Actrix Newsletter March 2005

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

E-mail: the New Filing System

I've heard the phrase "e-mail filing system" around a few times lately, and thought an article on how this is done might not be a bad idea. I also confess to having been somewhat horrified on occasion when witnessing the way some people seem to be able to make use of an inbox that is crammed with hundreds of e-mails. How do these people find and keep track of stuff? Oh well, I guess it takes all sorts. This article will look briefly at setting up e-mail folders and creating rules so that e-mails automatically go to their designated folders as they arrive.

It's relatively easy to create new folders in your e-mail program in order to sort your e-mails out. You might want to do this according to subject (e.g. Work e-mails, Correspondence e-mails, Trade Me e-mails) or by person. By this I mean you could set up a folder for all those you regularly correspond with (e.g. Billy, Ralph or Aunty Doreen).

By Default, Outlook and Outlook Express come with a few ready main folders, and the folder list looks something like the picture to the left of this paragraph. The Inbox, Outbox, Sent Items folders, etc, are all local folders, and you can add as many local folders as you like yourself. To do this, simply right-click on the Local Folders line. A grey box will pop up. In this grey box, left-click on New Folder. Another box will pop up allowing you to give the folder a name, and then Outlook or Outlook Express will slot the new folder into your folder list alphabetically (below the default folders). It's that simple.

Once you've created a new folder, you can create new sub-folder inside it using the same method. For example, you could create a folder called Correspondence. Then, once that folder is created, right-click on it to create a new sub-folder called Billy. Once the Billy folder is created, right-click on Correspondence again to create a new sub-folder called Ralph. Then repeat the process to create a sub-folder called Aunty Doreen. You should end up with something that looks like the picture to the left of this paragraph.

To the left of the Correspondence folder you will see a wee box with a minus sign in it. You can click on that wee box to collapse or expand your folder list. If I clicked on it, the sub-folders would all disappear, but only from view, and the minus sign would turn into a plus. If I clicked on the plus, the sub-folders would all reappear.

The next time an e-mail from Auntie Doreen arrived, I would read it, and then drag it, using my left mouse button, from my Inbox into my Aunty Doreen folder. When I send an e-mail to her, I can also go to my Sent Items folder, once the e-mail's gone, and drag that into the Aunty Doreen folder too. Now I will always know where my e-mails to and from Aunty Doreen are. If I really wanted to go to town, I could create sub-folders within Aunty Doreen; one called "To" and one called "From." I could do that. I love the old dear, but perhaps our relationship doesn't warrant that degree of detail.

One thing to note is that your sub-folders are all set up locally. That means the set up only applies to the machine on which you create it. If you log into web mail, you won't find those folders present. Web mail only shows you what mail you haven't already downloaded. So, unfortunately, you can't access these folders or the e-mails in them from any other computer, or while overseas or whatever.

You can also set up automatic e-mail rules so that incoming e-mail bypasses your Inbox and automatically goes to the folder you want it in. I'm not so keen on this myself. I like to have all my e-mails land in my inbox so that I can sort them out myself and not miss anything. Nevertheless, the technology is there and may be of use to some.

Outlook Express's mail rules are found under Tools/Message Rules, and Outlook's set-up is usually pretty similar. Click Tools, then Message Rules, and then, in the little grey box that pops up to the right, click Mail. A New Mail Rule box will be invoked.

If I want all my e-mails from Aunty Doreen to go into my Aunty Doreen folder, I need to tick the box in the top window that says Where the From line contains certain people. In the second window I need to put a tick in the box that says Move it to the specified folder.

In the third window you can see that a blue link has appeared for contains people, and another one for the specified folder. If I click on contains people I can specify what e-mail address I want this rule to apply to. I can add in aunty.doreen@actrix.co.nz, or any other address I might like. If I click on the word specified I can select which folder I want the e-mails from the selected address to go to.

