein monster that Congress never contemplated Click here for more.

Gates speaks about worms: DETROIT, Michigan (AP) - Gates blames SoBig on customer updating process. Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, known for helping to make the computer a common tool, said Thursday that new breakthroughs in information technology are on the horizon despite the economic difficulties facing the industry. Click here for more.

Microsoft may alter browser: DETROIT, Microsoft, which this month was found to have infringed on a patented method for viewing Internet pages, is expected to make changes to its Web-browser software, according to the World Wide Web Consortium trade group.... that "may affect a large number of existing Web pages." Click here for more.

Microsoft warns of new flaw in Office software: SEATTLE: Microsoft Corp warned today that users of its Office software were at risk of having their computers taken over by an attacker unless they applied a patch to correct the problem. Click here for more.

Sue Microsoft?: The latest major flaw in Microsoft's Windows operating system is prompting some to ask whether the world's largest software company should be held liable for its buggy software. Click here for more.

Microsoft Using Linux-Based Network in Wake of Attacks!: To protect its flagship Web site from viruses and denial-of-service attacks, Microsoft has asked for help from an unusual place: a network of Linux-based servers. Click here for more.

Telstra goes open-source: TELSTRA, Australia's largest technology company, has nailed its colours firmly to the mast of open source software, creating a potential nightmare for Microsoft and sending shivers through a range of traditional platform providers. Click here for more.

No plans to invoice Aussies now, says SCO: The SCO Group has no plans at present to send invoices to either commercial or non-commercial users of Linux in Australia, Kieran O'Shaughnessy, regional general manager for the company in Australia and New Zealand, said today. O'Shaughnessy said he was unsure about the question of invoices being sent in the US even though there are reports on the web about just such a thing being planned. Click here for more.

OS Wars: Solaris vs. Linux: "Before, Linux could run only on single- or dual-processor boxes," Yankee Group senior analyst Dana Gardner told the E-Commerce Times. "Now you're starting to see people [networking] many of these low-cost boxes in a gridlike fashion to perform highly intensive computing tasks." Click here for more.

Time for Apple to Spread the Beat: Back-to-school season used to be a wonderful time for Apple. Primary and secondary schools snapped up fleets of its computers. As teachers and youngsters booted up, Apple's startup gongs rang out across the land and promised that maybe, just maybe, all those impressionable little ones would turn into lifelong Mac buyers. These days, no chance. Click here for more.

A Mac-Style Supercomputer: Virginia Tech is tying 1,100 G5s together to achieve top-dollar performance for a relative bargain, a ringing endorsement for Apple's latest machine. Here's a groundbreaker in computing, one that Apple can't take credit for: A group of scientists at Virginia Tech has figured out how to build the world's next supercomputer -- on the cheap no less -- using Macs. Click here for more.

Turn Back the Spam of Time: This summer, Dave Hill got a refreshing break from the run-of-the-mill spam that routinely invades his e-mail inbox. Instead of hawking mortgages, penis-enlargement pills or weight-loss products, a message arrived that seemed straight out of a science-fiction novel. The anonymous e-mail offered $5,000 to any vendor capable of promptly delivering a collection of far-fetched gadgets for conducting time travel. Click here for more.

Outsmarting Spam: The fight against spam doesn't promise to ring up more revenue or slash the costs of doing business. But make no mistake: Fighting spam has become a priority for most businesses, and the backlash is leaving business-technology execs with no choice. They must fight the battle or suffer the consequences--maybe both. Click here for more.

How some spammers get your e-mail: Forget bad luck. Those annoying chain letters circulating the Internet could be cursing you with an inbox full of spam e-mail, computer experts warn. While not as efficient as "spiders" which automatically crawl the Web in search of addresses, computer experts warn that some spammers are using chain letters to collect e-mail usernames. Click here for more.

Making E-Mail Marketing Work: A recent survey of US marketers from MarketingSherpa indicates that while a vast majority of respondents say their e-mail marketing campaign open rates and click-through rates (CTRs) have remained the same over the past year, 15% say their open rates have "increased significantly." In fact, 18% of marketers say their e-mail marketing CTRs have also risen over the year. Click here for more.