In the fourth little window at the bottom of the New Mail Rule box, I can give the mail rule a name. This is optional and only becomes important if you want to use lots of mail rules that you may need to distinguish one from another in the future.

You'll notice that there are a lot of other possibilities with message rules in Outlook and Outlook Express. Feel free to experiment. Any rule you don't like can easily be removed by selecting it and clicking the Remove button. Just be careful about selecting the option Delete from Server. If you set this option up and use it, anything it applies to will be deleted before it is downloaded and will be lost forever.

I've only covered the Microsoft e-mail programs in this article because these are what the vast majority use, but other e-mail programs have the same sort of capability. Mozilla's Thunderbird, for example, has a very similar setup (though more powerful and possibly more intuitive) under Tools/Message Filters.

Helpful Capslock Tip

The following is gratefully borrowed from the February 2005 Senior Net Newsletter: Surfin' the Web with John Cook. It's Internet-related in that there are still quite a few help desk calls where customers report password errors only to find that the problem is their Caps Lock key.

Actrix Anti-Spam/Anti-Virus Update

Customers may notice that spam levels appear to fluctuate. For a while there's very little, and then suddenly there's an increase. Then suddenly the levels drop again. This is largely due to variations in spamming techniques. The complicated rules described above are designed to maximise the filtering of spam and minimise instances where legitimate e-mails are consigned to the Spam folder. Whenever spammers try something new the filters have to learn and be updated. Spammers realise this and that's why they're always trying something new, and that's why it's always a game of catch-up-cat-and-mouse. It would be fascinating if it weren't so annoying.

Please note: To check your Spam folder, you have to log into My Actrix on our homepage and then go into Web Mail. Next click the Spam link over on the left. Please be reminded that the period for which we'll keep that Spam aside for you is now just seven days, down from 30. See Actrix Announcement Article 32.

The table to the left details anti-virus and Spam catch statistics for the month of January 2005. C

Just a quick note about Actrix spam filtering. Our servers are set to remove e-mails to customers that appear to be spam. The filters use a set of complex and complicated rules as they decide, but they do not have the human ability to make value judgements. Therefore there will be occasional e-mails that sneak through unnoticed, and at times there will be legitimate e-mails filtered off to customers' spam folders by mistake.

If customers particularly want to send in incorrectly marked mail (either something that sneaked through or something that was incorrectly flagged), they can send them to spamtrap@actrix.co.nz.. The spamtrap@actrix.co.nz address is not filtered, for obvious reasons. Messages sent here must be sent as attachments in order for us to be able to see the original headers. If they do not arrive as attachments, they cannot be acted upon. Where possible the subject line should be clearly marked SPAM or NOT SPAM. These e-mails will be used to better train the filters. However, we are not able to guarantee that it will prevent future problems with a particular e-mail. It will only improve the filters chances at recognising it. There's a little more information in this in last month's newsletter.

Cheap Internet?

Customers may be aware of various companies advertising Internet access, often unlimited, at very low prices. I'm impressed that a number of customers have mentioned that they've looked a little more closely at what's being offered and have easily spotted a few pitfalls and hidden hooks. Nevertheless, we are occasionally asked when we're going to start offering unlimited Internet at $9.95/month, so I thought it would be appropriate to clarify a few matters in this regard.

Firstly, I'm not aware of anyone really offering a premium unlimited service for $9.95. Where that price is offered, there are always conditions and extras which might include:

Now, at Actrix, we're not afraid of fair, honest competition, but it's a tad irritating having it implied on TV that our customers are not spending their money wisely, and then they're offered an alternative that, at first glance, appears to be a much better deal than it really is. Knowing about industry costs as well, it seems fairly obvious that the only way to offer Internet at that price and still make any profit at all is to strip away the added benefits, and oversubscribe the services. This leads to busy signals and very slow traffic.

At this point some might suggest that the cheaper deals are still good for people who use the Internet very little. That might seem to make sense at first glance too, but does it really? Why buy an unlimited package if you're a light user? With an Actrix pre-pay plan you could spend an hour online each week and the cost would be under $5.00/month. Or, we'll give the light user 30 hours per month for $9.95, but that will include all the extras such as spam and virus protection, fast traffic, free renowned help desk, no busy signals, this newsletter and more. People who want unlimited plans tend to be heavier users who don't want to get busy signals or slow traffic, and they tend to want the extras. Therefore it makes little sense to offer an unlimited but stripped down product.

The danger with this sort of approach is that it ends up doing a disservice to Internet consumers in general by encouraging the sort of scenario we started to see during the days of the free providers. Customers are misled in their expectations and the pressure is on ISPs to drop prices. Oversubscription starts to occur as ISPs make service cutbacks to compensate for lost revenue, and then customers complain about degraded services until prices go back up again and quality services are restored.

As always, customers do determine the market. It would just be a shame to see this occurring based on assumptions where the full story hasn't always been given.

I'll conclude by confessing that I could hardly be viewed as an independent commentator. Nevertheless I think what I say makes sense. Feel free to check out the facts for yourself. Use your freedom of choice by all means, but ask a few hard questions along the way!

Readers' Forum

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. I'll try and answer your question by return e-mail, and will also post the answer here for the benefit of others who may have a similar question or problem. By the same token, if you read something here and think you may have something to suggest, please feel more than free. Please also note that questions and answers may turn up under the Helpful Tips section on the Actrix home page (www.actrix.co.nz).

Maureen writes writes: This query may prove simple to fix but so far the solution is eluding me. With downloading various things I ended up with so many tool bars that I decided to delete some of them, e.g MSN, Yahoo and Google. I reinstated Google but somewhere along the line I also deleted the original one where it showed the URL of the web I was in and if I changed that (and I often did) there was a 'GO' button to press. I found it far more useful than the Google one but can you tell me how to get it back again please?

Hi Maureen, yes these tool bars in Explorer can disappear from time to time if settings are being altered and there's a slip of the old mouse (though sometimes they can disappear all by themselves for no apparent reason). Fortunately, it's reasonably easy to get back the default items that come with Internet Explorer. With Explorer open, if you click on View in the little menu at the top of the program, and then on Toolbars, you'll see that there are a number of toolbars that you can click on to turn on or off. If something you were used to has disappeared, try that, and while you're there, it's fairly safe to experiment with turning things on or off to see what happens. Anything with a tick next to it in the drop down menu should be visible. Anything without a tick can be clicked on to become visible.

Note, though, that this only applies to the toolbars that come by default with Internet Explorer. It doesn't refer to extra toolbars that you might have downloaded separately such as a Google Search Bar and so forth.

Graham writes: Hi, I'm using the free version of Spybot. When I'm in e-bay I get these notifications popping up advising me that Spybot S&D Resident has blocked downloads of "Double Click". Its a real nuisance because I have to click OK to proceed and sometimes there are several notifications between pages. I've looked in Spybot but can't see how to turn them off. Any suggestions? Cheers, Graham

Peter Cranston, from the Actrix Help Desk, replies: Hi Graham, The 'Resident Shield' used in version 1.3 of Spybot has an issue allowing certain cookies (specifically advertising cookies like Double Click, Tribal Fusion and others) when set to notify. If page loading becomes a problem, right click the tea timer icon in the Systray (bottom right of your screen, by the time), select “Resident IE” and either uncheck “Use Resident in IE sessions” or check "Block all bad pages silently". Unchecking “Use Resident in IE sessions” will disable some of the safety features of Spybot so if the only problem you have is the annoyance of having to click 'Ok' all the time (i.e: there have been no problems displaying the page after clicking 'Ok'), I would recommend just checking "Block all bad pages silently" first. I hope this helps.