If Not E-Mail, What?: If computer keyboards evolved as organisms do, the delete key would have long ago grown to dwarf the space bar. Between viruses and spam, we can spend more time getting rid of unrequested e-mail than reading the messages we do want. Click here for more.

Teenager arrested in 'Blaster' Internet attack: An 18-year-old high school student suspected of creating a version of the virulent "Blaster" Internet attack was described by a neighbor Friday as "a computer genius," but not a criminal. Click here for more.

Computer virus creators rarely face jail: Although nearly 63,000 viruses have rolled through the Internet, causing an estimated $65 billion in damage, criminal prosecutions have been few, penalties light and just a handful of people have gone to prison for spreading the destructive bugs. Click here for more.

Computer viruses: A who's who: Virus-making - It's all the rage these days isn't it? Here are some high-profile computer virus senders who have been caught: Click here for more.

Man charged over sex site scam: A Philadelphia man was arrested on Wednesday on federal charges he used misspellings of internet domain names like Disneyland, Teletubbies, and Britney Spears to lure children to pornographic websites. Click here for more.

Microsoft reveals string of software bugs : A string of software bugs in Microsoft products were announced on Wednesday, prompting some experts to warn that they may be used to create new worms, viruses and hacking tools. The most common software affected by the faults are Microsoft Office programs. Click here for more.

Is that a firewall on your perimeter or just some Swiss cheese?: I feel badly for Swiss cheese. Thanks to a few holes, it will forever be likened to lousy security. These days, perhaps the best application for that metaphor is to your firewall. While firewalls (the non-personal ones) keep the riffraff out of your network, they can no longer be counted on to secure the perimeter of business or home networks the way they once did. Click here for more.

Patch for 'critical' IE vulnerability doesn't work: Experts: A patch released by Microsoft to fix a critical security vulnerability in Internet Explorer does not work, according to security experts. Click here for more.

Hiring Hackers: A Modest Proposal : Clearly, there's much that an IT department can learn from watching and listening to the "dark side," the hacker. The question is whether hackers remain on the dark side after revealing their tricks and tips to IT professionals. While many companies have hired former hackers to help their security efforts, what if we took the idea a bit further, far beyond just hacker A going to work for company B? Click here for more.

Windows flaws allow PC takeover: Microsoft identified three vulnerabilities in Windows on Wednesday that could have a similar effect to that of the dreaded MSBlast worm of August. Click here for more.

Virus writers hard to track on Net: In the murky underworld of computer crime, this was as close as investigators ever get to a smoking gun. Click here for more.

Viruses: The Other E-Mail Issue: Central Command reports that the computer virus Sobig.F claimed the vast majority of total viruses spread in August 2003, with a whopping 76.8% of all viruses tracked through Central Command's Emergency Virus Response Team. In fact, the company notes, 73% of all e-mail from last month was Sobig.F-related. Click here for more.

Hackers push new software for attacks: Security researchers on Tuesday detected hackers distributing software to break into computers using flaws announced last week in some versions of Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system. Click here for more.

New exploit heralds Blaster 2 attack: Security experts warned yesterday that crackers have succeeded in creating an exploit for the latest critical flaw with Microsoft?s RPC subsystem. The flaw, disclosed last week, is similar to the vulnerability notoriously exploited by the Blaster worm. Click here for more.

Flash mob hits Auckland: When 200 people descended on a Queen St burger bar - and crowded inside mooing like cows - Auckland yesterday witnessed its first "flash mob". The phenomenon, sweeping the United States and Europe, uses the Internet to organise a crowd which appears suddenly, performs a pre-arranged mass act and disperses as quickly as it came. Click here for more.

Internet casanova defrauds woman: Chinese police have nabbed a professional "internet casanova" accused of cheating a woman of about $14,457, a report said on Monday. Police indicated that the man, surnamed Qiao, met his victim, a 40-year-old woman with the surname Lin, in an internet chat room in 2001. Click here for more.

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 October,

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