Brian Ellis wrote: Hi Ed, I noted your reply to a question in the last newsletter concerning text size displayed for websites. What is not so readily appreciated however is that in Outlook Express (at least, I cant comment for other emailers) is that email text size when printed also seems to be controlled by the size set in IE. This is most annoying as it keeps changing from time to time without my intervention. Why is that? and why should IE control this as well as OE? Brian

Mike Cooper writes: Hi Brian, The seemingly random changes could be just that, or they could be accidentally changed by a keystroke, or by holding the control key down whilst using the mouse's scroll button. There isn't much you can do about the changes. As for IE controlling OE's print font size, that is a bit of a mystery. It's a known quirk, but why Microsoft have elected to leave it this way is beyond my reckoning. The only reason that springs to mind is that both IE and OE use the same HTML rendering engine, and they have only provisioned for one size setting between the two programs. All the more reason to begin exploring alternative browsers!

Hi Thank you for your wonderful informative news letters. I have Spybot Search & Destroy and Zone Alarm, plus Norton Antivirus. However I still seem to get the same one annoying pop-up which arrives every time I connect to the internet. I guess this is spyware and how can I get rid of it? Regards Leanne

Mike Cooper: Hi Leanne, Without seeing the pop-up in question or knowing the site it is loading itself from, I'd really be clutching at straws as to exactly what it is (and how to remove it). The first thing to check would be what you have set as your homepage. It might be that your homepage is the one generating the pop-up - it may be worth changing your homepage to something different to see if that resolves the problem - instructions for changing your homepage are available here: http://www.actrix.co.nz/help/browsers/ie5/sethomepage.php.

If that doesn't fix it, I would check to make sure that you have the latest version of SpyBot. SpyBot 1.2 is no longer updated, so make sure you do have SpyBot 1.3 - this can be obtained here: http://files.actrix.co.nz/show.php?id=12.

Actrix JetStream Home Special Offer!

Have you been thinking about making the move to broadband? Sign-up to Actrix JetStream Home before 13 March and receive a free installation valued at $99. For more information about the offer, and Actrix JetStream Home, please go to http://www.actrix.co.nz/domestic/highspeed/jetstreamhome.php.

Interesting Sites (Click the picture links to access the sites)

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? Click here to e-mail and let me know and receive a free Norrie the Nerd chocolate bar courtesy of Actrix!

Archaeological Anomalies
www.anomalies-unlimited.com/Archeology.html - Here's some interesting stuff, including prehistoric moon maps, 2000 year-old batteries, ancient flying machines, and living frogs encased inside rocks. It's a strange world we live in and has been for a very long time. Avoid clicking the link to the archaeological joke if you want to avoid slightly crass humour.

The Online Supernatural Killjoy
http://user.tninet.se/~ecf599g/aardasnails/java/Monkey/webpages/index.html - This site archives commentary from the James Randi Educational Foundation. Randi is a sceptic who delights in debunking quackery and the supernatural. Each commentary is archived by week and contains a variety of fascinating topics and opinion. I was disappointed to find that I guess I can't trust my lucky astrology magic mood ring after all.

DianaConspiracy.Com
www.dianaconspiracy.com/ - For many theorists, the question is not whether Diana was assassinated, but by whom. Here is a site with loads of information dedicated to questioning the truth about what we're told about the death of Princess Di. There are many sections including those on theories, timelines and the facts. There is even an auto-counter informing how many days it's been since Diana's death.

The Wikipedia
www.wikipedia.org/ - Wikipedia is a free content encyclopaedia written collaboratively by people from all around the world. The site is a wiki, which means that anyone can edit articles, simply by clicking on the edit this page link. Lots of people are constantly improving Wikipedia, making thousands of changes an hour, all of which are recorded on the page history and the Recent Changes page. Nonsense and vandalism are usually removed quickly. Don't be afraid to edit pages on Wikipedia - anyone can edit it, and users are encouraged to be bold! It's also one of the most referenced web sites in the world receiving 80 million hits per day.

Dictionary of New Zealand Biography
www.dnzb.govt.nz/dnzb/ - This website contains over 3,000 biographies of New Zealanders who have 'made their mark' on this country. It does not include people who are alive. So you will not find people like Helen Clark or Sean Fitzpatrick, but you will find people like George Nepia or Michael Joseph Savage. Intended for a general audience in New Zealand and internationally, The DNZB will have particular relevance to the educational audience in New Zealand.

What if...
www.flipflopflyin.com/whatif/ - What if things had turned out differently? What if your shattering talent had been recognised earlier -- or recognised at all? How would you have dealt with the fame? Would you have used it to help cure heart disease, or crashed out like Janis Joplin? These are some of the questions on Craig Robinson's mind. Mouse over the minipops and follow life's potential pathways.

Crazy Horoscopes
www.crazyhoroscopes.com/home.php - Much more than just a crazy horoscope page, this one also offers dream interpretations (what does it mean when a chimpanzee tries to sell you fireworks and cocaine?) and an astrological reading of your love match. You can also read an analysis of your astrological personality and find out about a few other bits and pieces. All good clean very silly fun.

Your Ecological Footprint
www.myfootprint.org/ - "Ever wondered how much "nature" your lifestyle requires? You're about to find out. This Ecological Footprint Quiz estimates how much productive land and water you need to support what you use and what you discard. After answering 15 easy questions you'll be able to compare your Ecological Footprint to what other people use and to what is available on this planet. CAUTION: THIS QUIZ MAY SURPRISE YOU, SHOCK YOU, OR MAKE YOU THINK. PLEASE REMAIN CALM...BUT NOT TOO CALM!!"

Gullible Info
www.gullible.info/index.php - Despite the name, this site promises to publish a handful of strange or interesting true facts every day. You can even sign up to get your daily gullible.info facts delivered fresh and hot daily, "like a cup of coffee, only more factually correct." Don't forget to check the Archives. I didn't know that red-haired people are twice as likely to be married by age 23 than their blonde-haired counterparts.

Absolute Web Graphics Archive
www.grsites.com/ - Here we have an amazingly extensive archive of free graphics, buttons, clipart, symbols and backgrounds; absolutely ideal for the home web-design dabbler! Tools are provided so you can customise a lot of the stuff (e.g. buttons and backgrounds) to get them just the way you want in terms of texture and colour. Save to your computer and use as you see fit!

Zener Card Extrasensory Perception Test
http://moebius.psy.ed.ac.uk/~paul/cgi-bin/zener.cgi - Are you psychic or are you not? Here's the way to find out once and for all. Make your choice from the 25 sets of cards. For each set, try to guess which symbol has been selected by clicking the mouse pointer on your chosen card. You can change your mind as often as you want. My score of 5 out of 25 was not deemed "statistically significant."

Kiss This Guy
www.kissthisguy.com/ - This site takes its name from a mis-hearing of the Jimi Hendrix song Purple Haze, and was suggested by Hilary Henderson. It's an archive of misheard lyrics where people can tell their stories about finding out that their version of a
song is wrong. At the last count the archive contained 4,142 bungled lyrics. There's a convenient search tool, and you can submit your own embarrassing stories. As Hilary writes: "Hours of fun here!"

Cyberspace News Snippets

New Zealand

InternetNZ pushes code of practice: Non-profit internet society InternetNZ is making a second stab at getting ISPs to buy into a code of practice for the industry, after an aborted attempt six years ago. Click here for more.

NZ cybersafety idea adopted overseas: A New Zealand idea to encourage greater collaboration and debate on internet safety issues has been taken up by Oxford University in England and will now operate on an international stage. Click here for more.

That's what we call Xtra: George van Meeuwen came home from his mother's funeral and got hit with a $2500 Telecom bill for services he thought were free. Click here for more.

Older Kiwis top Net survey: New Zealand pensioners log on to the Internet more frequently than pensioners in any of 14 other countries surveyed by multinational insurance firm AXA. Click here for more.

Daily battle but we have to look out for ourselves online: Bad things happen on the internet. Being connected to the wild world web more often leads to dystopia than the utopia envisaged by its early prophets. Click here for more.

Email blast puts heat on GM beans: A can of chilli beans containing genetically modified corn may be withdrawn from New Zealand supermarkets after opponents swamped the importer with protest emails. Click here for more.

Fake or cheap Viagra raises health concerns: Cheap and possibly dangerous counterfeits of Viagra are doing a roaring trade in New Zealand as Kiwis seek alternatives to the impotency drug, health professionals fear. Click here for more.

TradeMe users targeted by sophisticated phishing attack: TradeMe customers are being warned of a sophisticated phishing attack that has been launched against the popular online auction site. Click here for more.

Regional Internet Usage: People in different parts of the country have different size appetites for using the web. Click here for more.

General

Savvy searchers fail to spot ads: Internet search engine users are an odd mix of naive and sophisticated, suggests a report into search habits. Click here for more.

Underdog Firefox blazes a trail while Internet Explorer just browses: Although Firefox offers some features not found in IE... many users say they are switching because of IE's security holes and malicious software targeting such flaws. Click here for more.

The Firefox Explosion: ...Firefox, a fast, simple, and secure piece of software that was winning acclaim from others who also had grown frustrated with Internet Explorer. Click here for more.

World-Wide Web inventor honoured: "If he had fully exploited it, he would make Bill Gates look like a pauper today." Click here for more.

Cyber-stalker faces sentencing today: This is a stalking case with added technology. Cyber-bunnyboiler Anita Debnath became obsessed with a her boss, Chay Ankers, after an affair that lasted a single night. Click here for more.

All of the net, all of the time: I've been living in the future for the past five weeks, and I'm rather getting to like it. Click here for more.

Adware-infected PCs net slimeware firms $3 a pop: AWebroot guesstimates the illicit advertising market underpinned by adware infection of home and business PCs could be worth up to $1.6bn a year. Click here for more.

Rowling warns fans against Potter phishing: In the latest "phishing" scam, fans were asked to hand over their bank details to pay for a supposed copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince... Click here for more.

TV on Demand: Research shows that what suffers when people use the net more, is time spent in front of the TV. Click here for more.

The changing world of the search engine: Liesl Capper knows you better than you know yourself. From just a few keystrokes she can tell your heart's desire, in a kind of online fortune- telling... Click here for more.

Cheated wife on spyware wiretap rap: A Florida wife who installed spyware on her husband's PC in order to catch him in flagrante while he indulged in Yahoo! Dominoes with his online lover has been found guilty of violating state law. Click here for more.

Viruses

New malware insults users with mp3 audio file: PandaLabs has detected the appearance of Cisum.A, a worm whose most distinguishing characteristic is that it insults the user by displaying "YOU ARE AN IDIOT" on screen, while playing an MP3 audio file that repeats the same phrase. Click here for more.

Undead worms infest Windows PCs (again): Zafi-D has kept its place at the top of the virus charts for a second consecutive month, accounting for 44 per cent of all reports of anti-virus vendor Sophos in January 2005. Click here for more.

Security and Safety

Rich pickings for hi-tech thieves: Viruses, trojans and other malicious programs sent on to the net to catch you out are undergoing a subtle change. Click here for more.

Gates says security is priority: Stephen Cole of the BBC's technology show Click Online talks to Microsoft founder and chairman Bill Gates about the pros and cons of being at the forefront of the PC industry. Click here for more.

More women turn to net security: Older people and women are increasingly taking charge of protecting home computers against malicious net attacks, according to a two-year study. Click here for more.

New program attacks Microsoft's AntiSpyware: One month after Microsoft released a beta version of its new antispyware software, security researchers at Sophos say they have detected the first malware program that seeks to attack it. Click here for more.

Security experts warn of 'scary' new web scam: What make the scam so "scary", as one security expert has already described it, is the time and effort spent by the fraudsters developing the fake site. Click here for more.

Hacking attacks rarely made public - experts: A security breach that placed consumers at risk for identity theft grabbed headlines this week but most hacking incidents go unreported to police or the public, according to experts. Click here for more.

Spam, Eggs, Baked Beans, Spam, Spam and Spam

Junk e-mails on relentless rise: Spam traffic is up by 40%, putting the total amount of e-mail that is junk up to an astonishing 90%. Click here for more.

Study: Spam costing companies $22 billion a year: The study also found that 14 percent of spam recipients actually read messages to see what they say. Click here for more.

Spammers outwit blacklist strategy: The latest version of Send-Safe, the notorious bulk-mailing software used by many spammers, has a feature that renders the "blacklist" strategy used by email filtering companies obsolete. Click here for more.

Anti-spam law change proposed: Organisations that send spam could be fined up to half a million dollars and individuals $200,000 under legislation to be introduced to Parliament. Click here for more.

Mainly Microsoft

Microsoft plans new browser version: Gates says Internet Explorer 7 will have security features to prevent viruses, spyware, 'phishing.' Click here for more.

Microsoft says profits doubled: It said that earnings were boosted by demand for personal computers that run its Windows operating system and its Xbox video game console. Click here for more.

Microsoft punches miss their target: Microsoft's heavily promoted launch this week of its new internet search engine, aimed at toppling Google, has not yet affected the sharemarket's love affair with its target. Click here for more.

Opera to MS: Get real about interoperability, Mr Gates: So, Mr. Gates, writes Hakon Lie, you say you believe in interoperability. Then why, pray tell, doesn't the web page of your interoperability communiqu� conform to the HTML4 standard as it claims to? Click here for more.

Is Microsoft outFirefoxed?: So there I was trying my best to get a midlevel Microsoft manager to take the bait. Click here for more.

Security products put Microsoft in quandary: If Microsoft Corp. doesn't do more to stem Internet attacks, the company risks further alienating customers unhappy with the multitude of threats already facing its ubiquitous software. Click here for more.

Mac News

Apple voted most influential brand: Despite a much-hyped initial public offering, Apple has ousted Google as the world's most influential brand, according to a poll of branding professionals. Click here for more.

Unix/Linux Line

Is Linux security a myth?: One myth we see is that Linux is more secure than Windows. Another is that there are no viruses for Linux." Click here for more.

Linux Creator: A Little Fragmentation is Good: Linus Torvalds explains why he thinks the open source community need not cooperate too much. Click here for more.

Reality Takes A Holiday: Buying The Firefox Hype : There is a myth surrounding lemmings: Supposedly, they pick a leader every season and then follow that leader blindly off a cliff to their deaths. While this isn't true (lemmings are apparently smarter than that)... Click here for more.

The Weird, Weird Web

Perth couple selling naming rights for unborn daughter: In an advertisement on eBay Australia... the unnamed Perth couple invite individuals and companies to make bids on the right to name the baby girl... Click here for more.

Web site seeks to help break hearts: The delicate problem of how to dump a love before moving on to the next one has been given a new twist by a Dutch Web site. Click here for more.

A Little Levity

Bringing It All Back Home

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).

	January 2005
Emails scanned:	4,413,667
Viruses found:	155,206
Spam found:	2,639,346
Percentage of emails containing viruses:	3.51
Percentage of emails containing Spam:	59.79
Top 10 Viruses for January 2005
Worm.SomeFool.P	42,051
Worm.SomeFool.Gen-1	21,094
Worm.Sober.I	12,774
Worm.SomeFool.Z	9,179
HTML.Phishing.Bank-1	8,989
Worm.Lovgate.X	7,647
Worm.SomeFool.Gen-2	6,619
HTML.Phishing.Pay-1	4,858
Trojan.Downloader.Small-165	4,804
Worm.Zafi.B	3,775